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What to do when ActiveRecord thinks an Oracle key is a decimal

about 2 years ago | Alex Rothenberg: Common Sense Software

I recently created a model for an existing database table using the legacy_data gem and was confused when my primary key showed up in scientific notation. It turned out the issue was due to sloppiness in the table definition and could be easily fixed once I understood what ActiveRecord was doing.

I created a Person model connected to the people table

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
end



but when I went into script/console the primary key showed up as a BigDecimal when I expected an integer.

$ script/console 
Loading development environment (Rails 2.3.4)
>> Person.first.id
=> #



This wasn't what I wanted and would cause problems in my app when it tried to build a url with that id like http://localhost:3000/people/10024844425.0. The rails routing engine would see the .0, treat it as a format (like .xml or .json) and get confused. Let's look at why this is happening.


>> Person.columns_hash['id']
=> #<ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::OracleEnhancedColumn:0x37391c0 @default=nil, @type=:decimal,
   #   @null=true, @name="id", @table_name="people", @scale=nil, @sql_type="NUMBER", @precision=nil,
   #   @primary=true, @forced_column_type=nil, @limit=nil>
>> Person.columns_hash['id'].type
=> :decimal
>> Person.columns_hash['id'].sql_type
=> "NUMBER"

We see that ActiveRecord is treating this column as a :decimal because it's sql_type is NUMBER. It turns out this is correct because an Oracle number is a decimal unless you specify it to have 0 digits after the decimal point (scale of 0). Here's the documentation from Oracle (the last sentence is my bold) 

NUMBER Datatype

The NUMBER datatype stores fixed and floating-point numbers. Numbers of virtually any magnitude can be stored and are
guaranteed portable among different systems operating Oracle, up to 38 digits of precision.

The following numbers can be stored in a NUMBER column:
  * Positive numbers in the range 1 x 10-130 to 9.99...9 x 10125 with up to 38 significant digits
  * Negative numbers from -1 x 10-130 to 9.99...99 x 10125 with up to 38 significant digits
  * Zero
  * Positive and negative infinity (generated only by importing from an Oracle Version 5 database)

For numeric columns, you can specify the column as:
  column_name NUMBER 

Optionally, you can also specify a precision (total number of digits) and scale (number of digits to the right of the decimal point):
  column_name NUMBER (precision, scale) 

If a precision is not specified, the column stores values as given. If no scale is specified, the scale is zero.

Oracle guarantees portability of numbers with a precision equal to or less than 38 digits. You can specify a scale and no precision:
  column_name NUMBER (*, scale) 

In this case, the precision is 38, and the specified scale is maintained.

When you specify numeric fields, it is a good idea to specify the precision and scale. This provides extra integrity checking on input.



Let's look in my database and sure enough the ID is a number

$ sqlplus myusername/mypassword@localhost:1521/mydatabase.world
SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Production on Wed Jan 27 09:15:09 2010
Copyright (c) 1982, 2007, Oracle.  All Rights Reserved.

Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Production
SQL> desc people;
Name        Null?    Type
----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------
ID                   NUMBER
NAME                 VARCHAR2(10)



If you are allowed to change your database you can create a migration like


$ script/generate migration change_person_id_to_integer
STUBBING MckinseyLDAP
      exists  db/migrate
      create  db/migrate/20100127145747_change_person_id_to_integer.rb



now edit the migration

class ChangePersonIdToInteger < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    change_column(:people, :id, :integer)  
  end
  def self.down
    change_column(:people, :id, :decimal)  
  end
end



In my case there were other applications using this table and I was not allowed to change it so I implemented a fix in Ruby to tell my model to treat this column as an integer even though it was defined as a decimal in the database.

#config/initializers/legacy_data_type_coercion.rb
module LegacyDataTypeCoercion
  def set_integer_columns *col_names
    col_names.each do |col_name|
      columns_hash[col_name.to_s].instance_eval do
        @type = :integer
      end
    end
  end
end
ActiveRecord::Base.extend(LegacyDataTypeCoercion)


#app/models/person.rb
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  set_integer_columns :id
end



We defined a method set_integer_columns that will force ActiveRecord to treat the columns we specify as integers. In our Person model we declare :id is an integer column. Let's test it out!

