SQLDeveloper -- Continued Whining

OK, so SQLDeveloper is a free tool from Oracle. I really like it, but am still waiting to see some wrinkles ironed out. For example, it hangs at least twice a day and has to be killed. The PL/SQL formatting still has a LOT to be desired (in fact, the tool seems to be just treat PL/SQL as if it were straight SQL). It still has problems with the File Navigator, importing and exporting Excel spreadsheets, etc. The great thing was that until a year ago, SQLDeveloper was making fairly steady progress. So, if you saw a bug, there was some hope that it would get fixed -- at least partially -- in the next release.

SQLDeveloper is built from JDeveloper -- also free. JDeveloper is fine for Java, but not so hot for PL/SQL (hence, SQLDeveloper, which does better with SQL but still struggles with PL/SQL).

JDeveloper has a data modeler. It's actually quite nice, but has a few quirks -- like the fact that generating is a pain in the butt.

SQLDeveloper Data Modeler is not free, is not built from JDeveloper's data modeler, and is not part of SQLDeveloper. In fact, it appears to be totally unrelated. In testing the pre-release version, it looked like it was some dead Oracle product that got revived and assigned.

And the really crappy thing? Well, it appears that the SQLDeveloper team has been so busy building the SQLDeveloper Data Modeler (instead of just integrating the one that's already in JDeveloper), that each new version of SQLDeveloper has almost nothing in it.

And why are they doing this? Apparently so they can charge for SQLDeveloper Data Modeler. Did I mention that JDeveloper has a free Data Modeler?

??????????

Oracle, you confuse me.

Computer Code and User Expectations

I sling code for a living. However, what I've realized is that users expect

1. The Code should anticipate their needs and "just do the right thing."
2. It should be as custom, fast and beautiful as a hand-built street rod.
3. It should be as cheap, reliable and efficient as a Honda Civic.
4. Every project should be delivered on time, no matter how many times the custom requirements change.
   

If you can't meet those expectation, then you're an idiot. However, the only people that can explain why all of that is so impossible are the very ones that are saying it is impossible. Thus, nobody believes them. It's kinda like the people who don't believe that NASA put a man on the moon because the only verification available is through NASA.

Here's the weird thing. Writing computer programs is still very much in its infancy. When you look at cars, even thirty years ago, they weren't expected to go more than 100,000 miles without major issues. Now, 200,000 without major issues is the expectation.

Cars can be mass-produced mostly because pretty much all cars are solving the same problem. How to get people and stuff from one location to another. There are variations as to how fast , how efficiently, or how stylishly the people and stuff will get moved around, but all those automobiles are really just solving the same problem. However, computer programs are being written to solve any problem that anyone can think of. Kinda tough to mass-produce that. Thus, as long as we are solving new problems, the technology to automatically solve them will be somewhat flaky, unreliable and buggy. Once we have been solving the same problem for over 100 years (like we do with cars), then it should be pretty easy to reliably solve that problem. Kind of a boring problem, but easy to solve.

Keep using your brain, it's only going to get more valuable.

--Og

Beyond GeekerDome

Ok, so I saw last week that Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 was out, so I had to download it and run it.

So far, the only plugin that I run that's compatible is ScribeFire.

However, I had to have it. I'm loving it (why, I really don't know), and I'm running it. I'm sure that once my plugins all get compatible, my performance and reliability will go into the tank, but for now, it's all good.

I'm not sure what I did to it, but I currently have broken my SQLDeveloper installation and I"m running JDev in its place. Big, Fat, and sassy. But for some reason, I've got to have it.

iTunes isn't cool enough. Never will be. Has to be foobar2000. Of course, this means that I end up dorking around with m4p files and converting them to mp3, even though I actually own all of the files. This has somehow led to having about 4 copies of every music file that I have, all in different formats.

Which leads us to an awesome file system reporting and cleanup tool -- WinDirStat. This thing totally rocks.

Found out today that I can script the conversion of Word Documents into pdf format by using OpenOffice and some Visual Basic macros. That's going to lead to some file cleanup projects, soon.....

Picasa has let to some awesome photo file processing....and saving extra backups. And of course the Gimp is AWESOME!!! Hmmm....wish I had more RAM about now....


