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• Build System for .NET with a Make/Rake-like syntax?

  - by Yuvi

  A Build system with .NET devs as its Primary Target Audience that is does not have an XML-only Syntax?

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• As a team should we develop locally and merge into the dev server, or develop on the dev server?

  - by CogitoErgoSum

  Hey, Recently I was tasked with writing up formal procedures for a team based development enviroment. We have several projects with multiple modules each. Right now there are only two programmers, however there are plans to expand to 4-6 programmers. Each programmer will be working on the same project and possibly pages which may cause over writing or error issues. So far the ideal solution I have thought up is: Local development (WAMP/VM or some virtual server instance on their own machine). Once a developer has finished their developments, they check it into the CVS Repository and merge it wih other fixes etc. The CVS version is then deployed to the primary dev server for testing by the devs. The MySQL DAtabases are kept on the primary dev server and users may remotely connect to it. Any Schema / Data alterations are run through a DB Admin who will notify all devs of any DB Changes (Which should be rare). Does anyone see an issue with this or have a better solution?

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• Why are mainframes still around?

  - by ThaDon

  It's a question you've probably asked or been asked several times. What's so great about Mainframes? The answer you've probably been given is "they are fast" "normal computers can't process as many 'transactions' per second as they do". Jeese, I mean it's not like Google is running a bunch of Mainframes and look how many transactions/sec they do! The question here really is "why?". When I ask this question to the mainframe devs I know, they can't answer, they simply restate "It's fast". With the advent of Cloud Computing, I can't imagine mainframes being able to compete both cost-wise and mindshare-wise (aren't all the Cobol devs going to retire at some point, or will offshore just pickup the slack?). And yet, I know a few companies that still pump out net-new Cobol/Mainframe apps, even for things we could do easily in say .NET and Java. Anyone have a real good answer as to why "The Mainframe is faster", or can point me to some good articles relating to the topic?

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• Silverlight Cream for March 15, 2011 -- #1061

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Peter Kuhn, Emil Stoychev, Viktor Larsson(-2-), Kevin Hoffman, Rudi Grobler, WindowsPhoneGeek, Jesse Liberty(-2-), and Martin Krüger. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Image comparison using a GridSplitter" Martin Krüger WP7: "Using WP7 accent color effectively" Viktor Larsson XNA: "XNA for Silverlight developers: Part 7 - Collision detection" Peter Kuhn From SilverlightCream.com: XNA for Silverlight developers: Part 7 - Collision detection Peter Kuhn has part 7 of his XNA for Silverlight devs tutorial series up at SilverlightShow... discussing Collision detection... something you need to get your head around if you're going to do a game. Interview with John Papa about the upcoming MIX11 event and the Open Source Fest Emil Stoychev of SilverlightShow reverses the roles with John Papa and interviews John on this MIX11 and Open Source Fest discussion they had at the MVP Summit Debugging Videos or Camera in WP7 Viktor Larsson has a quick post up on the 3 ways of debugging a WP7 app and why and under what circumstances you should change debug method. Using WP7 accent color effectively Viktor Larsson's next post is about the 10 accent colors available on WP7 devices. He shows how to make best use of that capability in XAML and runtime code. WP7 for iPhone and Android Developers - Hardware and Device Services Kevin Hoffman's part 4 of a 12-part tutorial series at SilverlightShow on WP7 for iPhone/Android devs is up ... this oe concentrates on Hardware and Device Services... Launchers/Choosers/Sensors. How to publish WP7 applications if you live in the Middle-east & Africa region Rudi Grobler has a short post up on a legit way to publish WP7 apps if you are in the MEA region. Creating WP7 Custom Theme – Sample Theme Implementation WindowsPhoneGeek has a new post up and he's starting a series of 3 articles on Creating Wp7 Custom Themes... first up is this tutorial on Basic Theme Implementation... and use it as well. From Android to Windows Phone For "Windows Phone from Scratch #43", Jesse Liberty begins a series on moving apps from Android to WP7, beginning with a tip calculating program. Yet Another Podcast #28–Jeremy Likness Jesse Liberty's next post is his "Yet Another Podcast #28" with Jeremy Likness this time around... the list of all things fun that Jeremy's involved in is getting long... should be a good podcast! Image comparison using a GridSplitter Martin Krüger posted a cool 'Clip Splitter' for comparing images, and what a great set of example images he's using... pretty darn cool lining them up with a grid-splitter. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Moving away from .Net to Ruby and coping without intellisense

  - by user460667

  I am in the process of trying to learn Ruby, however after spending nearly 10 years in the MS stack I am struggling to get by without intellisense. I've given RubyMine a try which does help however ideally I would like to go free which would mean no RubyMine. How have other people leant to cope with remembering everything instead of relying on Ctrl-Space? Any advice is appreciated as at the moment I am feeling very stupid (no jokes about MS devs please ;)) Thanks

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• ORMs - Should DBAs just lighten up?

