Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Project MC on 1/9

After careful consideration and testing of the database design, it seems that we will need to rely heavily upon specific features of the database in order to accomplish the complexities of the constantly-changing counter calculation. I had hoped to leverage an ORM to wrap around the database programming, allowing me to decouple the database selection from the application logic. While this can still be partially done through proper object-oriented design prinicles, the use of a database-agnostic ORM is out of the question it seems.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Project MC on 1/8

Project MC: I've generated a test-case in which the user table contains 1,250,000 accounts. The counter calculation can be accomplished through a single SQL statement. Currently that calculation takes roughly half a second. This is too long. The calculation will need to be cached in order to scale appropriately. I've attempted various short-cut methods for this calculation--there may be more to try--but MySQL seems to be the fastest when left to it's own devices. I need to test InnoDB and confirm that running this calculation will not lock the users table.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Programming for St Ives

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits;
Kits, cats, sacks and wives--
How many were going to St Ives?
 - Anonymous

I'm finding on recent projects that I'm spending more time on finding answers to the wrong questions than on answering the right ones. I have work to do, but constant distraction over deciding which tools to use to accomplish the work is eating up too much of my work time. I need to lock these tools down and get back to the task at hand! Complicating the situation of course is the fact that multi-platform development (which is what I've been working on lately) has too many tools! Or more specifically, each platform has a great tool just for itself, and doesn't usually work on any other platforms. So then I find a multi-platform tool but only to find out that it equally stinks on all of the platforms. Google... Apple... I'm looking at you.

-Sean

Sunday, February 19, 2012

A Tale of a Thousand Passwords

We've started work on a new project here at Shywire. It's a new take on security/ eWallet/ Password management . I wish I could say more... but it's too awesome to talk about until we get things farther along. Stay tuned. We're looking to market this software not only to our current customers but to the Internet at large. This one could be big! In the mean time, stop using the same password for everything!

-Sean

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Shywire.com Redesign

We are in the process of redesigning our website at www.shywire.com! We have made some great progress, but as always, your feedback is greatly appreciated. I have to admit I was excited when I saw the Twitter feed fired up, but now upon further thought... when did Twitter become a business website essential? Well prepare yourself for exciting tweets such as "Shywire just ate a sandwich." and "ZOMG where can I find a good sandwich in Spokane?! #shywire". Welcome to the brave new world.

-Sean