One thing I get asked to do a lot is integrate systems with each other or incorporate other systems into one we are currently building. In a lot of scenarios I have been starting to give some pushback on this. Sure integration is cool and all but should it be done? Expense The first (and ongoing) issue is the expense of integrating systems. First you have to understand the systems (or at least the APIs being exposed) of each system which can take a lot of time. Secondly we have to write code to integrate the services and adapt concepts from one...

One of my current clients is really embracing all the MS clones of great open source tools like MSTest, Team Build, Entity Framework, etc. Although I love the open source tools like nUnit, Team City (ok not so open source but still free), and nHibernate, I thought I would try MS Test out even though I have not heard many good things about them. First I will say something nice: MSTest has a nice code coverage suite. I really like that it is integrated with visual studio and can even highlight the areas that are covered and not covered which is the...

Recently I have been helping several other developers in the shop I am consulting at and realized another item for this series: Removing Pain. I am amazed by how many times I see developers repeating the same things over and over again. Builds/Deployments Builds should be the simplest and most repeatable thing you do in a day. If you have a checklist on your desk of steps then stop and automate. It is such a time saver to have a script that will do the things you need it to do. Wether it...

I was going to write an ALT.NET recap article but I think James and Donald really said everything I would have said. Instead I thought I would write about what changed since I got back.One of the things I came back with from the ALT.NET conference was a lot of renewed energy in that the way I am trying to develop software is the way a lot of talented industry people are developing software. Now not to say that I want to follow what person xy does dogmatically, I want to combine ideas and techniques into what works for me...

For those of us in the *nix space the whole SCO debacle has been going on for years. They claimed that they bought what was UNIX (UNIX actually does not actually exists as a technology really anymore and is more of a family of products now) and that all sorts of linux distributions stole code from it and were therefore violating copyright infringements. They then seemed to put all of their energy and money into suing distributions of (usually) free. While I can see where they are comming from that it was their code but then they started to sue everyone...

I feel that piracy is a consumer response to poor quality. If only 10% of the movies / music released are good in my opinion. Do I really want to waste 90% of my money for a product you are unhappy with? So going to see a movie that might/might not be good with another person will cost $20-$40 dollars depending on theaters and if you smuggled snacks in with you. That's a lot of money on something you can buy that you will get more use out of. For me that might be a DVD of the movie...

Well .NET 3.0 is out now and I have to play the devils advocate on this one. I really feel that these frameworks are comming out too fast. I am still working in a a place that is on 1.1 mainly and we are finally moving to 2.0 thanks to some microsoft hotfixes that address our migration problems (apparently 1.1 com+ components are not playing well with 2.0 components). I really can not wait to start using 2.0 as there are some really nice things there and am happy they released it. I know that most people who read this...

Everyone has deadlines which keeps us motivated to work. Personally I can not seem to work without one. The problem is that when a deadline approaches quality seems to decline. You start coding faster, testing less, and missing some of the minute points of spec in my experience. Although it is semantics I like to have a target window for a task that allows the developer to feel they have a bit of room to move other than a set date in time. Clients and deadlines are when things get ugly. When something does not get delivered by that date...

Stats for internet usage for 2005 were just released and so I thought I would share some of the interesting facts. Full article can be read here. Also I have a thing against stats so I will play a bit of devils advocate on it.-Alberta has the second highest internet usage in the country at 71%. This does not mean that people use it often. It could mean that someone had used the internet once.-88% of hoseholds with an income over $86,000 use the internet. Compared to 61% below that line. I assume that most people surveyed are under this...

I hate hate hate web development and for some reason I do it all day and night. Maybe I do it so others don't have too. I am such a hero. The reason I hate it is that it was never meant to do what we are doing with it now. The sheer amount of technology introduced to accomplish such a simple thing as showing someones email inbox takes thousands of lines of code and multiple technologies. I know that I have been on projects that get extended way past there initial design (the current app of 3 years I...

