Tech Pragmatist

Interesting. The two industries showing highest growth could be used to describe what I do.

Perhaps this is why I felt so immediately uncomfortable when the iPad was first unveiled. Perhaps this is the beginning of the future.

A man who doesn’t usually pull his punches now waxing lyrical about the iPad, having played with it. Mr Gruber has commented that the speed of the iPad is the overwhelming impression of the user experience.

Had Apple been any smaller, I think pundits might have been saying that they had bet the company on the success of this device by selling it at that price. In fact they may well have bet a significant part of their cash pile on it, but if it flops Apple will probably still survive.

I was hoping for something revolutionary. Instead we have something evolutionary. Apple have taken the iPhone business model, followed the “Lather, Rinse, Repeat” instructions and come up with a product about which the only outstanding feature is the marketing.

I will wait until I have got my hands on one before I pass further judgement, but I don’t think I will be buying one for myself. I do not see the argument that this device fits between a laptop and a smartphone - at least not if you own both. If you have a desktop and a smartphone, or a regular phone and a computer (portable or not), then it might fit your needs, but I don’t see it taking over in the living room, which is where it seems to be pitched.

Time will tell.

This will be interesting: these two keynotes are happening almost at the same time.

Apple are about to announce their latest creation.

Oracle are about to announce their roadmap for Sun integrating into Oracle.

Which one will generate more column inches do you suspect?

The problem with computers is that you have to use them through an interface. You, as a user, are stuck on one edge of the system, the user interface (UI). The problem is that until somebody invents a working neural shunt or interconnect like the ones seen in the Wachowski brothers’ film The Matrix, we have to make do with some sort of UI for our computers and gadgets.

There have been some great looking user interfaces invented purely for entertainment on the TV and movie screen. From the slick research screens used in CSI, to the somewhat creepy gloved hand interfaces in Minority Report (which are somewhat reminiscent of modern multi-touch UIs), but it strikes me that all of these would have to be learned just the same.

Recently it has been getting more and more obvious to me that we are stretching current UIs to breaking point. Most folks put up with them at best, some learn them quite well but almost everybody has at some point been frustrated or upset by a computer interface.

Crying and spilt milk

What to do about it? Well there are plenty of people who are frustrated by the status quo. Let me guide you through the grievances I have with current UIs, using the words of greater writers than I.

They took their sweet time, but Oracle 11g is now finally EAL4 accredited. The only downside from my point of view is that it is release 1 that has been taken through the process whereas I was hoping it would have been release 2.

The title says it all. It will be interesting to see what happens at the presentation on the 27th.

Just … wow.

Make sure you watch it full screen.

(Thanks to Mr Gruber for the link)

The most significant component is the unit testing framework. From the Press Release:

Oracle SQL Developer Release 2.1 introduces a unit-testing framework that enables developers to build and share unit tests and test suites that can be run in batch mode and from command line against different databases. PL/SQL Unit Testing offers database developers powerful, prebuilt capabilities with which to develop and run regression tests for their database code resulting in higher quality database development while reducing the need for writing scripts for unit testing.

Unit Testing PL/SQL code has traditionally been poorly and incompletely done. It is difficult to do, there are a lot of issues to take into account and lots of boundary cases where frameworks just don’t or can’t help. Many have tried before (Wikipedia has a list) and had partial success. I have never heard of any serious project that has been able to use a particular framework for all test cases.

My experience of these tools is limited, having opted to ‘role my own’ in the past almost every time. It will be interesting to see if Oracle’s idea of unit testing pl/sql code will catch on and become the de-facto method. I’ll measure that by if/when I start seeing it on a significant number of Oracle specialists’ CVs.

My understanding is that this has been a work in progress for some time. What I don’t know is if it has been built on the foundations of one of the existing ‘solutions’ or if Oracle have built it from the ground up.