Looks like I've got my system pretty well pegged, time to start digging in to editing all those home videos that have been piling up for years.

Time for a few new hard drives, and some extra drives for backup....

I wonder why I can't seem to get my car washed?

Where is my drive?

Ok, so I got mbldr going, rebooted, and everything worked great.

I went into Disk Management, from Computer Management on XP, formatted the Linux Partition to NTFS (a shame, but I was happy it worked), gave it a drive letter and migrated a bunch of files over there. Everything was working great.

Until I rebooted and the drive went away. Ok, Don't Panic, but WHERE IS MY DRIVE?

I went into Disk Management again, went to give the partition a drive letter -- and couldn't.

Don't Panic. Don't Panic.......

After some research and a couple of really uneasy days wondering if my backups REALLY had all of my files.....

I realized that when I ran mbldr, I had checked (or it had defaulted -- not really sure) a checkbox that said "Hide all other Primary Partitions." Well, that should be easy enough to fix, right?

Wrong.

.....Disk Management won't "Unhide" a Partition. Seriously, Windows is pathetic.

Anyways, after some research, I got ahold of EASEUS (I tried the free version), and "unhid" the Partition.

Amazingly enough, it mapped to the drive I wanted again, and we're back in business.

Sweet. Problem solved......for today.

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Grub Scrub -- Replacing a GRUB Boot Loader

I had installed Linux (Ubuntu, Christian Edition) as a dual boot on my laptop at work. I wasn't really "supposed to" but hey, I'm a Developer, right?

However, I've been running short on hard drive space lately. I'd say that it's because of my huge folder full of MP3's, but I'm not supposed to have that on my work machine, either (at least I do legally own them all).

When I initially wiped the partition that Linux was on, I lost the GRUB boot loader that had been installed. I had to re-install Linux to be able to boot Windows. For quite a while, I left it that way because I just didn't care enough to fix it. I researched, and it looked like the only way to fix this was to use the Windows Repair/Rescue disc to fix the boot loader. Having had to do a Windows rescue before, I was not looking forward to the process. Also, I was going to have to actually find the disc.....whew, way too much work.

And then a couple of days ago, it hit me "Duh. Load a different Boot Loader," So, I went in search of one and found one. Master Boot Loader (mbldr) was just the ticket. It let me back up my old boot settings to a file, then create a new boot loader. It let me specify the order that the partitions would boot, so that I can now actually boot straight to Windows. It even let me name the OS that was loading. I couldn't resist and renamed "Windows XP" to "This Machine will Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds." Heehee.

Now I can format the old Linux partition as just another NTFS drive (pathetic, I know) and boot only to Windows XP. It's an absolute shame to take Linux off, but this is my work machine, and Linux isn't really supposed to be on it. Besides, I needed space for all of the personal files that aren't supposed to be on my machine. :)

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SQLDeveloper 1.5.1

It's Rockin' Awesome.

I went to the ODTUG presentations that Sue Harper did on SQLDeveloper and was very impressed with some of the features that I didn't know about and also the stuff that is on its way.

When she showed how to import data from Excel (ok, it is broken in the current patch, but it rocks) and then showed the Normalize feature, I was blown away.

Combine that with the upcoming (unofficial) Data ing tool (which I've been previewing/using in the JDeveloper 11g technical preview), and I'm ready to throw away Designer. No offense, but currently, we use Designer for very little. I've built separate scripts to take care of building audit columns. I need to build a script that will build a Journal table and then I'll be done with Designer forever, since we were really only using it for ing and the auditing/journaling API's that id built.

It also inspired me. Between APEX and SQLDeveloper, there is NO reason to create data and maintain business-critical in Excel. Now, Excel becomes just another output method in my opinion. And Word -- seriously, I'm blown away that anyone would store data in Word. Word is a great Word Processor, not a data storage system.

I love that Code Templates and configurable Tab sizes are available in the newer versions of SQLDeveloper. Those were among my two biggest complaints about a year ago. Petty, I know, but Code Templates are such a huge time-saver. I mean, there are certain things you do as a developer thousands of times in your career. If you hand-type them every time, then you are 1) Dumb, and 2) Going to forget something and build a bug.

Saw a meteor on Sunday

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=3496031

It was way cool.