$ script/console 
Loading development environment (Rails 2.3.4)
>> Person.first.id
=> 10024844425
>> Person.columns_hash['id'].type
=> :integer



Just as expected id is now an integer and we can go ahead building the rest of our application.

This is not an issue with all Oracle tables as if the column was defined as NUMBER(10) (with a precision and implicit scale of 0) then ActiveRecord will interpret it as an integer automatically based on the parentheses in the data type - i.e NUMBER(10) ActiveRecord or Oracle Enhanced).

What to do when ActiveRecord thinks an Oracle key is a decimal

about 2 years ago | Alex Rothenberg: Common Sense Software

I recently created a model for an existing database table using the legacy_data gem and was confused when my primary key showed up in scientific notation. It turned out the issue was due to sloppiness in the table definition and could be easily fixed once I understood what ActiveRecord was doing.

I created a Person model connected to the people table

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
end



but when I went into script/console the primary key showed up as a BigDecimal when I expected an integer.

$ script/console 
Loading development environment (Rails 2.3.4)
>> Person.first.id
=> #



This wasn't what I wanted and would cause problems in my app when it tried to build a url with that id like http://localhost:3000/people/10024844425.0. The rails routing engine would see the .0, treat it as a format (like .xml or .json) and get confused. Let's look at why this is happening.


>> Person.columns_hash['id']
=> #<ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::OracleEnhancedColumn:0x37391c0 @default=nil, @type=:decimal,
   #   @null=true, @name="id", @table_name="people", @scale=nil, @sql_type="NUMBER", @precision=nil,
   #   @primary=true, @forced_column_type=nil, @limit=nil>
>> Person.columns_hash['id'].type
=> :decimal
>> Person.columns_hash['id'].sql_type
=> "NUMBER"

We see that ActiveRecord is treating this column as a :decimal because it's sql_type is NUMBER. It turns out this is correct because an Oracle number is a decimal unless you specify it to have 0 digits after the decimal point (scale of 0). Here's the documentation from Oracle (the last sentence is my bold) 

NUMBER Datatype

The NUMBER datatype stores fixed and floating-point numbers. Numbers of virtually any magnitude can be stored and are
guaranteed portable among different systems operating Oracle, up to 38 digits of precision.

The following numbers can be stored in a NUMBER column:
  * Positive numbers in the range 1 x 10-130 to 9.99...9 x 10125 with up to 38 significant digits
  * Negative numbers from -1 x 10-130 to 9.99...99 x 10125 with up to 38 significant digits
  * Zero
  * Positive and negative infinity (generated only by importing from an Oracle Version 5 database)

For numeric columns, you can specify the column as:
  column_name NUMBER 

Optionally, you can also specify a precision (total number of digits) and scale (number of digits to the right of the decimal point):
  column_name NUMBER (precision, scale) 

If a precision is not specified, the column stores values as given. If no scale is specified, the scale is zero.

Oracle guarantees portability of numbers with a precision equal to or less than 38 digits. You can specify a scale and no precision:
  column_name NUMBER (*, scale) 

In this case, the precision is 38, and the specified scale is maintained.

When you specify numeric fields, it is a good idea to specify the precision and scale. This provides extra integrity checking on input.



Let's look in my database and sure enough the ID is a number

$ sqlplus myusername/mypassword@localhost:1521/mydatabase.world
SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Production on Wed Jan 27 09:15:09 2010
Copyright (c) 1982, 2007, Oracle.  All Rights Reserved.

Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Production
SQL> desc people;
Name        Null?    Type
----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------
ID                   NUMBER
NAME                 VARCHAR2(10)



If you are allowed to change your database you can create a migration like


$ script/generate migration change_person_id_to_integer
STUBBING MckinseyLDAP
      exists  db/migrate
      create  db/migrate/20100127145747_change_person_id_to_integer.rb



now edit the migration

class ChangePersonIdToInteger < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    change_column(:people, :id, :integer)  
  end
  def self.down
    change_column(:people, :id, :decimal)  
  end
end



In my case there were other applications using this table and I was not allowed to change it so I implemented a fix in Ruby to tell my model to treat this column as an integer even though it was defined as a decimal in the database.