  - by simonsabin

  I did a presentation at DDD8 on the entity framework and how to stop your DBA from having a heart attack. You can find my demos and slide deck here http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons/archive/2010/01/30/Entity-Framework-how-to-stop-your-DBA-having-a-heart-attack.aspx Whilst at DDD Mike Ormond interviewed me about my view on ORMs and the battel between DBAs and Devs. To see what I said go tohttp://bit.ly/bnf1By

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• Business/Development Liaison Wanting To Enhance Understanding In Programming

  - by James Alexander

  I lead software development for a team of of about 20 devs and we're primarily a .net/sql server shop. We've recently created a new role in our organization for a more business like role to assist in prioritization of development and this business liaison has asked me if there are any books or resources he could use to better understand software concepts in a meaningful way. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

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• Pure Front end JavaScript with Web API versus MVC views with ajax

  - by eyeballpaul

  This was more a discussion for what peoples thoughts are these days on how to split a web application. I am used to creating an MVC application with all its views and controllers. I would normally create a full view and pass this back to the browser on a full page request, unless there were specific areas that I did not want to populate straight away and would then use DOM page load events to call the server to load other areas using AJAX. Also, when it came to partial page refreshing, I would call an MVC action method which would return the HTML fragment which I could then use to populate parts of the page. This would be for areas that I did not want to slow down initial page load, or areas that fitted better with AJAX calls. One example would be for table paging. If you want to move on to the next page, I would prefer it if an AJAX call got that info rather than using a full page refresh. But the AJAX call would still return an HTML fragment. My question is. Are my thoughts on this archaic because I come from a .net background rather than a pure front end background? An intelligent front end developer that I work with, prefers to do more or less nothing in the MVC views, and would rather do everything on the front end. Right down to web API calls populating the page. So that rather than calling an MVC action method, which returns HTML, he would prefer to return a standard object and use javascript to create all the elements of the page. The front end developer way means that any benefits that I normally get with MVC model validation, including client side validation, would be gone. It also means that any benefits that I get with creating the views, with strongly typed html templates etc would be gone. I believe this would mean I would need to write the same validation for front end and back end validation. The javascript would also need to have lots of methods for creating all the different parts of the DOM. For example, when adding a new row to a table, I would normally use the MVC partial view for creating the row, and then return this as part of the AJAX call, which then gets injected into the table. By using a pure front end way, the javascript would would take in an object (for, say, a product) for the row from the api call, and then create a row from that object. Creating each individual part of the table row. The website in question will have lots of different areas, from administration, forms, product searching etc. A website that I don't think requires to be architected in a single page application way. What are everyone's thoughts on this? I am interested to hear from front end devs and back end devs.

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• How do you version/track changes to SQL tables?

  - by gabe.

  When working in a team of developers, where everyone is making changes to local tables, and development tables, how do you keep all the changes in sync? A central log file where everyone keeps their sql changes? A wiki page to track alter table statements, individual .sql files that the devs can run to bring their local db's to the latest version? I've used some of these solutions, and I'm tyring to get a good solid solution together that works, so I'd appreciate your ideas.

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• Remove panel shadow in KDE 4.8+

  - by Meho R.

  It seems that panel shadow is somehow hardcoded in KDE 4 and devs do not have any plans to change it and/or make it customizable. So, what I'm actually asking is some kind of hack (if there is any) which will remove the shadow of the panel in KDE 4.x completely (but without need to disable all desktop effects in the process). Possible application: When a user wants a completely transparent panel, no top/bottom borders at all, the shadow is completely out of place and destroys the experience.

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• Data Mining Introduction

  Many people that work for years with SQL Server never use the Data Mining. This article has the objective to introduce them to this magic and exciting new world. 24% of devs don’t use database source control – make sure you aren’t one of themVersion control is standard for application code, but databases haven’t caught up. So what steps can you take to put your SQL databases under version control? Why should you start doing it? Read more to find out…

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• When not to use Google Web Toolkit?

  - by Jas

  I'm considering use of GWT on a major in-house web app development project, namely it's major advantage in my eyes is the cross-compilation to Javascript which would (at least theoretically) help my team reduce the size of tech stack by one. However, having been burnt before (like most devs), I would like to hear from programmers who did actually use it on any problems with GWT which would hamper, or limit, it's use within a certain problem domain. When do you not recommend using GWT, and why?

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• Am I deluding myself? Business analyst transition to programmer

  - by Ryan

  Current job: Working as the lead business analyst for a Big 4 firm, leading a team of developers and testers working on a large scale re-platforming project (4 onshore dev, 4 offshore devs, several onshore/offshore testers). Also work in a similar capacity on other smaller scale projects. Extent of my role: Gathering/writing out requirements, creating functional specifications, designing the UI (basically mapping out all front-end aspects of the system), working closely with devs to communicate/clarify requirements and come up with solutions when we hit roadblocks, writing test cases (and doing much of the testing), working with senior management and key stakeholders, managing beta testers, creating user guides and leading training sessions, providing key technical support. I also write quite a few macros in Excel using VBA (several of my macros are now used across the entire firm, so there are maybe around 1000 people using them) and use SQL on a daily basis, both on the SQL compact files the program relies on, our SQL Server data and any Access databases I create. The developers feel that I am quite good in this role because I understand a lot about programming, inherent system limitations, structure of the databases, etc so it's easier for me to communicate ideas and come up with suggestions when we face problems. What really interests me is developing software. I do a fair amount of programming in VBA and have been wanting to learn C# for awhile (the dev team uses C# - I review code occasionally for my own sake but have not had any practical experience using it). I'm interested in not just the business process but also the technical side of things, so the traditional BA role doesn't really whet my appetite for the kind of stuff I want to do. Right now I have a few small projects that managers have given me and I'm finding new ways to do them (like building custom Access applications), so there's a bit here and there to keep me interested. My question is this: what I would like to do is create custom Excel or Access applications for small businesses as a freelance business (working as a one-man shop; maybe having an occasional contractor depending on a project's complexity). This would obviously start out as a part-time venture while I have a day job, but eventually become a full-time job. Am I deluding myself to thinking I can go from BA/part-time VBA programmer to making a full-time go of a freelance business (where I would be starting out just writing custom Excel/Access apps in VBA)? Or is this type of thing not usually attempted until someone gains years of full-time programming experience? And is there even a market for these types of applications amongst small businesses (and maybe medium-sized) businesses?

