More on our Presentation at SOFSEM 2020: NORM Goest Live!

My friends and colleagues who follow me for a while are well aware of the fact that my papers about ORIM/ORM were rejected at several conferences. Also, it’s a known fact that this kind of submissions is not welcomed at the conferences in general. My recent work, which was implemented at Braviant Holding with what I would call a smashing success, was only presented at the Postgres conferences. Our three attempts to submit it to any CS/Academic conferences failed. At some point, it became a matter of principle.

We submitted the new version to SOFSEM 2020 in the hope that at DB/SE conference, the topic could feel more appealing. The submissions formate required us to reduce the size of the paper almost twice, but we were still hopeful we would be able to convey a message.
That ended up being only a partial success. The paper was accepted, however, only as a short paper. Reading the reviews, we realized that none of the reviewers understood what it was about (in fact, we got much better reviews fro VLDB, were we got weak accept, which ended up being not enough). To make the paper even shorter, we had to remove all the actual work from the body:), leaving there only the motivation and the conclusion. But as I said, it was the matter of principle.

Then we spend quite a bit of time reworking the presentation. First, Boris wanted it to look more academic, that my older Postgres presentations. But then we started to change it back to more and more visual since we realized that the topic, the motivation, and the reality are pretty much unknown to our audience. Besides, my Postgres presentations were 40-50 minutes long, and here we had only 30 minutes, including questions. I tried very hard to get it to 23-25 minutes.

The last blow came two days before the conference when we were told that the presentations for short papers should be 18 minutes long, including questions, which meant I had only 15 minutes to present. That did not sound feasible, and we were desperate. Boris tried to negotiate our twelve minutes back with the organizers:).

But then a sort of miracle happened. Right before our session began, it turned out that the first person didn’t show up, and I claimed all the time I could. Unfortunately, I already cut several slides out of my presentation (I put them pack in the pdf, which I previously published here). After all, I was able to bring my point across, and I think that everybody present there, enjoyed the presentation. How I wish I won’t be presenting on the first day because then I `would convince more people to come. But in any case, I hope that now we will be able to publish a full version of the paper somewhere.

Our Presentation at SOFSEM 2020

A preface: as it usually happens with my favorite topic, neither database conferences, nor software engineering conference acknowledge that kind of research. Thereby, when although the paper got accepted, it was accepted as a short paper (because nobody understood what it was about :)).

Moreover, two days before the conference we were asked to shorten the presentation to 15 minutes. Fortunately for me, there was one no-show at our session, so I was able to present in full. Below is a full presentation version including two slides which were not in today’s presentation.

NORM – SOFSEM2020

Chicago PUG January Meetup – Great Start for 2020

It has been for three years now, that Bravinat is hosting Chicago PUG meetups. Today we’ve rung in 2020 with two excellent presentations and very productive follow-up discussions.

I want to thank one more time all the user group members who joined us today.

Looking forward to another great year ahead!

Engaged audience

Our speakers

Next Ultimate Optimization Training is Coming Up in March

For those who didn’t get a chance to get to our Ultimate Optimization Training in December: we are doing it again at PG Conf New York March 23-27. This is definitely not the only reason to attend the conference, but somewhat an extra bonus :). Please go to the conference page for the details: PG Conf 2020

Somebody has their marking analytics VERY WRONG :)

2019 Highlights

Today, on the first day of 2020, I am looking back at 2019 – what an amazing year it was for me! Here is what I am especially happy and proud about:

1. Undiubtfully, the most outstanding professional recognition I ever received was my ITA Technologist of the year award.  What made it especially significant for me was the fact that I ended up being the first female ever receiving this award. 
2. After three years of rejections, I finally have another paper accepted for the academic conference. I will be presenting at SOFSEM 2020 in Cyprus
3. I ran a full-day training for the first time in my life, at 2Q PG Conf in Chicago. That was way more work than I initially thought, but I am pleased with the outcome. 
4. Also for the first time, I was a part of the talk selection committee (for the same conference) 
5. It was also a fantastic year for the Chicago PUG. We are now the third-largest PUG in the Western Hemisphere, and I can’t wrap my head around it. When did it happen?! I am so thankful for all of the Chicago PUG members who were attending our meetups this year! Huge thank you for all the speakers, who made our year so memorable, especially our November Meetup!
6. Last but not least: it is my fourth year at Braviant Holdings, and this is the first time in my life I can design and build the system from scratch, the way I believe is right, and to prove that it is indeed the right way – works as expected 🙂 Also, I am working with the most wonderful team ever. 

The only thing I can wish for myself in 2020 – for things to continue to be as good as they are. Also, I have two announcements to make. 

1. For those of you who wanted to attend my training but didn’t get a chance – I will do it again in New York at the end of March. More details to come, stay tuned.
2. I am looking for ways to further improve Chicago PUG meetups. Some people expressed a desire to have “PG lunches” in addition to the evening meetups. If you are interested and want/can help with the organization – please reach out to me!

One more time, big thank you to everybody: my co-workers, my managers, Chicago PUG, and Postgres community at large – nothing would happen without your continuous support!

2Q PG Conf Follow-Up

The 2Q PG CONF 2019 is over, and I can’t stress enough how much it meant for me!

First to mention, the third year in a row a conference was a success, and I hope that the conference organizers feel the same! I wanted to thank the 2nd Quadrant for having this conference in Chicago, and to thank all the participants who attended. Same as for the previous two years I ran an advertising campaign for the conference, and my hopes are that now the Chicago Postgres community has this conference on their calendars and will continue to contribute.

For me, it was the first time I conducted a whole-day training; usually, the material we covered is delivered in 3-4 separate sessions. I am thrilled that the training was full, and nobody switched to a different session in the middle:). Also, that was the first time in 30+ years that Boris and I did the training together, and we survived this experience:). 

I was uncertain whether it makes sense to have yet another bitemporal talk, but it was very well received and looked like much needed. 

Also, I had a lot of interesting conversations and new connections. 

A word to all the conference participants as well as to those who for some reason, could not make it:

• I am looking for volunteers to try bitemporality in the real-life environment, and I promise continuous support!
• I am looking for potential collaborators to make NORM (No ORM framework) to the Postgres extension
• If you are in Chicago and not a Chicago PUG member – please consider joining
• If you are interested in my Ultimate Performace training – please contact me!
• If you didn’t have a chance to ask me a question you wanted to ask during the conference – please contact me!

Yes, I am busy, but if you never submit your request to the queue, I will never know you have one!