The developer and Database Normalization

Does database normalization matter? Of course it does! Do we do it? We try to.. Does anyone care? Not everyone.

I have a table with a set of drawers. It has been my goal to keep all my papers CDs and other stuff neatly organized in the three drawers.  All I can say for sure most of the time is that anything I need will be within those three drawers. I am not sure if my vehicle insurance papers are in the first or the third drawer. Come on! How long does it take to search three drawers?

This is the approach many developers tend to take when it comes to data. The database is a table and the drawers are the actual tables. How does it matter what is in which drawer when we can find it whenever we need to? Apart from the many technical reasons to be organized, being organized is plain simple nice.  Why do we ask for clean cities, beautiful gardens and clear weather? They are  simply nice to have!  Developers are under pressure to deliver a working module. The program managers or the client is not aware and does not want to be bothered about the purity of your data model.  This reduces the necessity to maintain a good data model behind the application. The implications of sacrificing the data model to get the product or fix out in time will be felt much later either as a performance issue or an upgrade issue. This, however will not affect the developer who did the original product design.

There is a difference between a code fix and a data model fix. Bad code can be replaced with proper code via an application fix. All that is needed is to replace a few files and restart the application. The same is not true of a data models. Data models once delivered cannot be easily replaced. In that sense, the cost of a bad data model design is much higher than a coding error. 

But, does it really matter to a C++ developer who has to deliver the working module tomorrow. he would rather stuff the papers in any drawer that has space.  A good software engineering manager should account for time and resources to keep his drawers clean!

Data Model Patterns

Technorati Tags: Data Model,Patterns,ERP,Database Design

The book ‘Data Model Patterns – Conventions of thought’ by David C. Hay is a must read book for anyone even remotely involved in the fine art of data modelling. I stumbled upon this book as part of my job responsibilities and am glad I got introduced to this book.

All enterprises have some common procedures. Almost everyone since Abraham is involved in the process of buying raw material, making something, taking orders and selling it to other people. We all do it either as our own business or we work for others who make us do this for a living. The book attempts to crystallize the essential requirements of all the major areas of an enterprise like Customer Service, Order Processing, HR etc.. The Data models presented here cannot be directly implemented for any enterprise. They are excellent starting points to understand a complex system like an organization of people producing goods and services. Each data model can be tailored to suit individual requirements.

Even if you are not building an information system for an organization, its a great way to learn the way an organization works!

My Thumb and the Nokia E63

The Nokia E63 is a successful phone from Nokia. It packs in a lot of features and comes in a decent form factor. It is phone that has a full QWERTY keypad. I like it but my biggest grouse is the amazingly tiny keys for numbers. I agree that they have to make the keys small to fit them all within a manageable size. One thing that designers are increasingly ignoring is that the phone is fundamentally used to call people. The way we do that is by typing in their phone number (unless they are in our address book). A good design should keep this in mind and provide for reasonably large keys for numbers. This seems to the only drawback in an otherwise wonderful phone from Nokia. Take a look at the two pictures below. The one on the left is what you get from Nokia. The one on the right is what I wish I could get!

I mean, whats wrong in having two keys for each digit. That way, i can press on any or both keys for say 1.  Anyone listening?

Good news of the day-September 25, 2009

Technorati Tags: Ozone,Environment,Ozone layer closing up,Good News

I am tired of the news channels. They have breaking news all through the day every single day. I remember a time when the term Breaking News was reserved for something very important and had a national significance. What bothers me more is the increasing pessimism in the news channels. Rarely do we see something that celebrates the spirit of life being served as part of our daily news consumption.  Here is an attempt to bring out the good side of life