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• Why are MVC & TDD not employed more in game architecture?

  - by secoif

  I will preface this by saying I haven't looked a huge amount of game source, nor built much in the way of games. But coming from trying to employ 'enterprise' coding practices in web apps, looking at game source code seriously hurts my head: "What is this view logic doing in with business logic? this needs refactoring... so does this, refactor, refactorrr" This worries me as I'm about to start a game project, and I'm not sure whether trying to mvc/tdd the dev process is going to hinder us or help us, as I don't see many game examples that use this or much push for better architectural practices it in the community. The following is an extract from a great article on prototyping games, though to me it seemed exactly the attitude many game devs seem to use when writing production game code: Mistake #4: Building a system, not a game ...if you ever find yourself working on something that isn’t directly moving your forward, stop right there. As programmers, we have a tendency to try to generalize our code, and make it elegant and be able to handle every situation. We find that an itch terribly hard not scratch, but we need to learn how. It took me many years to realize that it’s not about the code, it’s about the game you ship in the end. Don’t write an elegant game component system, skip the editor completely and hardwire the state in code, avoid the data-driven, self-parsing, XML craziness, and just code the damned thing. ... Just get stuff on the screen as quickly as you can. And don’t ever, ever, use the argument “if we take some extra time and do this the right way, we can reuse it in the game”. EVER. is it because games are (mostly) visually oriented so it makes sense that the code will be weighted heavily in the view, thus any benefits from moving stuff out to models/controllers, is fairly minimal, so why bother? I've heard the argument that MVC introduces a performance overhead, but this seems to me to be a premature optimisation, and that there'd more important performance issues to tackle before you worry about MVC overheads (eg render pipeline, AI algorithms, datastructure traversal, etc). Same thing regarding TDD. It's not often I see games employing test cases, but perhaps this is due to the design issues above (mixed view/business) and the fact that it's difficult to test visual components, or components that rely on probablistic results (eg operate within physics simulations). Perhaps I'm just looking at the wrong source code, but why do we not see more of these 'enterprise' practices employed in game design? Are games really so different in their requirements, or is a people/culture issue (ie game devs come from a different background and thus have different coding habits)?

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• How can we unify business goals and technical goals?

  - by BAM

  Some background I work at a small startup: 4 devs, 1 designer, and 2 non-technical co-founders, one who provides funding, and the other who handles day-to-day management and sales. Our company produces mobile apps for target industries, and we've gotten a lot of lucky breaks lately. The outlook is good, and we're confident we can make this thing work. One reason is our product development team. Everyone on the team is passionate, driven, and has a great sense of what makes an awesome product. As a result, we've built some beautiful applications that we're all proud of. The other reason is the co-founders. Both have a brilliant business sense (one actually founded a multi-million dollar company already), and they have close ties in many of the industries we're trying to penetrate. Consequently, they've brought in some great business and continue to keep jobs in the pipeline. The problem The problem we can't seem to shake is how to bring these two awesome advantages together. On the business side, there is a huge pressure to deliver as fast as possible as much as possible, whereas on the development side there is pressure to take your time, come up with the right solution, and pay attention to all the details. Lately these two sides have been butting heads a lot. Developers are demanding quality while managers are demanding quantity. How can we handle this? Both sides are correct. We can't survive as a company if we build terrible applications, but we also can't survive if we don't sell enough. So how should we go about making compromises? Things we've done with little or no success: Work more (well, it did result in better quality and faster delivery, but the dev team has never been more stressed out before) Charge more (as a startup, we don't yet have the credibility to justify higher prices, so no one is willing to pay) Extend deadlines (if we charge the same, but take longer, we'll end up losing money) Things we've done with some success: Sacrifice pay to cut costs (everyone, from devs to management, is paid less than they could be making elsewhere. In return, however, we all have creative input and more flexibility and freedom, a typical startup trade off) Standardize project management (we recently started adhering to agile/scrum principles so we can base deadlines on actual velocity, not just arbitrary guesses) Hire more people (we used to have 2 developers and no designers, which really limited our bandwidth. However, as a startup we can only afford to hire a few extra people.) Is there anything we're missing or doing wrong? How is this handled at successful companies? Thanks in advance for any feedback :)

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• Extracting data with headers using PowerShell

  This article provides a short PowerShell script to extrace data from a database using PowerShell. 24% of devs don’t use database source control – make sure you aren’t one of themVersion control is standard for application code, but databases haven’t caught up. So what steps can you take to put your SQL databases under version control? Why should you start doing it? Read more to find out…

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• Audio server with best API?

