|
|
Browse by Tags
All Tags » General Software Development (RSS)
-
Picture this, large scale enterprise app, small scale legacy application, third party code...in other words a code base you are not fully familar with and need to understand. Sure enough can apply the feathers rules but if your in a hurrry to understand to understand a code base to start making changes (and a green field option is not an option) then what do you do? I'm on the look out for a tool that can allow you to explore a code base, explore object dependencies and pathways. Ideas welcome. Read More...
|
-
Jeff Attwood has a post on possibily the greatest man in the computing age, Alan Turing. As Jeff states during WW2 Alan helped break the enigma code and went on to become one of the fore-fathers of AI. There are several books on Alans life that are well worth reading with the Andrew Hodges book one of the best. Alan is one of personal heros, some of Alans greatest work in computing occured in the very place I was born and grew up in. After the war Alan conducted research into computing and maths at the University of Manchester. He worked on one of the first computers ever built the Manchester Mark 1 as well as conducting a great deal of his AI and machine learning research there. The memorial you see above was built in his honor and rightly so, with out him I can't imagine what kind of world may have become. Read More...
|
-
This question seems to get asked a lot, this recent article on codeproject does a decent job of explanation as well as this article from Infragistics Guidisan Todd Snyder . If I was sum it up very simply, the different is entry point into the pattern. In MVC the entry point is the controller, if you look at the Microsoft MVC framework for example the controller class is where you bind your view and everything else (model) together. In MVP mean while the entry point is the view, webforms lends it's self very well to this pattern as you can bind the aspx and your view and use the normal aspx entry point to get at the rest of your patttern (in fact winforms works well on this pattern as well). Going a bit further You can break down your view into two, a view and View-extender. The temptation in webforms land in a passive sense of the pattern is hold all sorts of view centric items on the presenter. If you have lots going on in your presenter for your view and you want to keep your view ultra Read More...
|
-
For the first time in 7 years of blogging I almost managed no blog posts in a month. I (for fun) graphed the last 12 months of blog posts and sure enough the amount of posts has seen a steady drop. I then graphed all the posts I have made on weblogs.asp.net and since peaking in 2004 I have been on a decline ever since. There are several reasons why, but my now near total flat line needs explanation. With the work/life balance and my new family growing the balance tips in favour of more time with my family and less time at the computer. As such blogging\writing\opensource and generally all things out side of the day job has gone the way of the pear (i.e I have stopped). I've had a good run, of the 11 years I have been working in this industry all of them have seen me doing things out side of the day job, from blogging, article writing, book authoring and reviewing, to 4 years of user forum support (as a Macromedia Evangelist) and 3 years of open source\MbUnit. I've had time for all these Read More...
|
-
Lately I've been drafting posts on my daily commute and post them up in batches (just in case you were wondering :). I recall an article (not sure where I read it) about Ron Jeffries and his ability as an 'alpha architect'. Such people are rare, the design they have mostly in their mind with TDD providing a way of slightly reshaping the design and proving the model (in a pair session that can mean validating each other’s ideas). Another kind of folks is the folks that have a general system picture but design a piece at a time with model shaping and validation occurring as they go. Both are no less a way of designing and developing a system but while the 'alpha architect' has considered overall, system considerations and won't introduce design faults, the other folks need to go carefully to avoid those faults. The point that TDD is a design process seems to get missed, writing tests before your code is only part of the process and not the sum total. The trouble I have found is that the design Read More...
|
-
I have been watching the development of IronLisp, a Lisp compiler for the DLR for a while now . A little while ago it was released onto codeplex and more recently the project was dropped and reformed as IronScheme (Scheme being a Lisp variant). Great to see another language on the DLE, apart from IronRuby and IronPythoin (and LOLCODE :D) I wonder what other languages are targeting it and if MS have a research\compiler program for it yet? Read More...
|
-
Todays Flex 3 announcement also carried with it the announcement of an Adobe OSS site . I was looking around the Tamarin site when I noticed the IronMoney project . Being lead by Seo Sanghyeon, an IronPython developer, I at first thought it was an attempt to get ECMAScript Edition 4 running the DLR. However it seems to be an attempt to get IronPython and IronRuby to run on the Tamarin VM. What I can't figure out is why not attempt to run Python\Ruby on Tamarin? I guess in targeting the IL then IronMonkey can execute the assemblies but surely to help better shape the VM in it's support of dynamic languages why not target languages other than ECMAScript? Read More...
