Coding: A way of life

Is building software unpredictable?

2010-02-27T14:25:00.002Z

Had a really interesting discussion at work yesterday.

We had our usual development meeting and I presented a lightning talk titled "The Software Craftsman and Tools". In a nutshell, I started off the talk by stating though the strong emphasis on Software Craftsmanship here at work is fantastic, we must also be conversant with the tools and platform that we are working on.

I then went one step further in saying that those two elements are not necessarily that important, without an overall vision (ie. goal). This overall vision is basically where the business wants to be in the future (ie. within a time period)

I then finished my talk by stating that I believed that "Only by having an architectural vision, can a software craftsman; who is conversant with his/her tools set, be truly effective in delivering value to the business"

Which then lead into our fishbowl conversation, "Do we need an overall architecture vision here at work?"

What really intrigued me was the statement made by one of the developers here, which goes along the lines "... building software is inherently unpredictable, thus its unnecessary to have an overall architectural vision." [not in these exact words, something similar]

This statement really bothered me and got me thinking late into the night. What is this unpredictability that he is referring to? To me, when building software there are basically two types of requirement:

Functional Requirement (aka What the Business wants)
Non-functional Requirements. (What we build to support the software)

The only thing that is unpredictable is the functional requirements (aka "What the Business wants"), because processes can change, scenarios that were not considered before, etc.

So that leaves us with the Non-functional Requirements. What are non functional requirements? These are things like

How do we scale the application?
How do we monitor the health of the application?
and so on.

NOW, do we pull this non-functional requirements out of thin air? No we don't. We asked the business (product owners, stake holders, etc)

Why is this software important to you?
How do you see this software fitting into the overall strategic vision of the business?
What is the expected uptake and potential growth of user base for this piece of software?

Its only by understanding what this piece of software means to the business, can we clearly articulate the non-functional requirements. And leading on from there, we can define an architectural vision... aka a roadmap -> Where the software needs to be, and How we are going to get there.

So when an important application which suddenly becomes popular with end users and is one of the major revenue earners for the company starts performing sluggishly, we SHOULD NOT shrug our shoulders and give the excuse that this was never in the requirements. It probably was in the requirements (ie. the non-functional requirement), but no one actually thought about having a conversation with the relevant people and thinking about the bigger picture and the future.

So I putting it out there, "We need to determine what parts are unpredictable and what are not." Building software is NOT unpredictable. We are just not asking the right questions.

In summary, I still believe we need to have an overall architecture vision (which is derived from the business strategic vision). Its only within the confines of this vision, can a software craftsman who is conversant with his/her tools be truly effective in delivering value to the business.

Just my 2 cents :)

Change of Scenery

2009-02-25T20:41:00.005Z

After a whirlwind of planning and packing, I have finally found myself in London. Yes that's right, I'm here in the Northern Hemisphere, braving the cold English weather. Missing the warm NZ summer at the moment.

I'm quite thankful that I've just missed the snow but according to weather forecast, the outlook is snow next week. (Praying that the weather man got it wrong). Been keeping myself busy job hunting. I know this is probably the worst time to head over to the UK for my big OE, but anytime is a good time. Not going to let a little recession stop me from coming over.

So what's my initial thoughts of London? Hate the weather here (I mean who doesn't?) Love the city. Been visiting most of the museum here and exploring the city.

I think this little change of scenery will be good for me. I finally finding that I know have plenty of time, in between the job hunting and visiting the museum. So will probably catch up on ASP.NET MVC before it's expected 1.0 release. Its all good :)

Creating Your Own Ajax ControlToolkit Extender Control

2008-01-24T20:22:00.001Z

Great resources here:

I can across an interesting gotcha when creating my first ajax control extender (created a validator extender control, which "highlight" a target control if validation fails)

The javascript error only happens in IE. FF is quite forgiving.

Expected Identifier, string or number

When I clicked Yes to debug, it takes me to the below line of code in Visual Studio...

$create(KbWebToolkit.ValidatorHighlightBehavior, {"HighlightControlID":"",
"HighlightCssClass":"error_highlight","id":"NReq_HL"}

Debugging it further would return the javascript below:

Microsoft JScript runtime error: 'KbToolkit' is undefined

Fix:
Remove the last comma in the prototype definition.

vmware: I've seen the light.

