Effective Thoughts

Thanks to everyone who attended my firm's ( Cardinal Solutions ) / Microsoft joint-sponsored Developer Tools Roadmap event at the Columbus Microsoft MPR room. Thanks to Randy Pagels , Bill Steele and...(no, I won't thank myself) for speaking on C#/.Net 4.0 Futures, VSTS 2010 and Azure/S+S/Online Services, respecitvely. Please contact me or leave a comment with any questions!

Update (2/7/2009): VsDoc for jQuery v1.3.1 released! Update (1/23/2009): Thanks to all who attended! The packed house made for some great energy...and I hope some solid learning. I added the link to the samples/demos below (all the way at the bottom). My colleague Jason Karns and I have the honor of presenting " Introducing jQuery in ASP.Net " at the Detroit MSDN Developer Conference on January 22nd. Come see this exciting inclusion of an open source library with Microsoft Visual Studio! I've included several links below we'll discuss in our talk: jQuery: v1.3 Released 1/14! (...but no official Visual Studio annotated Intellisense file yet ;-( jQuery Project jQuery Visual Studio annotated library Scott Guthrie “ jQuery Intellisense in VS 2008 ” - Enabling Intellisense for jQuery in Visual Studio2008 Hotfix to support -vsdoc.js annotated files within Visual Studio ASP.Net: ASP.Net MVC (Beta) ASP.Net AJAX (built in to ASP.Net 3.5 SP1) ASP.Net AJAX Control Toolkit...

Another amazing CodeMash this year. I'm a third year alum now and it just keeps getting better. I embraced Open Spaces more this year. Along with that and the Microsoft Hands on Labs, there was never a dull moment. Most importantly, I got to hang with all the amazing folks who contribute so much to the community/region...and wow can Dustin Campbell and Carl Franklin *jam* guitar (...the real ones...not Rock Band)! Huge props to Jim Holmes , Brian Prince , Jeff Blankenburg , Jason Follas , Jason Gilmore , Josh Holmes , tons of people I missed and all the great speakers and sponsors (including my employer, Cardinal Solutions ). Can't wait until next year!

Coming out of my post on locking down merges , Tim Wingfield provided the following intriguing inquiry (paraphrased): First, most of our clients don't delve into what our dev practices are, what source control we use, how we use it, or any of the specifics below feature/deliverable level. Am I being sheltered from a bigger problem out there? Secondly, how can we as developers alleviate that issue? Source control, like the language something is written in, really shouldn't matter beyond that of a maintenance issue. A competent dev team is going to make use of all tools available. Removing merging from that list is like telling us to develop in Notepad! These are great questions. First off, if your team is developing a product or a deliverable but not source, I feel the process and tools your team is using shouldn't be of much concern to the client. We should be leveraging 100% of our best practices and the optimal tools to deliver high quality software in th...

On November 20th in Columbus, OH I'll be participating in the Microsoft Dog Food Developer Conference at the Microsoft Polaris offices. Hope to see you there! (I'll let Brian Prince articulate the details ...) Update (11/26/2008): Blankenburg's photos from the day. Not my best side. ;-)

As a senior technology professional, I interview a lot of candidates. I also maintain solid relationships with other folks in the community. Frequently, the topic of certifications arises: A good investment? Valuable? A clear measurement of skill? Consensus appears to draw the line related to one's seniority. If you're (for example) just out of school and looking for an instant creditability boost, by all means pursue a certification. Likely, this credential will assist you in overcoming the "junior" tag and likely land you more interviews and client roles. (Note: I'm going to use the terms senior and junior here...no offense to either. Can't think of a better one word description. I was a junior once too.) In stark contrast, the value of certifications drops off the table around the 2-3 year mark. Some in my circles even perceive certifications as a negative for the senior professional. They think, "If this guy is so solid, why is he wasting valuable...

Lately, I've been refactoring a C# WinForms application that ported from VB6 via a commercial converter. Let's just say the resulting code wasn't pretty. As a result, I've been refactoring the heck out of it. I'm down about 3000 lines of code to date. Nice. This morning, I decided to change the namespace. I used Visual Studio's refactoring tool to perform the rename. Love it. Then, I start getting this error: I search everywhere. There's absolutely no evidence of this previous namespace in the code. Where is this guy? Finally, I re-read the error more carefully and decide to check Project Properties. Yep, sure enough, the StartUp object is still using the old namespace: Ok, so I'm operating a little slowly this morning. My bad. However, how come VS.Net couldn't have included Startup object in the rename refactoring? Further, how about throwing the Monday morning developer a bone and simply direct me to look at the Startup object. Appreciate it.

