Expanding Inclusion and Diversity – Better Linking

Posted on April 26, 2021 by way0utwest

I’m a native English writer/speaker. Some might debate how well I really know the language, but I am a native. I wasn’t a good student of languages. I struggled with Spanish I, took 4 years of Japanese in college, and wasn’t sure I really learned a lot.

I tried to learn some Spanish when my wife hired someone who had that as a native language and struggled with English. I didn’t apply myself well and struggled. I also tried some Italian when my boss was learning, but again, continuity was an issue. However, the pandemic changed some of that, as I’ve been working on a streak with Duolingo, back in Japanese and practicing with my son, as well as doing French with my daughter. So far, I’m nearly at a year of some daily practice.

What does this have to do with diversity and inclusion? It has a little to do with it, and a new habit I’m going to try and build.

The other day I saw a tweet from @SQLChick: “I learned something cool! You know how Microsoft Docs are localized? We can tell because it’s in the URL. For me, that path includes “en-us/” and if I remove that, the Docs site adds it back when I visit the page. Removing it is better for link sharing with a global audience.”

That’s a good idea. I’ve known this was the structure for MS Docs, but I hadn’t thought about it.

I hadn’t thought about inclusion here.

I often assume most developers know English, at least from the code standpoints. Most languages are implemented in English, and lots of software doesn’t get translated. However, that is changing, and I know companies are thinking about localizing things more and more.

As they should.

So, my challenge to myself, and you, is to grab links and make them local where possible. As an example, I was looking up this link the other day:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/queries/select-order-by-clause-transact-sql?view=sql-server-ver15

If I remove the “/en-us” part, I get this:

https://docs.microsoft.com/sql/t-sql/queries/select-order-by-clause-transact-sql?view=sql-server-ver15

If I drop that in a new browser, it reverts to the English version, but if someone has their local system set for French, or Japanese, or Spanish, they get that version. The link works for them, rather then dropping into my language.

It’s not necessary, but it’s polite. Something worth doing a bit more of all the time.

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Open APIs

Posted on April 26, 2021 by way0utwest

The US Supreme Court ruling in Oracle v Google was released recently, with Google winning and removing, or reducing, copyright protection for APIs. That means if you use the same method names, parameter names, etc. as some other software, it is unlikely that the vendor for that software can sue you or force you to change. I think that makes sense, as in many cases, someone might accidentally copy an API in something like PowerShell. Already I’ve seen companies and individuals build “Get-ClusterName” calls.

I don’t know all the ins and outs of this case. It’s complex, and I’ve seen some notes that Google had permission from Sun Microsystems to use Java. After Oracle bought Sun, apparently things changed, but I’m not sure how this agreement was structured or the legalities of how things evolved.

In any case, I’m glad Google won. I think the specification of an API isn’t something that should be protected and limited. If a company implements a list of method names and parameters, I don’t feel those deserve protection. The actual code that runs should be protected, but the names in the interface shouldn’t be. This might mean that if I interfaced with, say a piece of retail software that had “GetOrder”, “NewOrder”, etc., and I wanted to switch from vendor A to vendor B, I could without modifying my app.

This prevents lock-in, which isn’t something I want to see enforced in software. In fact, for things like medical software, I’d want the same API for all of them. This is something that I think will encourage interaction of software, and likely reduce costs for many types of COTS systems that allow connections from PowerShell, bash, and other scripting systems. I think this also helps developers that might work across platforms or systems and could use the same code structures to switch from one to the other.

This also means that vendors implementing APIs need to do a good job with their software. They can’t hold customers hostage with their system over the cost of reworking code the connects with their software. I think that pressure to be better, whether in features, security, or maybe in all ways, is important for software to evolve and improve.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

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Daily Coping 26 Apr 2021

Posted on April 26, 2021 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

Today’s tip is to spend less time sitting today. Stand, walk, move more.

I ended last week looking to do some activity. Today, it’s just less sitting.

That’s a challenge for me these days. It shouldn’t be, and I do get some exercise most days, but I find myself sitting for long stretches. I raise my standing desk less often, mostly because I think I’m a bit worn out from life.

However, I’m making a small effort today. I’m taking more breaks and walking to the kitchen, upstairs, doing a touch more movement in the house. I am also trying to find a few minutes here and there to avoid sitting, and standing while in a meeting or watching some video content from our various updates.

I know sitting isn’t great, but with life beating me down, I just want to sit. I don’t know I’ll change much, but I am making a bit more effort to try and get above 1000 steps by the end of the workday if I haven’t gone anywhere.

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Mental Health Day from the WIT Group

Posted on April 23, 2021 by way0utwest

The pandemic of the last year has been a difficult time for many individuals and organizations. I know that I have had a number of ups and downs across the year.

The Women in Technology virtual group is putting on a one day event, full of talks from a variety of speakers on Mental Health and Wellness. The event is on May 7, 2021, from 8am EDT to 6pm. You can register and attend, as well as view the schedule from the link above.

I was asked to submit a talk, after publishing a year of coping tips at SQLServerCentral. It was an honor, and an interesting challenge. I’m not an expert in this area by any stretch, but I have had some struggles and worked through my own challenges, often with the help of the tips I published for others.

I’ll be talking at 11:10am EDT, going over some of how the year has gone for me and the ways that I’ve tried to ensure life is still, well, enjoyable.

Join me if you want something different. I’m certainly looking to some of the other talks from people that are sharing some of the experiences on the non-technical part of our lives.

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