#config/initializers/legacy_data_type_coercion.rb
module LegacyDataTypeCoercion
  def set_integer_columns *col_names
    col_names.each do |col_name|
      columns_hash[col_name.to_s].instance_eval do
        @type = :integer
      end
    end
  end
end
ActiveRecord::Base.extend(LegacyDataTypeCoercion)


#app/models/person.rb
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  set_integer_columns :id
end



We defined a method set_integer_columns that will force ActiveRecord to treat the columns we specify as integers. In our Person model we declare :id is an integer column. Let's test it out!

$ script/console 
Loading development environment (Rails 2.3.4)
>> Person.first.id
=> 10024844425
>> Person.columns_hash['id'].type
=> :integer



Just as expected id is now an integer and we can go ahead building the rest of our application.

This is not an issue with all Oracle tables as if the column was defined as NUMBER(10) (with a precision and implicit scale of 0) then ActiveRecord will interpret it as an integer automatically based on the parentheses in the data type - i.e NUMBER(10) ActiveRecord or Oracle Enhanced).

Five Ways to Guarantee Your Failure as a Web Professional !!

about 2 years ago | Lalita Chandel: My View

I found this interesting !!

http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/five-ways-to-guarantee-your-failure-as-a-web-professional/

Six hat thinking !!

about 2 years ago | Lalita Chandel: My View

The main difficulty of thinking is confusion. We try to do too many things at once and it is really not possible to think in different directions at the same time. Emotions, information, logic, hope and concept all crowd in on us and It is like juggling with too many things at the same time.
After reading Six hat thinking by Edward de Bono, I realized that there is a very simple concept which allows a thinker to do one thing at a time. There are five distinct states in which the brain can be sensitised. In each of these states the brain identifies certain aspects of issues being considered (e.g. emotional view, pessimistic judgement, neutral facts). In order to make it easier to work with these states, the use of coloured hats as metaphors for them is used and putting on any one of these hats defines a certain type of thinking.
The best part of this method is that, we can separate emotion from logic , creativity from information and so on.

Here is a brief description of each of the hats and the thinking processes that they represent :-
1.White (Facts & Information): White is neutral and objective. It is concered with objective facts and figures.
2.Red (Feelings & Emotions): Red suggests anger, rage and emotions. It gives our emotional view.
3.Black (Critical Judgment): Black is sombre and serious. It is cautious and points out the weaknesses in an idea.
4.Yellow (Positive): Yellow is optimistic and covers hope and positive thinking. It is exactly opposite of black hat and looks for the reasons in favour of something.
5.Green (Creativity ): Green indicates new ideas. It is based around the idea of provocation and thinking for the sake of identifying new possibilities.
6.Blue (Control): Blue hat is concerned with control, organization of the thinking process and use of the other hats. This is the hat under which all participants discuss the thinking process.

Completed Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2010 !!

about 2 years ago | Bhargav Gandhi: AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Today, I completed my first Marathon :). It was a great run of 21 kms covering the new Bandra-Worli sea link. Here is the route map.

Freezing a gem that has native extensions

about 2 years ago | Alex Rothenberg: Common Sense Software

I like to freeze all the gems I use as we run in a shared hosting environment and need to our apps isolated from each other. Deployments are also handled by an operational team that does not intimately understand our applications so keeping our deployments to a single capistrano command cap deploy:migrations has been a big win for us. Freezing most gems is pretty straightforward and has been built in since Rails 2.1. When dealing with a gem that requires native extensions to be built there's only one additional step to add to your Capfil.

Let's say we want to localize hpricot which does include native C extensions.

First tell Rails about your gem by adding a config.gem line to your environment.rb


Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
  ...
  config.gem 'hpricot'
  ...
end



Now we can ask rails about its configured gems


  $ rake gems
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
   - [I] hpricot 

   I = Installed
   F = Frozen
   R = Framework (loaded before rails starts)



The 'I' means its hpricot is installed on my system but not frozen in the application. If you see '[]' instead you need to run sudo gem install hpricot (add '--source http://gemcutter.org' if necessary). At this point you could write some code to use hpricot and your application will work. But if hpricot (or the version you're expecting) is not installed on your production server you'll be in trouble.

To freeze the gem into your vendor directory run rake gems:unpack (optionally you can add 'GEM=hpricot' if you just want to unpack one gem).


