2013-06-29 Saturday - A solid beginning foundation for a Mobile Strategy

[image source: Amazon.com]

Mobile Strategy: How Your Company Can Win by Embracing Mobile Technologies 1st Edition (2013)
https://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Strategy-Company-Embracing-Technologies/dp/013309491X/
 

My Book Review: 

 A solid beginning foundation for a Mobile Strategy

If you are a bit bewildered by what it means to implement a Mobile Strategy, then this book offers a solid conceptual foundation upon which to establish the beginning of a Mobile Strategy.

The first pleasant surprise on reading this book was the realization that Dirk Nicol  (Program Director for IBM Mobile Strategy and Production Management) wrote this with a true intent to educate, and while he could have used this as a platform to promote an IBM-specific agenda - he did not. Instead, he brought his obviously formidable depth of expertise - and lays out a framework for evolving a Mobile Strategy that can be applied to businesses both large and small.  No mean feat, that.

Who Should [Really] Read This Book?
- IT Executives pondering a mobile strategy
- IT Managers being tasked to implement a mobile strategy
- IT Business Analysts that need to understand the subtle transformative power of mobile to business processes, and its unique development processes

What this book is not:
- It is not an introduction to the mechanics of implementing mobile applications
- Although it touches on technical concerns, it does not intend to be an introduction to mobile technical specifications

Chapters include:
1 - Introducing Mobile Enterprise
2 - Defining Business Value
3 - Mobile Business Challenges
4 - The Mobile Framework
5 - Mobile Development
6 - Mobile Security and Management
7 - Mobile Business Transformation
8 - Planning a Mobile Project
9 - Social+Cloud+Big Data+Mobile
10 - International Considerations
11 - Case Studies and Mobile Solutions
12 - Moving Forward

Full Disclosure: I was provided a free copy of this book by Pearson Education to review

2013-06-26 Wednesday - Design and Code Reviews

Recently I've been helping a large enterprise development program provide guidance to multiple teams of developers (100+ developers) via design and code reviews.

I've enjoyed the opportunity to lead these discussions - and focus on encouraging, nurturing, educating, and mentoring - versus the less productive and negative connotations of review-as-blame, as is often the unintended result of how reviews are perceived by developers.

For each build within a sprint, I typically review a SVN Diff file, and release notes - which allows me to focus on what has changed.

Although I usually don't limit my findings or comments to just the Diff details - it helps me focus and optimize the time I spend preparing for the review meeting itself (which is usually time-boxed to 30 minutes).

My first priority in the review is to identify critical sections that need refactoring (either due to observed defects, or known issues that will arise from a maintenance perspective, or inherent limitations in the implementation of the code that will affect the desired functionality)

My second priority in the review is to identify recommendations for improving the design of the solution so that it is maintainable, testable, and extensible.  "Elegance" is a subjective term, but it is the essence of what I strive to communicate.

The third priority in the review is often to help developers learn to identify anti-patterns that can be re-mediated to improve the overall performance and robustness of the code.


If your organization might benefit from having an outside independent 3rd party provide Design and Code Review feedback, please contact me to discuss your program needs.


A useful Big-O reference for developers::
http://bigocheatsheet.com/

(more to be added this weekend when I have more time to continue this post)

2013-05-27 Monday - Book Review: Database Design for Mere Mortals

[image source: Amazon.com]

 

Database Design for Mere Mortals, Third edition, by Michael J. Hernandez
Addison Weseley
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321884493

My Book Review:
http://www.amazon.com/review/RR23UR4KIVUQH/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0321884493

What a pleasure to read Michael J. Hernandez's recent update to Database Design for Mere Mortals, Third Edition

I wasn't familiar with this book previously, and so had the chance to write a fresh review with no preconceived ideas from previous editions.

First, the text is well organized
Second, the examples are clear and concise
Third, the principles and underlying ideas are explained so that the reader understands not just the WHAT, but the WHY

This book is an excellent reference book for the developer who hasn't yet established a solid grounding in database design concepts. The thoroughness with which Mr. Hernandez covers the subject matter will go a long way to smoothing any gaps in one's conceptual understanding and approach to database design.