  - by Wintermute

  I'm a web dev, working in a small studio with a couple of other devs and some crayon-munchers (or, "designers"). Like all the best and trendiest creative studios, we have tunes. Our tunes consists of a set of speakers that whoever wants to can plug into their machine, and DJ their little socks off via iTunes, Spotify, VLC or whatever their music player of choice happens to be. Obviously, this lacks finesse. What we WANT is this: a single, dedicated machine running some sort of audio player (ideally Win-based, but a Linux flavour isn't impossible), that exposes an API. We (ie: me and the other devs) want to write a web-based client onto it, that'll let us remotely do all sorts of funky stuff like generating on-the-fly genre-based playlists, and voting for tracks, and making tea. My question - and please forgive me if this isn't the place for such a question, I was going to ask on Stackoverflow but that didn't seem right either - is this: what's the best player to start with? What can do all of this? I know VLC can function as a streaming server, but know nothing of any API it may have. I'd rather chop my pinky off than use iTunes, but if it does what we want, then... Anyhow, thanks for reading. All comments and suggestions gratefully received.

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• So&hellip; What is a SharePoint Developer?

  - by Mark Rackley

  A few days ago Stacy Draper and I were chatting about what it means to be a SharePoint Developer. That actually turns about to be a conversation with lots of shades of grey. Stacy thought it would make a good blog post… well, I can’t promise this to be a GOOD blog post… So, anyway, I decided to let off a little bomb this morning by posting the following tweet on Twitter: @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? Now, I knew this is a debate that has been going on since the first SharePoint Designer User put SharePoint Developer on their resume. There are probably several blogs out there on the subject, but with the wildfire that is jQuery and a few other new features out there I believe it is an important subject to tackle again. I got a lot of great feedback as well on Twitter. The entire twitter conversation is at the end of this blog posting. Thanks everyone for their opinions. Who cares? Why does it matter? Can’t we all just get along? Yes it matters… everything must be labeled and put in it’s proper place. Pigeon holing is the only way to go!  Just kidding.. I’m not near that anal, but yes! It is important to be able to properly identify the skill set of those people on your team and correctly identify the role you are wanting to hire. Saying you are a “SharePoint Developer” is just too vague and just barely begins to answer the question. Also, knowing who’s on your team and what they can do will ensure you give your clients the best people for the job. A Developer writes code right? So, a Developer uses Visual Studio! Whoa, hold on there Sparky. Even if I concede that to be a developer you have to write code then you still can’t say a SharePoint Developer has to use Visual Studio.  So, you can spell C#, how well can you write XSLT? How’s your jQuery? Sorry bud, that’s code whether you like it or not. There are many ways to write code in SharePoint that have nothing to do with cracking open Visual Studio. So, what are the different ways to develop in SharePoint then? How many different ways can you “develop” in SharePoint?? A lot… Out of the box features In SharePoint you can create a site, create a custom list on that site, do basic calculations in a calculated column, set up alerts, and add all sorts of web parts to a page. Let’s face it.. that IS development! javaScript/jQuery Perhaps you’ve heard by now about this thing called jQuery? It’s all over the place and the answer to a lot of people’s prayers. However be careful, with great power comes great responsibility. Remember, javaScript is executed on the client side and if you abuse it your performance could be affected. Also, Marc Anderson (@sympmarc) wrote a pretty awesome javaScript library called SPServices.  This allows you to access SharePoint’s Web Services using jQuery. How freakin cool is that? With these tools at your disposal the number of things you CAN’T do without Visual Studio grows smaller and smaller. This is definitely development no matter what anyone else says and there is no Visual Studio involved. SharePoint Designer Ahhh.. The cause of and the answer to all of your SharePoint development problems. With SharePoint Designer you can use DataView Web Parts, develop (there’s that word again) your branding, and even connect to external datasources.  There’s a lot you can do in SharePoint Designer. It’s got it’s shortcomings, but it is an invaluable tool in the SharePoint developers toolbox. InfoPath So, can InfoPath development really be considered SharePoint development? I would say yes. You can connect to SharePoint lists, populate fields in a SharePoint list, and even write code in InfoPath. Sounds like SharePoint development to me. Visual Studio – Web Services/WCF So, get this. You can write code for SharePoint and not have a clue what the 12 hive is, what “site actions” means, or know how to do ANYTHING in SharePoint? Poppycock! You say? SharePoint Web Services I say… With SharePoint Web Services you can totally interact with SharePoint without knowing anything about SharePoint. I don’t recommend it of course, but it’s possible. What can you write using SharePoint Web Services? How about a little application called SharePoint Designer? Visual Studio – Object Model And here we are finally:  the SharePoint Object Model.  