I’ve discussed this merger and what it means to MySQL with various other developers and technology consultants and there is no majority train of thought here – everyone seems to have a different opinion, but they all seems to be concerned about MySQL’s fate.

A recent story about Oracle Chief Larry Ellinson’s speech at JavaOne, quotes him as saying: “We encourage the OpenOffice group to quickly build their version of a spread sheet or a word app using JavaFX”.  (Read more here)  As far as I can see, this doesn’t bode well for MySQL.

I can see MySQL going one of three ways:

1) It gets renamed Oracle Lite, or some such nonsense, gets properly supported, but treated like ‘Big, proper’ Oracle’s slightly sappy cousin.

2a) In a fit of community spirit, Oracle either allow MySQL to flourish as an open source product, whilst retaining their control…
2b) …or is split out as a separate entity and remains open source – by far the best result for the MySQL community.

3) Remember the Borland/Ashton Tate deal?  MySQL could share dBase’s fate and fall into the barren ground by the wayside.  I don’t think anyone wants this, apart from Oracle’s salesforce maybe.

Do you have an opinion on this deal?  Let me know – I’m interested to see what folks think.

I’m working on some code that determines the IP address of a given piece of equipment.  This is currently driven by a series of queries, several arrays to contain the values and code like ‘#ip_inside[4]#‘ in the CFM pages, which are pretty cryptic and not easy to read.

We recently updated another area of the application to get the IP addresses in a different way.  This change reduced the run time for a specific report from several hours to 3.5 minutes (so I’m quite pleased about that – especially as this was on my first day!  Great first impression!).

My task now is to update these diagram pages so they use the same method to determine the IP addresses – hence the custom tag.

This CT takes 4 parameters, like so: <cf_getIPAddress subnetcode=”encr” vlan=”1″ compsub=”1″ comptype=”5″>.  Using these 4 parameters, the CT will return the IP address of the component, along with any component-specific labels (such as a prefix of ‘Virtual’ for certain components).

The problem is that I have to put this code snippet into 30 different files, with a total number of 1,116 insertions!  That in itself is a lot of work, but when you consider that for each of these I also have to update a DB table (as one of the parameters isn’t currently recorded), insert the CT code, check and update the four parameters, save, upload and test, the task grows exponentially.

It’s taking about 2 minutes per insertion, so by my reckoning, it’s going to take about 37 hours to complete what my boss and I both thought was going to be a fairly simple task.

I wonder how long it will actually take?  I’ll report back when I know.

So, while I have almost 20 years of experience with various DBMS’, I have very little experience with the client’s choice of database engine, Oracle.

Some history: I started my development career (back in the stone age that was the mid 80’s) building very complex spreadsheets in Lotus 123 for a merchant bank, but soon convinced them to consider ‘proper’ databases, as Lotus wasn’t up to the job of handling such large datasets.  The demo I set up to illustrate the differences literally shocked a few folks there – they had no idea you could do this kind of processing outside of a spreadsheet!

So we moved to dBase, then Paradox (which I continued to develop with for quite a few years), then Turbo Pascal and Visual Basic.

Fast forward to 1995 and I’d started developing pure HTML web pages, quickly employing VB again to create static HTML from form inputs in a VB app – elementary stuff now, I know, but a lot of folks I worked with at the time thought it was revolutionary!  B->

In the meantime I had to develop for MS Access and Lotus Notes – these can hardly be filed under databases IMHO, but this was what I had to deal with.

By ‘97 I’d discovered CF and I honestly haven’t looked back. Of course, using CF pretty much requires a database to make it dance and sing, so MS Access soon gave way to MS SQL Server and eventually MySQL.  On occasion I’ve needed to interface with Ingres and a couple of other less mainstream DBMS’.

My Oracle experience has been restricted to one short term contract for a particular client, where there was a DBA – one of the old school, who wouldn’t let the ‘pleb’ developers create anything in ‘his’ database and had to review and manually create everything himself from a command line – I’m sure you’ve all come across the type.

So, on the desk next to me are several books on Oracle – two on the DBA aspect, two on the SQL syntax etc. I’ve spent the past few weeks learning Oracle in some depth and I’m both impressed and horrified by some of the things I’ve found. I’m impressed that Oracle has been built to be such a resilient, hard-working beast, but am horrified by how cryptic and complex (and sometimes damnably infuriating!) even small things can be.

