Starbucks-fueled Developer

Fitting Acceptance Tests with DSLs

2007-08-20T10:25:00.000-04:00

Reading Ayende's post about Fit prompts me to say that I, too, haven't been overly pleased with the Fit/FitNesse experience in the .NET world; Java maybe a different story...The Fit book was/is excellent at demonstrating what can be done with Fit and why it's valuable to have customer driven/written acceptance tests, but the framework just doesn't seem to have matured enough on the .NET

Finally, Somebody, Got it Right!

2007-08-04T14:32:00.000-04:00

My wife and I were heading out of town this weekend but, before we could begin our trip, she had to take a PRAXIS test for her masters so she could student teach this fall and, thus, graduate in Spring of 2008. She's enrolled at Shippensburg University and the test just so happened to be offered there today which, semi-conveinently, wasn't too far out of the way of our destination. So, I tagged

DSL Support in Brail, Part II

2007-06-28T23:18:00.000-04:00

So continuing from Part I, here is our example view:As covered in part one, the initial expansion of the "dsl" macro yields us the following code in Boo:dsl = Castle.MonoRail.Views.Brail.DslProvider(self)dsl.Register(

DSL Support in Brail, Part I

2007-06-26T21:50:00.000-04:00

Ayende mentioned on his blog about the work I've done to incorporate support for DSLs in Brail views within MonoRail. While he did a great job giving an overview of how to make use of the functionality, I figured I'd dive into the actual implementation and give some details of how this is achieved and where this can be taken -- at least my "vision".The BeginningFirst, none of this is even

And Now for Something Completely Different

2007-05-23T09:41:00.000-04:00

Yes, I just quoted Monty Python...And speaking of odd, fad programming languages...A friend of mine got me reading Scott Hannselman's blog and one of his latest entries was on why Ruby is cool and worth learning. At the end of the post, he provides a link for an opportunity to try Ruby now.I was skeptical. I figured it was a post on how to setup Linux and getting Apache with Ruby and Ruby on

Bit Shifting: What is it and Why

2007-02-12T11:23:00.000-05:00

OK, so maybe I'm way behind the times, but I finally figured out why in the world one would ever want to shift bits. I came by this discovery after reading one of Ron Jefferies' recent posts. Pay particular attention to the color method: private int color(int count) {// int gray = (255 - count*4 + count/2) & 0xFF; int gray = (255 - count*6) & 0xFF; int rgb = (gray << 16) | (gray <<

"Everyone See Palmer Now"

2006-08-28T21:16:00.000-04:00

And now for something completely different...When I heard that ESPN was awarded the contract to carry Monday Night Football, I rejoiced. Madden is/was/always will be a Hall of Fame coach; and that's where he belongs.I hope he wasn't watching Brett Farve tonight. If so, I sure hope the EMTs were on stand-byto revive him after every down Farve played. Cincinnati's defense just obliterated Green

Firefox Supports XSL?

2006-07-27T20:57:00.000-04:00

So I wanted to view the RSS feed that I have set for Visual Studio to load on start up, and when I browsed to the URL, I got a nicely formatted presentation of the RSS feed. "Wha??", I exclaimed. A peak at the source for the RSS feed revealed that Microsoft was including an XSL to "pretty" the RSS (you know, so if you browsed to it in IE, you'd get a real view since IE supports XML/XSL).

Hurry Up!!...Wait...

2006-07-05T18:00:00.000-04:00

I was reading a post by Michael today and thought I'd express my thoughts given its relevance to my job - at least as of today. Tomorrow may be something completely different...Personally, I hate the "Fast Today" mentality...The "RAD" mentality..."Mort" should you dare go there these days. I've been there, done that. Yeah, sometimes it's fun and exhilarating. But when the dust settles and you

What's in the Name?

2006-07-05T13:16:00.000-04:00

When you get down to it, nothing really. The original one got boring and I hated explaining what I meant and all that jazz.So the new one better reflects who I am and what I'm about. I am a consumer of over-priced coffee. And I do so all too frequently. Their numbers in my area are inversely related to my bank account balance. I've never been to Seattle so if there's something better, maybe

"Does your incompetence know no bounds?"

