Lately, I have been spending a some spare time working on automated builds. I currently use Nant, NUnit, NDoc, TestDriven.NET, and DotNetMock. Now I am working on tying it all together into a complete process. And adding some more on to the pile of course...
The more I think about it I want this entry to be placeholder for all this info:
Gordon Weakliem: Supporting VS.NET and NAnt (XSLT and NAnt, standard format, etc)
Andrew Stopford: Creating a build system Arne Vandamme: .NET: NUnit testing private fields and methods Stewart Baird:
More NUnit and Nant Tricks, Tips and Examples Michael Swanson: CruiseControl.NET and MSBuild (for 2.0)
Test Driven .NET Blog: Introducing MutantBuild Kris Syverstad: Setting up Nunit w/CC.Net &/! Nant Other Stuff: NCover CruiseControl.NET NHibernate Andrew Stopford: Sourcecontrol, VS, CVS and Subversion
Cool
channel9 clip with JP talking about his car pc. For the geek/performance driving enthusiast the OBDII potential is the real cool factor of a car pc. Oh, that would be awesome! This is something that I would not expect car manufacturers to implement any time soon.
It's funny how MSFT knows its typical customer. They knew it would be a progressive transition to .NET starting with any new development. Then convert some core legacy code and interop with the rest of the code base. What a crap fest this amounts to!
Today there are thousands of lines of procedural code with sprinkles of OOP on top (more like hamster turds). Most of this rewritten code looks as it did before moving it to .NET but now you have these damn sprinkles making it even worse... You would hope that people would have realized how procedural the legacy code was and spent time refactoring. Nah, no time for that got to write .NET code. So this code was crammed inside a .NET app and deployed. Now when it comes time to build off this code base it is next to impossible to implement the new functionality. Fun stuff.
A year ago this consisted of reading 40 or so blogs, online articles, and books.
Today I read over 70 blogs (hasn't grown that much purposely), listen to
Channel9 clips,
.NETRocks clips, webcasts, online articles, and good old books.
I am very much enjoying all this input. Let me know the different ways you are getting your fix.
I just got a little excited... It has been awhile since I looked at the list of talks for Code Camp II. The number of talks has tripled!
Code Camp II chatter here (Robert), here (Scott), here (Sam), here (Jason)
I have been at my new job for about 2 months. Aside from some small projects I have been primarily working on bugs fixes for a recent release of one of our products (paying my dues). I was not part of the development of the release but I have battled countless bugs and surprisingly I am not tweaking out yet... Recently I have been refactoring a lot of code (something near and dear to my heart). The down side is that I have been cramming to unit test and ensure I got all the pieces back in :-) Unit testing is a bitch when the asp.net pages have some logic (or a lot) in them...
Well, I spent most of the weekend under the car and its still not done... Ahh, it is like any project they always run over. I really need to get the E30 running since I started my new gig last week and have to drive to work. The wife is not to happy about only having one car. Either am I. I have not driven my car in seven months. It was stored away for the winter and I spent the Spring in 'Geekland' and looking for a new job.
I feel a little guilty for not getting any work or studying done but that sense of accomplishment from working with my hands all weekend is pretty sweet. This week I need to replace the driver's side tie rod, front sway bar links, and drop it off for an alignment.
Without a doubt the message I heard yesterday was Service Oriented Architecture. Granted 3 out of 4 sessions I attended were part of the Connected Services Track. Although even the Developer Session (Software Reuse with .NET: Best Practices) hyped it up the whole talk too. It makes me think how much my shop needs to adapt.
Clemens Vaster takes my vote for the best session of the day with his presentation on Best Practices for Dealing with State at Multiple Layers within Your .NET Applications.
Other Highlights:
1. WSE 2.0 is available. WS-Policy, WS-SecureConversation, WS-ReliableMessage, etc.
2. MTOM is the future of DIME.
3. ASMX
4. System.Messaging
5. JITA Proxy Pooling --> See Clemens Vasters blog
1. My favorite --> cement patches on on/off ramps (traction sweet spot)
2. Every time I turn on the radio Metallica is playing.
3. Highway Patrol rides BMW motorcycles.
4. There are sprinklers on the freeway to water the lawn. I think this is only on route 163...
So I am here at TechEd still getting a feel for where everything is in the convention center. Curious how the first day is going to go.
Yesterday, I registered, spent the afternoon at the San Diego Zoo, and then went to the Architect Road Rally over at the San Diego Car Museum. The zoo was great. I was impressed at how well they create each animals habitat. The Road Rally was a blast. Met some nice people. Turns out one of the guys is moving to Boston from San Diego. His wife is going to MIT's Business School this fall. The other two guys are from Sweden. It just so happens one of them is into performance driving and racing. Needless to say we all had lots to talk about.
Not a match in my opinion...
Tomorrow I leave for San Diego. I am getting excited for a week of “geek over stimulation” and meeting people. From the sounds of it RIO is not being fully utilized by participants. The only real plans I have is the Architect Road Rally on Sunday night. I am real curious to hear about what other folks have planned in their spare time.
Anyone that wants to take a break during lunch and talk CARS should contact me.
Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability is full of great info. I definite reference to keep handy.
Need to spend a little time and check out Nant.
What has been your experience with it?
1. Make sure you have a good idea of the position you are interviewing for and the skills required. It is important so you can brush up on anything not fresh in your mind. Be prepared for technology specific questions. Sounds obvious but don't read "Programming Interviews Exposed" to prepare for a web developer or DBA interview...
3. Never assume you know what a job is like by the HR description (they usual suck). I just went on an interview thinking it was a position I wasn't too excited about. Only to find out while I am interviewing that this is exactly what I am looking for! I made an assumption and because of that I did not prepare properly and now I probably missed a good opportunity.
2. Rehearse the "What have you been doing at your company?" or "Tell me about your last project" type questions. Depending on how many people you meet with during the interview this question will be asked every time...!!! Rehearse the monotonous questions so you are enthusiastic when the 5th person asks you the same thing.
4. If the question is not clear ask the person to elaborate. I hate when I realize after an interview what the person was asking. Its a little late then :-)
5. Don't work before an interview! Your mind will be all over the place.
6. Don't wear a suit! They really do make you uncomfortable and you don't perform well. Suits are gone for me. Sharp business casual is the way to go!
7. Make sure you drink water. You are going to be doing all of the talking.
I know these are "interviewing 101" tips but no matter how much you prepare every interview is different and you need to be able to adapt on the fly.
For anyone that is a TextPad fan but has been too lazy to add syntax highlighting/compiling for C# take the time and add it in. See Sam's post. I like TextPad for quickly viewing source files.
I have really enjoyed Scott Mitchell's recent writings (especially his data structure series and Going Independent). A good data structures article is great because there is always something new you can pick up. The 'Going Independent' write up just gets me thinking about my career. More on that later...
Well, today I had the opportunity to try out
Froogle as I was pricing out RAM. I usually use
CNet or
PriceWatch but I figured I would give it a try... It's fast but PriceWatch still came up with the best prices. I will have to try it for some non-computer items. Has anyone else given it a try?
I am a big advocate of pursuing your passion. I believe it is crucial to your happiness. Unfortunately even the best of us lose site of our passions from time to time. As I have myself over the last few months.
I just found Curt's blog and this is his business. I added his blog to my aggregator. It will be nice to diversify my blog reading...
Well this is not my ideal first post but anyway... I can't wait for Friday! I need to write some code!!! Unfortunately my current job requires me to be a “jack of all trades” which allows me little time for what I love, development. This weekend I need to spend some time getting some work done on SQLObjects2Text, my buddy Jason's project.