The Title of My Book Is Officially Updated - Need Help with the Blurb

The title of my book is updated (it's ovah heah).  I have to get them a better description.  Here's what I'm thinking...

Before the database world can get how it manages releases straight, it has to get its technical house in order by following the same path that "regular programmers" started on long ago.  One of the key activities that must be ported into the database world is test-driven development.  

Without test-driven development (TDD), there can be no agility and a software product is doomed to descend into an endless cycle of defect introduction and remediation.  With TDD, on the other hand, a product can be driven in the other direction-releasing faster and faster with fewer and fewer defects over time.

Test-driven development, however, is not just some practice that you can copy over to your database development process unmodified.  It is a discipline, a collection of forces and wisdom.  Essentially: it is a pattern for software development behavior.  It needs to be instantiated in the context of database development in order to produce its full effect.

This book does just that: it shows you one way to do true TDD in the context of database development, taking into account the parts that are the same as traditional object-oriented development and the parts that are different.

What do you think?

Also: Shame on you if you don't get the reference in the link title.

Wilfred: Better the Second Time Around

...and most appropriately, might I add.

I've been watching the show "Wilfred" on Netflix.  The first time I watched it, I was all for the concept but I didn't really enjoy the implementation.  It wasn't the kind of humor that the commercials implied it would be.

Another case of expectations diminishing the value of a show, I guess.

Anyway, I gave myself some time to reset my expectations and watched it again.  Now I love it.  That last episode was fucking awesome.  I'm looking forward to Season 2.

Stupid Move Getting in the Way of Writing

This move from Bend to Redmond is kicking my ass as well as that of my ass.  I'm not sure I'm going to get Sleight of Mind #2 done by the eighteenth.  We'll see.

Test-Driven Database Development: Unlocking Agility

I think there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  As I stated recently, I passed another milestone in the development of my book.  Today, I passed another one.  We've settled on the name "Test-Driven Database Development: Unlocking Agility."

The metadata are changed and flowing through the publishing industry.  Look for the change shortly and pre-order your copy today.

Auto-Revert and a Sense of Accomplishment

It's been one day since I set up our CruiseControl.net server to automatically revert changes that break the build and already I'm seeing an improvement.

The obvious thing I like is not having the goddamn build be broken for hours or even days on end.  However, there's already evidence of another side effect... one I expected but thought would take months to develop.

People are changing the way they treat the code base.  Time was, people were pretty "willy nilly" as to what they checked into the source control server.  Many didn't care if the build was red, how long it was red, or if they were the ones that made it red.  Now that's changed.

For one thing, if the build is red, you can't check in.  The system locks everyone out and runs one more build and test pass on any pending changes.  So the "no check in on red" rule is no longer a policy.  Now it's a thread in the fabric of our reality.

For another, there's no more "fire and forget" check-ins.  You're check-in is your responsibility.  If it works, fantastic.  If not, it's kicked back to you for fixing.  It just won't get in if it doesn't pass the tests.

Furthermore, your problem becomes everyone else's problem so there's a serious potential for some peer pressure.  If you and Joe check in at the same time and you break the build, now you own Joe's submission and are responsible for getting it into the source server.  If you don't, Joe might come knocking.

I was talking to a friend about it and they pointed out another force that I hadn't even considered.  This is probably the critical piece that made the auto-revert feature shape people's behavior so quickly.  Developers - especially old-school developers - get a sense of accomplishment when they check in some work.  That sense is largely unjustified.  You've accomplished something when you make an incremental change for the better, not just any old change.

Because the build-and-test cycle is less than thirty minutes long, the auto-revert feature has the property of providing immediate feedback on whether or not you actually accomplished something with your change.  In my friend's words: It removed the positive feedback associated with a bad check-in.  Pair that with producing some negative/constructive feedback (an email to all the leaders), and you've got a powerful behavioral modification tool.

KDP Select and Short Stories

I have opted back out of the KDP Select program for Sleight of Mind #1 so this is the last day it will be free in the Amazon store; probably ever.  It ends up not making as much sense for short stories as it does for full-length books.

Sure, you get the free promotion days.  On the other hand, I could just post a .mobi file on my blog and maybe get fifty or sixty percent of the value those provide and be able to do it for as long as I like to make up for the lower value of a given free day.