2006-07-03T14:07:00.000-04:00

On the subject of TDD, no, no it doesn't...Level II, I am. (found while reading Object Mentor Blogs)

Control Yourself!!

2006-07-03T08:03:00.000-04:00

I fired up my work laptop this morning at home and, upon opening a project in VS2k5, I was greeted with the following options as I was not connected to the corp. network...I thought to my self, "you know, option 1 doesn't sound all that bad actually...":

The Next [Family] Feud

2006-07-02T22:32:00.000-04:00

(reader beware: this post comes from the author's recent findings on numerous posts on Agile Methods, TDD, design, and other buzzwords that he pays attention to. Incoherient ramblings may be present. Parental discretion strongly advised...)Earlier this week, I had a mild epiphany while reading Jeremy's post on the NSpec project which led to catch-/brush-up on reading the enlightening wisdom of

My Tour of Agile Development

2006-06-11T18:07:00.000-04:00

While I've posted on using/doing Test Driven Development in the past, I have a few confessions to make. First, when I started blogging (about a year ago), most of my "unit tests" where really more integration tests. I had very little understanding of why mocking the database was so important and that introducing such dependencies on your tests just increases the fragility of both testing code

Now THAT'S a Feature!

2006-06-09T08:23:00.000-04:00

From "How to uninstall the Adobe Flash Player plug-in and ActiveX control":"Due to recent enhancements with the Flash Player installers, you are now only able to uninstall by using the Adobe Flash Player Uninstaller (below). To uninstall Flash Player simply download the appropriate uninstaller for your system and follow the instructions listed below."I shouldn't need to download an uninstaller to

Changes

2006-06-06T20:37:00.000-04:00

Previously, I hinted at changes going on in my life - personally and professionally. A week ago today, I started a new job at the Office of the Attorney General for the State of Pennsylvania as an application developer. It was very difficult, emotionally really, to leave my previous employer; however, the changes that have happened - and still happening - have sort of comforted me along the

6 Seconds of Fame

2006-05-29T21:19:00.000-04:00

As may[not] have read previously, my brother is currently living/studying at Full Sail in Central Florida to become a computer animator. He'll be starting his third month tomorrow and the fruit of his 3D Foundations is available for viewing on his blog (or directly downloadable; again, apologies for the URL...). Watch and return...Some spec's not mentioned in his post: he mentioned that it's

Process Problems

2006-05-25T15:12:00.000-04:00

While this won't be an issue for me much longer, I recently ran into a situation that I'm not sure how agile-ists handle during product/project development. I'll try to summarize what happened.A project I was working is heading into its "maintenance" phase; essentially we completed Release 1 and are continuing to support the application as bugs and new features are found and requested by the

IntelliSense for SQL Server Tools

2006-05-24T15:58:00.000-04:00

I went for a visit to Scott Guthrie's blog to get the Web Application Project Template and found that Red-Gate Software now has a free (like Visual Studio Express free) tool for providing IntelliSense in the vairous tools for SQL Server. See Red-Gate's site for more information.While I haven't been writing much SQL recently, this is a nice tool to have...especially since it's free...

Goodbye GotDotNet, Hello CodePlex

2006-05-16T12:37:00.000-04:00

Rob Caron announced, along with James Newkirk and Korby Parnell, that Microsoft has deployed the first public beta of the replacement for GotDotNet.com - CodePlex.com, which is build on Team Foundation Server.It appears that membership is free, but I was not able to find any information on whether or not members must purchase a license of Team Explorer to connect to CodePlex or how that'll work

Chasing the Dream

2006-03-21T17:06:00.000-05:00

Sadly, that's not a song title, but it should be.This weekend, my younger brother left for Florida to start attending Full Sail where he'll be a student of Computer Art and Animation. He has a "blawg" (don't be fearful of the URL...I don't know, you'd have to ask his comrades) and his latest post talks about coming to terms with pursuing your dreams and the journeys they lead you on. Or, in the

VSTS Experience: Part 2

2006-01-28T12:20:00.000-05:00

I'm a youngin. I'm in my mid-20s and I have not had much experience outside a Microsoft environment. It's what I grew-up in, it's what I know. However, I've learned a lot in the past 2 years alone about the importance of communication among a team and its members, as well as between the team and the customer. Facilitating this communication becomes essential to the success - or failure - of a

