Speeding up queries by a factor of 1...

During a recent Rails project at IBM we had to deal with a large table consisting of customers. The table is made up of legacy enterprise data, and contains close to a million records. Among many other...

The need for good vocational schools...

A rigorous computer science education is certainly beneficial to programmers. It provides you with the ability to see the bigger picture, and a more in-depth understanding of many topics that will ultimately...

Programming in Objective-C, 3rd Edit...

Addison-Wesley quietly released the third edition of their Programming in Objective-C book (USA | UK | Canada). I own the first edition of the book and it’s stellar, so I’m really looking forward...

jQuery Air: An outstanding introduct...

Code School is a fascinating new provider of video lessons for programmers. In the past I reviewed their Rails Best Practices course and certainly didn’t hide the fact that I’m a fan of their approach. It...

IBM is Looking for a University Stud...

My team is looking for a student for a paid internship, which will last for up to 18 months. The candidate should be legally permitted to work in Canada, as the location for this internship will be the IBM...

10 Ruby One Liners to Impress Your F...

Someone came up with a list of 10 one-liner examples that are meant to showcase Scala’s expressiveness. A CoffeeScript version quickly emerged, so I thought I’d publish a Ruby one. I find Ruby’s syntax...

Interview with the Compilr.com team

1. For those who don’t know, what is an online compiler and how did you come up with the idea? An online compiler, or online IDE is a full software development environment on the web. This allows us...

The Great Web-Reality Divide

A couple years ago Tim O’Reilly invited a Web 2.0 expo audience to “stop throwing sheep” and start doing something worthwhile. More recently, a post with the title America Lacks Meaningful Innovation...

Installing Python, Django, and DB2 o...

Note: This is the Python version of the Ruby guide I just published. In this brief tutorial I’ll show you how to create a complete Python and Django setup for DB2 on Ubuntu. By following my step-by-step...

Installing Ruby on Rails and DB2 on ...

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create a complete Ruby on Rails setup for DB2 on Ubuntu. Following my step-by-step instructions, you’ll be able to install the following components: Ruby...

Download DB2 Express-C 9.7.4

Last week IBM released DB2 Express-C 9.7.4. This new version of the free flagship database by IBM mostly focuses on enhancements rather than new features, as you can read in this developerWorks article by my...

Google I/O developer event in Waterl...

I just received an email from one of my contacts at Google in regards to an upcoming Google I/O conference in Waterloo, Ontario. I’m posting their announcement here in case you are in the area on May 10,...