Computer Engineer Barbie

I'm happy about Computer Engineer Barbie. No doll will save the world, but every little bit helps.

It's annoying, though, that some people only see one more opportunity to trot out this classic:

def belittle(geek):
    prejudice = "Well, then, she's not much of a {0}, is she?"
    if geek.is_femme:
        excuse = 'geek'
    else:
        excuse = 'woman'
    return prejudice.format(excuse)

sqlpython 1.7 pre-release

First off: PyCon online registration ends TODAY. Go do it NOW.

I intend to show off sqlpython at PyCon. Version 1.7 works with postgreSQL and MySQL as well as Oracle. (In fact, a single sqlpython session can keep connections to all three types of databases open at once!)

1.7 isn't quite ready for PyPI yet; I've just posted an appeal for sqlpython testing, with instructions for getting the development version, to the sqlpython google group. If you'd like to take the new-and-improved sqlpython for a spin around your databases, I would hugely appreciate it. Anticipate a PyPI release just before PyCon, once the ugliest of the bugs are worked out.

See you in Atlanta!

Hey, Oracle!

You're scaring me!

In the last couple months, we've learned that the new Sun will be going forward without Frank Wierzbicki, the Jython project lead, and now without Ted Leung.

The Oracle Technology Network is working hard to foster dynamic language use with Oracle. It's got publications, PyCon sponsorship, resources, and so forth. OTN delights me.

I'm afraid, though, that the larger Oracle corporation doesn't share OTN's interest. Oracle's absorption of Sun is proceeding without any apparent interest in dynamic languages. Oracle is discarding some of the finest talent it could possibly acquire, people who could have helped bring on a real flowering of dynamic language use in Oracle environments.

I, for one, would have loved to see Jython harnessed on Oracle's many Java-based tools and even the JVM in the Oracle database - imagine the wonders Frank and Ted could have worked with that, had Oracle assigned them to! Instead... there will be nothing Oracle-related from them. Meanwhile, Microsoft funds development of several dynamic languages, including IronPython, which integrate to SQL Server through .NET.

I don't know. I just dread the thought that, five years from now, SQL Server will be the proprietary database of choice for any environment where dynamic languages are used... which will soon be most environments. Oracle, you really want to give this market away?