When you hear “SharePoint Developer” most people think of someone opening Visual Studio and creating a custom web part, workflow, event receiver, etc.. etc.. but I hope that by now I have made the point that this is NOT the only form of SharePoint Development! Again… Who cares? Just crack open Visual Studio for everything! Problem solved! Let’s ponder for a moment, shall we? The business comes to you with a requirement that involves some pretty fancy business calculations, and a complicated view that they do NOT want to look like SharePoint. “No Problem” you proclaim you mighty SharePoint Developer. You go back to your cube, chuckle at the latest Dilbert comic, and crack open Visual Studio. Then you build your custom web part… fight with all the deployment, migration, and UAT that you must go through and proclaim victory two weeks later!!!! Well done my good sir/ma’am! Oh wait… it turns out Sally who is not a “developer” did the exact same thing with a Dataview web part and some jQuery and it’s been in production for two weeks? #CockinessFail I know there are many ASP.NET developers out there that can create a custom control and wrap it to be a SharePoint Web Part.  That does NOT mean they are SharePoint Developers though as far as I’m concerned and I personally would much rather have someone on my team that can manipulate the heck (yes, I said ‘heck’) out of SharePoint using Dataview Web Parts, jQuery, and a roll of duct tape. Just because you know how to write code in Visual Studio does not mean you are a SharePoint Developer. What’s the conclusion here? How do we define ‘it’ and what ‘it’ is called? Fortunately, this is MY blog. I don’t have to give answers, I can stir the pot, laugh and leave you to ponder what it means! There is obviously no right or wrong answer here (unless you disagree with me,then you are flat out wrong). Anyway, there are many opinions.  Here’s mine.  If you put SharePoint Developer on your resume make sure to clearly specify HOW you develop in SharePoint and what tools you use. If we must label these gurus of jQuery and SPD, how about “SharePoint Client Developer” or “SharePoint Front End Developer”? Just throwing out an idea. Whatever we call them, to say they are not developers is short-sighted, arrogant, and unfair. Of course, then we need to figure out what to call all those other SharePoint development types.  Twitter Conversation @next_connect: RT @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? | I say no.... @mikegil:  @mrackley re: yr Developer question: SPD expert <> SP Developer. Can be "sous-developer," though. #SharePoint #SPD @WonderLaura:  Rt @mrackley Can someone be considered a SharePoint Dev if all they know how to do is work in SPD? -- My opinion is that devs write code. @exnav29:  Rt @mrackley Can someone be considered a SharePoint Dev if all they know how to do is work in SPD? => I think devs would use VS as well @ssKevin:  @WonderLaura @mrackley does that mean strictly vb and c# when it comes to #SharePoint ? @jimmywim:  @exnav29 @mrackley nah, I'd say they were a power user. Devs know their way around the 12 hive ;) @sympmarc:  RT @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? -> Fighting words. @sympmarc:  @next_connect @mrackley Besides, we prefer to be called "hacks". ;+) @next_connect:  @sympmarc The important thing is that you don't have to develop code to solve problems and create solutions. @mrackley @mrackley:  @sympmarc @next_connect not tryin to pick fight.. just try and find consensus on definition @usher:  @mrackley I'd still argue that you have a DevLite title that's out there for the collaboration engineers (@sympmarc @next_connect) @next_connect: @usher I agree. I've called it Light Dev/ Configuration before. @sympmarc @mrackley @usher:  @next_connect I like DevLite, low calorie but still same great taste :) @mrackley @sympmarc @mrackley:  @next_connect @usher @sympmarc I don't think there's any "lite" to someone who can bend jQuery and XSLT to their will. @usher:  @mrackley okay, so would you refer to someone that writes user controls and assemblies something different (@next_connect @sympmarc) @usher:  @mrackley when looking for a developer that can write .net code, it's a bit different than an XSLT/jQuery designer. @sympmarc @next_connect @jimmywim:  @mrackley @sympmarc @next_connect I reckon a "dev" does managed code and works in the 12 hive @sympmarc:  @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect We had a similar debate a few days ago @toddbleeker et al @sympmarc:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @toddbleeker @stevenmfowler More abt my Middle Tier term, but still connected. Meet bus need. @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect I used "No Assembly Required" in the past. I also suggested "Supplimenting the SharePoint DOM" @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect Others suggested Information Worker Solutions/Enhancements @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler I also like "SharePoint Scripting Solutions". All the technologies are script. @jimmywim:  @toddbleeker @sympmarc @mrackley @next_connect I like the IW solutions one... @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler This is like the debate that never ends: it is definitely not called Middle Tier. @jimmywim:  @toddbleeker @sympmarc @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler "Scripting" these days makes me think PowerShell... @sympmarc:  @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler If it forces a debate on h2 best solve bus probs, I'll keep sayin Middle Tier. @usher:  @sympmarc so we know what we're looking for, we just can't define a name? @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler @sympmarc:  @usher @sympmarc @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler The naming seems to matter more than the substance. :-( @jimmywim:  @sympmarc @usher @toddbleeker @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler work brkdn defines tasks, defines tools needed, can then b grp'd by user @WonderLaura:  @mrackley @toddbleeker @jimmywim @sympmarc @usher @next_connect Funny you're asking. @johnrossjr and I spent hours this week on the subject. @stevenmfowler:  RT @toddbleeker: @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler it is definitely not called Middle Tier. < I'm with Todd

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• Ann Arbor Day of .NET 2010 Recap

