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Sentient Data: The Notion of Location
I was drawn to the article “Sentient Data” (George W. Fitzmaurice, Azam Khan, William Buxton, Gordon Kurtenbach, and Ravin Balakrishnan, ACM Queue 1(8), November 2003), which I found very much in tune with the approach I took while the technical architect for a new “multifaceted data” infrastructure product developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).
Regarding standardization and databases that can handle the complexities of multifaceted data, one of the key goals is to look at digital data handling on a grand scale. The old concept of “the network is the system” is being replaced by “the DATA is the system,” which will force the industry from process-centric systems to data-centric systems.
A data-centric approach can make fluid standards and complex data management issues “virtually” disappear by embedding those details as meta-data inside the data “object” with an object-oriented approach. The data repository stores ALL renditions of the data under a single, globally unique tag that gets passed around for storage, presentation, and maintenance. Applications receive the tag and pass it to the repository along with a set of “rendition hints.”
Predicting a representation and having the user select a different presentation are also easily handled with this data-centric approach.
Randy Senske, Ontario, Canada
AZAM KHAN RESPONDS: Thanks for the great response, Mr. Senske. I’m glad you enjoyed the article. The spin we would really like to add to meta-data efforts is the notion of “location.” We feel that the location of the terminal, as well as the spatial relationships between multiple terminals in proximity to the container, sets an important part of the context that should be factored into the rendition algorithm. In this way, the data-centric approach will hopefully become location-aware, giving us the so-called “sentient data access” functionality that we would like to see evolve with advanced data retrieval systems.
Stand-Up Meetings Really Suck
I very much enjoyed Phillip A. Laplante’s article, “Stand and Deliver: Why I Hate Stand-Up Meetings” (ACM Queue 1(7), October 2003).
I endured stand-up meetings (XP) for a year and found them almost unbearable. I could not place my finger on why I found them so distressful, but somehow I felt disrespected. This is an honest account of what happened in our stand-up meetings:
To make things “fun” we tossed a ball. The holder of the ball followed an outline posted on butcher paper on the wall: What I did yesterday, what I’ll do today, issues, and “pair up!!!”
Group members were often painfully embarrassed in a very public way, either for underestimating a task or quite literally dropping the ball that was tossed around. No one admitted to discomfort because nonconformance to extreme programming (XP) as “the way” was frowned upon.
This only touches on the dehumanizing nature of XP. There are many other facets of XP, such as pair programming and no code ownership (no individual credit)—and its underlying religious tones that make it a living hell. Happily for me, I have found my way into another group.
I want to thank you, wholeheartedly, for pointing out the bad aspects of stand-up meetings. Now I attend regular meetings and feel much better about my job, my coworkers, and myself. Unfortunately I carry quite a bit of bitterness regarding the ordeal . . . and some fear that I’ll end up in another freakish XP sweatshop.
Taylor Cowan, Texas
PHILLIP LAPLANTE RESPONDS: Thanks for your feedback on my article. I thought (was hoping) that it would elicit some experiences (both good and bad).
While I believe that there are some valuable aspects of XP (and agile methodologies in general), I usually view them as simply organized chaos. I actually have drafts of opinion pieces on “why I hate pair programming,” “why I hate coding standards,” and “why I hate collective code ownership.” I am holding them back for now because I don’t want to be regarded as a “naysayer.”
Errata: The Game of Life
The November issue of Queue contains an error in a book review on Ellen Ullman’s The Bug (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2003). The Game of Life was in fact invented by John Horton Conway.
We edit letters for content, style, and length.
Originally published in Queue vol. 1, no. 10—
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