|
-
MbUnit has achieved a lot in 2 and half years, it was around that time that Peli joined Microsoft and MbUnits future was undecided. Peli wanted to open-source MbUnit but with his new role was unable to do so. I asked Peli and Jamie if I could take this on and the code was released to Tigris and later (seeking SVN rather than the then CVS) it's present home on Google Code. Morten helped out hosting the Wiki and Defect tracker (though these are now also on Google Code). On Phil's suggestion we started a new website (although we lost MbUnit.org we gained MbUnit.com , MbUnit.co.uk and MbUnit.net) and recently added a lot of changes to the site including docs and blog lists etc. What started with a handful of people including myself, Jay and a few others has grown to a core commit group of 12 with a dedicated (and professional writer and editor) docs manager . Thanks to there hardwork and dedication in three years MbUnit has gone through two major releases, a minor release and is in the middle Read More...
|
-
Master Jedi Jeff had an itch in between Gallio coding and over on the Gallio contrib coded up a Instrumentation API using Mono Cecil , very sweet. The contrib section is just something that is not on any channel and we keep to throw out our ideas. As Jeff states in his post if other folks like his ideas then it may get developed further, do check out his post and let him know what you think. Wihin Jeffs post I noticed Jason Bock left a comment and I thought 'I know that name', then it struck me, his written two great books that I own, one on IL and the other on Attributes . I also know Jason from his .NET Languages website and ran into a post from Craig Andera on the site . As Craig states I believe it's a good idea to learn at least one new programming language a year . If nothing else, it keeps me from getting bored. You might think I'd choose Ruby, as that's pretty hot right now (in certain circles). And in truth I'm interested. I've even read some of The Pickaxe Book . But the language Read More...
|
-
I'm rather hooked on Facebook, it's almost myspace meets friends reunited and is all all grown up :) It's a great place to connect with folks and it's really amazing who is on the site. Jamie mentioned it a while back but I have added a facebook group for MbUnit fans here , if your a MbUnit fan and on Facebook be sure to sign up. Read More...
|
-
It's wild friday afternoon idea time but it's occured to me that a very cool R# feature could be a feature to keep tabs on you and suggest that the class/function your writing may have have previously been written and suggest posible matches for refactoring. A nifty way of doing this could be score up the OM of your code and suggest possible odd's of a match based on some bayesian scoring . I see this being super useful for those with slippery memories who forget after a couple of hours of coding that a simliar peice of code may already exist and for those working with leagacy code who may be working with thousands of lines and with out the heat seeking test suite. Read More...
|
-
Opensource is a funny old game, we do it for love (of software) and not love of money. You work when you want and how you want. You get to use technologies and explore ideas that are not constrained by your management\clients. You also get to work with and learn from some of the brightest minds in the industry. You just don't get paid for it, something has to give :) As many of you might (or might not) know I run a OSS project called MbUnit , and its a busy time on the project. We are fixing bugs and adding small features and the 2.4.1 release is shaping up. We are working very hard on shaping up the documentation and website. We also have MbUnit Gallio underway, I'll be talking more about that later in the year. MbUnit has an amazing set of folks working all day and night on it but I'd like to attract more folks to the project, helping to fix bugs, write some cool docs (even cool articles would be appreciated), in a nutshell spare me any time you have. If you think you can, drop me a line Read More...
|
-
I'll admit my design skills are naff (not very good) and I am looking for someone with some great design skills to help me on a OSS project that uses WPF. Give me a shout if your interested. Read More...
|
-
The costal waters around the UK are unique in that sea and costal rescue is provided by a professional organization called the RNLI that is funded entirely by voluntary donations and staffed by volunteers (they don't get paid to risk their own lives to save yours). The RNLI runs in my family and is a cause I feel very strongy about, I ask that if you use the UK coasts and sea that you consider helping these folks if ever you need their help. Check out this collection of videos and links to help see what they do, what it means and how you can help. Read More...
|
-
I was talking the other night with a friend about their interview experinces and in particular the how the interviewer gave the interview. I have seen a tons of interview prep posts (which I might do all the same) and not a lot on how interviewers go about it (as most seem to think that they do what ever they please, not so). Rule .1, Don't behave like prat. The interview is to assess the candidate against the needs of your company, your team and the role within it. Remember that you are likely to be the first person the candidate will see and as such you represent your company and your team. So lets get something stright, no one likes a prat and if you treat the interview as "power trip 101" you won't be hiring any time and it reflects badly on your company and your team. The net result is that rather than hire to solve your staffing problem you have fields of p***ed off candidate's, telling anyone within ear shot how much you suck. Don't use the interview to boost your ego or be a smart Read More...
|
|
|
|