A glittering performance of rare perception

I’ve been freelancing for over ten years, sometimes moonlighting when I have a full-time job, sometimes doing just freelance work. I’ve learned a few things about successful freelance progrramming. Continue reading →

In his November 24 article Database Thaw Martin Fowler wrote about the lock-in of relational/SQL databases and some possible alternatives. I was with him until he wrote that “you can’t get [a] bigger breach of encapsulation than that,” referring to a central database shared by multiple applications. (The indented quotes below are verbatim from Fowler’s article).

For many organizations today, the primary pattern for integration is Shared Database Integration - where multiple applications are integrated by all using a common database. When you have these Integration Databases, it’s important that all these applications can easily get at this shared data - hence the all important role of SQL. The role of SQL as mostly-standard query language has been central to the dominance of databases.

That’s a fair argument, though I don’t agree that SQL has been central to the dominance of databases, or central to making shared database integration the “primary pattern” for integration. Before SQL-based databases took over in the mid-1980s, integration through shared non-relational databases was already the norm. SQL standardizes how users and application get data in and out of the database, and how database schemas are described, but it’s just a language that more or less replaced many proprietary and unstandardized languages that did the same thing.
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Video Professor (Lakewood, CO) announced today a new line of instructional videos, Video Professor :Pro, for teaching Haskell, Scheme, and Smalltalk programming. These new products build on the success of the VB.NET and C++ video instruction products released earlier in 2008.

John W. Scherer, Founder and CEO of Video Professor, explained: “Over ten million people have learned to use the computer with Video Professor products. The new :Pro line of instructional videos builds on our success teaching Windows, Outlook, selling on eBay, and watching YouTube. We have over sixty products, and we regularly add more so our customers can keep up with the latest technology.”

According to Mr. Scherer, the idea for the :Pro series came in part from his nephew, who is taking computer classes at community college and plays with languages he reads about online. “My nephew is a computer expert, and he keeps up with the latest technologies and trends on his home internet.” Haskell, Scheme, and Smalltalk are popular discussion topics on programmer web sites, even though none of those languages are widely used yet.

Video Professor plans to continue adding to the :Pro line throughout 2008 and 2009 with products for learning Linux, Javascript, and network security.

The Video Professor :Pro products will be available next month and will be featured in the company’s ubiquitous late-night television commercials. “We’ve been teaching everyone from stay-at-home moms and school kids to busy professionals how to use their computer, and the :Pro line is a natural extension of our commitment to help people learn the computer. Please, try my product.”