  $ rake gems:unpack 
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
  Unpacked gem: '/Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project/vendor/gems/hpricot-0.8.2'



We can ask rails again...


  $ rake gems
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
  The following gems have native components that need to be built
    hpricot  

  You're running:
    ruby 1.8.6.287 at /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby
    rubygems 1.3.2 at /Users/alexrothenberg/.gem/ruby/1.8, /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8, /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8

  Run `rake gems:build` to build the unbuilt gems.



Oops our vendored gem is missing hasn't built the native extensions. Not to worry the message tells us what to do and we run rake gems:build


  $ rake gems:build
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
  Built gem: '/Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/mars-admin/vendor/gems/hpricot-0.8.2'
  alex-rothenbergs:mars-admin alexrothenberg$ rake gems
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
   - [F] hpricot 

  I = Installed
  F = Frozen
  R = Framework (loaded before rails starts)



We can ask rails again to see that the gem is now frozen and also look in our vendor folder


  $ rake gems
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
   - [F] hpricot 

  I = Installed
  F = Frozen
  R = Framework (loaded before rails starts)
  
  $ ls vendor/gems/hpricot-0.8.2/
  total 72
  -rw-r--r--   1 alexrothenberg  staff  4672 Jan 13 12:33 CHANGELOG
  -rw-r--r--   1 alexrothenberg  staff  1048 Jan 13 12:33 COPYING
  -rw-r--r--   1 alexrothenberg  staff  9216 Jan 13 12:33 README
  -rw-r--r--   1 alexrothenberg  staff  8242 Jan 13 12:33 Rakefile
  drwxr-xr-x   4 alexrothenberg  staff   136 Jan 13 12:33 ext/
  drwxr-xr-x   3 alexrothenberg  staff   102 Jan 13 12:33 extras/
  drwxr-xr-x   6 alexrothenberg  staff   204 Jan 13 12:39 lib/
  drwxr-xr-x  11 alexrothenberg  staff   374 Jan 13 12:33 test/



Everything looks good and you can check this into git and now have a frozen version of the hpricot gem stored with your application.
But if we stop here, when we deploy to our production server we'd be using the native extensions we built on your laptop which may not work on the server if you have one is 32bit and the other 64bit or you have different OS libraries installed or any number of other reasons.

To be safe, we need to rebuild the native extensions on the server when we deploy. This is not as hard as it sounds as rails gave us the rake task rake gems:build. We can ask capistrano to run that command on the server by adding the following to your Capfile.


after "deploy:finalize_update" do
  # build the native extensions for hpricot gem
  run "cd #{release_path} && #{rake} RAILS_ENV=#{rails_env} gems:build GEM=hpricot"
end



Now when capistrano deploys in with all the other messages you'll see something like


  ...
  * executing "cd /opt/apps/my_project/releases/20100108185109 && rake RAILS_ENV=production gems:build"
     servers: ["your.server.com"]
     [your.server.com] executing command
  ** [out :: your.server.com] (in /opt/apps/my_project/releases/20100108185109)
  ** [out :: your.server.com] Built gem: '/opt/apps/my_project/releases/20100108185109/vendor/gems/hpricot-0.8.2'
     command finished
  ...



So rails give us a few simple patterns to follow to freeze our gems in the vendor folder and with a few lines in you Capfile you can use this pattern to vendor a gem with native extensions.

Freezing a gem that has native extensions

about 2 years ago | Alex Rothenberg: Common Sense Software

I like to freeze all the gems I use as we run in a shared hosting environment and need to our apps isolated from each other. Deployments are also handled by an operational team that does not intimately understand our applications so keeping our deployments to a single capistrano command cap deploy:migrations has been a big win for us. Freezing most gems is pretty straightforward and has been built in since Rails 2.1. When dealing with a gem that requires native extensions to be built there's only one additional step to add to your Capfil.

Let's say we want to localize hpricot which does include native C extensions.

First tell Rails about your gem by adding a config.gem line to your environment.rb


Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
  ...
  config.gem 'hpricot'
  ...
end



Now we can ask rails about its configured gems


  $ rake gems
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
   - [I] hpricot 

   I = Installed
   F = Frozen
   R = Framework (loaded before rails starts)



The 'I' means its hpricot is installed on my system but not frozen in the application. If you see '[]' instead you need to run sudo gem install hpricot (add '--source http://gemcutter.org' if necessary). At this point you could write some code to use hpricot and your application will work. But if hpricot (or the version you're expecting) is not installed on your production server you'll be in trouble.

