Validation and Verification A mystical process known to only a few, practiced by none. In mythology, V&V conquers fear by vanquishing ignorance from the blind and conferring grace on the condemned. The elixir from the secret well of application wisdom, sold only to the gods for the measly price of an eye. Variable: Unknown, as […]

UML: Unified Modeling Language. A cacophony of competing terms. A graphical method for writing code that is, astonishingly, even more cryptic than the code itself. A language in the same sense that hieroglyphics or Meso-American script are languages: difficult to write, impossible to translate, tedious to interpret. Skill requirement for any programming position on any project […]

T-SQL: A programming language consisting entirely of reserved words. A syntactic programming language where semantics are dependent on dataset. The classic practical joke where the con-artist convinces the programmer to think like a DBA. Programming is to T-SQLasMajor League Baseball is to Golf Team The collected members of a sports organization, from owners to managers […]

SAFe: Waterfall. It’s just like agile with not so much agile innit. Sandbox: A programmer’s machine, data, and code. The only place the release candidate works properly on the day it is released. Scaffold: Support structure for certain ropes, familiar to sheriffs and Clint Eastwood wild-west movie-goers. Application structures familiar to the condemned in new-west […]

RDBMS: Relational Database Management System. The pinnacle of engineering in computer systems whereby data structures are held in highest regard while meaning is held in lowest. A way of storing data most efficiently while obscuring meaning equally so. Proof that engineers can destroy in decades what took philosophers millennia to create; of genius without understanding […]