2007-07-11T10:20:00.000+01:00

I’ve just been running a 30 days evaluation copy of VMWare Workstation 6.0 and I got to say very I’m impress!

The number one wow feature has got to be the ability to take "snapshots" of your virtual machines, and reverting back to them. Check out the screen shot of the Snapshot Manager below

Another cool feature, is that you can “Clone” out from snapshot.

Say, I’ve been working hard out on my BizTalk vm and have lots of my personal development files on it.

Someone comes up to me and asked for a copy of the BizTalk vm , I don’t have to give them a “dirty copy” but I could clone out a clean copy base on an earlier snapshot I’ve taken.

Now that's way cool! :)

I’ll post little cool things as I find them. (But this feature is it for me)
Now, to convince my boss to get the full version...

Update:
If you are wanting to import your MS Virtual Server / VirtualPC images across there a nifty utility to do so, which can be found here.

3 Easy Steps to ASP.NET Caching with SQL Cache Dependency

2007-05-10T09:03:00.000+01:00

It has been a while since my last post. I have been mostly preoccupied at work, but have been fortunate enough to be assigned to some really interesting project here at the bank using the latest Microsoft technologies. One of my project even made it into the .NET 3.0 case study, unfortunately my name wasn’t mentioned. But that’s ok cause I had fun working on it ;)

Anyway the purpose of this post is to outline the steps I’ve taken in getting caching going using SQLCacheDependency with SQL Server 2005 for ASP.NET 2.0.

In this scenario, I have a lookup table that Iwould like to cache on the first call, but have that cache item invalidated if the any value in the underlying tables changes.

Update:
I'm assuming that SQL Broker is enabled against the underlying database. To enable SQL Broker, run the following

ALTER DATABASE Store SET ENABLE_BROKER;
GO

1) In your Global.asax, add a reference to System.Data.SqlClient.

2) Call SqlDependency.Start() method in the Application_Start() method (Global.asax), passing in the connection string.

protected void Application_Start(Object sender, EventArgs e)

{

...

string connectionString = WebConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["YOUR_DB"].ConnectionString;

SqlDependency.Start(connectionString);

}

3) In my data access code, I instantiate a new SqlCacheDependency object passing a reference to the SqlCommand object. This SqlCacheDependency object is then used in the Cache.Insert() call. (I’ve hightlighted the relevant lines of code below)

Dictionary<string, bool> switches = new Dictionary<string, bool>();

string connectionString = WebConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["YOUR_DB"].ConnectionString;

using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connectionString))

{

SqlCommand cmd =

new SqlCommand("SELECT SwitchName, SwitchValue from dbo.ExternalSystemSwitch", conn);

SqlCacheDependency dependency = new SqlCacheDependency(cmd);

conn.Open();

using (SqlDataReader reader = cmd.ExecuteReader())

{

while (reader.Read())

{

switches.Add(reader.GetString(0), reader.GetBoolean(1));

}

Cache myCache = HttpContext.Current.Cache;

myCache.Insert("ExternalSystemSwitch", switches, dependency);

if (conn.State == ConnectionState.Open)

conn.Close();

}

Note: There is a whole bunch of rules to how you should write your select query, but the two important ones are

Do NOT use Select *, instead use individual fields
Must use fully qualified table names, eg. dbo.Customer

The complete list of rules can be found on MSDN here.

Update:
I'm assuming that SQL Broker is enabled in the underlying database. If not, you can run the following to enable it.


ALTER DATABASE Store SET ENABLE_BROKER;
GO

.NET Framework 3.0 RELEASED!!

2006-11-07T19:51:00.000Z

I was trawling the msdn blogs this morning, and very pleased to see that .Net3.0 has RTM'd!!

Congratulations to everyone involved!! (WCF, WPF, WF, CardSpace)

The relevant links are as

(P/S: There's an uninstall tool for previous version of the .NET3.0)
Now, I need to get this on added on as part of the ADS script for our servers here ;)

Strong Naming Enterprise Library 2.0

2006-08-14T03:12:00.000+01:00

Mike Wo put up an excellant entry here.