The real benefit of the KDP Select program is the fact that your book goes in to the Kindle Lending Library.  That's a service wherein Amazon Prime members can borrow a book free for an unlimited period of time.

On the surface that seems great.  Readers read for "free" - meaning they paid for the service but don't actually spend any money on your book - but you still get paid.  Deeper analysis shows it to not be very valuable for short stories and here is why: You can borrow a book for as long as you want but you can only have one book borrowed at a time and you can only have one book borrowed at a time and you can only borrow one book per month.

Those two rules, mostly the last one, create a scarcity in the ability to borrow that makes it more like an alternative currency and less like a way to read for free.  If you have a unit of currency and you are deciding how to convert it into a useful product, you're probably going to want to do it in the way that simulates the best "exchange rate" possible.  That is, if you can only borrow one book a month, you're more likely to borrow a $9.99 book than a $0.99 book.

That means that, for people with expensive, book length assets there is probably some value to using the KDP Select program - a certain class of people, who are known to be heavy readers, can get your book for free and you get about half the royalties.  The price you pay is that your book is only available on the Amazon store.

I've already gotten some borrowing activity on Madness & Loss and the royalties on that are comparable to what I would have gotten if someone bought it.  That's fantastic.  Freeish to the reader.  Money for me.

On the other hand, if you have a ninety-nine cent asset like a short story, you get the ability to promote it for free - which you could ordinarily do yourself - and the ability to put it in the lending library - where nobody would want to waste a checkout on it.  The price you pay is that you can't put it on any of the other digital services or send copies of it to any reviewers.

So that's why I'm having the Sleight of Mind series exit the KDP Select program.  I may come up with my own "free for a certain period of time" plan when the 90 days is up and I will definitely start hitting up book review sites and other e-reader avenues.  I just can't see a good reason to put a short story in the KDP Select program again.  I can't imagine why anyone would.

My New Country Home

I've moved, recently.  From the "city," as people in Central Oregon think of it, to the country.  Truly the country.

I wasn't sure I was going to care for it at first.  I was dreading the commute and I was a little worried about the isolation and lack of services out here.  To reinforce this fear, I recently needed an emergency veterinarian and had to drive a half hour into Bend to get one.  That definitely sucks.

Turns out it's not so bad.  I'm sure there's an on-call vet closer and we'll find them.  The commute turns out to be not so bad and there are even some people I can carpool with to make it a little less bad still.  In addition, there are some really nice things about it.

In the country we can afford about five acres more land than we could in Bend.  That is, we can afford about five acres of land.  It's a nice little lot.  It even has a sound-facing slope we might use to grow grapes, if we can find grapes that like Central Oregon.

Our indoor/outdoor cat is really digging the new digs as well.  Five acres is a lot of roaming space with all kinds of new things to smell and a new kind of soil in which to roll around.  She still hasn't figured out what her territory is going to be but I imagine the neighboring dogs will help her define those boundaries.  I knew this would matter to me, our cats' quality of life is important to us.

We're on top of a knoll - that's why we have a south-facing slope - so we have a view in all directions.  I didn't think I'd care about that but it appears I do.  To further improve upon things, the house is two stories with the living area on the second story and a wrap-around deck so the view is enhanced by being above the juniper trees.

Out here, I can afford a much bigger place.  The living area here is just shy of the whole house we had in bend.  Then downstairs area has a real two car garage; meaning there's two doors with ample room to fit two large American cars.

Even better, there's a very large shop.  I'm not really a "shop" guy but my wife and I have a plan to turn that into a work out/recreation room.  The wrap-around deck also has two enlarged areas where tables, chairs, etc. can be put.  That means we don't have to store as much of our outdoor junk in our garage!

Better still, there are a couple of small out-buildings for storage, one of them with power and phone that I'm considering turning in to my home office.  I'm not sure about that, yet.  It could get chilly in the winter.  If nothing else, those sheds are about as much storage as we had in our old garage.

So, all told, the number of square feet we have to put our junk in has dramatically improved.  I didn't think that would matter either but I was wrong.  Having a nice, light, open space as a sanctuary in which to work with lots of potential for development ended up having an immediate and dramatic psychological impact for the better that outweighs the drawbacks many times over.