A fellow blogger recently posted some unformatted code samples on his Blogger blog and...well, it was tough to read to say the least (hey, at least he's posting code). I did some investigation and found: HOWTO: Post Code Code Snippet plugin for Windows Live Writer Update (4/1/2008) : I finally did this. My steps: Download latest syntax highlighting code Expand .rar with WinRAR Uploaded all the syntax highlighting files to Google Pages Followed instructions here to change my Blogger template. (NOTE: remove errant link close tag...it's already closed) Updated above template code with pointers to my code files hosted on Google Pages Saved Blogger template Wrap code with pre tags as described here .

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 ...

I'm scheduled to deliver a presentation in March May (got pushed back) on the new ADO.Net Entity Framework . It went beta3 back in December and the samples are here . You'll also need an instance of SQL 2005 (could be Express), this clandestine Visual Studio patch (be patient...takes forever to install), and the EF Tools (last released with the December CTP2). Other than from 10,000ft. and a familiarity with O/RM tools (EF does that but a whole lot more), EF is close to an unknown for me. This will be a good challenge to teach myself the technology and then effectively convey that understanding to the folks attending the presentation. However, EF looks like an excellent opportunity to accomplish a common LOB task more productively -- something I'm uber-passionate about -- so I don't think it will be an issue. I'm also delivering the talk internally in February for practice and may pitch it to a code camp if things turn out well. Best articles I've found so fa...

Michael Wood , co-founder of the Cincinnati .Net User Group just announced the Central Ohio Day of .Net for Saturday April 19th at the Roberts Center in Wilmington, Ohio. The conference, formerly known as the Cincinnati - Dayton Code Camp, is a no-brainer: free, good location, [what appears to be] strong presenters and a great networking opportunity. I plan to submit a topic to present. Hope to see you there!

Last night we held our bi-monthly practice meeting at the office. One of the guys on my team presented LINQ . We got to talking about the ADO.Net Entity Framework and someone wondered about vendor support. InfoQ is reporting this morning eight vendors have already jumped on board issuing their support in the near future. Beta3 of the framework released two weeks ago so I'm looking for an RTM maybe early Q2...?

From the link... The free e-book includes content from three recent publications from Microsoft Press: Introducing Microsoft LINQ by Paolo Pialorsi and Marco Russo (ISBN: 9780735623910) This practical guide covers Language Integrated Query (LINQ) syntax fundamentals, LINQ to ADO.NET, and LINQ to XML. The e-book includes the entire contents of this printed book! Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX by Dino Esposito (ISBN: 9780735624139) Learn about the February 2007 release of ASP.NET AJAX Extensions 1.0, including an overview and the control toolkit. Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 by Laurence Moroney (ISBN: 9780735625396) Learn how to use Silverlight to simplify the way you implement compelling user experiences for the Web. Discover how to support an object-oriented program model with JavaScript.

Our development shop [gently ;-)] ostracizes the developer who "breaks the build" as a way to encourage quality. We also deliver awards for the group who breaks the build most infrequently. Unfortunately, the carrot and the stick treatment doesn't always work. Completing the build locally is a good first step but obviously, it doesn't replicate the server CI process identically. Brian Harry writes of an open source solution for TFS described as " Gated Check-ins ". The code is shelved until receiving the necessary sign-offs (manual or automated) and can successfully pass the build sequence. Once successful, the source is unshelved and submitted into the "real" build sequence.

I've been downloading and installing lots of software lately with the release of VSTS 2008 and the CTPs of Rosario. Downloading through a browser is mediocre at best. I started using Free Download Manager for the downloads and Magic ISO Maker to expand the ISOs. Check them out. First, they're both free but more importantly, they work great. FDM has built-in restart support and integrates seamlessly with browser downloads. Magic expanded my ISOs quickly and correctly.

C# Learning http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/quickcsharp.asp http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/aa336766.aspx http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/aa336809.aspx http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learncsharp2/ C# Interviewing http://rileyperry.blogspot.com/2005/05/c-interview-questions.html http://blogs.crsw.com/mark/articles/252.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/WhatGreatNETDevelopersOughtToKnowMoreNETInterviewQuestions.aspx http://spellcoder.com/blogs/bashmohandes/archive/2007/02/26/5991.aspx http://www.geekinterview.com/Interview-Questions/Microsoft-NET

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 still prefer properties to accessors/fields...and underscores within method names annoy me. Great list!

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.