Software Engineering for Internet Applications - Student Community

Decision-makers often bring senior engineers with them to attendpresentations and these folks can get stuck on personal leitmotifs.Suppose Joe Panelist chose to build his last project by generatingXML from the database and then turning that into HTML via someexpensive industry-leading middleware and XSLT, plus lots of Javaand Enterprise Java Beans. This approach probably consumes 100times more server resources than using Microsoft Visual Basic inActive Server Pages or a Perl script from 1993 but it is arguablycleaner and more modern. After a 12-minute presentation nobodycould have learned enough to say for sure that a project would havebenefited from the XML/XSLT approach but out he comes with thechallenge. You could call him a pinhead because he doesn't knowenough about your client and the original goals, e.g., not having tobuy a 100-CPU server farm to support a small community. You coulddemonstrate that he is a pinhead by pointing out large and successfulapplications that use a similar architecture to what you've chosen.But as a junior engineer these probably aren't the best ways tohandle unfair or incorrect criticism from a senior engineer at ameeting, especially if that person has been brought along by thedecision-maker. It is much better to flatter this person by asking themto schedule a 30-minute meeting where you can really discuss theissue. Use that 30-minute meeting to show why you designed thething the way that you did initially. You might turn the senior engineeraround to your way of thinking. At the very least you won't be arguingin front of the decision-maker or appearing to bearrogant/overconfident.17.9 To the PanelistsImagine that each student team was hired by your predecessor.You're trying to figure out what they did, whether to fund the nextversion, and, if so, whether this is the right team to build and launchthat next version.As a presentation proceeds, write down numerical scores (1-10) forhow well a team has done at the following:304• This team has communicated clearly what problem they'vesolved.• The demo gave me a good feeling for how the systemworks.• This team has done an impressive job tackling engineeringchallenges.• This team has documented their system clearly andthoroughly.• use a select ... group by ... query JOINing with stock_pricesto produce a report of symbols and total value held persymbol• use a select ... group by ... having ... query to produce areport of symbols, total shares held, and total value held persymbol restricted to symbols in which you have at least twoblocks of shares (i.e., the "winners")DB Exercise 7: Encapsulate Your Queries with a ViewUsing the final query above, create a view called stocks_i_like thatencapsulates the final query.More• on HTTP: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/• on HTML: the HTML reference chapter of this book• on ASP.NET: Stephen Walther's ASP.NET Unleashed• on the Oracle RDBMS: a very helpful hardcopy book isKevin Loney's Oracle XX: The Complete Reference fromOracle Press, where "XX" is whatever the latest version ofOracle is. At press time Oracle 9i: The Complete Referenceis available and Oracle 10g: The Complete Reference canbe preordered.Problem Set Supplements• for people using Microsoft .NET:http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/examples-basics/dot-netexamples/• for people using Java:http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/examples-basics/javaexamples/• refer to the online version of this chapter periodically to findnew supplements: http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/basicsTime and MotionThe luckiest students spend only two hours setting up their RDBMSand development environment. An average student who makesreasonable technology choices can expect to spend a day or twogetting things connected properly. Some students who are unluckywith sysadmin, hardware, or who are not resourceful with Internetand face-to-face sources of help can spend many days without45