I finally hashed out the design of my database. I had to read and reread examples of the database normal forms 1NF to 3NF to try to make sense of what my data should look like, and then I sketched out all the tables. I fired up my SQL Pro for Mac and by right-clicking … Continue reading “Progressing… slowly”
Author: Ri

Doomed!
Recently I began noticing ants around the house. I don’t generally mind ants, as long as they don’t move around in numbers, but they found a dusbin, and the meagre treasure quickly caused a little black river to form across my clean floor. Soon they were inspecting all the clean surfaces and even the fridge. … Continue reading “Doomed!”

Quanta
A colleague forwarded me an article that is waaaayyyy above my pay grade – mental ability to comprehend – but it is fascinating nonetheless. It describes how quantum error-correcting codes can protect against the fragility of quantum states in computing. Here is the article: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-space-and-time-could-be-a-quantum-error-correcting-code-20190103/ I haven’t really thought about quantum physics much, because it … Continue reading “Quanta”
Adventure Riding
I am not a tall person. I am reconciled to this fact, and it never really bothered me much… until I decided to learn motorbike riding. Not just any motorbike riding either, but adventure riding, which takes you off-road onto surfaces varying from gravel highways to little twee-spoor tracks littered with loose rocks, pebbles and … Continue reading “Adventure Riding”
Progressing… not so much
My app was never a racehorse jumping out of the starting box, and the trend continues. I’ve been thinking about the app – what I want to do next, how I want to do it, and then I didn’t do it. Times are slow at work as we ramp down for the holidays, which gives … Continue reading “Progressing… not so much”
Influence
I subscribe to a few tech-related newsletters, and I found this interesting article discussing Instagram “influencers” and sponsored content in one of them: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/influencers-are-faking-brand-deals/578401/ Someone once said something to the effect of, if you’re not paying for a product, you are the product. YouTube, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter… social apps are free because they … Continue reading “Influence”
Agility
Let me make this clear: I am not an agile fan. I heard the murmurs when it started many years ago, and kept a watch on it. It sounded like a pipe dream: more collaboration, shorter development cycles, writing mo’ faster code mo’ better with less bugs, effortlessly changing the software as new requirements emerge. In … Continue reading “Agility”

Time to App
Whenever someone hears that you’re an app developer, they say things like “You should write an app!” To which I usually reply “It’s all been done before.” Let’s face it, the Flappy Bird-phenomenon was a fluke, the kind I’m unlikely to chance upon. Even though I knew all the apps had been written, albeit some … Continue reading “Time to App”

Hello world!
When encountering a new language, the first thing a developer learns is how to print “Hello world” to whatever output is available, and so it is a fitting title for my first post. I have learnt to display “Hello world” in C, C++, Java, Delphi, C#, Objective-C and, lately, Swift. Some have been more complex … Continue reading “Hello world!”