  - by PSteele

  Had a great time at the Ann Arbor Day of .NET on Saturday.  Lots of great speakers and topics.  And chance to meet up with friends you usually only communicate with via email/twitter. My Presentation I presented "Getting up to speed with C# 3.5 — Just in time for 4.0!".  There's still a lot of devs that are either stuck in .NET 2.0 or just now moving to .NET 3.5.  This presentation gave highlights of a lot of the key features of 3.5.  I had great questions from the audience.  Afterwards, I talked with a few people who are just now getting in to 3.5 and they told me they had a lot of "A HA!" moments when something I said finally clicked and made sense from a code sample they had seen on the web.  Thanks to all who attended! A few people have asked me for the slides and demo.  The slides were nothing more than a table of contents.  90% of the presentation was spent inside Visual Studio demo'ing new techniques.  However, I have included it in the ZIP file with the sample solution.  You can download it here. Dennis Burton on MongoDB I caught Dennis Burton's presentation on MongoDB.  I was really interested in this one as I've missed the last few times Dennis had given it to local user groups.  It was very informative and I want to spend some time learning more about MongoDB.  I'm still an old-school relational guy, but I'm willing to investigate alternatives. Brian Genisio on Prism Since I'm not a Silverlight/WPF guy (yet), I wasn't sure this would interest me.  But I talked with Brian for a couple of minutes before the presentation and he convinced me to catch it.  And I'm glad he did.  Prism looks like a very nice framework for "composable UI's" in Silverlight and WPF.  I like the whole "dependency injection" feel to it.  Nice job Brian! GiveCamp Planning I spent some time Saturday working on things for the upcoming GiveCamp (which is why I only caught a few sessions).  Ann Arbor's Day of .NET and GiveCamp have both been held at Washtenaw Community College so I took some time (along with fellow GiveCamp planners Mike Eaton and John Hopkins) to check out the new location for Ann Arbor GiveCamp this year! In the past, WCC has let us use the Business Education (BE) building for our GiveCamp's.  But this year, they're moving us over to the Morris Lawrence (ML) building.  Let me tell you – this is a step UP!  In the BE building, we were spread across two floors and spread out into classrooms.  Plus, our opening and closing ceremonies were held in the Liberal Arts (LA) building – a bit of a walk from the BE building. In the ML building, we're together for the whole weekend.  We've got a large open area (which can be sectioned off if needed) for everyone to work in:   Right next to that, we have a large area where we can set up tables and eat.  And it helps that we have a wonderful view while eating (yes, that's a lake out there with a fountain): The ML building also has showers (which we'll have access to!) and it's own auditorium for our opening and closing ceremonies. All in all, this year's GiveCamp will be great! Stay tuned to the Ann Arbor GiveCamp website.  We'll be looking for volunteers (devs, designers, PM's, etc…) soon! Technorati Tags: .NET,Day of .NET,GiveCamp,MongoDB,Prism

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• A (Late) Meme Monday Post: On SQLFamily

  - by Argenis

    Yesterday a member of the SQL community who I deeply admire sent me a DM on Twitter asking whether I had done a SQLFamily post for Thomas LaRock’s (blog|@SQLRockstar) Meme Monday for November. I replied that I did not, and I regretted not having done so. A subtle DM followed my response: “Get on it, you have all week”. And indeed I must. So here’s an attempt to express some of my feelings on a community that has catapulted my career like nothing else before I embraced it. Nanos Gigantium Humeris Insidentes I stand on the shoulders of giants. My SQLFamily has given me support at all levels. Professionally and personally. There is never a lack of will to help and provide advice to others in this community. And I do my best to help. On #SQLHelp on Twitter, via email, or even on the phone. I expect no retribution, because I know that when and if I do run into problems, my SQLFamily will be there for me. I have met some of the most humble, dedicated and most professional people in the SQL community. And some of them have pretty big titles: MVPs, MCMs, Regional Mentors, and even leaders of PASS, SQLCAT members, and even PMs and Devs on the SQL Server team. All are welcome, and that includes YOU! I have also met some people that are rather reserved and don’t participate as much in the community, for whatever reason. Be as it may, let it be know to all that we are a very welcoming community – heck, some of my closest friends and people I can count on in the community have completely opposite political views. We share one goal: to get better and help others get better. Even if you are a lurker – my hope is that one day you’ll decide to give back some of what you have learned. You have to take it to the next level On one of my previous jobs as an IT Supervisor I used to tell my team all the time about the benefits of continuous education and self-driven learning. Shortly after I left that job, the company went bankrupt and some of my staff got laid off – some without any severance pay whatsoever. I eventually found out that some of them had a really hard time finding another job, because their skills were simply outdated. They had become stale professionals. Don’t be one of them. If you don’t take advantage of these learning resources, somebody else will – and that person has an advantage over you when applying for that awesome job position that got opened. There’s a severe shortage of good DBAs and DB Devs out there. What’s your excuse for not being excellent? Even if your knowledge of SQL Server is at the beginner level, really – you have no excuse to get better. Just go to SQLUniversity and learn from there. Don’t get stale! Thank You To all of you in the SQL community who put so much time and energy into helping others, my deepest gratitude to you. I can’t wait to meet you all again at the next event and share our SQL stories over a pint of beer (or a shot of Jaeger) Cheers! -Argenis

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• Python Coding standards vs. productivity