Another Milestone

I just passed another milestone on the journey to getting my first printed book published.  Test Driven Database Development: Unlocking Agility has finished it's developmental review pass.  I think I have some front matter to write or get written but otherwise, it's on to the next step.

It looks from Amazon, like the hope is to release this book toward the end of January, 2013.

Sleight of Mind #1 Is Free All Weekend

Today marks the start of a three day promotion wherein you can buy Sleight of Mind #1: Crashing the Party for the low, low price of $0.00.  Go get it, then read it, then take this short survey.

Trying Something Different

Tomorrow, I'm starting a new promotion for Sleight of Mind #1: Crashing the Party.  It will be free all weekend.

Better Software Conference East

I'm excited to announce that I will be speaking at the Better Software Conference East.  The subject will be test-driven and object-oriented database development, which is not unlike the subject of my upcoming book.

The talk is about an hour long and, best of all, it's going to be in the afternoon.  For once, I'll have a lecture where I'm not dragging my ass and where the attendants aren't predominantly hung over!  This is a big thing for me so pretend to be excited for me even if you aren't.

My Amazon Author Page

My author page on Amazon is up and running.  There's no way to organize the page so as to create a division between fiction and non-fiction; otherwise I would give two links.

Anyway it's go an easy to remember URL:

amazon.com/author/maxguernseyiii

On that page, you can see my current list of offerings - both self-published and through a traditional contract.  You can also see a list of upcoming speaking engagements as well as aggregations of my blog, twitter account, and video feed.

Excited About Upcoming Book: Test Driven Database

There's been some serious progress on my upcoming book on the subject of test-driven database development.  Amazon might not have all the metadata for it, yet, but it's updating.

Today, I finished my developmental editorial pass and now it's on to the next phase.  I really have to say how awesomely supportive the Addison-Wesley group has been.  It's nothing like writing on your own.

Please Fill Out My Short Questionnaire

Thanks for all your support, everyone.  Yesterday was a big success, getting even more copies out there in the world than before.  It's getting close to time to write episode #2 and I'd love to have as much actionable feedback as possible so, if you have read Sleight of Mind #1 and haven't filled out this very short questionnaire, please do it now.  Your feedback is what I depend upon to improve my offerings.

Thanks.

A Change in Policy

On the advice of other people who've successfully sold self-published stories, I'm going to stop doing the "free every Saturday" thing.  You get a limited number of free promotion days and apparently they work better if done consecutively.

So I'm going to switch over to doing a weekend (Sat-Sun) free, followed by a long weekend (Fri-Sun) free.

Just don't want anyone to be surprised.

At least, not by policy changes.  :)

Less Than an Hour to Get Sleight of Mind #1: Crashing the Party

There's less than an hour left but, until the day is over, Sleight of Mind #1: Crashing the Party is free. If you don't have it or you picked it up before I added Daniel's field notes, go grab it now.

...and, when you're done reading it, don't forget to take the short survey that helps me improve this product.  You'll find it here.

How to Get an Updated Version of Sleight of Mind #1: Crashing the Party

Today is a "free promotion day" for Sleight of Mind #1: Crashing the Party. That means you can get it for free. It also means that, if you got it before I added Daniel's field notes, you can get an updated version. Here's how I did it:

1. Go to the Kindle Management Site (for me, that was at https://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/manage)
2. Delete Sleight of Mind #1: Crashing the Party from the Kindle library (use the actions... button)
3. Delete Sleight of Mind #1: Crashing the Party from my device
4. Wait a little while (15 minutes for me)
5. Go and "re-purchase" the latest version of the story - today that's free, so your purchase price is nothing

That's all it took for me.  If you have another method, I'd like to hear about it.

Sleight of Mind #1 Is Free Today

Sleight of Mind #1: Crashing the Party  is free today.  If you haven't got it, go grab it now.  When you're done, remember to take this five question survey.

If you downloaded Sleight of Mind #1 before I added Daniel's field notes, be sure to get the latest version now.  It won't cost you anything and you should be able to update your version without involving support - though I can't guarantee that, as I don't work for Amazon and am still learning their system.