Amazon Prime Members: Check This Out

I am enrolling several of my ebooks in the KDP "Select" program, which makes them available for free check-out, on a monthly basis, to Amazon Prime members.  For more information check out Amazon Prime and look in the Books section.  The books I am enrolling in this program are:

• The AutoCAD Network Administrator's Bible, 2012 Edition
• The Visual LISP Developer's Bible, 2011 Edition
• The Packager's Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition

I am also working on another book focused on software repackaging and deployment for Windows platforms. It is tentatively due for release in January 2012.  When it is released, it will also be added to the KDP Select program.

Thank you!

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Database Digressions and Developmental Digestion

Put on your caffeine hat and come with me on a voyage into the ethereal world of nerds versus geeks.  That's the party peel-off sticker I'm slapping our foreheads, written with a blunt Crayola crayon.  With enough alcohol and caffeine it will all make sense soon enough.  Let's go...

I would venture to say that 99.99 percent of software development projects, probably even software development organizations, are arranged into de facto groups that place the application "coders" in a separate function from the database folks.  The problem this has created has been legendary.  It's not only led to human behavioral issues and philosphical approaches to address such structural idiosyncracies, but it has also led to mechanical approaches, such as LINQ and XPATH, and so on.  Trying to fit automation processes to human processes is always a challenge, on a good day.  When the human process is broken, it's a disaster that unfolds slowly and often at an incredibly high cost (both in terms of time and money).

Did i say INCREDIBLY high cost?  Yes. Incredibly high.  The problem is that it's almost always a secondary, or tertiary cost.  The kind that don't stand out in distinction on a balance sheet, so they often hide in the margins.  Those are what often lead to bad feelings between IT groups and the Financial groups.  The main reason is that the Financial folks are left to ponder where these strange, nebulous cost creeps are coming from, while the tech-minded IT (Dev) folks are rarely prepared to articulate and quantify them adequately.  They may indeed "know" where they come from, but cannot communicate it in the language of Finance, so they shy away from it, making the problem worse over time.  This is analogous to a couple that don't discuss sensitive issues because they know they will always turn into an argument.

Mechanical Aspects

I'm digressing into the human/financial aspects.  But what about the structural and mechanical aspects?

I have mixed feelings about things like LINQ.  It's technically a very clever, impressively creative approach to translating mental processes from one world to another.  But at the same time, I've rarely seen die-hard DBA's embrace it over traditional SQL/T-SQL, so the divergence is not only mitigated, but elevated with yet another wedge driven into place.  A classic example is when a Dev guy walks over to ask for help with a complex SQL query that was coded in LINQ (or anything other than T-SQL) and the DBA looks at it and says "Sorry.  I work with SQL.  Can't help you."  I am aware there are exceptions to this scenario, but they are "exceptions", not the general, majority rule, at least from what I've seen and heard.  I admit that I haven't seen or experienced every environment, so I'm obviously speaking anecdotally.

I'm picking on LINQ unfairly though. It's not really a fault of LINQ.  It's a respectable concept and the incarnation has evolved respectably as well.  It's somewhat of a situation of "blaming the messenger" when the message is the problem.  The message is unavoidable though.  The message is a symptom of an age-old broken human condition in the IT environment: divisional politics.  Not departmental, but "divisional" in the same sense as "functional", whereby the DBA and Dev folks are functionally divided.  They may be best of friends.  They may be mortal enemies.  It doesn't really matter, since they still focus on, and operate within their own distinct worlds, with their own unique languages and customs.

Bridges of Translation

If you are in a large enough organization to afford the luxury of a dedicated API group, they may be your bridge.  Having to convey the wishes of the AppDev folks with the plumbing capabilities of the server and DBA folks, they become the liaisons of different cultures and dialects.  They may even provide the abstraction that spares the AppDev team from the horrors of learning a different culture in order to cook their programmatic banquet meals.  If you're not that fortunate, it sucks to be you, maybe.  Just kidding.  Ok, I'm really not kidding, it really does suck to be in that situation.  I've been there so I'm not trying to condescend as much as sympathize.