To freeze the gem into your vendor directory run rake gems:unpack (optionally you can add 'GEM=hpricot' if you just want to unpack one gem).


  $ rake gems:unpack 
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
  Unpacked gem: '/Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project/vendor/gems/hpricot-0.8.2'



We can ask rails again...


  $ rake gems
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
  The following gems have native components that need to be built
    hpricot  

  You're running:
    ruby 1.8.6.287 at /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby
    rubygems 1.3.2 at /Users/alexrothenberg/.gem/ruby/1.8, /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8, /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8

  Run `rake gems:build` to build the unbuilt gems.



Oops our vendored gem is missing hasn't built the native extensions. Not to worry the message tells us what to do and we run rake gems:build


  $ rake gems:build
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
  Built gem: '/Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/mars-admin/vendor/gems/hpricot-0.8.2'
  alex-rothenbergs:mars-admin alexrothenberg$ rake gems
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
   - [F] hpricot 

  I = Installed
  F = Frozen
  R = Framework (loaded before rails starts)



We can ask rails again to see that the gem is now frozen and also look in our vendor folder


  $ rake gems
  (in /Users/alexrothenberg/ruby/my_project)
   - [F] hpricot 

  I = Installed
  F = Frozen
  R = Framework (loaded before rails starts)
  
  $ ls vendor/gems/hpricot-0.8.2/
  total 72
  -rw-r--r--   1 alexrothenberg  staff  4672 Jan 13 12:33 CHANGELOG
  -rw-r--r--   1 alexrothenberg  staff  1048 Jan 13 12:33 COPYING
  -rw-r--r--   1 alexrothenberg  staff  9216 Jan 13 12:33 README
  -rw-r--r--   1 alexrothenberg  staff  8242 Jan 13 12:33 Rakefile
  drwxr-xr-x   4 alexrothenberg  staff   136 Jan 13 12:33 ext/
  drwxr-xr-x   3 alexrothenberg  staff   102 Jan 13 12:33 extras/
  drwxr-xr-x   6 alexrothenberg  staff   204 Jan 13 12:39 lib/
  drwxr-xr-x  11 alexrothenberg  staff   374 Jan 13 12:33 test/



Everything looks good and you can check this into git and now have a frozen version of the hpricot gem stored with your application.
But if we stop here, when we deploy to our production server we'd be using the native extensions we built on your laptop which may not work on the server if you have one is 32bit and the other 64bit or you have different OS libraries installed or any number of other reasons.

To be safe, we need to rebuild the native extensions on the server when we deploy. This is not as hard as it sounds as rails gave us the rake task rake gems:build. We can ask capistrano to run that command on the server by adding the following to your Capfile.


after "deploy:finalize_update" do
  # build the native extensions for hpricot gem
  run "cd #{release_path} && #{rake} RAILS_ENV=#{rails_env} gems:build GEM=hpricot"
end



Now when capistrano deploys in with all the other messages you'll see something like


  ...
  * executing "cd /opt/apps/my_project/releases/20100108185109 && rake RAILS_ENV=production gems:build"
     servers: ["your.server.com"]
     [your.server.com] executing command
  ** [out :: your.server.com] (in /opt/apps/my_project/releases/20100108185109)
  ** [out :: your.server.com] Built gem: '/opt/apps/my_project/releases/20100108185109/vendor/gems/hpricot-0.8.2'
     command finished
  ...



So rails give us a few simple patterns to follow to freeze our gems in the vendor folder and with a few lines in you Capfile you can use this pattern to vendor a gem with native extensions.

30 must have RSS feed for web designers and developers

about 2 years ago | Lalita Chandel: My View


http://www.webdeveloperjuice.com/2010/01/09/30-must-have-rss-feed-for-web-designers-and-developers-opml-file/

Truncate string in ruby

about 2 years ago | Gourav Tiwari: easy_software = Agile.find(ruby_on_rails)

I was looking for a ruby method in my Ruby on Rails project which can truncate a string, say after 50 characters.