I recently attended the Calgary Code Camp and had a few insights into the future of our world.I feel that the need to specialize is comming. As much as I hate specialization as it can make you obsolete pretty quickly (i.e. foxpro specialists are few and far between). I know asp, vb, c#, javascript, sql2000, reporting services, crystal, access, php, networking, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I find that I use a lot of these skills on a regular basis but it is harder and harder to keep up to speed. I feel that I don't know enough...

I have been a fan of Nunit for a while now but recently I have noticed that I never open my UI project on my application. If I add new functionality I write a test case for it to ensure that it works. When I change something internally I run Nunit. I guess I am just amazed at how smoothly it has transitioned to this since I hav added a wack load of test coverage to my project. One of the cool things just happened now and inspired me to write this post. I am refactoring some redundant tables and...

I just ran the vista upgrade advisor (tells you if you have the requirements to run vista). and was shocked to get this error:We're sorry, but your PC cannot currently install and run the core experiences of Windows Vista. However, you may be able prepare your computer for Windows Vista by upgrading your PC hardware. You will need to take the following actions to run Windows Vista. Additional hard drive storage15GB free space required (Your computer currently has 3.53 GB)You will either need to:a) upgrade your hard drive to increase its capacity, or b) create additional free space on...

I like to post on technical things but the state of the industry has really been getting to me so I thought I would right a post about it.In summary: Most of us have no clue what we are doing.I say this because of my experiences in the past year. I can teach anyone to code. Its really not that hard to do the basics but to make a large application is where people stumble (myself included). The reasons for this is that there is no set way to do things. Everyone has their own way...

Just a quick note on security while it is in my head1. Use an accept list instead of a deny list. i.e. use a regular expression that matches [A-Za-z0-9] vs. ![/*.()<>\......] if you miss one character then your validation is useless. The first validation allows only alphanumeric characters. All else are excluded by the rule.Microsoft had this issue with IIS 5 (I beleive) in that people were exploiting it by using the urlencoded values to do directory transversal i.e. www.victim.com/%2c%2c/%2c%2c/%2c%2c/c:\windows\system32\command\cmd.exe(now that is from memory so don't shoot me)If the processor only accepted .. instead of %2c things would have...

I recently had a rant about us as developers not having a clue what we are doing. I want to try and narow this down into a few areas that I think need improvement.1. Testing. We don't take a step back and look at different scenarios. Whenever I develop something it is to do a task and that is what I test. I never test a method to see how it react when different data then the scenario is added.2. UI. I never make an application useable. Its not because I hate the user but that...

I unfortunately keep running into places that need to migrate oracle or I have had the unfortunate responsibility of teaching it. I absolutely can not stand this product and I have a list why:1. Cost. what an expensive POS.2. useless junk. Oracle ships with tons of utilities that will never need to be used3. Bloated install. Installes several apache instance / services I don't need4. GUI = the suck. I have never used such hard management tools5. no good query tool. The query tools appear to be wrappers around their dos sql utility. Its like microsoft word using dos's edit command for an engine.6. TNS...

I decided to make the trip down to Calgary to check out code camp and I thought I would share with everyone.WinFX - John BristoweWas a fairly good presentation about the new things comming out from MS.Windows Presentation Foundation - Nice look at the unification of mfc, forms, directx but a little bit of overkill. I hate the idea of XAML (markups for forms). Its cool to have 3D apps with animations but not usefull in the business world. Users want fast, functional, easy. Users have a hard enough time with their coffee cup holder let alone a 3D animated interface.Windows Communication Foundation - Was a...

Here are a few of my rules for business. Some of these don't apply to programmers but they are observations I wanted to share.1. Business certificates can make a lot of money. -For one they are usually gifts to people and either the receiver will not have a use for the item or else they will loose it. I have no stats to back this up the number of unused gift certs out there must be high. ...

I like to post on technical things but the state of the industry has really been getting to me so I thought I would right a post about it.In summary: Most of us have no clue what we are doing.I say this because of my experiences in the past year. I can teach anyone to code. Its really not that hard to do the basics but to make a large application is where people stumble (myself included). The reasons for this is that there is no set way to do things. Everyone has their own way...