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\begin_layout Chapter
Introduction
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epigraph{Imagination is more important than knowledge.
For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world,
stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.}{Albert Einstein}
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In this chapter:
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Structure.
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How the manual is organized.
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Audience.
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Indicates whether this manual is for you or someone you know.
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Expectations.
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What you will learn from reading this manual.
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Duplication.
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Forms of redundant effort you might encounter while developing reports.
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Scenario.
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An example situation to avoid when developing reports.
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Structure
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The manual is divided as follows:
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Refrain.
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The word refrain, in music, is part of a song that repeats.
Outside of music, the word means
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to resist doing something
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.
The first part of this manual describes ways resist repeating yourself
(that is, how to avoid duplicating effort) when developing reports.
The goal of this part is to provide you with strategies and tactics for
using
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's tools to maximize your productivity.
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Fusion.
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The word fusion, in physics, describes the nuclear reaction in which parts
of an atom combine to form more massive nuclei with the simultaneous release
of energy.
The second part of this manual describes the steps to fuse (that is, integrate)
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with common web-based application frameworks.
The goal of this part is to provide you with comprehensive instructions
for different integrations.
The part concludes with an overview of a data dictionary that relates human-rea
dable text to database column names.
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Catalyst.
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The word catalyst, in chemistry, is a substance that initiates or accelerates
a chemical reaction (a change in chemical composition) without itself being
affected.
The third part of this manual introduces a mechanism for changing typical
analyses into predictive analyses.
The goal of this part is to show you how to transform bland statistical
analyses into succinct, eye-catching results by combining
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with the
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programming language.
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Audience
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This manual describes techniques that require readers to be familiar with
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's software suite of reporting tools and uses some features available only
after the 3.7 series release.
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Required Knowledge
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Readers must have a basic understanding of the following:
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Software development concepts
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SQL programming language
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Relational databases
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The manual uses
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for examples, but the concepts apply equally to Oracle, MySQL, and others.
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and
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Optional Knowledge
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While not absolutely essential, readers should be comfortable with:
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Batch and shell scripting
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,
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, and
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is a programming language that exists predominately for perfoming complex
statistical analysis, but encompasses much, much more.
Although prior experience with
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is not necessary to follow the examples used in this manual, I hope that
the brief introduction you will encounter here will be impetus enough for
you to explore
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on your own.
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Statistics
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Expectations
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This manual covers a broad range of topics.
It is my desire that you will take away from it the following items:
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How to eliminate multiple forms of duplication from your report systems.
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How to produce a data dictionary that can be used to translate database
column names to human-readable names.
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How to integrate
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and
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to produce graphs with extrapolated trend lines.
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After reading the manual, you will understand how to:
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Eliminate nearly all forms of duplication from reports.
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Create reports that are easy to maintain.
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Integrate
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with common web development platforms.
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Organize directory structures for harmonious development practices.
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Leverage the
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programming language for statistical analysis and prediction.
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Duplication
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At risk of contradicting the Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle by paraphrasi
ng
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The Pragmatic Programmer
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,
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Andrew Hunt and David Thomas.
Published by Addison-Wesley, October 1999.
ISBN: 020161622X.
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its authors describe the following categories of duplication:
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Imposed.
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Software developers believe there is no choice, due to environmental constraint
s.
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Inadvertent.
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Software developers are not cognisant of the repetition.
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Impatient.
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Development by
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copy and paste
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seems like less work, at least initially.
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Interdeveloper.
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People on the same (or related) projects produce redundant information.
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If you find yourself creating many reports that are similar in form or function,
set aside some time to think how best to avoid duplication.
The
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tool has many features to avoid duplication.
Unfortunately,
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also makes it easy to create cookie-cutter copies of a basic report that
serves as a template for new reports.
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Scenario
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Consider the following situation: developers have finished creating one
hundred different reports, spending untold hours to do so.
Management reviews the reports and then makes a few suggestions:
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Move the company logo to the top-right corner.
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Printed reports should use Times New Roman, not Arial.
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Change the text
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Emplid
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to
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Employee ID
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.
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The developers tell you it will take 5 minutes to move the logo, 2 minutes
to change the font to Arial, and 2 minutes to update the text.
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Per report
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.
That is over 11 hours of effort, when it ought to take fewer than 10 minutes.
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Arguably, this scenario could be considered the result of a flawed software
development methodology.
An Agile approach would have the first few reports reviewed upon creation.
In the best case scenario,
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search and replace
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or an extensible stylesheet language (XSL) transformation of the
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files would be possible.
Yet
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does not guarantee that all instances will be changed correctly.
If the company has no XSL experience, learning XSL would take as much time
as making the changes by hand (if not longer).
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This manual describes how to avoid the problem in the first place.
With the proper infrastructure, such sweeping changes will take minutes,
not hours (or even weeks), to implement.
Of course, if such an infrastructure took longer to implement than the
time it saves, then the extra prepatory work is not worthwhile.
As you will see, this is not the case.
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Summary
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The quote at the start of Part I is from
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The Pragmatic Programmer
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.
The point of Part I (and in some ways Part II) is to show the power behind
ensuring every bit of knowledge in a system exists in a single location;
the ability to make broad, sweeping changes to a system with little effort.
This is one of the goals of software development.
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Albert Einstein's quote provides a view that, on the surface, might appear
to downplay the importance of isolating knowledge by stressing creativity.
Insofar as reports are concerned, it is only when elements have become
completely isolated that creativity can flourish.
If a developer needs to spend hours changing fonts, the possibility of
replacing Arial with Helvetica is diminished, and perhaps eliminated (for
all practical purposes).
If the layout for all the reports is copied a hundred times, the difficulty
of rivising that layout simultaneously for all reports is increased a hundred-f
old.
You simply cannot be creative if changes take too long to make.
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