September 2007 Entries

Microsoft is working on it's new mashup technology named Popfly.  The current image associated with it is this. As you can see, building mashups will make your bill go green and give you a pink complexion.  It's nice that they have such a cute and warming mascot though. The project I just got off has it's own feathered mascot.  Unlike working with (on?) Popfly, we were a little more hardened and jaded.  At one point in time The Duck was even sported a wicked anchor tattoo.  I think he grew out of that rebellious phase of the project and, when hard times started,...

I'm heading down to Austin over (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend to attend the Alt.NET Conference.  The CodeBetter guys have posted a number of ideas for contnent in the last week that have me anxiously waiting.  (Raymond Lewallen, Jeremy Miller, Dave Laribee, Jeffrey Palermo)  I have a feeling that this is going to be more than worth missing turkey for. Edit: Labelling of link to Jeffrey Palermo fixed

For the past 9 months I've been working on a project that is dominated by a desire to have heavy documentation created prior to development work commencing.  As a result of this there is a trend to having things laid out in a place that the developer and tester can access.  Even with this style of development (also known as BDUF or waterfall) there are a lot of little things that don't get written in the documents and some larger things that get missed completely too.  Regardless of the tone I take in this post, those things need to be...

Today I got an email from a guy who appears to have become disillusioned with what he sees in our industry.  Unfortunately I, and probably a large number of other developers, can relate with his frustrations.  To summarize his email, he’s basically saying “I can’t believe that we do this to clients”.  ‘This’ could be anything you’ve seen or imagined in the past; Low (poor) estimating with expected over-runs, dropping the application in the client’s lap one month before go-live and expecting them to test it and be happy with the what is provided, business requirements not being gather and...

I finally got some time today to migrate my blog from Community Server to SubText.  Part of the transformation also includes the unveiling of my new logo.  Stuart at Design Goblin has done a fantastic job working with me to come up with the face of igloocoder.com Consulting Inc. Part of the transformation was for me to migrate all of the data from the CS database into the SubText database.  I posted here in the past about some of the ridiculous data storage that I found in CS and I managed to overcome them.  Here's a SQL script that you use...

Here is the stuff that I worked with on two of my presentations at DCC.  I'm not going to post anything from my C# 3.0/.Net 3.5 presentation.  If you want to see something from it take a look at two of my screencasts here, here and here.  I promise I'll be getting a third, on Lambda Expressions, published in the near future. RhinoMocks:  I've put the source code that I wrote into a zip file that you can download here.  It also includes the nAnt script that I used for my CCNet presentation. CruiseControl.Net: The nAnt file and the ccnet.config files...

We went, we saw, we sweated.  Desert Code Camp 3 finished up yesterday with another great turnout.  For Tom and I, it was a day of Agile goodness.  We talked on TDD, RhinoMocks and CCNet, but in my final session (CCNet) the attendees directed the discussion more towards Agile.  For the last 15 minutes or so, we had a fantastic conversation about Subversive/Guerrilla Agile. Huge thanks to Lorin for having us down to Phoenix/Tempe for this event.  He did a fantastic job of running the whole thing.  I only hope that he had some time to get to sessions.  To all the...

Well, it's actually day 1, but it's day two in Tempe (tem-PEE) for me.  Here's the summary. C# 3.0 Beyond Linq:  This was my presentation.  Nothing special here.  Take a look at the Simple Properties and Extension methods screencasts that I have posted and you'll get the basic gist of the presentation.  I swear that I will finish the Lambdas screencast soon....honest.  The coolest thing in this presentation was the 10 year old kid that attended.  What I was covering wasn't rocket science, but this kid asked some of the most intelligent and pointed questions.  He was really groking potential...

Tom and I made it into the Phoenix/Tempe (pronounced tem-PEE we've been told, not TEMP-eh?) yesterday.  First impressions:  Holy crap it's hot!  We stepped out of the airport and into the direct path of a blast furnace.  I suppose if we are acclimated to Canadian winters, people can get used to these summers.  Regardless, it's just not comfortable for people like us. In the afternoon we hit Mill Avenue in downtown Tempe and found a nice Irish pub.  If you're ever in the area, Mill Avenue appears to be a lively and well visited part of the town.  Located next to...

Tom and I are on the move on Friday as we head down to Phoenix for the Desert Code Camp.  We'll be arriving in town during the middle of the day on Friday and will definitely be looking for some people to pour down a drink or 15 with.  Being first-timers to the Phoenix area we're also looking for some ideas on good places to go, drink, eat and converse (I also want to put a review up on GeekTukka just to prove that I was sober enough to go out at one point). If you're interested in joining us...

Today I spent some time in our code at work (I know...shocking that I was writing code).  One of the things that I found was a group of three files that each contained anywhere from 3 to 20 public classes.  I'm at the point where this is no longer shocking and instead I just turn to immediately looking to refactor instead.  While I was hammering through the process of changing the namespace, moving to a new file (thank you Resharper F6!) and physically moving the files, the ease of the process struck me with a thought.  Resharper is not just...

My fall schedule is starting to book up and I'm looking to be quite busy.  If you're interested in becoming a groupie of mine, you can find me at the following places in the next few months. September 15-16 -- Phoenix, AZ @ Desert Code Camp October 5-7 -- Austin, TX @ ALT .NET Conference October 20 -- Edmonton, AB @ Edmonton Code Camp November 26-30 -- Vancouver, BC @ DevTeach There are at least 3 other things that I'm working on, but none are announcement ready.  Mix into that schedule the fact that my current employment status will...

Like the seasons changing, it's that time of year again.  Edmonton Code Camp has opened a call for speakers and attendee registration.  Unlike last year, the event is being held at the U of A and will be striving for three full tracks. Mark your calendars for Saturday, October 20th.