Sometimes we get the chance to optimize code. It feels like those opportunities are too rare; but, they do come every once in a while, through good planning or dire need. Either way, we look for those small things that add up, resulting in better performance. I gave a few tips a while back with things such as using common […]

One of the most compelling arguments against pair programming is the perceived additional cost. From an accounting perspective, we are paying two salaries to produce the same amount of code. There are perceptions this thought is based on which I would like to question. Do two people working together produce only the same amount of code as one person, or […]

We Need Your Feedback and Thoughts We’re looking to learn more about decision-making in the industry – and specifically how it works in your own organization. You can win a $50 Amazon gift card too – but whether it’s for the chance to win or to help out, we really need your feedback. The ways decisions are made, and who […]

I was reading my editorial from last Friday, and was immediately struck by a typographical error. I wrote, “…I thing…” instead of “…I think…”. When I publish editorials like that, it is really embarrassing. It looks like I don’t care; but I really do. So please accept my apology for this latest fault, and the many yet to come. We […]

If I had to pick important programming techniques for developers to learn well in the modern age I think I would choose Asynchronous Code and Parallel Processing. As our hardware continues to grow by adding more CPUs or Cores, we must become more proficient with these two patterns, if we are going to write performant code that plays well with […]

Pre-processing is a practice that has been utilized as long as I can remember in computer systems. It continues today, but has different flavors. In the old days we used things like Batch Programs, REX, JCL, Shell Scripts, Tcl, Perl, Pipes and Filters, and much more depending on the operating system. We had many utility programs to do searching, filtering […]

The topic today is based on the design, as I understand it, for the new Uber back end; Schemaless. Reading some of their design implementations, they have moved the schema out of the storage engine, and into their API and Client services. That being said, they are easily able to alter their schema without a lot of heavy conversion of […]

As I continue my study on RESTful APIs I came across a REST Maturity Model in a presentation by Andy Wilkinson published at infoq. His topic was targeted toward documenting your API. He provided the REST Maturity Model as a basis to help establish what documentation methods work best at each level. Each level of the model builds on the […]

I was reading a paper from Uber regarding their switch from Posgres to MySql. I have to admit that there were a lot of deep dives in their reasoning, with a lot of edge case scenarios not unique to Uber. What I found more interesting was the massive number of responses to the publication. As I followed many of the […]

Recently I’ve come to understand that I have not fully the specifications of a RESTful API. In fact, most of my work would be called a Web Service API. There are some key distinctions between the two. You’ll know if you are following REST principles based on how your API is consumed. While both a Web Service API and a […]