EXCEPTION::QUERY

A Blog About Database Products and Technology.

SQL Server 2008 (Katmai) is set for launch on February 27, 2008, and Microsoft had previously announced that this would be the last version to support SQL Database Management Objects (SQL-DMO). However, Allen White notes in his SQLJunkies blog that the July CTP release of Katmai contains a warning that the Express version of SQL Server 2008 will not support DMO. Developers should instead use the SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) library introduced in SQL Server 2005.

Posted by John Dorsey at 02:13 PM  Permalink |

Modern object-oriented languages encourage you to see the world through the object lens. Databases get this object treatment through the use of Object Relational Mappers (ORMs). It's entirely natural for an object-oriented programmer to see data as objects, rather than SQL calls. But good 'ol SQL isn't going anywhere. What you want as a programmer is the flexibility to use objects when you want, and SQL when you want, and to be able to do all of this on everything from tiny, lightweight databases to huge corporate data stores. Something perhaps like Storm, the open-source ORM for Python. Recently, Jon Erickson sat down to chat with Gustavo Niemeyer, lead developer on Canonical's Storm project.

Posted by Kevin Carlson at 01:50 PM  Permalink |

The quality of the data in a database corresponds directly to the value of the data to an enterprise. Do you have a testing strategy for your data? In his latest newsletter,What To Test in a Relational Database, Scott Ambler looks at the benefits of Agile testing methods to validate the quality of data.

Posted by John Dorsey at 09:21 PM  Permalink |

These days, it's getting harder use the same old build tools in the same old ways. Software is more complex, and often requires many variant builds for different platforms (especially in the embedded space). Builds now need to take into account source-code tracking for measuring compliance. Distributed development teams in different time zones, sometimes working in different programming languages, create even more complexity for build tools to cope with. Build tools haven't gotten the attention that their sexier development-tool brethren have gotten. Mike Swaine says that's about to change in his article "The Buzz About Builds."

Posted by Kevin Carlson at 12:55 PM  Permalink |

In his article, Digital Imaging, Databases, and Eye Care, Ryan McGrail describes the "impedance mismatch" that occurs when trying to use an RDMS from an object-oriented program. His development team instead chose db4o, an object-oriented database library that designed to be embedded in clients or other software components, completely invisible to the end user.

Posted by John Dorsey at 11:58 PM  Permalink |

Our RailsConf report JRuby: Making the Enterprise See Red details how the upcoming launch of JRuby 1.0 will introduce even more database options for Rails developers. For now, scaling and performance are still a big worry. For more info on this, check out Nick Siegler's recent blog on the geekSessions Ruby panel, Ruby on Rails: To Scale or Not to Scale. Also IBM's Bruce Tate recently posted an article looking at some scenarios for Caching in Rails .

Posted by John Dorsey at 09:00 PM  Permalink |

Data repositories have this nasty tendency to act like anchors, weighing down an otherwise productive enterprise. That is, if they are allowed to decay. Which they are. Most IT organizations know they have a problem, but don't really know what to do about it. The first step might be to challenge the assumptions that keep you from taking action.

Posted by Kevin Carlson at 02:36 PM  Permalink |

If your development team is not using agile developement yet and you're proposing adoption to your company's management team, Scott Ambler has some helpful advice. In his article, Pitching Agile to Senior Management, Scott includes some diagrams showing the ROI for agile and a "Financial Lingo Primer" to help you pitch your ideas.

Posted by John Dorsey at 07:15 PM  Permalink |

In general, the public sector has a pretty wretched reputation for making it difficult to find digital information in their online systems. Sometimes this is deliberate, for perceived security reasons, but more often it's just the inevitable result of a big organization not being able to coordinate all its subsystems. Google has announced this week, however, that it is beginning to partner with state governments, beginning with Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia, to make government records more easily available via the Google search engine.

Continue reading "Googling Government"

Posted by Kevin Carlson at 10:06 PM  Permalink |

The 2007 MySQL Conference is going on this week in Santa Clara. Mark Atwood is giving an interesting talk on Wednesday explaining his MySQL storage engine that uses Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3), the web-services based storage service. You can see the slides for Mark's talk and check out the most recent code for mysql-awss3 at fallenpegasus.com/code/mysql-awss3/.
For more on Amazon's web service offerings check out the Amazon Web Services overview from the recent SD West keynote. The speech "Build Scalable Infrastructure Today for Tomorrow's Peak" was presented by Felipe Cabrera, Vice President of Software Development, Amazon Web Services.

Posted by John Dorsey at 03:13 AM  Permalink |