MS Expression Interactive (Sparkle) Designer Training Videos

2006-08-01T23:20:00.000+01:00

Sparkle Training Videos ...

Windows Workflow (training Resources)

2006-08-01T22:53:00.000+01:00

Just compiling a list of training resources on Windows Workflow

Workflow Virtual Lab

Hands on Lab (download)

Which workflow when? By Dave Green

Create Virtual Directory for your WCF Service

2006-05-25T23:09:00.000+01:00

Create Virtual Directory for your WCF Service using Script by: Guy Burstein
Read it here.

Great tip for me :)

WinFX Beta2 (RC0) -- Get it while its still hot !!

2006-05-25T06:05:00.000+01:00

How to install WinFX Runtime Components:
http://blogs.msdn.com/madhuponduru/archive/2006/05/23/605077.aspx

Breaking Changes between Feb CTP and Vista Beta2
http://blogs.msdn.com/madhuponduru/archive/2006/05/23/605194.aspx

Detailed WCF API changes between FEB CTP and Vista beta 2(RC0)
http://blogs.msdn.com/madhuponduru/archive/2006/05/23/605256.aspx

Go-Live License for WinFX Runtime Components V3.0 Beta 2
http://blogs.msdn.com/madhuponduru/archive/2006/05/23/605322.aspx

WCF: Intellisence Support for Configuration Files

2006-05-25T02:23:00.000+01:00

Juval Lowy posted an updated version of the WCF configuration schema here.

To enable intellisence support when modifying the WCF config files (Feb06 CTP), download the schema and replaces the exisitng schema in
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Xml\Schemas"

Sparkle is Out!!! well the Jan CTP ;)

2006-01-24T19:54:00.000Z

That's right folks. The Jan CTP of the Expression Interactive Designer (ie. Sparkle) is available now.

For those who didn't make it to PDC'05, here's same links to Channel9 videos about EID.

Sparkle Beta Released - posted Jan 24, 2006 .

Introducing Sparkle - posted Sep 14, 2005

The cools stuff about EID:
Avalon has an incredible animation engine, and with this tool that power is released. With the EID, the animation engine becomes more readily accessible and you can see the possiblities of this platform. Great timeline support available. No more editting angle brackets for me :)

Download it here.
Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer January 2006 Community Technology Preview (CTP)
Note: Requires the WinFX Runtime Jan CTP

Updates!!
Check out this cool Free Cell demo created using Sparkle. Posted by Unni

Geoff Snowman's BizTalk Web Resources

2006-01-16T19:30:00.000Z

Geoff Snowman has put together a list of BizTalk Web Resources here.

Microsoft CRM 3.0 Resources

2005-12-21T20:12:00.000Z

Just collating together some useful links

VPC image which contains Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 environment for development, testing and demos. The image includes:

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 + Active Directory + Windows SharePoint Services

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 + SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003

Microsoft Office Professional 2003

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional

Microsoft CRM 3.0 + Microsoft CRM 3.0 Desktop Client for Outlook + Adventure Works Cycle Demo Data

This is quite a large image file (>10GB), which has been compressed and split into six separate downloads, and can be found here:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Virtual PC Demonstration

Also found two Flash Demos on Microsoft CRM 3.0 as well.

Microsoft CRM Small Business Edition Demo

Microsoft CRM Professional Edition Demo

Updates!!
Top 30 New Features in Microsoft CRM (PPT): link

WinFX December CTP is available for download

2005-12-19T20:06:00.000Z

This just in.
The Dec CTP of WinFX is out and available for download now

Follow Aaron Stebner's blog here on what order you should install the bits. Lots like its going to be a fun-filled Christmas this year for me (trying out all the lastest bits-n-bobs)

.NET 2.0: Back to Basics [Generics]

2005-11-06T05:11:00.000Z

Glad it's the weekend and the wife has been kind enough to let me spent the Sunday afternoon in front of the computer. Downloaded the Visual Studio 2005 RTM and SQL Server 2005 RTM last weekend but only managed to get a chance today to have a go at it. Migrated all my Beta2 projects and all of them to be complied fine without a problem.

Saw a few FAQ's on Generics by Juval Lowy. Definately worth a quick read thorough.

