Ranko

Killing Choices Is Not All That Good

2008-03-12T20:24:00Z

I love Silverlight. If you are reading this text, you know why. Looking at the various demos makes me want to work in Silverlight. When Microsoft.com offers me their download center in Silverlight I click the yes please option.

The eye candy makes me happy to be a user. Even the moving backgrounds are subtle enough and I don't feel dizzy or ready to rant. All the effects make me feel special and loved.

And then I hit my middle button.

No, it must be me. The Silverlight wouldn't do that to me. Look at it, it loves the dev me and the user me. I hit the obviously malfunctioning middle button again, and the one on the side too (mapped to act as middle click) - just to be sure.

No tab appears.

Apparently, while starting work on a competitor product to Flash, no one cared to think about the usability of the user experience. Or think of the various user habits. Or look at all the mistakes Flash made.

So I have to wonder - after playing catch up in the "tabs are good, people want tabs" game, why kill them again? What is so wrong about people opening links in new tabs? Is no one on the Silverlight design team loves tabs a bit too much? And why do they hate me using a context menu? I though Windows loved the context menu.

Please stop me before I move on to the dreaded JavaScript link...

And while I am at this choices thing, I'd like to know why Live anything doesn't allow me to set the language of my choice?

Seriously people! I have it in my IE languages options, right there at the top. So you chose to be smarter than I and read my location, color me impressed. But I have a profile, don't I? And I can't set my preferred language? Why? Please let me know why me telling your site what language I like to read stuff in is bad.

Is Developing Just About Writing Code?

2008-03-10T23:21:00Z

A couple of colleagues and I went to dinner a few weeks ago. As it does so often, we chatted about work stuff. It drifted to various topics, some more, some less on the personal side of life.

One of the things I mentioned (or complained) was my unhappiness with my working knowledge of .net development work. Which is to say I went on about stuff I couldn't figure out due to a lot of stuff. Since my day job isn't really about writing code I have only my free time to learn .net. And being mostly self taught there is a big barrier standing between the idea and the text I need to look for - namely names of things.

But another approach was mentioned. Development isn't about code. It is about the process. Working on an application is about a great many more steps than sitting down, firing up Visual Studio (or insert editor of your choice) writing a control to do X and a database (insert your data store here) to hold your information.

Development starts with an idea, a need, a thing to get done. It starts with a piece of paper to jolt down the purposes, ideas and improvements of existing applications out there. If you ever looked into starting a company it is very much like that. You start with two business plans - a long one and a short one.

An application should start like that. Writing down a short business plan, a summary you can show to people and make them understand why you need to write it, why it is an improvement on an existing version of the same thing (and odds are it already exists). It is your pitch to yourself and anyone interested. I like to grab non IT friends and talk to them because I have to explain things to them to make them understand, and they pose simple questions users might ask - it is like getting user feedback before you have anything to hand out to users.

The long business plan of an application is the long term projection. It needs to be harsh and realistic, slacking off time included. Writing down the phases and time frames. Expected growth and goals. Will it be released to the general public, will it be open-source, which licensing option will you use, how will you (will you) generate any income?

Doing pre development planning offers a great deal of benefits, or I'd like to think. It allows you to set realistic goals for yourself. It should provide you with time frame to keep to. Looking into tools to use sets your framework and can help build new skills. Most of all it will keep you in focus.

And development, be it for fun or profit, needs its focus.

First Thoughts On MVC.NET

2007-12-19T10:01:00Z

Finally some time for .net.

Since Scott and Phil started writing about is I wanted to read and try out the MVC framework. So last night I managed to read a few blog posts on the topic, namely Scott's expectedly great series of posts and Phil's REST like post and Testing Routes. I wrapped my evening of MVC with Scott's (this time Hanselman) MVC How-To Screencast.

The Screencast
It is a really good place to start. Not to mention that I really enjoyed the production value it brought to the table.

First of all the small screen capturing his face as he talked and worked was a great idea. I really thought it would bring nothing to the presentation, but it did. And it was small enough, and not present at all times, so it didn't overdo it or get in the way. The worse thing about it was that I kept thinking how he looked like a hockey player.

Comments were useful for us (grab a few notes while watching) and him (not recording parts again), and sometimes funny. They helped set a nice casual tone.

The only thing I have a minor issue with is the zooming which was sometimes too fast. There were times when I thought I was watching a car chase on TV.

The MVC
So far I really like the idea behind the model. And there are a few things I really want to try for myself.

Routing my way - I am pretty sure that I can do all of the following out of the box:

Add more stuff to the routing rules to get more parameters in. Should be simple enough and a brilliant way to make multi-language sites.

Setting default actions to get prettier URLs. So site.com/category/product/productID would show the product details; but site.com/category/product/edit/productID will take me to the update page. The simplicity of making a end-user site and an administrative portion of a site is present (and you can then move the admin bit into a subdomain or something like that).

Or even downsize it more: there has to be a way to make site.com/Green_Tea understand that it is looking at Green_Tea category and then list all the needed items.

The thing I want to test the most is building routes dynamically, and cheating with the displayed URLs. For example: site.com/category/id should display a list of records. But what if the end user wanted a site in German? Why should his German speaking users need to read category? I should be able to map the category display dynamically and get site.com/kategorie/ that routes to the controller listing the category.

I hope to try it out a bit this Sunday. And I'll keep you posted.

Community Server Cuts Personal And Small Business Licenses

2007-11-03T21:32:00Z

Yesterday Telligent, in an interesting turn of events if you ask me, announced that Personal and Small Business licenses for Community Server are no longer available. Yes, you read it right - not will not be available, but as of November 2nd, when it was posted, are no longer available.

More from me soon, I promise. Life was a bit on the wild side lately.

ASP.NET Baby Steps

2007-10-05T15:36:00Z

When Joe made an open call to blog with ScottGu I had to at least try to get in. And I did. Now I have to make a first post before my cold feet get the better of me.

Baby steps, you know ...

The idea I pitched was that I'd write about getting into ASP.NET. I know that there are a lot of resources out there, most of them easy to find, but most of them presume that you know something or other. Something a self taught developer in training might not know. And would get frustrated by. And will spend way too much time figuring out.

So I decided to try it out. Jolt down stuff as I go, or remember my pitfalls.

And here we are - me taking baby steps writing my first blog; you reading my ramblings.

So hang in there, first real post is coming soon.