 

2025-03-29 Sat - Addendum: 

The 4th edition was published in 2020:
https://www.amazon.com/Database-Design-Mere-Mortals-Anniversary-dp-0136788041/dp/0136788041/

2013-04-13 Saturday - Go Programming Learning Resources

I'm spending some time today exploring the Go Programming Language
http://golang.org/
http://code.google.com/p/go/
http://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse
http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/list


Go Programming Language Blog
http://blog.golang.org/

Google Group: golang-nuts
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/golang-nuts

...and working my way through some of the various articles and documentation
http://golang.org/doc/install
http://code.google.com/p/goclipse/wiki/GettingStarted
http://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html
http://golang.org/doc/code.html
http://golang.org/doc/articles/wiki/
http://golang.org/doc/


"GoClipse is an Eclipse plugin that adds IDE functionality to the Eclipse platform for the Go programming language. The purpose of GoClipse is to create an environment in which development of Go is easy for a beginner to intermediate user"
https://code.google.com/p/goclipse/

I've installed the goclipse 0.7.6 plugin  into Eclipse Juno (4.2) SR2
http://goclipse.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/goclipse-update-site/

 3:15pm update...

After experimenting with the goclipse plugin for a few hours...I've experienced what seems to be a number of issues with it...

1) The goclipse wiki documentation appears to be woefully out of date (see references to a non-existent /cmd directory)

See: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9957449/cant-use-packages-in-goclipse

The goclipse exemplar code in the wiki (for the clock.go module) needs to be modified as follows:

package clock

import (
    "time"
)

func IsAM() bool {
    localTime := time.Now()
    return localTime.Hour() <= 12
}

2) Moving a directory/file from the pkg folder to the src folder doesn't appear to trigger auto-rebuild(?)

3) Directories/packages created under /src are not automatically detected by goclipse

4) Adding a new directory (in either src or pkg) to the build path doesn't appear to help goclipse find the source file

5) When executing via the Run-As command, a Go console sometimes (?) didn't open

6) Finding/Importing a system library in a source file under the /src directory failed (e.g. "time" - works fine, if the source file is under the \pkg directory, but won't work if it is in the /src directory)?

7) Creating a custom package in the /pkg directory can't be found

8) Sometimes(?) unable to delete the .exe generated in the \bin directory, from within Eclipse.

As of today, there were 51open issues for the goclipse project (which is 50% of all bugs to-date)
http://code.google.com/p/goclipse/issues/list

Note: there were [5] updates to the update site (under subversion)  in all of 2012 (rev 440 ==> 0.7.6) was the last on 12/18/2012  - and no updates in 2013 (yet)
http://code.google.com/p/goclipse/source/browse/

Google User Group for goclipse
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/goclipse
NOTE: doesn't seem to be very active...


If you prefer vim or emacs as your editor, you may want to investigate Gocode (an auto-completion daemon) http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/goclipse

For users of the Sublime editor:
http://www.sublimetext.com/2
https://github.com/DisposaBoy/GoSublime

Notepad++
http://go-lang.cat-v.org/text-editors/notepad-plus-plus/

Another possible IDE:
https://code.google.com/p/golangide/


stackoverflow articles that reference goclipse
http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=goclipse

Other blog postings related to using goclipse
http://richitexperience.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/goclipse_preferences/
http://richitexperience.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/goclipse-project-properties-dont-forget-it/

Interesting Blogs that discuss aspects of Go programming
http://blog.natefinch.com/2013/01/go-is-for-open-source.html
http://jordanorelli.tumblr.com/post/42369331748/function-types-in-go-golang

Other Go Language Resources
http://go-lang.cat-v.org/

John Graham-Cumming's CloudFlare presentation: Go Concurrency
http://www.slideshare.net/jgrahamc/go-oncurrency

A List of Go Projects
http://code.google.com/p/go-wiki/wiki/Projects

2013-04-02 Tuesday - Book Review, Database Design for Mere Mortals

Received a copy of a new book to review for Pearson Education.  Database Design for Mere Mortals by Michael Hernandez