The Ozone layer achieved celebrity status in the late eighties and early nineties due to its depletion. Prior to that it was only studied about in Science and Geography classes and was never a topic of debate and world change that it turned out to be. It was reported then that a certain type of chemical compound called ‘Chloroflouro Carbons’ (CFC) were responsible for the depletion of a layer of the Earth’s atmosphere called the Ozone layer. The Ozone layer protects the Earth from the harmful radiation spectrum of the Sun. Scientists observed a hole in the Ozone layer on the Polar regions. They further attributed this to the CFCs. There were emitted in abundance by many industrial plants and was a common product in the manufacturing of Refrigerators, Aerosol cans etc.. The problem with CFC compounds is that they cannot be decomposed or broken up easily by the Earth’s atmospheric gases. A single molecule of this compound can exist for almost 100 years before it can be broken down! The discovery of the hole in the Ozone layer lead to a near mass hysteria.  Governments and world bodies swung into action and a blanket ban on CFCs was announced. This what we got right. We had a group of leaders and a generation of people who were ready to correct the wrongs of the past for a better future. It required an impending world wide catastrophe to bring out the tendency for a greater common good in the people of the world. Anyway, corrective action was taken in time and last week scientists have reported that the hole in the Ozone layer is starting to close up and it should be completely closed by 2050. Kudos!

You can read a scientific article about this here:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/26may_ozone.htm

Ideas I had sent to Steve Jobs

Here is an extract from an email I had sent to Steve Jobs on April 8, 2008. I, of course did not receive any reply These are a list of feature requests for iTunes and the iPod.

1. We in India are huge fans of what we call ‘Filmi music‘. In the western world it is classified as ‘Original soundtrack‘. Our movies are an exotic mix of song and dance and they are unbelievably popular. There is a design problem with the cover flow view when we load such music. The problem is because we have a different artist for each song in a given movie. Actually we have many singers for each song. The cover art is displayed once for each song. Conceptually, a cover flow view should represent a physical collection (of cds) and hence the cover art should appear only once for each album. Can this be fixed in future versions of the firmware and also in iTunes?
2. An 80GB iPod can hold a huge amount of music. Its difficult to browse through any collection larger than say 2-3GB. Is it possible to add a bookmark feature that is not the same as the ‘On the Go’ feature. The bookmark feature can be valid only for a session when i am trying to decide what to play.
3. Another problem with Indian Music CDs is the availability of ID3 tags. Is it possible to represent ID3 tag information as a special audio track in an audio cd that can be read by iTunes? That way its easy to make mp3 collections out of audio cds that we have purchased. We would not mind paying a small fee for this feature.
4. It is common to have more than one iPod per family nowadays. Its a very rare that i really need to carry the entire 80GB of songs that i have every time i want to listen to music. If you consider a couple, then both of them will be storing the same songs on both their devices apart from some individual favourites. What i would really like is a ‘iPod strore’ that is a physical device which can store iPod ready songs but cannot play them. I can connect my iPod (and so can my partner) to the device and just transfer music of my choice using a special program on the iPod. I know that this may may have legal ang copyright issues, but can you please think about it?

Ideas for a Academic book publisher

Loooong back I had sent some suggestions to a Tata McGraw Hill representative who used to visit our campus  with some ideas to improve the text book experience in colleges. I am yet to receive a response or see any of it in action as of today. Posting it here hoping someone at some publishing house will benefit from these. TMH in the post refers to Tata McGraw Hill:

1. Establish an Internet group(mail group type) consisting of al teachers who are teaching a course from the same text book. If possible make the author(s) also a part of the group. This would enable effective and very productive discussions and problems that teachers may face when teaching a course. This would also enable sharing of ideas and teaching methodologies.
2. Allow qualified instructors to register to updates whenever a new edition or new title is released on topics of his interest. That way you could save costs on printing lots of catalogues!
3. Establish special TMH sections in institute libraries(in collaboration with your distributors) that would contain all titles from your catalog on subjects of interest. You could also fix special information kiosks at these sections that provide more information and resources regarding your titles.
4. Establish special public libraries in cities and towns where people can browse through your books. They cannot, however, take them out. Have a sales counter for this.
5. Conduct special road shows and seminars for students on the complete process of bringing out a book. This would help them understand the amount of effort that goes into publishing a single book. maybe you could even encourage students to bring out some special titles.. After all there are some things only students know!
6. Conduct a contest of some sort and encourage especially bright students by providing them substantial discounts on your titles, maybe for a year or two
7. A big challenge is the amount of books circulated in the used books market.  provide special discount coupons on further purchases, maybe other freebies for purchase (esp bulk) of text books

The professor and the two cups of coffee

I got this as an email forward today. I want to blog it so I remember to read it often… If you happen upon this entry and enjoy it too, then that’s nice too!

