Oracle has released version 1.2 of SQL Developer. When working with Oracle it’s a really good (and free) alternative to TOAD, especially for someone that’s mainly a Java guy like me. I know my way around relational databases, but when it comes to hardcore stuff I leave it to someone else. 🙂 It does have integrated debugging and plan analysis though, so it should suffice for someone doing a bit of stuff in Oracle.
TSS has an article on important stuff when doing offshoring here. It is probably incredibly hard, hell it’s hard even when not doing offshoring. 😉 Most of the principles he mentions is good advice when running an agile project without offshoring too.
Ted Neward and Adrian Trenaman discusses doing contract-first vs. code-first services here. It’s a good read. It starts out with Neward sort of being the devils advocate, but in the end he really expresses one of my main concerns: how to enable loose coupling. Loose coupling is one of the main promises of SOA, but it’s not like you automatically get that just because you’re using webservices. Loose coupling of data has always been hard, wether you are using RMI og WS-*. WS-* has made the technology coupling easier, but data is still just as hard.
Oh, and here is a link to Extensible Content Models that he mentions.