I found 'truncate' method, which is a rails api method for truncating string in views.
So if have string
str = "Hi, this is Gourav Tiwari, how are you??" # total 40 characters
the truncate method can be used in the ciew like this:
truncate(str, :length => 25, :ommision => " - - -")
and the result would be :
"Hi, this is Gourav Tiwari, - - -"

In ruby I can accomplish same by slice and concatenation:
myproject>ruby script\console
>> str = "Hi, this is Gourav Tiwari, how are you??"
=> "Hi, this is Gourav Tiwari, how are you??"
>> str.slice(0..25)
=> "Hi, this is Gourav Tiwari,"
>> str.slice(0..25) + " - - -"
=> "Hi, this is Gourav Tiwari, - - -"

Very simple!

Fixing invisible pages in JQGrid

about 2 years ago | Gourav Tiwari: easy_software = Agile.find(ruby_on_rails)

Playing more on JQgrid plugin from 2dconcept, I faced a strange issue. Sometimes it skips some pages.

For example if you have total 15 pages, and you navigate till 6th page and then you hit next page button on the grid, it will not show you the 7th page! you have to click next page button once more to see the 8th page. So where the 7th page is gone?

No, it's not invisible, it's all hidden in json response.

When I saw the response for page 7 (using firbug), it was coming well, but the grid was not showing the 7th page at all. I dug into the library file more and figured out that, if in the response you have a double quote, it will not display that page.

Say you have this json response:
{"page":"1","total":1,"records":"1","rows":[{"id":"7","cell":["gourav tiwari hel"lo!","this","should","be right!"]}]}
 
See the double quote in the response.
 
I tried using to_json library method, but it actually removes all the double quotes, even the necessary ones as well. So not a good idea. I extended to_jqgrid_json method like this:
module JqgridJson
def to_jqgrid_json(attributes, current_page, per_page, total)
json = %Q({"page":"#{current_page}","total":#{total/per_page.to_i+1},"records":"#{total}")
if total > 0
json << %Q(,"rows":[)
each do |elem|
elem.id ||= index(elem)
json << %Q({"id":"#{elem.id}","cell":[)
couples = elem.attributes.symbolize_keys
attributes.each do |atr|
value = get_atr_value(elem, atr, couples)
value = value.is_a?(String) ? value.gsub(/"/, '\"') : value # added this line
json << %Q("#{value}",)
end
json.chop! << "]},"
end
json.chop! << "]}"
else
json << "}"
end
end
end
And the response become this:
{"page":"1","total":1,"records":"1","rows":[{"id":"7","cell":["gourav tiwari hel\"lo!","this","should","be right!"]}]}
 
No invisible page in JQGrid anymore!

Pomodoro

about 2 years ago | Riju Kansal: Riju's Thoughts Captured...

I just started using a useful time management technique and would like to record some details about the same for sharing and future reference.

The Pomodoro Technique™ is a way to get the most out of time management. Turn time into a valuable ally to accomplish what we want to do and chart continuous improvement in the way we do it.

The basic unit of work in the Pomodoro Technique™ can be split in five simple steps:

  1. Choose a task to be accomplished
  2. Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer)
  3. Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper
  4. Take a short break (5 minutes is OK)
  5. Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break

http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/resources.html

Try it!!!

Lean principles

about 2 years ago | Riju Kansal: Riju's Thoughts Captured...

While going thru a book on Lean Principles by Mary & Tom Poppendieck, I want to preserve quick notes, which form the essence of the lean approach to software development.

1. Eliminate waste - Whatever gets in the way of rapidly satisfying a customer need is waste
2. Amplify Learning - Encourage learning and discovery instead of first time perfect approach.
3. Decide as late as possible - In an evolving market, keeping design options open is more valuable than committing early.
4. Deliver as fast as possible - Design, implement, feedback, improve. The shorter these cycles are, the more can be learned.
5. Empower the team - Involving developers in the details of technical decisions is fundamental to achieving excellence.
6. Build integrity in - integrity comes from wise leadership, relevant expertise, effective communication, and healthy discipline; processes, procedures, and measurements are not adequate substitutes.
7. See the whole - When individuals or organizations are measured on their specialized contribution rather than overall performance, suboptimization is likely to result.

Reference: http://www.poppendieck.com/ld.htm