I don’t expect to become an Oracle DBA overnight, but I expect it to start becoming easier, now I have my reference library here and now I’ve been digging under the hood a bit. I’m sure it will be a useful skill in the long term, even if I don’t get a chance to use Oracle again, purely from the discipline I’ll need to deal with this beast and the need to learn how to do things ‘properly’.

On a related note, here’s a great blog post from Ben Forta on the subject of letting the database do what it’s intended for.

I knew all the answers of course (ok, I got one wrong – I thought Hugh Padgham produced Trick Of The Tail B-<).

I was pleased to see that progressive rock was finally getting some air time, but disappointed that it was limited to the usual, sneering look back, implying that Prog died out in 1977 and hadn’t been heard of since.

There was no mention of the early/mid ’80s ‘Neo-Prog’ revival, which gave us bands like Marillion, IQ etc. and no mention of the current ‘Third Wave’ of Prog, which has been going on since the mid ’90s, with such bands as The Tangent, The Flower Kings, Spock’s Beard, Riverside and Porcupine Tree.

The current revival is a vibrant, exciting thing and it didn’t even get a mention.  I was very disappointed that the BBC fumbled the ball so badly on this occasion.

Why was there no program on these current bands?  It would have been an ideal opportunity for the BBC to give some publicity to what is still seen as an underground musical genre.  Think of all the original fans of Prog who may have watched these programs, yet haven’t heard any modern Prog – this would have been an ideal opportunity to let people know that Prog isn’t dead.

Gone are the excesses of the mid ’70s – the focus now is virtuoso musicianship and making good music.  Some of the bands listed above have charted in the album charts in many European countries (Holland and Germany aren’t as elitist as the UK – Prog is quite popular in these countries) – Porcupine Tree even charted in the UK album charts last year, yet still no coverage.

I would like to request a follow-up program on modern Prog, but I doubt you’ll take much notice of this comment as it’s much more entertaining to point a the dinosaurs and snigger.

I don’t expect anything back from them, but I feel better having let that rant out.

This is always the part of contracting that I don’t enjoy.

My time at Swift is coming to an end, so it’s time to say ‘So long and thanks for all the fish!’ to Milan, Laurent, Danielle, Marc, Jo, Jean-christophe, Roland, Ghislain, Alain, Dominique, Claude, Sree and anyone else I’ve missed. Thank you for making my time here enjoyable and as stress-free as possible. I’ll miss you all.

No time to rest, as my next contract starts in a couple of days – back to being the new boy in town again!

As the year draws to a close, all good Prog fans turn their attention to compiling a top ten CDs from the past year.

Here is my list:

1: Unitopia – The Garden

2: Believe – Yesterday Is A Friend

3: Mariusz Duda – Lunatic Soul

4: The Tangent – Not As Good As The Book

5: No-man – Schoolyard Ghosts

6: Quidam – Alone Together

7: Steve Wilson – Insurgentes

8: Karmakanic – Who’s The Boss In The Factory?

9: Beardfish – Sleeping In Traffic Pt. 2

10: Ephrat – No Ones Words

In the list above, the band name links to the band’s homepage or their MySpace page, while the cover image and the CD name both link to a review of the CD, in case anyone wants to investigate further. My thanks to Prog-Nose and ProgArchives for the reviews.

No surprises that Unitopia are at number one – definitely my CD of the year. Anyone who knows me will know that I’ve been raving about the band and this CD since I first heard it.

Here’s looking forward to 2009

Happy New Year, everyone!

I mean, seriously, wow.

I’ve been listening to the new CD ‘The Garden’ by Unitopia, who are an Australian, yes, Australian Prog band!  They’ve recently signed to Inside Out and this is their second CD.  Let’s hope IO do the right thing and re-release their debut, if they can get the rights.

It’s a wonderful slice of Prog, taking their influences from the best bits of Spock’s Beard, Genesis, Porcupine Tree and Peter Gabriel’s solo work and crafting this double CD of enjoyable, melodic, symphonic, but never repetitive music.

I was researching the band (a six piece, from Adelaide, including that rarest of lifeforms, a female bass player!  With serious chops, too) when I saw their list of influences on their MySpace page – I’ve copied it below – I hope they won’t mind.

