For Data Reporting, Keep Reliable URLs

It would be really nice if governments that are trying to be transparent by reporting stats publicly on a website would stop changing their entire URL scheme every week. It is hard to track things down and even the search engines aren’t keeping up very well.

JSON and YAML: Not a pair that fits every foot (but XML sucks)

It is good to reflect on exactly how hard a problem it is to define a consistent cross-platform data representation. Most of the time (especially on the web) we just shovel data around, let things be inconsistent, avoid conflicts by pretending they don’t happen, and carry a general disregard to data consistently. This attitude is, […]

Object-Relation Mismatch: Comparing Strawberries and Sunglasses

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately writing a rather large suite of business applications. The original customer was a construction company which needed a replacement for their estimation system. Then the same customer needed a facility pass management system to make the insane amount of bit-shoveling/paperwork involved in getting security clearances for workers […]