March 2007 Entries
As I have posted before, I am converting some applications from Oracle to MySQL at work. MySQL's price tag of $5K per server won out over Oracle's price tage of $70K+ per server. The conversion is tough. I am having a difficult time getting used to MySQL's exception handling. To make matters worse, the Oracle code that I am converting is extensively filled with dbms_output( ) calls that are used for debugging. And I have become far too dependent on the ability to step through and debug a stored procedure...
So Delphi didn't die after all...I guess that depends on what your definition of death is. Remember a couple of years ago, Borland and Delphi were essentially dead. Here is the play-by-play in case you missed it. Borland released a DotNet version of Delphi, which used Microsoft's Dotnet compiler behind the scenes. It tanked. Droves of developers moved to Visual Studio. Delphi developers screamed for an update to Delphi for Win32 instead and were very upset when they did not get it. Borland shipped...
As I have mentioned before, we are moving new development from Oracle to MySQL. Pretty much a no brainer. Two database instances at $5K per server for MySQL vs. around $100K for the same thing with Oracle. Looking at the syntax, it is very similar to SQL Server, both in datatypes and functions. No sequences (autoincrement fields instead), CURDATE() instead of SYSDATE() (obviously)
Sorry, KC. The Pittsburgh Penguins will not be coming to your town. They have reached a deal with the state of Pennsylvania to keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh: http://msn.foxsports.com/nh... Personally, I think that they should have moved to Winnipeg...Right Darcy?
I recently did a research paper for an MBA class on pay compression. Pay compression happens when someone is hired for a job and they don't move forward very fast in pay. Most of the peers in the department gravitate to about the same pay range relatively quickly. Meanwhile, the market is moving up and down. When someone new is hired, to be competitive the company may need to bring the new person in at a rate that may be higher than what most of the current staff is currently making. Most companies...
How do you introduce yourself when you are talking to someone? Most people say "I am a ...", then state their job title, "...at XYZ Company". But does that really define who you are? It is said that most people make a decisive first impression of you within 1 minute (some say as little as 30 seconds). It is based on your looks, dress, and exactly how you define yourself, with the "I am a.." statements above. It is even funny that people even do this at non-techie functions, like at church or family...