Fundamentals

.NET Framework

Tool Support

Best Practices

Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 RTM

2005-10-27T23:27:00.000+01:00

Well everyone at MS is blogging about it. I thought I might as well jump on the bandwagon too ;)

Yeap, that's right. VS2005 and SQL Server 2005 is now available for the masses (well only if you are a MSDN subscriber). And for those who are wondering what's a RTM, well it means "Release to Manufacturing" (that the version they send to the CD/DVD duplicators). So it looks like its green lights for the big launch on the Nov 7th.
The redistributables packages are also available to the general public for downloads.

BTW, Dan Fernandez mentioned here of a tool to help with the un-installation of all pre-RTM versions from your machine. (Automatic uninstall tool).

A couple of notes about the uninstaller tool (again from Dan's blog)

Do not use this tool if you have installed SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition or higher (SQL Server 2005 Express is okay). Why? Because we don't do ref counting on who is using the Framework and you can get into a situation where the uninstall tool will remove a pre-RTM version of the .NET Framework 2.0, but SQL Server 2005 Workgroup+ will still be installed on the machine. Because Workgroup edition uses managed code, you've now "hosed" your SQL 2005 Workgroup edition uninstall. Check the product readme for step-by-step instructions

Do not click "Cancel" when the Automatic uninstall tool is running. Depending on when you click Cancel, it can "hose" your machine uninstall

PDC05 Sessions Online

2005-10-25T09:56:00.000+01:00

Yes, that's right!!
Michael Swanson just announced it on his blog.

All the sessions from PDC05 is available for your viewing pleasure. So for those of you missed the conference or were there but missed some of the sessions, you can now view them here.

And for all those who have loads of bandwidth to spare, you can download the whole session for your offline viewing pleasure. Now I can catch up on all the sessions that I've missed.

Tags: PDC05

Windows Presentation Foundation Hands-On-Labs

2005-10-25T00:40:00.000+01:00

Check out the HOL for the WPF. Its a great way to come to grips with the new features of WPF. I have already completed "PRSHOL08: Creating Rich 2D and 3D Content with Windows Presentation Foundation" and "PRSHOL03: Creating Custom Controls with Windows Presentation Foundation" and found the labs an invaluable way to get up to speed on things.

Why not have a go and try some of the labs out? (BTW, is you missed PDC'05, these labs are exactly the same ones they had at the conference.)

Windows Presentation Foundation Hands-On-Labs

Tags: WPF

Everyone's a rifleman.

2005-10-25T00:10:00.000+01:00

Another very insightful blog for the day. Steve Teixeira draws parallels from the Marine Corps and successful software organisations.

One pattern I've observed over the years is that high performance software development organizations have an "everyone's a developer" philosophy In these organizations, the ranks of company leaders and decision makers include people that understand what it means to be a developer. And I'm not talking about a CTO-token-techie type. I'm talking significant representation within company leadership of those in tunes with what it means to be a developer.

Which leads to the question of the day: "What's the lowest common denominator in your company, from which all actions and decisions are made with it in mind?"

Most often or not, software organisations are managed by people who by choice or skills are unable to be "riflemen". The result of which is quite rightly described by Steve below

And, speaking anecdotally, I know some of the most frustrating times my career were spent in organizations led by individuals or groups that I believed were unwilling or unable to be riflemen, which severely compromised their ability to lead.

Definitely worth a read and a think about.
For the full article: Everyone's a rifleman

Napoleon Dynamite Vs. Bill Gates

2005-10-20T20:56:00.000+01:00

At every PDC so far, the team at Microsoft always come up with funny spoofs which IMHO is the real highlight at the keynotes on Day1. At the last PDC in 2003, it was the Matrix starring Steve Balmer and Bill Gates.

Well this year at PDC'05, we were all treated to hilarious spoof of Napoleon Dynamite. So since its the end of the week, why not kick up your heels, take a short coffee break and watch the short video? Guaranteed to leave you in stitches.