VSTS Experience: Part 1

2006-01-23T22:23:00.000-05:00

My team is trying out Team Foundation Server (TFS) for our "new" development environment. I have to say that I was initially extremely psyched about getting to stand up Beta 3 Refresh on a machine, but after about 2 hours of use, the excitement left rather quickly.The setup went smooth. Not a single hitch. My only thought on the installation process is that it would be nice if TFS came

"Page One"

2006-01-04T22:39:00.000-05:00

...otherwise known as "The Breakthrough":Scott Bellware's recent series on a project he's working inspired me to dust off my copy of Domain Driven Design and explore learning how to write software that expressively tackles the problem which it intends to solve. Reviewing and continuing to read the book has lead to several insights and breakthroughs that have left me feeling as though I'm

"Skating On Thin Ice"

2005-12-16T17:04:00.000-05:00

Over the past two months, work has been pretty...well, depressing. Right before having to leave for our honeymoon and the Thanksgiving holiday, a coworker and I were finishing up a major project for a high-profile customer for recommendations on migrating a legacy system to the Microsoft Windows/.NET platform. My bride and I were flying out of the country on the 19th and our delivery presentation

"Back On The Streets Again"

2005-12-16T16:51:00.000-05:00

I've been in and out of the "blogosphere" over the past 2 months, as things have been a little hectic for me between getting married, a huge project wrapping up, honeymoon, and the holidays appearing out of thin air.I hope to devote more time to blogging in the near future, but I have other priorities in life at the moment, like ensuring that my marriage starts out on the right path for one...

Using NUnit with VS2k5 Express Editions

2005-11-04T15:50:00.000-05:00

If you're like me, you don't have the funding to purchase VSTS anytime soon; so, you follow the guide Jeremy put together for "A Poor Man's IntelliJ". However, I've found it difficult to get NUnit to run with v2 of the Framework. Today, I found a post on the NUnit Project forum that was very helpful. Make sure you have the 2.2.2 version (which is the most recent iteration release) of NUnit and

UPDATE: DECORATing Web Controls

2005-10-03T23:19:00.000-04:00

OK, so if it wasn't apparent in the original post, I'll confess now: it wasn't TDD'd...While I don't have the time, at least right now, to complete it with unit tests and all, I'll at least revisit it and show how it can be improved upon.One immediate flaw with the existing code is that the PersonBuilder class relies on an implementation of IControlLocator. While this might not appear to be that

A Simple "Thank You"

2005-10-03T23:00:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, that's all we need to get through a rough day...My bride and I are into the home stretch of the whole wedding fiasco and, needless to say, the next 12 days are going to be hectic - at a minimum. So..with that, tensions are high, and I'll cut you the details and say that I wasn't in the best of moods leaving this evening.On my way home though, a stranger made me feel good about myself -

DECORATing Web Controls

2005-09-19T23:31:00.000-04:00

In reading Jeremy's post on the DECORATOR pattern, I actually found another application of the pattern in my own code (gasp!). While I don't particularly enjoy working with in-place editing on the Data* web controls, I didn't have the choice this time. However, as you'll see, I turned my frown upside down by implementing this very useful pattern...I'm sure you've written similar code (the mix of

Browser War 2.0: Security

2005-09-19T22:15:00.000-04:00

I cam a cross this CNET article stating that Symantec found Mozilla-based browsers to the more vulnerable in comparison to IE. While it is important to have browsers that comply to web standards, I personally prefer a more secure product over one that offers more "bells and whistles". Don't get me wrong! I'm just as disappointed as everyone else with Microsoft's stance on not passing the Acid2

"Can you do it in Excel?"