Ramifications

The end result of these cultural divides is that databases go in one direction and code goes off in another direction.  Efficiency suffers.  Progress is stammered.  If the groups are in different physical locations (different rooms, buildings, cities, countries) it only exacerbates this further by making it too easy to cultivate an "us versus them" environment.  If you have any poison pill personalities in either group it can be gasoline on a smoldering fire, so be careful of those.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

If you can bridge the divide, it is always worth the effort.  Always.  I cannot stress that enough.  Even if pride  is a boulder to swallow, break it into smaller pieces and work on it.  Offer some concessions, some goodwill, something to prove any ney-sayers and poison pills on the other side incorrect about their assumptions about your group.  Conversation is key.  Get the people talking.  Learn what the other side has to deal with.  Maybe there are pains your group causes them that you're not even aware of.  Just learning about such things can help you refocus and make adjustments that may seem minor on your end but could be HUGE on the other end.

Making exchanges of conciliatory effort can go a long way towards building a stronger team, improving communication, raising productivity and positive outlook, and ultimately making a better product.  Quality can't happen without a cohesive group of people, and you can't bridge any divides by waiting for the "other side" to make the effort.  You often have to make the first move and meet them halfway.  Ultimately, until people issues are resolved, you can't achieve an efficient operation or efficient processes.  This is where most of the bullshit forms-bloated corporate environments grew out of.  People issues give rise to barriers of mistrust and push-back over perceived unfairness of responsibility and effort.  You can throw billions of dollars at trying to make those processes automated but if they attempt to lift the human process into a computerized process model, it will be horribly broken, and inefficient at best.

Before you ever consider purchasing or developing a system to model a business process, do some deep analysis of the process itself.  Never start with the current process as the assumption of efficiency.  In most cases it's nowhere near what it should be.  Fix the process.  Build cohesion.  Push forward, but don't drag the baggage along.  It may look frightening at first, and people will scream and complain and flip out, but if the process is re-modeled properly, nobody can argue with a better model.  Once that's done, you can translate that into software and hardware and move on to the next challenge.

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A Stack of Quarters

Sometimes I stop and ponder simple things.  Maybe it's because I'm getting older. Or maybe it's because I don't have a "life" so it leaves me plenty of time to spend on pondering simple things.  Either way, I'm sure it would make a long-dead Chinese philosopher proud.

Today, I was playing with a stack of quarters (coins) and thinking about how I perceive the value in them.  My financial situation is fair at the moment, but follows a predictable wave and trough pattern with each bi-weekly payroll cycle.  On pay day, it's just a stack of quarters.  By the second week however, it's my next cup of coffee and snack.  When I was laid off a few years back, and unable to find a job, that stack of quarters was precious. I looked at it like a crash survivor would look at the last bottle of water on an isolated island.

It's still, and has always been, just a stack of coins.  Their intrinsic value had never really changed.  My value of them however changed greatly.  It still changes, just not as wildly.

After that thought had run its course, I looked around the room to assess what other material objects fell into this strange bucket of perspective.  My TV.  My clothes.  My blankets.  But what about family and friends?  Yep.  And as absurd as this might sound, and impossible to believe, it's true.  It's true for you as well.  Here's an example...

You say good bye to your parents after dinner.  You kiss your kids good night.  You let your dog outside.  You do your routine things.  But the second life crosses things up and you almost lose one of them, suddenly, immediately, they become incredibly more precious and valuable.  Any parent who has panicked while searching for their child in a crowded place knows damn well what I'm talking about.  After any perceived threat to the stability of your bond with those you love has occurred, your value of their well-being, their existence, their love, their presence is magnified millions of times.

Is it really just a stack of quarters?

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Counting Down and Catching Up

Only 16 days left until this blog is retired.  To catch up on my boring stuff.  Warning: This post contains a lot of aimless rambling, but with the name "skatterbrainz" I hope you didn't expect anything else...

I'm still working on multiple projects and another book (maybe).  The book is becoming a much bigger project than I expected (not the book on packaging either, totally different topic), so I may be having to make a go/no-go decision soon.  It will depend on how well I can reign in the scope and keep it manageable.  Otherwise it will be yet another scrapped project.  I'll keep you posted on Twitter and Google+, which is where I will be spending most of my time from now on.  Some Facebook as well.  Friend me or follow me, whatever you like. I could use more friends on Twitter, but I'm using Google+ more than anything else right now.  I just like the vibe at this point.  It reminds me of Facebook in 2006-2007, before it got bloated and stupefied.