View Video

Language Wars - Who is Winning? Who Cares? [by Scott Golightly]

2005-10-20T09:31:00.000+01:00

This is just a repost of Scott Golightly's thoughts from PDC'05. Thought I post this up here on my blog, because the original page gets update with every so often with new insights and reflections from various MSDN Regional Directors. (I have been trying to get Rocky Lhotka's PDC reflections post on LINQ. )

For about as long as there have been computers there have been computer languages and people who will champion one language above another. While it is understandable and even desirable for a language to have a devout set of followers, this is sometimes taken to extremes. When the love and evangelism of a language takes on a religious fervor and the proponents favorite language becomes “the only language for the job” then things are out of hand. For many people deeply involved in the language wars there is nothing more important than “showing” the “uninformed” people on the other side of the argument why they should switch to the “correct” language.

For many years the language wars centered around assembly, C++, and Visual Basic. In 1991 Sun Microsystems introduced Java. This added a brand new language to the mix and helped to stir the debate. In 2000, Microsoft announced C# and VB.NET as two new languages to program against the .NET framework. This started many discussions and arguments over whether Java or .NET is the “correct” platform for the job and even when .NET is chosen there are arguments over whether C# or VB.NET should be used.

One of the latest salvos in the language wars is an editorial by Calvin Austin posted at Java Developers Journal entitled C#: Is the Party Over? that ends with the statement : “C# isn't going anywhere soon but its best days may be behind it.”. I am not going to try to address the points made in the article. What I would like to ask is does it really matter?

The arguments over which language is the best, like many a sports rivalry, invoke heated passion for those involved but for those not involved it appears to be an unwinnable argument with neither side willing to budge. When it comes to choosing a language for a project many developers are forced by choice of platform to choose a language. In other cases it might be a company edict or business requirement that drives the choice. For others it might be the challenge to learn something new or the idea that knowing a particular language will increase their salaries that drives the decision. Finally, for other developers the choice is made based on what languages they have used in the past and which one they feel the most comfortable with.

In an ideal world there would be a rational analysis of the problem to be solved followed by a review of all of the available programming languages with a comparison of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each language against the problem to be solved. Other factors such as platform, training, and maintenance would be factored in and the best language for the job would be chosen. In the practical world this kind of analysis doesn’t occur. Instead, as a new project comes up the programming language is usually given very little thought. Unless the programmers are unhappy with their current development environment or they want to branch out into new languages the requirements are analyzed in the context of the current programming language. If a requirement can not be done easily in the current programming language, a review of other languages might occur. In some cases the requirements are changed to “fit” the constraints of the programming language.

So if the vast majority of developers tend to pick a language or two and stick with them you would expect the language wars to die out over time as people pick sides. Since the language wars continue over time we have to ask the question, who stands to win from continuing the wars? As with any war, there are combatants and the arms dealers that stand to gain a lot from the war. The combatants are the zealots and the language vendors. For a zealot the ultimate goal is to convert everyone in the world to use their language and in the mean time be seen as a leading expert. It is easy to see where the people who produce the language would like to see their language and the development tools that go along with it take over the market to sell more licenses and make more money. I can understand that, it is just good old fashioned capitalism. The “arms dealers” in the language wars are the authors, technical publications, and training companies that make money off of explaining the strengths and weaknesses of a language to developers and how to best use them.

Since there are winners, it would stand to reason that there would be losers as well. The real losers in the language wars are the people who are stuck working with an older language which will not be supported in the future and those who can not cut through all the rhetoric to understand the true business value of the debated languages.

So back to my original question on who is winning the language wars and who cares? The answer is you. If you put in a little effort you can be a big winner in the language wars. By finding vendors, authors, and training companies that are willing to give away information for free in return for the chance to change your opinion. By applying a little bit of skepticism to their claims and putting in a little work to prototype and find out for yourself you can come up with a lot of information without having to pay a lot of money.

About the Author: Scott Golightly is a Senior Principal Consultant with Keane, Inc. and a Microsoft Regional Director from Utah. Scott has over a decade of experience helping clients build, manage, and maintain systems that provide real business value.

Windows Workflow Foundation & BizTalk: Where does it all fit?

2005-10-13T01:02:00.000+01:00

The most common question on most developers/technologists minds: Where does this Workflow Foundation fit it and does it replace BizTalk? The answer is a big fat NO and Scott Woodgate tells us why here.