2005-09-04T23:40:00.000-04:00

Ah the wisdom of a father...That's his [in]famous response to a recent customer when asked "hey, can you build a simple database with a few ASP pages to do XYZ?". His point is that anyone can make a database and tie a few ASP[X] pages to it. But does that time really give you an extra value or benefit for all that work when, quite possibly, a few sheets in an Excel Workbook can give you all the

Discriminating Against Special Case Entities

2005-08-31T22:54:00.000-04:00

This is something that I'm really struggling with as I pick up O/R knowledge. I'm going to attempt to describe my confusion using a trivial example so I hope this is clear...I'm building a bank account management system. I need to track different types of accounts, transactions, etc. Typically, types are structured in the database as reference data (look-up tables, pick your poison). So, I'll

Agile Analysis and Planning

2005-08-20T00:51:00.000-04:00

A week ago, my group was contacted by an extremely high-profile customer. Apparently, they are looking to migrate a monolithic J2EE application (presumed million(s) of LOC) to a .NET application, as Sun has announced that support for its Unified Development Server and Forte technologies will expire come Jan 1 2006 - at least, according to my knowledge.The customer, from my early and brief

Virtual [Agile] Developer

2005-08-15T11:18:00.000-04:00

I stated earlier that, in July, I was planning a presentation on Virtual PC and Virtual Server. Overall, it was really a hit and miss. One coworker/higher-up asked about how my group (AppDev) could possibly work with our networking and server-consolidation offerings to provide "packaged"(?) solutions, which wasn't really my intent, but hey, if it pays the bills...Actually, what I was hoping to

Benefit of the Doubt

2005-08-01T22:22:00.000-04:00

So I genuinely try to give other developers the benefit of the doubt; if I don't get why they wrote/designed something the way they did, I'll try my hardest to accept it and say "they probably had there reasons". And I do this no matter who the author is: internal/group or even Corporate shops...like Microsoft...I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt on this one...to an extent...I was "pairing"

Branches Getting Burned

2005-07-28T23:49:00.000-04:00

I can't say that I didn't see this coming, but I met resistance today when I proposed branching the VSS project that I'm working on. We're in the middle of production fixes and implementing new features and the source is getting quite ugly. We deployed code Monday and had to remove some code post-haste as it was for new features that weren't finished.The PM cited realistic reasons: poor team

Striving for Agility, [Not]Willing to Settle for Mediocrity

2005-07-28T22:14:00.000-04:00

In my "The More You Know" post, I mentioned learning agile methodologies and test-driven development. Today I stumbled upon Jeffrey's post entitled "Advocating Agile in a CMM or MSF shop" and said "wow...that's me". I'd like to share a little bit of my experience thus far.Beginning this year, my department was told that if we can't show we are profitable, or the potential to be profitable,

Exceptional Exception Handling

2005-07-27T17:59:00.000-04:00

I have a response to Jeremy's rant...I'll admit up front that I'm an infant when it comes to agile/domain-driven design stuff, but this is something that a coworker and I have debated for sometime now. Long story short, the application he's migrating to .NET (and NHibernate, DDD, etc.) uses exceptions within the domain object property setters to send back validation error messages to the user.

Branching Out is Good For You

2005-07-25T11:56:00.000-04:00

I learned an invaluable lesson today: branch your code, especially when it's in production.A project I'm working on has been in production for about a month now. I/we are following up on bug fixes as well as implementing features that did not make the original release. Did you see the hole we fell into? We didn't branch our source code before/after deploying the release to production. So now,

VSTS2k5 Beta 2 VPC Available

2005-07-24T02:24:00.000-04:00

If you're an MSDN Subscriber, Rob Caron notes that the Virtual PC Machine that was distributed at TechEd is now available for download. It's fully configured OOB, so all you need to do is point the VPC console at it and let it rock.Sweet.

How about 3K LOC?

2005-07-24T02:07:00.000-04:00

Jeremy recently blogged about identifying "Blob" classes. The "core" of the application I'm working on right now has a "Common" object. It spans 3000 lines of code, all of which are contained within Shared/Static member functions. It's the canonical example of Singletonitis let alone failing the "one class, one responsibility" test.It's times like these I wish my Refactoring skills were much,

The Effects of Change on a Team

2005-07-24T02:00:00.000-04:00

YAT: Yet Another Thesis...After much tripping over thoughts and ideas, I think I finally have this post straight. There's been A TON of changes in my company over the past year. You name it, we've done it. Not all of the change has been structural. People have changed; whether it's personality, life situation (20s-30s life styles, etc.), or work assignments, everyone within the company -

XMLUnit Framework

2005-07-24T01:59:00.000-04:00

I stumbled upon Unit Test Frameworks while we were out this evening and it mentioned numerious xUnit test frameworks. One of which was XMLUnit. I have not taken the time to review it, but there apparently are Java and .NET versions available.I still look to post on the topic, so check back some time soon...

