Neuroning

This is old news already, and although it’s not about Software, it’s definitely about Development :-)

I’m happy to share that Pilar, my second daughter, was born last Monday 14th, a couple of weeks ahead of schedule –and on budget ;-).

She has jaundice, so she is under photo-therapy. Fortunately, this can be done at home, and should only last a few days.

Yesterday, a good friend of mine and ex-coworker contacted to me to share his frustration.

(he hates to be called “Polino”, so I won’t.. doh!)

He finished a software solution for a customer, and now an expert is reviewing his Java code.

The expert code reviewer insists on small performance optimizations, but he is way off target. He wants to micro-optimize, and to do it blindly.

For example, he reported that the following code was doing “inefficient String concatenations”:

String myString = "Some text here "+
                  "Some text there "+
                  "Some more... ";

And that this was an “inefficient way of creating Longs”:

 myList.add(new Long(1));

These examples are probably well optimized by modern Java compilers. But even if they weren’t, they probably don’t affect much to the performance of the system as a whole.

I just realized about an interesting move from Oracle. They released a Beta version of their new Oracle Database 10g Express Edition.

This Express edition is free of charge. It is free not only for production use, but also for distribution.

These are the limitations it has: * It restricts itself to use only one CPU * Only one server and database instance (SID) per installation * Database size limit of 4GB

Looks like a good deal for ISVs, developers and small shops. It’s a good way for getting more mind-share among small software companies and younger/future developers.

I tried it on my Linux laptop and got it up and running in a couple of minutes. The Express name does not make it any lighter though: it still consumes a good chunk of RAM, and the database instance allocates 1GB of disk. So I’ll stick to PostgreSQL for powering this blog :-).

Months ago, I was looking for a book on Design Patterns. I already own the great classic GoF and a few more, but I was looking for a more practical, real-world exposition of the classic Patterns. I wanted a book I could recommend to new developers, so they could really learn how to apply the concepts.

I came across Holub On Patterns. I liked it, but I was disappointed with the editorial quality of the book.

I found a long list of errors. Some of them are minor, but still may confuse readers, specially those new to the topic.