Stoner's World

I want to read code. I want to test patches. I want to contribute. With all the different source code managers out there, it’s a royal PITA. To illustrate, I need to know rcs, cvs, Subversion, git, Mecurial and Bazaar and that’s just the beginning. Many of the development tools I use only support CVS or Subversion – integrating other SCMs is possible but it usually takes a certain amount of duct tape. Many SCMs have web interfaces that allow you to browse the tree but it’s no substitute for a genuine SCM client.

Trying to remember all the different commands to pull code, generate diffs, push code, branch, rename, log notes, update, etc. across the different SCMs is enough to make you want to pull your hair out at times. What would be a God-send would be a “universal” SCM client that understands the different back-ends, while presenting a unified command set to the user. Such a client should hide all the SCM-specific crud but provide a means to let those who know the ability to use the SCM-specific features when and where they need it.

I was watching a college football game a weekend or two ago when one of the announcers made probably the most revealing statement I’ve ever heard. He said “[university] has a hard time getting good players because their academic standards are so high.” This can only be punctuated with two stories, told to me by the people who were there.

 Story 1

At a University computer testing center, a proctor asked a student, who came in to take a computerized test, for their ID. It’s standard practice. The student pulled out the University magazine, pointed at the cover showing the star basketball center going in for a lay-up and said “that’s me.”

Story 2

An assistant professor was about to hand out the final test for the semester when he noticed someone he’d never seen in class before. “Excuse me, but who are you?” he asked. The student looked up and replied “I’m the nose tackle for the football team,” expecting that his response would be sufficient for anyone around campus. After a few minutes of back-and-forth conversation, the professor handed him a test. Needless to say, the professor was pressured to pass the student, even though he had never attended class and was given special permission to write a paper to “make up” for any missed class work – a paper the professor helped the student to write.

There stories sound made up but they were told to me by the proctor and the assistant professor, not by a second-hand witness. When I heard the 2nd story, I felt cheated. In my view, the value of the education I was sweating and tearing my hair out to pay (to the tune of over $10,000 a year) dropped considerably.

My presentation, entitled “MySQL for non-DBAs” went well…considering the very broad topic and that the laptop I was going to present from decided to have a hissy fit. It was my work-sanctioned XP Pro laptop and the registry decided to corrupt itself, causing it to reboot over and over and over and…. Oh joy! Luckily, the group organizer allowed me to borrow his Mac and since I had the presentation on a USB drive (OpenOffice.org format, of course) we were rockin’ and rollin’ in no time.

I took the “MySQL 5.0 for DBAs” course last year. That was a 5-day course that used over 220+ slides. I compressed over three quarters of that content down to about 40 slides for a 2-hour talk with some live demo work thrown in for good measure. It was a tough presentation to put together given such a large amount of information. I tried to highlight the design, the engines, the commands, etc.. I relied on audience questions to act as tangents to go a bit deeper into specifc areas. Overall, I think it went well.

My presentation is available as PDF and OpenOffice.org and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0. Additionally, the presentation was recorded but I haven’t seen it posted on the NoVaLUG site yet.