FIT Article on MSDN

2005-07-23T22:00:00.000-04:00

I'm glad my family keeps everything. While I haven't verified this yet, I believe if I needed, for whatever ridiculous reason, the January 2000 issue of the MSDN Magazine in print I could find it with relative ease. Having said that, stumbling across the February 05 issue was as easy as sitting down in the living room. It was this weekend that I discovered I missed an article in that issue

New MS Patterns & Practices Papers and TDD/Agile Security Woes

2005-07-14T21:38:00.000-04:00

Two new, to me anyway, releases from Microsoft's patterns & practices group: Threat Modeling Web Applications Testing .NET Application Blocks (TAB) The Threat Modeling guide is new this month and testing has been out since January '05 apparently. The TAB I found to be an interesting document. I use to be enthrawled by the DAAB, but that has since subsided. I'll probably review this one

"The More You Know"

2005-07-14T00:07:00.000-04:00

...is not neccesarily "half the battle"...I feel as though I've been going through a really rough stage in my professional life. The biggest struggle that I am facing is the fact that I feel as though there's a lot of stuff out there that I'm really, really excited about and anxiously trying to [find the time to] learn. Really, I'm mean my head is almost spinning. Take a look at this list - in no

Virtual PC/Server Bliss

2005-07-14T00:03:00.000-04:00

I don't intend for my blog to become my personal reminder, but I'm sure I'll forget about this one...Aimlessly browsing the web tonight, trying to muster the will to close Firefox, I came across a post on the wonderfulness that is Virtual PC differencing disks. My team has started giving regular FYI presentations and demos during our monthly staff meetings and I'm going to give a talk on VPC and

"I Like Your Style" NAnt/#develop

2005-07-13T10:58:00.000-04:00

A coworker came over to me and we were discussing VSS and shadow folders. I mentioned to him, hinting at continuious integration and frequent releases, that it wouldn't take much to have a build get fired off when a file is checked-in because all you'd have to do is watch the directory(ies) for changes. And if you break the build, you'll be flogged, no questions asked. Surprisingly, I got a

"You Doin' Me Wrong" VSS/VS.NET

2005-07-12T09:17:00.000-04:00

Rant warning...So I know we all have our reasons for hating Visual Source[un]Safe, but I've personally had enough. My list of reasons is pretty long: Doesn't play nicely with web projects that exist outside of wwwroot. Doesn't play nicely with web projects that exist on IIS with mutliple sites "Get Latest version (recursive)" within VS.NET 2k3 doesn't always guarantee you that you did, in

"Soul Vaccination" for Data Access Layers

2005-07-08T16:39:00.000-04:00

Sorry, but I have to play the devil's advocate...Jeremy Miller recently blogged on Quarantining ADO.NET code to a reusable, separate layer; I couldn't agree more. I've been tasked at work with finishing an ASP.NET application that was written by subcontractors that - well, let's just say I think the result would've been different had it not been subcontracted. One of my biggest peeves with the

Back, Once Again...

2005-07-08T16:37:00.000-04:00

I was out on vacation last week and work and personal life have kept me from being able to contribute more here; I'm looking to make up for it soon.

As Promised: VS2005 Announcements

2005-06-15T23:38:00.000-04:00

Having taken a brief blogging hiatus, I promised to post on some recent Visual Studio 2005 and related announcements. While anyone reading this may have heard from other sources, here they are, in no order: Visual Studio Team System Roles to Include Team Foundation Server 5 client License SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Included in Express Editions Visual Studio 2005 to be Release

2005-05-31T23:57:00.000-04:00

I'm tired.I'm tired of being the person that everyone comes to with their problems, looking for solutions.I'm tired of being the responsible one.I'm tired of being the supportive one.I'm tired of being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent, of being prepared, and doing a good turn daily.I'm tired of not being feeling

[My] Ethics of an Agile Software Project

2005-05-29T22:56:00.000-04:00

I don't think I could never make it as a mechanic. I don't think I've ever had a pleasing experience getting my car repaired. My estimates never seem to be anywhere close to the actual costs of the work I ask to be done and what's worse, I feel, is that I never really know if they only do what I ask and nothing more. If a mechanic were to call me and report that s/he over-estimated the time and

