Smallworld

DevOps, the melding of Software Development with IT Operations, has revolutionized how software is built today. But creating excellent software doesn’t just start at the development phase. The real work is done in the requirements phase because code simply represents the details of the requirements. Gathering solid, accurate requirements leads to better software and significantly […]

Most Magik developers have heard about MUnit testing, although there are far too many that still don’t write proper MUnit tests – or even any at all. However I’d hazard a guess that just about all Magik developers have not heard about Property Based Testing (PBT). Which is too bad, really, because PBT combined with […]

One of the major issues with integrating systems is the amount of code required to make things work. Conceptually integration is simple, yet actual implementations usually end up being quite complicated. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact many integrations tightly couple business logic with data transformation and transportation code, but […]

One of the most frequently asked questions I’ve heard regarding Smallworld 5 (SW5) is, “why does starting a session take so long compared to version 4?” It’s a fair question and one that has some complex answers. So I’m going to explain some of the reasons and provide basic tips on how to improve start […]

I have some good news and some bad news. What was that? You want the bad news first? Okay… There is no way to generate truly random numbers outside of quantum physics. But what about rolling dice? Nope. Rolling dice only appears random because we can’t measure all the various physical factors that produce one […]