August 2008 - Posts

Chapter three finished, Searching, Modifying, and Encoding Text.

Implementing globalization, drawing, and text manipulation functionality in a .NET Framework application

Read more at http://blog.cumps.be/exam-70-536-searching-modifying-and-encoding-text/

Finished another chapter in my book, Input/Output, which deals with the following:

Implementing serialization and input/output functionality in a .NET Framework application

Read more at http://blog.cumps.be/exam-70-536-input-output/

The book I'm reading to prepare myself is Microsoft.NET Framework 2.0 Application Development Foundation.

Just finished the first chapter about Framework Fundamentals. Topics dealt with in this chapter are:

Developing applications that use system types and collections

Read more at http://blog.cumps.be/exam-70-536-framework-fundamentals/

Taking a little break right now, got a bit of a burn out, lack of sleep might have something to do with it :)

The ASP.NET MVC project I had in mind will have to wait a little bit, with a bit of luck it gives me time to find a good graphical designer as well, they seem so rare to find. If you know a good designer, please comment!

What I'm going to do however, is study for a Microsoft Certificate.

Normally I'm not into degrees, when I graduated I saw people graduate with the same degree as me, who could barely write HTML or C#, at which point I placed no value in the degree people have. I rather judge people on what they say and do, which is also the reason I never really bothered with certificates.

But even as a developer, you can't be blind to the world, certificates matter for non-developers. I admit it's a nice addition to a resume and leverage when it comes to negotiating your salary, however I'm starting to see some value in the certificate as well.

When you properly prepare for an exam, without cheating and learning all questions by heart, it's actually a good form of self-education. Even when you don't take the exam in the end, the stuff you pick up while learning the required matter for an exam is valuable.

All these little hidden things you learn about the .NET Framework help to broaden your background knowledge, tiny things which you'd never encounter normally. It helps you make you aware of all the features .NET offers you, and if it only helps you do one thing better, it still helped.

I could disappear for some weeks now to study and not write anything, but that's not me.

Instead, I've added a section to my wiki reserved for note taking and research on the exam itself.

It's not a tutorial, but I belief it does contain some nice "wow, that's cool"-things.

Going to keep you updated whenever I finish a chapter, with a small summary of the things I think are cool.

Welcome back for another episode in the pattern series! This will also be the last article about Design Patterns, since I've finished reading the Head First Design Patterns book :)

It's been a very interesting journey, lots of new patterns learned, lots of knowledge gained, and now it's time to apply them in real projects.

As a summary, the overview of all articles about patterns, including the one we're going to see today:

 

Let's get started! Make sure you're seated comfortable, it's going to be a long one today!

The definiton, as usual: "Provide a surrogate or placeholder for another object to control access to it."

Testing Proxy Pattern

Read more at http://blog.cumps.be/design-patterns-proxy-pattern/

It's been a while again, but it's time for another pattern. Today we'll look at the State Pattern.

First of all, the definition: "Allow an object to alter its behavior when its internal state changes. The object will appear to change its class."

State Pattern Class Diagram

Read more at http://blog.cumps.be/design-patterns-state-pattern/

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