Mauricio Feijo's WebLog

Framework Architecture, Offshore Development and MS(!!!)

Read on for MS interviewing, dealing with offshore development and some design/architecture stuff...So much going on, I haven't had a chance to blog for a while.

It has been very exciting to travel my way toward Microsoft, the ultimate sanctuary. (OK, maybe not for all of you guys, because most of you are already there, but that is one of the main reasons why I want to go!)
There is nothing like learning new technologies by applying them where they are conceived.. Very exciting.. Still many steps to go, hours and interviews to come, but all well worth it. I know I can make a difference at that level the same way I have been making on the Application Architecture, Analysis and Development levels for most of my (way too long.. :)) life.

This is also going on and it is pretty cool: I have been bringing to life an infrastructure conceived by someone else, actually by a pretty brilliant mind, extremely abstract. It is being a huge challenge, very exciting and rewarding to bring his highly conceptual ideas to reality. The final application will be built by a team of OFFSHORE developers based on the framework. This is something developers should start thinking. It is not only necessary to be an excellent coder/ designer/ architect these days. Not even be great with presentations or communication ( to BAs, for example). We need to be good in talking effectively to other cultures, as they are now our developers and peers. Requirements meetings will now be on web casts, with people of different languages and culture. This can be challenging. Time differences are also in the play. My team is 10 hours ahead, in India. My meetings are in the morning. I'm crispy fresh out of bed, they are tired after a heavy day.. get the feeling?

I'll get some sleep now, and soon I'll throw out there some issues with the framework design I am working with and see if I can give people ideas as well as get some opinions and ideas. Issues like:

State between ascx. Infragistics webtree heavy footprint. What is the best way? And more.

.NET Cocktails

http://www.in-the-spirit.co.uk/index.html

If you like cocktails, you need to see this..

Datagrid inserting rows question.

I am always looking for better solutions for a quick and clean code for table maintenance.

More for fun than anything I am writing a table maintenance page using datagrid. I am trying to keep it as abstract as possible, as I will later add other tables and reuse most code, or maybe wrap it in a custom control.

The datagrid is sorting asc and desc in all columns ( displaying an arrow showing the direction), allowing the user to pick how many rows to be displayed at a time, editing and deleting.

I want to make it insert too, and for that I have a button outside the datagrid, “Add Row“, that when clicked adds an empty row to the top of the dataset, saves the dataset, set currentpageindex and edititemindex and binds.

Private Sub btnAddRow_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnAddRow.Click
SqlDataAdapter_store.Fill(DataSet_store)
Dim dr As DataRow = Me.DataSet_store.atr_store.NewRow
dr("store") = ""
dr("size") = ""
dr("active") = True
Me.DataSet_store.atr_store.Rows.InsertAt(dr, 0)
Session("DataSet_store") = DataSet_store
dgStores.CurrentPageIndex = 0
dgStores.EditItemIndex = 0
viewstate("Operation") = "INSERT"
Binddata(True)
End Sub

The problem I am finding is with the primary key column.
Before get to the insert part, I had it as a bound column, only showing the data (“store“). But using this approach to insert rows I need to have a textbox in the edititemteplate tag in that column, and the column needs to be a template column instead of databound column. All obvious, no problem.

But now when editing the “store“ textbox is available too.

I cannot make it readonly or disabled or invisible because either it hasn't been rendered yet and it doesn't exist, or it has been rendered and then it is too late to change it's attributes.

Also, I am trying to avoid adding client script to change the box attribute to read only after the page loads. I don't think it is elegant, and will probably byte me back..

I hate asking obvious questions about simple scenarios, but someone have a word on this?

Thanks

-Mauricio

Languages

While living in the US for 6 years, I am Brazilian and my natural language is Portuguese. Most Brazilians living in US speak (or at least we think we do) Spanish and English. That gives us a trilingual status.  Also, among Europeans it is normal to speak at least 3 languages. I bet Dino Esposito doesn't speak only Italian and English.

So the above is to make a point that I DO NOT have anything against other language speakers,

But English is THE Universal Language. It is not the most spoken in the world (1-Chinese, 2-Spanish, 3-English), it is probably the most understood in the IT Software Development Community. ( Most programming languages incorporate English commands and operators with their own syntax elements.)

I read this post from Rido, Bye Bye nAnt, and thought it would be interesting to the professional responsible for builds at my current contract to read it, but he speaks exclusively English. So either I ( or someone else)  translate it for him, or he can't read it at all. )

That is a good example of why I am taking my time to write this post. While we all like to use our own languages, we may be preventing some people from reading  and understanding.

Just a thought.

BTW, anyone was at the last Atlanta.NET meeting at Microsoft last week? Stuart Dickerson did a great job showing some UI tips ( a lot about Datagrid. Get his code here.) and Doug Ware kicked a** talking about Continuous Integration and Automated Unit Testing. He had a great example about incorporating source control applications, DRACO.NET , nAnt , nUnit and  nDoc to create continuous integration. IT becomes sort of a Build Engine, with all the steps in the middle well controlled. He mentioned http://sourceforge.net/ as the place to get some of these pieces.

Quoting asp.netPRO