  - by Shroatmeister

  I work for a large humanitarian organisation, on a project building software that could help save lives in emergencies by speeding up the distribution of food. Many NGOs desperately need our software and we are weeks behind schedule. One thing that worries me in this project is what I think is an excessive focus on coding standards. We write in python/django and use a version of PEP0008, with various modifications e.g. line lengths can go up to 160 chars and all lines should go that long if possible, no blank lines between imports, line wrapping rules that apply only to certain kinds of classes, lots of templates that we must use, even if they aren't the best way to solve a problem etc. etc. One core dev spent a week rewriting a major part of the system to meet the then new coding standards, throwing away several suites of tests in the process, as the rewrite meant they were 'invalid'. We spent two weeks rewriting all the functionality that was lost, and fixing bugs. He is the lead dev and his word carries weight, so he has convinced the project manager that these standards are necessary. The junior devs do as they are told. I sense that the project manager has a strong feeling of cognitive dissonance about all this but nevertheless agrees with it vehemently as he feels unsure what else to do. Today I got in serious trouble because I had forgotten to put some spaces after commas in a keyword argument. I was literally shouted at by two other devs and the project manager during a Skype call. Personally I think coding standards are important but also think that we are wasting a lot of time obsessing with them, and when I verbalized this it provoked rage. I'm seen as a troublemaker in the team, a team that is looking for scapegoats for its failings. Since the introduction of the coding standards, the team's productivity has measurably plummeted, however this only reinforces the obsession, i.e. the lead dev simply blames our non-adherence to standards for the lack of progress. He believes that we can't read each other's code if we don't adhere to the conventions. This is starting to turn sticky. Now I am trying to modify various scripts, autopep8, pep8ify and PythonTidy to try to match the conventions. We also run pep8 against source code but there are so many implicit amendments to our standard that it's hard to track them all. The lead dev simple picks faults that the pep8 script doesn't pick up and shouts at us in the next stand-up meeting. Every week there are new additions to the coding standards that force us to rewrite existing, working, tested code. Thank heavens we still have tests, (I reverted some commits and fixed a bunch of the ones he removed). All the while there is increasing pressure to meet the deadline. I believe a fundamental issue is that the lead dev and another core dev refuse to trust other developers to do their job. But how to deal with that? We can't do our job because we are too busy rewriting everything. I've never encountered this dynamic in a software engineering team. Am I wrong to question their adherence to coding standards? Has anyone else experienced a similar situation and how have they dealt with it successfully? (I'm not looking for a discussion just actual solutions people have found)

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• Handling "related" work within a single agile work item

  - by Tesserex

  I'm on a project team of 4 devs, myself included. We've been having a long discussion on how to handle extra work that comes up in the course of a single work item. This extra work is usually things that are slightly related to the task, but not always necessary to accomplish the goal of the item (that may be an opinion). Examples include but are not limited to: refactoring of the code changed by the work item refactoring code neighboring the code changed by the item re-architecting the larger code area around the ticket. For example if an item has you changing a single function, you realize the entire class now could be redone to better accommodate this change. improving the UI on a form you just modified When this extra work is small we don't mind. The problem is when this extra work causes a substantial extension of the item beyond the original feature point estimation. Sometimes a 5 point item will actually take 13 points of time. In one case we had a 13 point item that in retrospect could have been 80 points or more. There are two options going around in our discussion for how to handle this. We can accept the extra work in the same work item, and write it off as a mis-estimation. Arguments for this have included: We plan for "padding" at the end of the sprint to account for this sort of thing. Always leave the code in better shape than you found it. Don't check in half-assed work. If we leave refactoring for later, it's hard to schedule and may never get done. You are in the best mental "context" to handle this work now, since you're waist deep in the code already. Better to get it out of the way now and be more efficient than to lose that context when you come back later. We draw a line for the current work item, and say that the extra work goes into a separate ticket. Arguments include: Having a separate ticket allows for a new estimation, so we aren't lying to ourselves about how many points things really are, or having to admit that all of our estimations are terrible. The sprint "padding" is meant for unexpected technical challenges that are direct barriers to completing the ticket requirements. It is not intended for side items that are just "nice-to-haves". If you want to schedule refactoring, just put it at the top of the backlog. There is no way for us to properly account for this stuff in an estimation, since it seems somewhat arbitrary when it comes up. A code reviewer might say "those UI controls (which you actually didn't modify in this work item) are a bit confusing, can you fix that too?" which is like an hour, but they might say "Well if this control now inherits from the same base class as the others, why don't you move all of this (hundreds of lines of) code into the base and rewire all this stuff, the cascading changes, etc.?" And that takes a week. It "contaminates the crime scene" by adding unrelated work into the ticket, making our original feature point estimates meaningless. In some cases, the extra work postpones a check-in, causing blocking between devs. Some of us are now saying that we should decide some cut off, like if the additional stuff is less than 2 FP, it goes in the same ticket, if it's more, make it a new ticket. Since we're only a few months into using Agile, what's the opinion of all the more seasoned Agile veterans around here on how to handle this?