I have included a brief excerpt from his post.

So what about BizTalk and Windows Workflow Foundation? Did you bet on the wrong horse by choosing BizTalk Server? No you didn't. BizTalk Server is, was, and will be the right architecture for business process and integration on Windows. To properly serve the needs of business process and integration you need a "man in the middle" server that adapts, routes, tracks, manages, scales and has all the appropriate BPM capabilities such as BAM. Windows Workflow Foundation gives you none of that. On the other hand there are many scenarios that Windows Workflow Foundation is useful outside of business process and integration such include page-flow in ASP.NET web applications, workflow within line of business applications that ISVs build, workflow within Office. By targeting ISVs primarily the Windows Workflow Foundation technology can be embedded within these applications.

Put simply:
A. Workflow within applications = Windows Workflow Foundation
B. Workflow across applications = BizTalk Server

Tags: Windows WorkFlow Foundation

Installing the WinFX Sep05 CTP build

2005-10-12T22:28:00.000+01:00

Its finally the weekend and been almost a month back from PDC'05. Been meaning to install and try out all those new bits but never really finding the time.

But I managed to get up quite early today and kicked off the install. Found a nice guide on LonghornBlogs on installing WinFX Sep05 CTP build to help me along the way. Hope someone finds it helpful like I've have.

Tags: winFX

Alphabetizing your .NET Resource (RESX) files [by Scott Hanselman]

2005-10-10T23:35:00.000+01:00

A great tip from Scott. Just needed to keep a link to it for future reference.

Keep those resource files nice and ordered.
Alphabetizing your .NET Resource (RESX) files

More PDC goodies: WinFS Video

2005-10-05T20:48:00.000+01:00

Steve De Mar, the Product Designer for the WinFS team just blog about the release of the WinFS video that was shown at PDC'05.

As Steve puts it:

...one of the most important aspects of the video is the experiences represented in the application UI’s. Our goal was to peak the curiosity of you, the developers, to get you thinking about what could really be built on WinFS. We wanted you to see how WinFS enables a totally new class of user experiences. The UIs in the video are all based on some of the great prototype applications that have already been developed for the WinFS platform. Although we cast them in a more futuristic visual "theme" to fit the style of the video, the functionality we showed exists in the prototypes that either we’ve developed in house or we’ve seen others develop on WinFS. A number of these were demo’d at the PDC, and we've more on the way which you should be hearing about shortly.

We hope the video inspires you to bring to life cool new innovative applications for WinFS!

Get it while its still hot (high-res, low-res)

Tags: PDC05

Meebo: Web IM

2005-10-04T00:46:00.000+01:00

If you haven't heard of meebo, check them out right way. Its a great AJAX im client that works with major im services (eg. MSN, Jabber, etc.)

The 3 smart folks (guy and gals) behind Meebo are doing hell of a job and I wish them all the best. You guys rock!! Keep up the good work. Two weeks online and already gaining lots of attention and deservingly so.

As Wikipedia puts it:

Meebo is an Ajax instant messaging client that works with major instant messaging services, including AOL, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger and Jabber.

It launched a private release on September 4, 2005, and it was publicly released on September 14, 2005 and has had five major revisions since.

Tags: meebo

Windows Workflow Foundation: Missed it at PDC?

2005-09-29T22:23:00.000+01:00

For all you folks that weren't there or missed the breakout sessions at PDC, Paul Andrew has kindly posted up a list of resources on WWF.

But wait, there's more. From the team that brought you WWF at PDC, they are doing a series of webcast on Windows Workflow Foundation.

So what are you waiting for?
Download it here and give it a go!
You know you want to :)

Currently reading: Presenting Windows Workflow Foundation

Tags: Windows WorkFlow Foundation, PDC05

Back From PDC [and into work :| ]

2005-09-21T02:14:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the lack of blogs from PDC. Last week has been a crazy sort of a week for me at PDC'05. Crazy but in good way though.

So many cool things to see/learn but yet so little time. I managed to squeeze as much out it as humanly possible on 5-6 hours sleep each night. Don't ask how, but let just say that Starbucks made a tidy profit from me.

Saw lots of new cool technologies...

Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) -> Creating workflows in your custom app. Very cool and exciting :)
"Sparkle" --> Part of the MS Expressions family.

and many many more...

I will start blogging on some of the cool new technologies that I've seen at PDC'05, once I've had a go at them and investigated them further. Which can only mean one thing, more late nights for me. I don't know about you, but trying new bits has always been one of my favourite past time. Call me a geek, but that what makes me tick. ;)

Personally, I see tremendous opportunities in the WWF. It will change the way we think when building custom solutions.

In most cases, the business logic is hard-coded as a series of if..else statements, procedures calls and database lookups. Hopefully with WWF, we can start being more productive when building workflow solutions in our custom apps.

Some links to get you started:

Main Page on MSDN: Link
Dave Green's Blog [he's one of the architect on the WWF team]: Link
Introductory article on MSDN: Link
Paul Andrew's Blog [the technical product manager]: Link

Tags: PDC05

PreConference at PDC

2005-09-13T00:02:00.000+01:00

Just out for a short break. Its Monday 4pm here in LA. Been having an absolute blast at the P&P for Designing SOA - An illustrated example. Beat Schwegler posted the agenda for the pre-conference session here.

Saw a few cool tools and tips and one of them was the Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT). I have heard of it and read the introductionary article on MSDN, but its only when I saw Project Batman being demo by Don Smith and Beat Schwegler that it really hit me how powerful this tool was.

As its name implies, its all about providing guidances to developers. I think the introductory article on GAT describes it perfectly.

Using the patterns & practices of the Guidance Automation Toolkit, you can make reusable code and pattern assets directly available in Visual Studio 2005.

The toolkit is designed to simplify integrating reusable code into applications allowing architects to automate development activities that developers would usually have to perform manually; often by following a series of instructions. By using the toolkit, architects can also ensure that repetitive and often error-prone activities are performed in a consistent manner, streamlining and accelerating the development process.

The toolkit can be used with assets developed in-house or by third parties; such as the assets created by the Microsoft patterns & practices team. These assets can be exposed to developers within Visual Studio, and in some cases, configured by using configuration files, templates, and wizards.

I think the take-home point on this is that with the GAT, the architect's intent can be clearly expressed in a series of instructions which the developers then completes in a consistent manner.

That's about the coolest tool I've seen so far. Definately looking forward to Project Batman, which is guidance in building services for your SOA solutions.

Tags: PDC05

Free ASP.NET 2.0 Hosting!!

2005-09-09T14:45:00.000+01:00

Yes, you heard me right.
Free ASP.NET 2.0 beta hosting is currently being offered by HostMySite.com

So what are you waiting for?
Get yours today.http://hostmysite.com/aspnet/

Back to the Future!

2005-09-09T12:17:00.000+01:00

Arrived safely in LA, went through customs without any problems. The guy at custom was a bit of a grump, well can't blame him considering all the people he had to process.

Finally here and all I can say is that is extremely hot and dry in LA compared to Wellington. Been drinking heaps of water just trying to keep alive in the heat here.

Meet up with my relatives here and was taken out to dinner. Had a fantastic Vietnamese, good thing we went early cause there was a line outside the restaurant by the time we left. Great food and good service. (I'll have to get you the address, once I ask my cousin. The name keeps escaping me.)

Headed down to CostCo to get the lots of confectionery for the colleagues (Got bags of Reese's peanut butter cups and even a bottle of KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce for the boss. Stewart you owe me one. Its a big bottle and heavy)

About to turn in. Been the longest Friday ever for me. Got to love those time-zones ;)
Will start planning my PDC schedule tomorrow. *sleepy*

PDC'05 Here I come!!

2005-09-09T05:52:00.000+01:00

I'll be flying off in a few hours. Off to my first ever PDC!!

I'm so stoked that I managed to convince work to send me there. (There's a long story to that, had to write a business proposal why they should really send me instead of the other guy down the hall).

Enough said, leaving Friday 7:00pm (NZ time) and looking forward to the whole PDC experience. Will blog on all entire cool new tech that Microsoft will announce.

Hey Pablo, I'll bring you back some Reese's peanut butter cups you love so much.

<homer>mmm... reese's</homer>