Contracting an Agile Software Project

2005-05-28T23:30:00.000-04:00

Man, if that isn't worthy of a book, I don't know what is...I got thinking this afternoon (the bride was a napping so my mind was wandering) about how a company needs - or should - adapt to employ an agile methodology. My main predicament is how proposals and/or contracts are written.Currently, under a waterfall methodology, countless hours are spent devising requirements, system(s) documentation

A Look Back - "Halo: Combat Evolved" E3 2001 Coverage

2005-05-27T22:48:00.000-04:00

My brother and I were arguing today over the quality of the Xbox 360 materials from E3 this year. He brought up some interesting points, mainly, the argument that "Halo: Combat Evolved" looked like "Video Games: Graphically Dissolved" - at least from the previews presented at E3 around 2001. His argument is that the majority of the games presented, with exceptions like Gears of War and others,

Mono for Everyone

2005-05-27T12:29:00.000-04:00

I'm in the process of downloading Monoppix as reported by Darrell. The biggest benefit is that since it's distributed as an ISO, you don't even need to reboot if you have Virtual PC!!This is absolutely awesome! Tutorials, built-in web server/ASP.NET...I really, really hope to have an opportunity to play with this professionally...Absolutely awesome...

BBB Update: Feature List (incomplete)

2005-05-24T00:18:00.000-04:00

Here's the start of the list of features I want to incorporate into my Bare-bones Blog application. By no means is this an exhaustive, ordered, or complete list; it's very much still in progress. Eventually, this list will become the Product Backlog for the project and I will prioritize the functionality into the appropriate Sprints. At that point, the coding will begin...Functionality thus far:

Lesson 1: Process Does not Make Project

2005-05-20T02:03:00.000-04:00

My previous post permitted me to learn something just in determining how to begin. I was struggling how to describe my use of Scrum. Scrum isn't driving the project; the customer(s) and stakeholders drive the project. Scrum isn't "behind" the project either - meaning, it's not supporting it as if Scrum did not exist, the project could not exist or would not be feasible without Scrum.This may very

BBB Update: Scruming Away

2005-05-20T01:25:00.000-04:00

If the title for this post didn't provide any hints, I'm choosing to attempt implementing Scrum while developing the BBB project. My choice came about, primarily, because of my interest in how the process could benefit my professional work. Also, the only other agile methodology I'm remotely familiar with is XP and, since I'm the sole developer, I don't have a pair to pair with during my code

Personal Software Project Announcement

2005-05-19T00:08:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I want to start talking about the project I'm directing all of my focus on currently that is completely non-work related. So, without further ado, here's the official press release:Announcing: Project Code-name "Bare-Bones Blog"After much frustration that I have experienced using Blogger, I've decided to have a go and dip my big toe into the blog application pool. I'm

"Irons on the Horizon"

2005-05-18T01:51:00.000-04:00

There's lots that I want to blog about, so keep checking back as I hope to discuss more of these topics in greater detail in the near future. But as a preview, here's some of things to look for (in no order): Test-Driven XSLT/XPath VS2005 announcements Agile development happenings at work (if permissible) MyPSP - or My Personal Software Project, name TBD I hope to have something started

If you can't test, throw in the towel

2005-05-18T00:57:00.000-04:00

So, I've been really struggling lately keeping a balance between my personal and professional lives. My personal life, I feel, is crazy right now. There's a lot going on with the wedding, less than five months out and, on top of that, it just seems like May and June are always much more busy than November and December - which for the life of me, I can't determine why that is. I'm feeling as

Reflection on Repository

2005-04-12T08:38:00.000-04:00

I looked into Jeffrey Palermo's architecture and, just about like anyone else new to TDD, I questioned "all the code". Unlike everyone else, however, I did not question the code for the tests; I had problems with all the code for mere data access.Palermo's architecture makes use of Fowler's Repository pattern and that's mainly when flags were raised for me. Fowler states in describing the pattern