When things in your life seem,  Almost too much to handle, When 24 Hours in a day is not enough, remember the story of the empty jar and 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some  items in  front of him.When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students, If the jar was full. They agreed that it was.The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open Areas between the golf balls.
He then asked  The students again If the jar was full.They agreed it was.The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.  Of course, the sand filled up everything else.He asked once more if the jar was full.

The students responded with an unanimous ‘yes.’
The professor then produced  two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents  into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.The students laughed.

‘Now,’ said the professor,   As the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that  This jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things – God, family, children, health, friends, and favorite passions – things that if everything else was lost
and only they remained, Your life would still be full.
The pebbles are the other things that matter Like your job, house, and  car.

The sand is everything else — The small stuff.’If you put the sand into the jar first,’  He continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.The same goes for life.If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.So…

Pay attention to the things  that are critical to your happiness.
Play With your children.
Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your partner out to dinner.
There will always be time
To clean the house and fix the disposal.
‘Take care of the golf balls first — The things that really matter.
Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.’

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.
The professor smiled.
‘I’m glad you asked’.
It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life  may seem, there’s always room for a cup of coffee with a friend.’

Cleaning up my mp3 collection with ID3 Tags

I was a regular user of ID3 TagIt! I was forced to look for alternatives once I got a new laptop with Microsoft Vista. ID3 TagIt! does not work on Vista and the developers have stopped work on the tool. My problem is I need a file renaming tool and a tool for editing Id3 Tags as i have a some collections with bad file names. In my exhaustive hunt for the perfect ID3 tagging tool, I happened to find MP3Tag by Florian Heidenreich from http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ . I loved ID3TagIt! because of its simplicity and the ability to lookup freeDb for cover art and tag information. Mp3 Tag goes a step further as it includes a powerful action scripting option. You can use regular expressions to do pretty much anything you want! I was able to rename a set of 90 files yesterday with a single mouse click. I would highly recommend this tool to anyone who has an iPod or who just likes to keep his music collection clean!

Why?

Why do we feel inspired?

Why do we lose inspiration?

Why do we hesitate to say nice things to people?

Why can’t our lives be slower?

What is the hurry?

Why is every road journey a challenge to get from point A to B in the shortest time possible?

Why is our professional life devoid of any personal feelings?

Why is love not a corporate value?

Why is freedom of expression such a big issue while sensitivity to your neighbour and fellow human being is not?

Why can’t men never ever understand the love of a mother?

Why is not necessary to understand Love in order to experience it?

Why do poor Belgian farmers  pour excess milk into the fields while children die in Africa due to malnutrition?

Why is chocolate sooooo good?

Why does a starlit night sky evoke the dreamer in everyone?

Why do we have Saturday and Sunday off instead of Wednesday and Sunday?

Why do chemical engineers become software programmers? What was the use of University education in his life?

Why do I spend so much of my time wandering aimlessly on the Internet?

Why do people build monstrous buildings next to a narrow road in Bangalore?

Why can’t I live more in the real world and less in the digital world?

Google Chrome OS

It happened finally! Microsoft woke up to the reality of its worst nightmare. Google quietly announced that they will be coming out with an OS by 2010. The manner in which the announcement was made is another indication of the new world order – an entry in the company blog. There were no press events or a fancy launch party to mark the event. Yet, the world went into a tizzy as news of this announcement spread through the channels.  The common consensus is that Microsoft should be worried. Yes, they should be. Is this, however a sizeable threat to their product line? Lets face facts. We need Microsoft products. There are many reasons why anyone including Google are way behind Microsoft on desktop productivity. One, there is no product, free or hosted that is as good as Microsoft Office. Microsoft Powerpoint, in particular is the most used tool by corporate executives worldwide. Second, Google spreadsheet is a good replacement to Excel. It cannot, however be used for complex and long running computations. Another issue is the that of data privacy. I wouldn’t want my investment broker to hold my personal data on a Google spreadsheet however ‘good’ it may be. Third, and returning the specific case in point, Google chrome OS is targeted at Netbooks. For all the hype about the new age of life (only) on the internet, there are millions of people with real jobs and real computing needs well outside the scope of the internet. To this minority Microsoft Windows is still the most preferred platform.  Ask architects using CAD tools, doctors using imaging tools, and organizations using SAP and other ERP tools. Until these people are eradicated from the face of the Earth, Microsoft is in business.