Coding Slave: The Blog: November 2006

Q: What do you call an object oriented database developer?

A: Lost

I’ve been working out with LINQ, Microsoft’s “let’s take databases and turn them into object models” beta product, to be released under .NET 3.0.

In order to use it I had to install the .NET 3.0 extensions for Visual Studio 2005. Now, I usually don’t install beta products on my work machine. But, I was pretty excited by what I saw DevConnections. So I figured, what the hell? Well, now the class diagramming feature of Visual Studio is broken, won’t load. Visual Studio is looking for the old libraries. Oh well.

Let's get over it an move on.

So being hot for LINQ, I decided to do a little demo of the product to my co-workers at the day job, all of whom are database developers. The results were not inspiring. First off, all the DB-heads live in a land of T-SQL, stored procedures and ETLs. These people are mostly about one thing: speed. When you are dealing with multiple databases, each containing data warehouses with transactional data for about six million people, speed and getting the stuff out on time for report consumption is all that really matters. Objects, smobjects.

Pretty much the response from my DB brethren was, “this might be nice if I understood C#, innerfaces, abstract paintings, ah, I mean abstract classes, genetics, oh no wait, it’s generics, isn’t it? and by the way what’s this private, protected and public stuff about?”

“And, hey I imagine in the innards of this stuff there is some SQL. How do I know this is high performance, highly optimized SQL?"

There is little doubt that SQL Server brought a lot more enterprise level database technology to a lot more companies and organizations in a way the Oracle and IBM overlooked or didn’t care to implement. However, Microsoft also has a habit of creating and promoting technologies that look good on the outside for about 5 minutes, but never really catch on due to poor engineering or lack of market acceptance. I mean, MS-Bob may be a distant memory; but at one time it was some MS program manager’s dream of how to get to the top.

So where does this leave LINQ? Well, until they get it to go fast in the real world and have a real cognitive migration path to teach DB developers how to get from T-SQL to .NET, well… I think there is a TV show that describes the situation.

Q: Who rocks?

A: Petzold rocks!

Some guys get to be heroes despite their best intentions.

Here

Know thy roots. Know thy culture.

Q: Will Donald Rumsfeld go on unemployment?

A: He can’t. He resigned.

I think that the dream of every working American is to, having decided that there is more to life than The Job, quit and go on unemployment… forever. Now, most of us would not admit it given the shame that has been associated with being on the dole. But, if there were a shame free, guilt free way to get out of having to go to The Job everyday, most of us would take advantage of the opportunity, which probably explains why the lottery and Las Vegas are so popular.

Yet we don’t. Most of us have to make the rent, buy the food, pay off the tuition or if life has blessed us with smart children, pay their tuition.

So I wonder, what in the world was Donald Rumsfeld thinking when he resigned from the Secretary of Defense gig? Anybody who has ever punched a clock knows that it’s almost impossible to get unemployment benefits if you quit. Even the home boy manning the fries at McDonald’s knows that the wisest thing to do when it comes time to leave a gig is to:

a: have another job waiting
b: get laid off so you get benefits.

When the President announced the resignation he did not say that Rummy was being promoted or moving onto another post, such as running Haliburton or GE. Nope, for all we know, the former Secretary of Defense might have said, “Hey, take this job and shove it.” He just plum quit, no two weeks notice… nothing.

So, how’s he going to get over? How’s he going to make the mortgage payment? I imagine that he doesn’t live cheap. Maybe he’ll decide to not look for another job and go on Social Security. But, how much can that pay? Most people that I know on Social Security know a whole lot about the clipping of coupons and the benefits of day old bread in the Bakery Aisle.

Rummy has a real problem on his hands. No job, no benefits and the bills still need to be paid. It doesn’t seem as if he’s thought things through. But then again, thinking things through has never been one of his strengths, just ask all those guys that are still in Iraq.