Archives
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Logging
Logging is the process in which trees are cut down for forest management and
timber. Logging is controversial due to its potential environmental and aesthetic impacts. -
Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas
I'd like to drop a few word for the book was lucky to read lately - Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas. Authors of the book have
succeeded to capture ways to apply changes in amazingly accurate way. Written as a pattern book with orientation for software development (and not only) this book makes a perfect read for those who are willing to make changes and affect others. -
Taking Out Fires
Firefighters are not analyzing the situation, they are taking several plans to consider leaving the simplest and the least harmful to be executed. Can be this applied anywhere? No. When you have stressful times in software development you need to enrich your knowledge and learn about the problem. Doesn't mean to put on hold the development. Neither it means to implement the firemen approach and forget about it. It means take out the fire and learn how to avoid fires in the future by implementing the proper solution when you can.
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Challenge - Listing Achievements
So today I was challenged. Challenged to talk about my achievements at the company I work for. Why is it a challenge? Simply because I don't like to brag about my personal achievements when know how much I still have to achieve. But in this case this is different, as I would like to have a chance to look back and review what are the achievements I managed to generate in the company (Note: compensations are not linked to this :).
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Depends How You Look At It
Some call it science, I call it art. Watch the video.
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Break It Down Into Bits
I had to refactor a portion of code and decided to go with strategy pattern. Interesting thing is that the final result might look more complex, but when discussed with a fellow developer, got green light in terms of "more maintainable" and "self documenting" code result. So here I am sharing it with others for review and opinions.
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Data Driven Or Domain Driven Application?
The company I work for has a significant amount of web applications of a specific line of business. This line of applications started 8 years ago (I am with the company just for the last 3 only). Since I started to be interested in Domain Driven Design, felt strongly that this line of applications should be re-addressed with a DDD approach. But the resistance was enormous, motivating that "these are the pure data centric applications and there's no place for domain, the data is the domain and as a result of that it is a DATA driven design application".
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DB Trigger - A Friend Or A Foe?
Database triggers are useful, and I am not going to bush it completely. In some cases, like the one I run into, triggers are more of a distraction and source of issues, rather than help and ease of headache-free maintenance. In order to understand the case, players must be introduced first.
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How Did I Get Started In Software Development?
JP called me out, so here I am, trying to travel back in time to recall how the heck I ended up coding.
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Foundations of Programming by Karl Seguin
Going through the PDF document Karl Seguin was kind enough to share with all of us, could not not to agree with the written - quoting:
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You Have Got To Be Persistent
[Purely Personal]
“Never give up, never surrender” was my favourite part from the Space Odyssey. Today it proved to be true again. How do you lift the skills of the team? By lifting the overall skills, by raising the bar for the whole team. This was the GCD is lifted, forcing the less strong developers to invest more, rather than doing an opposite, forcing the strong developers to play dummy.
Why do I writing this at all? Because I appreciate when people are brave enough to call white a white and black a black, and not just call it a shade of grey. Today I managed to bring back the skills lifting back to the team. This is a great opportunity to prove that by sharing the knowledge more can be achieved. Admitting mistakes made to fix those is the right step in a better direction.
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Jamming With Mr. Mo
Today I had a friend of mine, Mr. Mo, visiting us for a dinner and then having a little code jam (with a cup of tea and some crackers). A few things I would like to comment on:
- Thank you Mo for discovering the great taste of Oren’s triple A stake. Rhino Mocks 3.5 is awesome. Not only it is more natural to read, but also blends the differences between state based and interaction based testing into more cohesive testing. I loved it.
- I am not the only one who has strong negative feelings about not-so-sexy stored procedures and logic in DB
- TDD PPP (ping pong pairing) with a developer that has same attitude as you are is amazing. Ready to push the boundaries, ready to be bold with code. Willing to experiment to have it done better.
- People over processes is so much valid. I have burned so many bridges in the past. No longer willing to do it. Serving as a good example is way better than a target for hatred.
- Fear and Pride are the worse enemies of almost any developer. Fear of an unknown. Pride of the old achievements. When you free of thus bargain, you are able to achieve more. Much more.
PS: Mo, relocate to SW!
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Visual Studio Floating Windows and Keyboard Shortcuts
Update: Mark Capaldi has revealed a great VS.NET shortcut that does the work (Shift-ESC).
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MbUnit 2.4 PlugIn for ReSharper 4.0
Albert Weinert has release an update to his plugin to allow execution of R# 4.0 from within Visual Studio .NET 2005 / 2008. The only Unit Testing framework supported by R# 4.0 out of box is NUnit, so this is a useful plugin for those who prefer MbUnit to NUnit.
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Happy Canada Day - The ALT.NET Open Spaces Conference
It's Canada Day today. And it's opening of The ALT.NET Open Spaces conference in Calgary, taking place August 15-17, 2008 (at the University of Calgary).
