Tag Archives: Software Sagacity

Database Design Principles – Part 1 of 5: Eliminate Repeating Groups

May 6, 2014 Andrew Palczewski 1 Comment

With the large number of software applications in the wild, from desktop, to web, to mobile, the vast majority employ some form of database. As development teams get smaller and consist of fewer seasoned professionals, the databases that run these applications are often poorly designed, inflexible, and difficult to scale. By following a few core principles of database design, however, many of these databases could be substantially improved. The first and foremost rule of good database design: eliminate repeating groups.
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C#.NET – A Case for Macros

April 30, 2014 Andrew Palczewski Leave a comment

Macros are one of the most notable C/C++ features that went missing from C#. With programming experts forever in debate on whether macros enhance or detract from a programming language, and many run-of-the-mill developers ignoring the feature entirely, the .NET team chose to keep them out of the C# spec. Still, the language might be enhanced with macro integration in a future release of the framework.
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Can User Interface Design Make the World a Better Place?

April 25, 2014 Andrew Palczewski 1 Comment

When building custom software, a user interface designer will progress through several levels of skill development. Similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, each lower level must be fulfilled before a designer can progress to the next plateau. The question is – where does the pyramid end, and where is it right to draw the line as to the responsibility of the UI designer?
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The Fallacy of Automatic User Interfaces – Why Design Matters

April 24, 2014 Andrew Palczewski 2 Comments

Reading the recent TOCHI (Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction), a group of researchers developed yet another automatic user-interface generation tool, this time for the smart computing space. Reasoning that there will soon be an explosion of software in the “Internet of things,” these brave souls ventured to create a “one size fits all” approach to the controllers, so that User Interface designers would no longer have to be a part of the development team.
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PowerShell – Will It Be The End of VBScript?

April 21, 2014 Andrew Palczewski 1 Comment

With the growing popularity of Microsoft PowerShell – the new batch scripting language from Microsoft, it seems that VBScript was dealt yet another blow in one of it’s last vanguards, the server admin scripting space.
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Four software lessons from the notorious Robert d’Artois

April 15, 2014 Andrew Palczewski 2 Comments

The notoriously successful political schemer of 14th century France has, for most Americans, been reduced to the distant annals of history, visited tepidly by liberal arts grad students. Yet with the recent remake of the Maurice Druon’s Accursed Kings series, his vivid tale is brought back to life. In between the pages and stories of murdered kings, sex, and violence, lies a bounty of wisdom for software developers.
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