I finally ditched the Blackberry.  My 11th Blackberry device since 2000 actually.  I now have a shiny new iPhone 4S 16Gb, and I love it.  I can't stop playing with the damn thing.  I spent a few days in and out of the Verizon store comparing the Androids and iPhones (they didn't have any WP7 models on hand, go figure), and decided on the iPhone 4S mainly for two reasons:  The price and the form/size.  Some folks refuse to accept that I don't want to friggin huge screen.  I want something I can carry and drop in my pocket without looking like a brick.  I don't watch a lot of movies on a mobile device, I'll use a laptop or a TV (gasp!  a real TV?!)  So I'm happy with this for now.  Maybe later I'll grow tired of it and yearn for something different, but I'm good for now.

The Windows Web Admin project is long dead, but a lot of it lives on a much bigger project I've been building for a customer.  I have to say I love working on it and it's turning into much more than I ever expected.  I'm glad the customer likes it as well, that makes it a win-win.

My current arsenal of gadgets to entertain my life:

• Windows 7
• Google Chrome 17 /dev
• Office 2010
• Paint.NET 3.x
• TextPad 5
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• VMware Workstation 8
• Calibre (for authoring e-books)
• System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 and 2012 RC1 (lab setup)
• WSUS 3 SP2 (at home, yes, at home)
• InstallShield AdminStudio 10 SP2
• SQL Server 2008 R2
• iPhone 4S (foshizzle!)
• Kindle 3 (love it!)
• A 1995 Subaru Legacy with 160,000 miles (runs like a champ)
• A dog, standard model Beagle, female
• A cat, standard model black-n-white, female

In a short while all of these will appear outdated, including myself.

Thought:  As a systems engineer / consultant / architect / developer / nerd / geek, I've come to accept that all that I work on will eventually be replaced and forgotten.  I think back to all of the folks who pioneered new things in the 1980's, 1990's, and early 2000's, who's efforts paved the roads for progress.  Most, if not all, of their accomplishments have been replaced and forgotten.  My grandfather made furniture.  I'm sure there are people still rocking in his chairs he made decades ago.  Sometimes I wonder what "progress" really is.

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How AutoCAD Changed the World

That's kind of a bold, hype-ish title, am I right?  You're probably rolling your eyes, or saying "yeah, sure, whatever" or something like that.  But give me a chance to explain...

Back in the early 1980's, if you did any "design" or "drafting" work, you were most likely working on a physical drawing board and tracing your ideas out on Vellum, Paper, or Mylar sheets using various kinds of mechanical pencil materials or maybe a Rapidograph ink applicator.  Maybe you used templates and lettering guides, or shape tracers or flexible curves and those stupid-looking weights we called "ducks" or "whales".  In the mid-1980's came the first real significant influx of computerized design technologies.  They had weird names like AutoTrol, CADAM and so on.  They were collectively termed "CAD" for Computer Aided Design.  If they were connected to manufacturing machinery, they were called "CAD/CAM" for CAD + "Computer Aided Manufacturing" (or "Machining").  If they did engineer calculations from design data, they were called "CAD/CAE" some were "CAD/CAM/CAE" and some were just stupid and we called them "overpriced crap".  But they were magical for their time.

Here's the snapshot of "before":  These first-generation CAD/CAM/CAE systems only, I repeat ONLY, ran on UNIX platforms.  Not only that, but most were tuned for specific UNIX platforms, so they were hardware specific, such as DEC, IBM, Sun or a few others (most of which are all gone now).  The software alone was often in the $10,000 to $30,000 range PER SEAT.  The hardware was just as expensive, or even more expensive.  I worked on one system back in that era that was priced at $50,000 for the hardware "workstation" and the design software.  Keep in mind that you HAD to purchase vendor support since they did not allow you to work on it yourself, often keeping many of the features, settings and capabilities secret until you paid someone to reveal them to you.  Oh yeah. Good times they were not.

Then came along some scrappy little company named Autodesk and they had this cheap little CAD product called "AutoCAD" that actually ran on an IBM-PC.  The other vendors laughed and tried to ignore it.  I remember an IBM rep saying to us "that's a toy - a piece of crap that'll never go anywhere".  I sure wish I could have recorded that for later on.

Maybe you've heard the story of the butterfly that caused a hurricane.  This is very similar.