Check In Importance

2005-04-11T08:54:00.000-04:00

So I learned the hard way today why frequent builds and check-ins are so important and key to the XP methodology.My boss asked me today to review my time submitted for the prior week as she wanted a more detailed report for billing purposes. "Sure, I'll review my comments in VSS to make sure I didn't miss anything and get you more accurate numbers".The screaming you heard, yeah, the incredible

Jeff Palmero's TDD Presentation

2005-04-08T16:11:00.000-04:00

I have been conversing off and on with Scott and I am looking to give a similar talk/presentation to my coworkers. I'm already anticipating the questions and concerns that were addressed in your meeting; they seem to be pretty prevelant throughout the community whenever TDD is mentioned.I, too, am just starting to attempt to pick up this methodology and it can be quite daunting to say the least.

XP SP2 makes it a snap to disable the Shockwave add-in - level 000

2005-04-08T15:54:00.000-04:00

The only thing that would make this any cooler is if it was enforced corresponding to the Zone, like Trusted Sites, etc. For example, say I'm browsing www.weather.com and there's a flash ad coming from adkami or whomever they are. IE would notice that it's coming from a different site and block the ActiveX control from running because it could potentially load malicious content. Now that would

Strategic Policy Entity

2005-04-06T14:30:00.000-04:00

So, in talking to Scott, I still feel a little left in the dark...Call it mind-numbing anal-retentiveness, I'm having a hard time accepting the fact that an object that fits the STRATEGY pattern could also be an Entity. I guess I feel that business logic should be as far from the Entities as possible and that by giving an Entity more responsibility then just a container for data seems like

Rambler

2005-04-06T14:13:00.000-04:00

I noticed in reading my previous post that I'm not that great of a writer - that post was all over the place!!!You'd think I would have got more out of my Lib. Arts. education...

Aggregates, Ho!!!

2005-04-06T00:11:00.000-04:00

I discovered my first Aggregate!!! Cha-ching!!! Finally, all this model/test-driven design research has "paid off"...If only that were the case.In finding the Holy Grail of OO design, I also found that my persistance layer, drafted ever-so-horribly by yours truly, doesn't appear to easily accomodate such a design...Thinking about this more, however, has posed an interesting question: why should

Try this again, shall we?

2005-04-06T00:09:00.000-04:00

I'm back, not necessarily better than ever, but the hiatus is over and posts are coming...Check back often.

The Case for the Special Case

2005-02-18T16:43:00.000-05:00

I found myself today strugglingly immensely with modeling "typical" business data. If this isn't a sign of a true novice, I'm not sure what is...Essentially, from a database perspective, I'm struggling with look-up tables - those values like 1 = DVD, 2 = Book, 3 = CD, etc. to use Products and Product Types as an example. So I have a Product class and and Product Type class, but I realize that

DTOs: What's the Point?

2005-02-17T00:16:00.000-05:00

Scott, after I sent him an e-mail, read my post about serializing ADAPTERS to XML, sent me the following reply:"I don't know enough about XML serialization to be able to speak to theproblem in any significant depth.Am I understanding that you're serializing the adapter? If so, that's areally uncommon thing to do. Adapters often sit at component boundaries,but aren't often passed back and forth

Quite a Ways to Go

2005-02-17T00:05:00.000-05:00

I have to admit, first off, that I feel guilty for openly asking a person hundreds of miles away specifically to view a post that I wrote because I don't know what I'm doing and frustrated with my lack of success. I feel as though I get paid to come up with solutions, not to create new problems and get outside help only to reaffirm the feelings of jumping in without being able to tred water.

Serializing "Adapted" Objects to XML (or, "Just Bar Damn It!!")

2005-02-16T16:35:00.000-05:00

Background InformationMy company, long ago, developed a Role/Task-based authentication service that has since been converted to a .NET Web Service. This service, I'll call it IMS, is basically used by any application we design, and personally, I think it's overused. When it was developed, there really wasn't anything that similar available - at least to my knowledge - and it made sense for us to

Welcome

2005-02-15T23:09:00.000-05:00

My first post using Blogger; it's not a .NET blogging application, but it's Google so that's earned it kudos thus far. I hope to post and write here about both my personal and professional lives and look to focus on Test-Driven Development and my aspirations to become more test-first oriented in developing and designing professional business applications.I've learned a ton by reading numerous