Effective Thoughts

Will Smith and I started an offline thread based on his post " Uninstalling EF Beta 3 ". Granted, the ADO.Net Entity Framework is still beta and probably won't go gold until Summer, but I wondered what he would use instead. His team is solid but not advanced and he wants to keep complexity to a minimum while remaining as agile as possible. Here's my advice. Your thoughts? You're probably wise in steering away from 3.5 stuff with an uninitiated staff. I'd probably encapsulate your data access leveraging the Enterprise Library Data Access Application Blocks . You could leverage CodeSmith and NetTiers to quickly generate the data access layer effectively shielding your less-advanced developers from the complexity (they simply call class library methods vs. code ADO.Net 2.0). Later, when you want to shift to ADO.Net Entity Framework or [less likely] LINQ to SQL, you can rip out this data access layer simply replacing it with EF or LINQ. Granted, [obviously] you...

One of the avenues for learning I've leveraged this past year is the Microsoft-sponsored ArcReady three hour in-person, bi-monthly seminar. It's held in a dozen or so cities but mine (Columbus, OH) is coming up on February 4th. Click here to register . [...and before you look at the remaining post and say TLDR : ArcReady is free, there's usually good swag and there are some very cool/smart folks that attend...] I enjoy ArcReady because more than likely, you won't see a line of code. As developers, we're constantly exposed to writings and presentations with lots of code. For the most part, I like that and feel it's the best way to learn about software development. However, always approaching from a developer perspective tends to lose the forest for the trees. My opportunities to code have certainly declined over the years but I enjoy coding and can [gasp] actually read a code book and enjoy it (vs. using it as a reference). However, I'm constantly amazed at ...

Hit the Central Ohio .Net Developers Meeting last night. You'll find me there almost every month but last night was especially cool. Mike Wood presented on .Net Workflow (WF) as a rules engine. This is Mike's fourth time in recent weeks delivering this presentation around the Heartland (Microspeak for Ohio, Ky, Michigan, Tenn) District and it showed. The talk communicated the ins and outs of a complicated but feature-rich product with clarity and passion. It was one of the best I can remember in recent months...although I tend to get really geeked out about WF and BPM. I must admit an "ah, ha" moment in approaching .Net WF as a rules engine. (It seems fundamental and a no-brainer that the heart of WF is a rules engine but...) I had always just thought of it as a mostly-graphical (drag/drop) method to lay out a business process...like a mortgage application approval process. Did someone from Credit approve it? Yes, then "route" to Accounting, etc. But WF is ...

This article from Frank Kelly really cracked me up...but I think he's fairly accurate. His perspective is from Java but it's applicable to all 'architects'. Don't become the Non-Coding Architect!

I'm asked this all the time by developers: "how do I become an architect?" There's no right answer...and there's no book to read! However, here are several MS sites which will help get you pointed in the right direction.