So, as this tiny little snowflake rolled through the fledgling IBM-PC "compatable" market, it began to gather some snow and grow bigger and heavier.  For the peanut gallery out there: I'm not implying it was bloated.  It wasn't.  It became heavier with customers and customer momentum.  Still a bit immature at R9, it made heads turn at R10 and R11.  Then R12 came out and that snowball was now the size of a truck and rolling faster.  As the UNIX market began to respond, it lost some of its footing as well.  The big players started losing key developers and managers to smaller startups, all trying desperately to stir up excitement to fend off this new upstart called the "PC".  Computervision stumbled, which led to Intergraph and Pro/Engineer.  CADAM, Unigraphics and others started making adjustments, and even tried "realigning" licensing costs, but they caught some breathing room when Autodesk stumbled with R13.  Then came R14 and it was pretty much a done deal as far as customers balling up those checks for the expensive UNIX fees, and stroking new checks to the much less expensive PC product lines.

As customers moved from UNIX to Windows and Windows NT at an increasing rate, so too did many stalwart UNIX product vendors.  CAD/CAM/CAE products previously only available on UNIX were suddenly announcing PC versions.  Even the most discerning NASTRAN vendors were poking at the PC market, especially as the PC hardware specs began an accelerated upgrade path.

I saw this firsthand at least four employers, and dozens of businesses I interacted with, and multiple branches of the U.S. Department of Defense: Navy, Army, Air Force, USMC, Coast Guard, even NASA.

No other PC-based CAD product had as much impact on the CAD market, and pushing customers to take the PC platform seriously.  It also pointed the light on their budgets and ROI, and suddenly program managers were faced with making serious choices about continuing on with their life-draining budget expenditures, or doing some soul searching about this new PC-based direction.

The rest is history.

Is the UNIX market dead?  No.  Not at all.  Has it scale back?  Yes.  Most of the major UNIX vendors from Compaq, Sun, Prime, DEC, Silicon Graphics, Helix, Unigraphics, are gone, or have been acquired and renamed.  IBM, Dassault, and Integraph remain vibrant, while PTC has undergone multiple shifts in product and services offerings, but seems to be alive and well.  One major change from twenty years ago has been the emergence of Siemens.

But even with these legacy companies still bouncing along, they've ported most, sometimes all, of their products to the Windows platform.  Love them or hate them, that little snowflake had an impressive impact indeed.

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10 Nerds You Should Be Thankful For

I decided it was time to give thanks to the lords of nerdism.  Those who bravely paved the way for you to sit on your lazy ass all day and bitch online about things you have absolutely no control over.  Those who made it possible for your to share your expert opinion of politics, economics, religion, fashion, movies, music, food, and TV shows, even though you are quite likely technically unqualified to even speak about any of those subjects.  Those who made it possible for you to tweet with one hand, with a drink in the left hand, while driving 60 MPH with your knee on the steering wheel.  Those who made it possible for every member of your family to immerse themselves into their own isolated worlds of game consoles, smartphones, media players, tablets and computers, rather than sitting together in one place and having a real conversation.  Those who made it possible for you to spend half your life's savings on music and movies you will never actually own.   You know:  all the good stuff technology has brought us.  Here they are...

1 - Grace Hopper

What this nerd did

Grace was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language.  She also coined the term "debugging", and was credited for having said "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission".

What you got for it

Modern programming languages, which are what all of your current time-destroying toys are built with.  Yes, kids, without C++ you wouldn't have Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, Linux, UNIX or any modern computers, tablets, phones, game consoles, and nifty digital dashboards in your nifty little cars.  Yes, even your dumbass "Sync" in your Ford car, and your OnStar GM crap are the recipients of compiled programming.  Thank you Grace!  You kicked ass like a rock star!

2 - Tim Berners-Lee

What this nerd did

That's actually "Sir Tim", as he was knighted.  A British computer scientist and MIT professor, he invented the "World Wide Web" and co-invented the HyperText Transfer Protocol, aka "HTTP", upon which "the Web" is possible.

What you got for it

Unlimited access to 10% useful information, and 90% useless information, mixed with advertisements, porn, games, gambling, medication, and more porn.  You also got Amazon, online banking and bill payments, Hulu, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yelp, FourSquare, UrbanSpoon, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, and of course: thousands of porn sites.

3 - Jonathan Ive

What this nerd did

Jonny is Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple.  He is the person who was able to articulate the ideas of Steve Jobs into award-winning, industry-leading, technologically revolutionary product designs.

What you got for it

The iMac, titanium and aluminum PowerBook G4, G4 Cube, MacBook, unibody MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.  Did I mention the iPhone?  Oh yeah, you know, that phone that everyone either loves or hates, but without which there WOULD NOT be a touch screen phone market at all.  You'd have Nokia and Blackberry clones piled up on every store shelf.