Have these guys been stalking me?  All my life?  From Adelaide?  B->

If you see more than a couple of acts you like in that list, I urge you to go out and buy this CD – you can thank me later!

</cliff>

PS: Check them out on YouTube.

Hardware
I use an Apple MacBook Pro as my main development machine.  I also have a Mac Mini, which is sometimes used as a testbed server or client, depending on my needs at the time.

When working from home, I usually have an external 19″ monitor connected and run my browser on the right-hand side monitor and my IDE (or whatever else I may be using) on the left-hand side.

Software
I use the following pieces of software:

Operating Systems

• OS X 105.5.5 – Naturally!
• Windows XP SP2 – In a couple of VMWare Fusion 2.0 VMs, purely to host MS SQL Server 2000/2005

Browsers & Plugins

• All the usual browsers, although Firefox 3.0 is my weapon of choice.
• Web Developers Toolbar
• Firebug
• ColdFire – If you’re a ColdFusion developer, these three plugins are essential
  

Servers

• Apache (from the XAMPP package)
• ColdFusion 7.02 (or 8.0, depending on the clients platform)

Databases

• MySQL – running natively (from the XAMPP package)
• MS SQL Server 2000/2005 – running in separate VMs
• Aqua Data Studio – Not a database itself, but a wonderful tool for managing databases, especially in an hybrid environment, where you may have more than one type of DB, or where you are transitioning from one DB to another

Editors & IDEs

• CFEclipse & Aptana, running on the Eclipse platform
• Textmate – for adhoc edits
• CSSEdit – easiest way to maintain stylesheets
  

Graphics

• Adobe Fireworks – Great tool for preparing web graphics
  
• Pixelmator – neat little graphics tool – much less ‘busy’ than PhotoShop
  

Source Control

• SubVersion – Version control system of choice
  
• Versions – SubVersion client
• SubClipse – Eclipse plugin

Development Resources

• Ant – Great tool for automating deployments and testing
  
• jQuery – Cool JavaScript library – makes JS development much simpler
  
• qForms – Wonderful JavaScript form validation library
  

Note taking, Administration & Documentation

• Circus Ponies Notebook – Really useful for keeping all those notes which normally live in .TXT files or on Post-it notes – I keep a separate file for each project
  
• iWork Pages ‘08 – No, I *WONT* use Word to produce your spec/report/docs!  B->
  
• NovaMind Pro – Mindmapping tool – absolutely essential!
• OmniFocus – Todo list manager
• OmniGraffle Pro – Used to create Visio-like diagrams for documentation
• OmniPlan – MS Project compatible Project management suite

Communications

• Adium – MSN/ICQ/GTalk-compatible IM clent
  
• Skype – VOIP client
• Spark – Jabber client
• MS Remote Desktop Client – For when I have to remotely access Windows servers for clients
• Vine Viewer – For my more enlightened clients who use VNC, as I do on all my machines at home
• Thunderbird – Email client of choice
• Transmit – FTP client, with synchronisation capabilities

Other Tools

• Dropbox – used to synchronise the code on my two Macs together
• Guiffy – file/folder comparison tool – similar to Beyond Compare, but not as good.  I have been known to use BC on one of my VMs, as it’s a far superior tool (apologies to the author of Guiffy, but it just is!)
• Quicksilver – provides fast access to docs & apps without using the mouse – normally the first piece of software I install on a new Mac
• Mozy – offsite backup tool, used for my docs and code
• ARRsync – Secondary backup tool – mirrors the same folders as Mozy, but to a server I control, rather than into Mozy’s ‘cloud’

This list isn’t a ‘best of breed’ collection necessarily, just the tools that I’ve found that work for me.  If anyone has any recommendations about anything better than anything I’ve listed, please feel free to comment.

Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven’t been an integral part of Gmail. We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we’re launching today, there’s a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company. There’s even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which was the result of a bet between two engineers — it’s not exactly practical, but it’s great for testing out your geek cred. We’ve also done a minor facelift to Gmail’s default look to make it crisper and cleaner — you might notice a few colors and pixels shifted around here and there.

For more info, head to: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/spice-up-your-inbox-with-colors-and.html