Strategic Developer

10 practices of highly ineffective software developers

Some are bad habits to overcome; some are poor decisions forced by managers who don't know what they're doing. Read 'em ... and weep

By Andrew C. Oliver

Aug 9, 2012 7 mins

Software Development

Programming languages even a business analyst can use

In plain English, domain-specific languages let users define business rules and help ensure applications do what they're supposed to

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jul 26, 2012 5 mins

Software Development

Fire up a workflow engine to improve software development

Workflow engines help ensure enterprise application development stays on track -- if you know how to use them

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jul 19, 2012 3 mins

Development Tools Java Open Source

Welcome to the programming language explosion

The days of Java and .Net dominance are over. Let a thousand languages bloom and cross-pollinate

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jul 12, 2012 4 mins

Development Tools Java Software Development

Functional programming: A step backward

Functional programming languages will have a place in general application development when we can read their code at a glance

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jul 5, 2012 6 mins

Software Development

The long death of fat clients

Web development and open standards have triumphed, while the JavaFX framework is merely a last gasp

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jun 28, 2012 5 mins

HTML Java JavaScript

Long live SOA in the cloud era

You might not hear much about SOA anymore, but its imperative to make 'everything a service' is more relevant than ever

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jun 21, 2012 5 mins

Cloud Computing Software Development Web Development

Ruby, Clojure, and Ceylon: Same goal, three very different results

Charles Nutter, Rich Hickey, and Gavin King each discovered that 'simplicity' doesn't mean the same thing

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jun 14, 2012 6 mins

Development Tools

The time for NoSQL standards is now

Like Larry Ellison's yacht, the RDBMS is sailing into the sunset. But if NoSQL is to take its place, a standard query language and APIs must emerge soon

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jun 7, 2012 7 mins

Data Management NoSQL Databases

Ruby and the myth of developer productivity

We live in an exciting new world of Web development languages. But pitches selling the productivity benefits of one language over another miss the point

By Andrew C. Oliver

May 31, 2012 4 mins

Java Software Development Web Development