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• SharePoint For Newbie Developers: Code Scope

  - by Mark Rackley

  So, I continue to try to come up with diagrams and information to help new SharePoint developers wrap their heads around this SharePoint beast, especially when those newer to development are on my team. To that end, I drew up the below diagram to help some of our junior devs understand where/when code is being executed in SharePoint at a high level. Note that I say “High Level”… This is a simplistic diagram that can get a LOT more complicated if you want to dive in deeper.  For the purposes of my lesson it served its purpose well. So, please no comments from you peanut gallery about information 3 levels down that’s missing unless it adds to the discussion.  Thanks So, the diagram below details where code is executed on a page load and gives the basic flow of the page load. There are actually many more steps, but again, we are staying high level here. I just know someone is still going to say something like “Well.. actually… the dlls are getting executed when…”  Anyway, here’s the diagram with some information I like to point out: Code Scope / Where it is executed So, looking at the diagram we see that dlls and XSL are executed on the server and that JavaScript/jQuery are executed on the client. This is the main thing I like to point out for the following reasons: XSL (for the most part) is faster than JavaScript I actually get this question a lot. Since XSL is executed on the server less data is getting passed over the wire and a beefier machine (hopefully) is doing the processing. The outcome of course is better performance. When You are using jQuery and making Web Service calls you are building XML strings and sending them to the server, then ALL the results come back and the client machine has to parse through the XML and use what it needs and ignore the rest (and there is a lot of garbage that comes back from SharePoint Web Service calls). XSL and JavaScript cannot work together in the same scope Let me clarify. JavaScript can send data back to SharePoint in postbacks that XSL can then use. XSL can output JavaScript and initiate JavaScript variables.  However, XSL cannot call a JavaScript method to get a value and JavaScript cannot directly interact with XSL and call its templates. They are executed in there scope only. No crossing of boundaries here. So, what does this all mean? Well, nothing too deep. This is just some basic fundamental information that all SharePoint devs need to understand. It will help you determine what is the best solution for your specific development situation and it will help the new guys understand why they get an error when trying to call a JavaScript Function from within XSL.  Let me know if you think quick little blogs like this are helpful or just add to the noise. I could probably put together several more that are similar.  As always, thanks for stopping by, hope you learned something new.

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• CI tests to enforce specific development rules - good practice?

  - by KeithS

  The following is all purely hypothetical and any particular portion of it may or may not accurately describe real persons or situations, whether living, dead or just pretending. Let's say I'm a senior dev or architect in charge of a dev team working on a project. This project includes a security library for user authentication/authorization of the application under development. The library must be available for developers to edit; however, I wish to "trust but verify" that coders are not doing things that could compromise the security of the finished system, and because this isn't my only responsibility I want it to be done in an automated way. As one example, let's say I have an interface that represents a user which has been authenticated by the system's security library. The interface exposes basic user info and a list of things the user is authorized to do (so that the client app doesn't have to keep asking the server "can I do this?"), all in an immutable fashion of course. There is only one implementation of this interface in production code, and for the purposes of this post we can say that all appropriate measures have been taken to ensure that this implementation can only be used by the one part of our code that needs to be able to create concretions of the interface. The coders have been instructed that this interface and its implementation are sacrosanct and any changes must go through me. However, those are just words; the security library's source is open for editing by necessity. Any of my devs could decide that this secured, private, hash-checked implementation needs to be public so that they could do X, or alternately they could create their own implementation of this public interface in a different library, exposing the hashing algorithm that provides the secure checksum, in order to do Y. I may not be made aware of these changes so that I can beat the developer over the head for it. An attacker could then find these little nuggets in an unobfuscated library of the compiled product, and exploit it to provide fake users and/or falsely-elevated administrative permissions, bypassing the entire security system. This possibility keeps me awake for a couple of nights, and then I create an automated test that reflectively checks the codebase for types deriving from the interface, and fails if it finds any that are not exactly what and where I expect them to be. I compile this test into a project under a separate folder of the VCS that only I have rights to commit to, have CI compile it as an external library of the main project, and set it up to run as part of the CI test suite for user commits. Now, I have an automated test under my complete control that will tell me (and everyone else) if the number of implementations increases without my involvement, or an implementation that I did know about has anything new added or has its modifiers or those of its members changed. I can then investigate further, and regain the opportunity to beat developers over the head as necessary. Is this considered "reasonable" to want to do in situations like this? Am I going to be seen in a negative light for going behind my devs' backs to ensure they aren't doing something they shouldn't?

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• SVN Workflow - Chicken Before the Egg - Before merging V1 with V2, I need code from V1 to work on V2

  - by Jake

  Hi, Our distributed team (3 internal devs and 3+ external devs) use SVN to manage our codebase for a web site. We have a branch for each minor version (4.1.0, 4.1.1, 4.1.2, etc...). We have a trunk which we merge each version into when we do a release and publish to our site. An example of the problem we are having is thus: A new feature is added, lets call it "Ability to Create A Project" to 4.1.1. Another feature which depends on the one in 4.1.1 is scheduled to go in 4.1.2, called "Ability to Add Tasks to Projects". So, on Monday, we say 4.1.1 is 'closed' and needs to be tested. Our remote developers usually will start working on features/tickets for 4.1.2 at this point. Throughout the week we will test 4.1.1 and fix any bugs and commit them back to 4.1.1. Then, on Friday or so, we will tag 4.1.1, merge it with trunk, and finally, merge it with 4.1.2. But, for the 4-5 days we are testing, 4.1.2 doesn't have the code from 4.1.1 that some of the new features for 4.1.2 depend on. So a dev who is adding the "Ability to Add Tasks To Projects" feature, doesn't have the "Ability to Create a Project" feature to build upon, and has to do some file copy shenanigans to be able to keep working on it. What could/should we do to smooth out this process? P.S. Apologies if this question has been asked before - I did search but couldn't find what I'm looking for.

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