I just discovered this today:

http://www.songbirdnest.com/

It’s called Songbird and I think they’re on to something.  Just admit it:  Our current media situation sucks.  I posted about this previously and ranted about how much I hate most media players.  Anyway, I settled for iTunes, but not because I love it, only because it’s the lesser of other evils (IMHO).

Songbird is taking a different approach to media players, integrating it more closely with the web, and it’s built on top of Firefox, so it’s cross-platform and have rich plugin support.  I’m really looking forward to some of the extensions that will become of this.

It’s based on XUL, which should impress some super-techies out there .   I wonder how nicely this will work with a distributed scenario like iTunes + FolderShare?

Today I noticed how non-intuitive it is to write to the configuration file programatically for an application.  What I needed to do was dynamically create a connection string, then write it to the app.config file.

Here’s how you do it:

first, you need to add a project reference to the System.Configuration assembly.  Add a corresponding using clause to the top of your class.

Next you need to find and open the configuration file.  In win forms, you do this by specifying the full path to your application’s executable.  If you project is at c:\code\project1 then you would pass in something like this: “c:\code\project1\bin\debug\project1.exe”.

For ASP.NET, you can follow the same principle, but use the System.Web.Configuration namespace in conjunction with WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration(path) where path is the url of your root, for example http://localhost/webapp1 (notice there is no trailing slash).

Domain Driven Design – by Eric Evans

I just finished reading this book by Eric Evans on “Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software.”  Domain Driven Design should really be required reading in college, in my opinion.  Eric Evans has a way of describing benefits of rich modeling techniques and how to develop them.  He guides you through learning to develop the ubiquitous language of the domain, an important concept for effective modeling.  He also addresses many common concerns such as scalability with the techniques in the book.

This isn’t your typical software book, chock full of simple examples to help make the author’s point.  Evans goes into enourmous detail on the examples and builds on them throughout the course of the book.  The quality of the examples are what pushes the reader’s understanding of the topic to a level that words cannot do alone.

Evans tends to be a bit wordy in this book, and you’ll often find that he seems to be repeating himself, frequently with the same verbage.  The message is important though, worth visiting more than once. 

Domain Driven Design is among the most profound, impacting, and inspiring software books I have ever read.  I give it a 5/5.

Let me be the first (well more like the 50,000th) to say that re-branding WinFX to .NET Framework 3.0 is a STUPID idea.  (Yeah that’s right, I bolded it.)

Set aside for a second that it’s a bad representation of the product, there’s already a .NET Framework 3.0 in the works and WinFX isn’t it!  WinFX runs under CLR 2.0.  They should call it .NET Framework 2.5 or something.  WinFX will not include 3.0 features, such as LINQ.

Why, oh why, Microsoft?

WinFX was a cool name, and developers who were confused about the role of .NET in WinFX should just google it and read a tad.  It won’t kill you I promise.

/mourns the loss of Indigo, Avalon, and now WinFX in this Microsoft naming wtf’ery

Now playing: Keane - Untitled 1

I haven’t posted in a while, but I had to take 5 and post this today.

I stumbled across yet another fantastic plugin for Firefox today.  It’s called Firebug  and it rocks.

If you’ve used Venkman before, you will appreciate this.  Basically it’s a complete Javascript debugger + DOM inspector embedded in Firefox. Here’s a video of it in use.

Life in the web development world suddenly got just a bit sweeter.

On a side note, why are there so many good web developer tools for Firefox, and the ones for IE leave something to be desired?

My name is Ben Scheirman.  I am a Principle Consultant with Sogeti, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.

On this blog you’ll find my random tidbits about software development, revolving around agile practices such as test-driven development, refactoring, continuous integration, domain driven design, and more.  I also frequently cover object-relational mapping concepts with NHibernate.

I enjoy reading, but the only thing that captures my attention are technical books.  My reading list is growing faster than I can possibly read.

I live in Houston with my wife and three beautiful children.  When I’m not working, I’m usually hanging out with my family, playing video games, or playing guitar.

Venkat Subramanium is an amazing speaker.  I was fortunate enough to have him as my professor in college and what I remember most are the interesting analogies that helped explain tough topics.

His latest post, Walking along the developer beach, is another gem that explains the rhythm that you must get in to gain the most productivity out of test-driven development (and test-2nd development).  The most interesting thing is that it works for either school.  Either you write the test first, then the method, or you write the method first, but immediately after you write your test.  It forces you to hold the caller’s perspective and not get buried in the code.  A byproduct is cleaner, more testable code.

If you are writing unit tests, then that’s a huge step that most people aren’t even achieving yet, but to get the most out of them, write them in parallel with your methods.  Otherwise you’ll be hopping along one foot, just like hopskotch.

Now playing: Breaking Benjamin - Wish I May

At Software Architects, when I’m not on a project, I am encouraged to seek certifications.  These certifications help their partnership with Microsoft and they help us build our résumés.  Since my hire date of Febuary 1st, I have completed:

• Microsoft Certified Professional
• Microsoft Certified Application Developer
• Microsoft Certified Solution Developer
• Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (new 2.0 exams)

I probably would not have sought getting certified if my employer hadn’t paid for it, but I’m glad I did. 

Note:  the following is my personal view of the Microsoft Certification process.  I have not taken any Sun/Cisco/A+/or PMP exams, so I’m not sure how they stack up.

Certifications alone will not take you very far.  They do not show that you know how to utilize a particular technology.  They do not show that you have ANY experience in a particular technology.  I’d also dare to say that they can be obtained only by studying tests, not actual concepts. 

But, combine them with significant experience building software, and you have solid evidence that a particular person not only knows the technology, but also knows how to apply it on real software. 

If I were reviewing résumés, I wouldn’t put very much weight in the fact that someone has certifications.  If that was ALL that they had, I’d consider it negatively.  The only certification I would really put stock into is the Microsoft Certified Architect, where you are presented a problem, and you have to submit your architecture to a panel of well-known, high-echelon developers for review.  The only downside is that it costs $10,000.  I don’t think my employer will be paying for that any time soon…

I read Joel Spolsky religiously.  His posts are few-and-far-between, but the SNR (signal to noise ratio) is seriously high.  His posts are worth waiting for because there is so much meat.

Anyway, since he frequently posts interesting articles, why am I blogging about this one?  This one really hits the nail on the head with me, that’s why.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/04/11.html

Programmers are good at programming.  The time they spend learning tasks extraneous to their day-to-day skills is time not improving the developmental skills.  I believe in being multi-faceted, but your developers shouldn’t also be your system administrators.  Your developers shouldn’t spend time assembling desks or ordering/building computers.  Taking your developers off of their high priority tasks to do phone tech support is a waste of his/her time.  High morale and few distractions will lead to better software in the end.

I don’t normally like to blog about a blog, but this post is worth reading.  Go.  Now.  Read it.

Now playing: Breaking Benjamin - Natural Life