4 - John Walker

What this nerd did

Founded Autodesk in 1982.  Was the primary person behind the push to incorporate an extensible programming platform within the product to allow customers to enhance the product to suit their needs.  The language he chose was LISP and the specialized version built into their flagship AutoCAD product was AutoLISP. (he's pictured in center)

What you got for it

The first significant move from ridiculously expensive mainframe and workstation Computer Aided Design (CAD) products to much more affordable IBM/PC capability.  The result was an explosion of personal computer design products, modeling and simulation products, visualization and animation products, all of which were previously only available on expensive UNIX hardware at very expensive prices, and without much end-user customization capabilities.  Now you have a robust PC market that includes AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor, 3DS Max, Integraph, MicroStation, Maya, NX-CAD, CATIA (used to only be on UNIX), NASTRAN (same), SolidWorks, ANSYS, ALGOR, and much more.

5 - Vint Cerf

What this nerd did

Help create the "Internet" from DARPANET.

What you got for it

Need I say more?   You're welcome.  Now, just try to not f*** it up, mmmkay?

6 - Marc Andreeson

What this nerd did

Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, software engineer, and multi-millionaire best known as co-author of the NCSA Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation.

What you got for it

Lul Cats, YouTube, Reddit, LiveLeaks, Google, Yahoo!, IMDb, YouPorn, Netscape, Internet Explorer, Opera, Webkit (Safari, Chrome), IRS.gov, and of course: ComedyCentral.com.  Anyone remember Lynx?  How about WAIS, Veronica, Gopher, Telnet and archie?  Good times.  Not really.  Thank God for Marc's work and for giving us the web browser.

7 - John Von Neumann

What this nerd did

Devised the "Von Neumann architecture" model, on which all modern computer systems are based.

What you got for it

You're reading this on a device that wouldn't exist without it.  I would rank John up their with Grace actually, but he didn't exert the same flair for personality that she did.  Nonetheless, awesome.

8 - Dennis Ritchie

What this nerd did

Dennis was an American computer scientist who "helped shape the digital era."[1] He created the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the UNIX operating system.[1] Ritchie and Thompson received the Turing Award from the ACM in 1983, the Hamming Medal from the IEEE in 1990 and the National Medal of Technology from President Clinton in 1999

What you got for it

The basis of most modern programming languages, from C++ to Java and .NET.  For that you got operating systems, software, firmware (still a lot of it done in ANSI C), mobile device software, automotive software, aircraft software, satellite communications software, oh yeah: and all the games you waste most of your day playing.  RIP Dennis.

9 - George Boole

What this nerd did

Boole formalized Boolean algebra, the basis for digital logic and computer science.  You know: AND, OR, NOT, etc.

What you got for it

Every single programming language known to mankind depends on Boolean logic.  Dare I say, you're stupid beer-stained flat-panel TV couldn't exist, much less be turned on, were it not for his efforts.  Now, say it with me: "Boole Rules!"

10 - John McCarthy

What this nerd did

McCarthy was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist. He coined the term "artificial intelligence" (AI), invented the Lisp programming language and was highly influential in the early development of AI.  McCarthy also influenced other areas of computing such as time sharing systems. He received the Turing Award for his major contributions to the field of AI, and many other accolades and honors, including the United States National Medal of Science.

What you got for it

I wouldn't be writing this if it weren't for him.  My first programming language involvement was with Common LISP and then AutoLISP.  Thanks to John Walker (see above), for making combining McCarthy's work with the graphical design aspect.  That was the bug that bit me in the ass (ok, my brain, same thing) and hooked me into programming.  Beyond that, his efforts to explore the world of "AI" have led to all sorts of derivative technologies from voice recognition, to traffic management systems, to language parsing, to encryption methods, to statistical analysis.  RIP.

Sources:

Yeah, I used a lot of web sites, but most of them were nearly identical with Wikipedia, at least as far as the basic stuff I was looking for, and it had the others linked as well, so, whatever...

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_berners-lee
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walker_(programmer)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodesk
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Cerf
6. http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/andreesen.html
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann 
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCarthy_(computer_scientist)

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Refactoring. Part 2

Guitarists search for more efficient fingering patterns.  Percussionists search for more efficient sticking and foot patterns.  Cooks search for more efficient cooking methods.  Delivery drivers search for more efficient routes.  Athletes search for more efficient technique.  Programmers search for more efficient algorithms and coding methods.  If every new year you don't look back at the previous year and think "I really didn't know shit" compared to what you now know, you're not growing. Refactoring is a means of growing.

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