Columns: Dev How-To and Advice


Understanding analytic applications

The term ''analytic application'' has emerged as an important new business intelligence trend. Yet many business intelligence professionals wonder if this term truly signifies something new, or whether it simply repackages existing analytic technologies and processes under a new banner.

How does your AD effort measure up?

With proper practices in place, taking on new technology will be less of a crazy adventure. CMM and function points may help, but those are just some of the many varied means. The important thing is to take the time to know the development organization as best as one can, while still getting the work done to spec on time.

Managing teams

How do you build and manage great teams?

Editorial: Volume 1, number 1

Editor-in-Chief Mike Bucken provides some impartial insight into the value of data warehouse systems and the tools and technologies used to build, implement and maintain them.

The testing challenge continues

Software testing champions quietly acknowledge that some organizations have yet to accept the need for automated software testing, and are expressing hope that an emerging transformation of the testing process will bring more developers into the fold.

Serenity through markup

Markup systems have enjoyed the sort of large-scale successes and longevity of deployments that have often eluded mainstream code.

Whither CORBA?

Now that a new silver bullet has appeared on the scene -- XML and its Web services cousin -- what's to become of CORBA?

Easy money?

Yesterday, the money went into stocks; today, it's housing. The same is true in IT organizations. Yesterday, ''strategic investments,'' like ERP, CRM, e-business transformation, knowledge management or zero latency were often green-lighted. Today, the conventional wisdom is that software projects must demonstrate tangible ROI. But how true is that?

Web services in harmony

Developers will deliver new applications rapidly by using composite applications and orchestrations.

Taming spreadsheet jockeys

The health of a data warehousing environment is inversely proportional to the number of spreadsheets used as data marts in the organization.

The Microsoft/IBM axis

Through the Web services series of specifications, Microsoft and IBM are working together to create the standards for communication that we need. These specifications are the future of Web services.

The key to knowledge management

Today's tremendous desire to improve and maintain an organization's intellectual capital has triggered a field of study and class of vendor applications that we refer to as knowledge management.

Architecture, planning and design

I've recently seen developers confuse the activities they are doing with those that are needed. This leads to frustration, unsuccessful projects and an inability to help IT add value to the business. Most of the confusion seems to come from a fuzzy understanding of the differences between architecture, planning and design. In particular, developers may confuse architecture with design.

Keeping Web services on the straight and narrow

Can the Web services promise meet long-term reality, or will it eventually go the way of proprietary minicomputers, client/server systems and computer-aided software engineering?

To buy or not to buy a repository

This article addresses the four essential questions that will guide you through your build vs. buy decision.

Analytics: Hang the imposter!

People want to replace the term business intelligence with "enterprise analytics." I don't buy it. At least, not yet.

The many heads of XML modeling

XML initiatives, including Web services, have much to gain by associating themselves with efforts such as the OMG's MDA.

ADT's Programmers Report: Grab hold of the snake

Dan Romanschik reviews "Python Web Programming" by Steve Holden (with David Beazley).