Best Practices Discussions and Debates

I think I have learned something today that I was previously unaware.

Starting a discussion about software development best practices is akin to talking about parenting techniques with a group of mothers.  Most will patiently listen, but at least one will get super defensive and tell you in detail about why that wouldn't work with their baby.

I have relatives who are also very argumentative, in that they just love to argue.  The funny part is that they will argue about things THEY AGREE WITH!  Unfortunately, they are too bent on arguing that they don't care that they agree.

I see this happen on blogs all the time.  And while I think that blogs are great ways to spur discussion, they are not great ways to HAVE a discussion.  User groups, phone calls, and hallways are all vastly superior environments for a discussion.

In my case, I have a commenter on my blog post about best practices that is doing a wonderful job of arguing some of my points, all while telling me I'm wrong.  We disagree on one point: Developers should have their own copy of the database they are developing against, and developers should have access to all source code and software need to do their job.

I think the reason the anonymous poster and I are not able to agree is because we really aren't able to talk to each other about the ideas.  Plus, I have a strong feeling we are separated by a common language (we have different definitions of the same words).    More than likely we agree on the software, we just don't agree on the terminology.

As far as the database part: there are a ton of ideas hidden in that statement that are not easily expressed.  There are scripts that extract the meta-data out of a database, source control that houses that script, continuous integration for verifying all of the changes work to both code and database scripts, creation of development data, etc.  

Then the kicker: 90% of that is automated.  I really don't thing the anonymous submitter saw that point.  In fact that should be a blog post in itself.  He/she saw it as another backbreaking task the developer would have to maintain by hand.  But if you do it right, it isn't.  Updating the database scripts is as simple as running a batch file.   And not updating the batch file and then running it, no -- just run it.  The batch file creates the scripts for creating the entire database.  This should take 5-30 seconds.  Then you are ready to go.

As I said, there are a lot of aspect to this that were not mentioned in this post or the previous post.  But blogs are there to START discussions, not to have them.

Install issues with SQL Server 2005 on Vista

OK, first off, SQL Server 2005 does run just fine on Vista (as far as I can tell right now at this particular time)

But...at work we all just got new Dell laptops with Vista Business Edition installed (from what I hear you can't even order a laptop with WinXP on it anymore).

Anyway, we went out to install our standard set of software: Visual Studio.NET 2005, SQL Server 2005, etc; and SQL Server 2005 will NOT install.

The culprit: Microsoft Office Web Components 2003. You need to uninstall the Web Components to be able to install SQL Server 2005. Don't worry if you need them, SQL Server 2005's install reinstalls them.

BTW: if you do need the Office Web Components, you need to stop. Microsoft is dropping support for them. Eventually.

SQL Server 2005 SP2, Virtual PC 2007 release

I'm seeing a lot of releases from Microsoft these days.

As of today, SQL Server 2005 SP2 is released:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=d07219b2-1e23-49c8-8f0c-63fa18f26d3a&DisplayLang=en

Also, I just saw Virtual PC 2007 is out:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en

And just yesterday I saw that Monad (PowerShell) was released for Vista:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/powershell/download.mspx
PowerShell was released a week ago, I just missed it.

Biz# = Office PerformancePoint Server 2007

Microsoft has finally announced the existence of Biz#, now to be called Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007.

For those of you who feel left out, don't worry, you've probably already been using some of it.

So what is this new product? It is the integration and rebranding of a couple of old technologies, and the addition of one.

Take ProClarity (newly purchased by Microsoft and needing to do something with the investment), mix in Business Scorecard Manager, throw in bits of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Analysis Server 2005, SharePoint 2007, Outlook 2007, and Excel 2007 -- let some developers stir things around, and there you have it.

This is not to say there is nothing new in there tho. Forecasting is new, and could be a big win for everyone if they get it right. Also, they seem to have a mechanism to create new cubes on the fly. That could also be really cool. Also it has its own API that is web service based which could make for some very interesting integration opportunities.

At this point, this product is being sold as a one-stop-shop for data analysts...and that has been said before by other players.

But this was only a one hour demo, and leaves a lot of questions to be answered.

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is due in mid 2007.

Links:
Performance Point Official site: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX101550371033.aspx
Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX012225041033.aspx
ProClarity: http://www.proclarity.com