I ran across an excellent read about how YouTube's architecture handles so much bandwidth and traffic.

The core of it is:

• SuSe Linux
• Apache + lighttpd (for videos only)
• Python + C extensions for expensive operations
• Lots of caching

Many more points to read, but a great reference indeed.  Check it out here:  http://highscalability.com/youtube-architecture.

It is excellent advice for anyone using Hibernate or NHibernate.  I fully agree with each point on this list.

http://www.spenceruresk.com/2007/07/27/10-things-i-learned-about-using-hibernatejpa-successfully/

I just got home after attending a talk by Robert Martin on Code Quality.  It was really great to meet him after reading his book, to which I gave an excellent review.

Bob (that’s what people call him when you know him, kind of like Bob De Niro, though I don’t know him at all — what was I saying?) is very animated and pretty weird.  He pulled out his geek card a few times which was funny.  He even acted out a scene from Star Trek 2 where he was Ricardo Monteban.  Yeah.

Anyway, the talk was very much like his book and enjoyed it thoroughly.  It was also good to see other folks in the room interested in agility from around Houston.  Most of them were .NET developers.

Robert Martin will be in town again next month giving a similar (but different) talk about clean code, possibly with Ruby.  Hopefully I will be able to attend that as well.

I’ll leave you with some R.M. quotes…

“Not cleaning up your code is like not doing the dishes after dinner.  The longer you wait, the more the mess piles up.  Eventually it impedes you so much that you can’t even work”

“Having management dictate a specific code coverage percentage is madness.  Code Coverage is a great tool for developer feedback, but mandating it will not provide value.”

“The great redesign in the sky fails — always.”

“So you want to clean up some code but it is just a mess?  Uh [snickering] do you have tests?  No?  Your pretty much screwed.. [smiles]” — after which the book Working Effectivly with Legacy Code was recommended.

“Professionals write tests — first”

I presented a talk on Domain Driven Design with NHibernate at the OKC code camp yesterday.

It started out a bit rough because I had some missing references and some confusing exceptions, however once I got the ball rolling I think it went pretty well.

I ran way short on time, however, and I promised the crowd that I would post the completed files on my blog tonight .

So, here is the powerpoint, demo applications, and all of the referenced dlls from my presentation.  Let me hear your feedback in the comments!

File Attachment: ddd with nhibernate.zip (7694 KB)

(the file is large because I have the complete references to specific versions of NHibernate and NUnit, so you shouldn’t have to worry about references at all.)

To get the sample running, change the app.config to point to an actual database.  The database should be empty.

I’m in the airport now awaiting my flight home.  The code camp was a blast!  I was very glad to meet a bunch of very smart folks and pick their brains.  I also miss my family, so I’m glad to be going home.

Being surrounded by like-minded people really validates that the things that we are doing are of value, and I really think that the industry is poised for a change as a whole.  At the code camp there was an Agile Experts Panel (which I was a part of somehow  )  — anyway, there was only one guy up there that was questioning the things that we were talking about.  In my experience the agile ones are the outnumbered ones.  There were a number of .NET newcomers who were just getting into development, and it was really good to recommend some solid books and blogs to get them started.

It was fun to listen to Scott Bellware not pull any punches and be incredibly blunt about what he believes about agile. 

A couple of my favorite quotes of the day:

• “God forbid we ask our developers to LEARN…” – Scott Bellware
• “When you fire up the debugger to verify something and then click stop, the ‘test’ that you just performed goes into the ether.  Every time someone does that, God kills a kitten…” – Dave Laribee

I can’t wait to get together with these guys again at the ALT.NET open spaces conference in October.

(oh — I’m working on finishing the example from my presentation, so I’ll post the files for that as soon as I finish)

Our little dasBlog theme contest has ended.

Here are the votes:

drum roll please…

Dandelion: 6 votes
Expression: 2 votes
Funky: 1 vote
Lizard Lounge: 2 votes (even though I told them not to vote for it :P )

So, Tim Sherrill, your $100 Amazon Gift Card is forthcoming, and thank you!

Thanks also to the others who submitted their themes.  Maybe we can do a larger contest in the future.

Here are the contenders for the dasBlog theme contest (in no particular order)…

Entry #1:  Dandelion, by Tim Sherrill

Entry #2:  Tractor Pull, by Tim Sherrill

Entry #3: Expression, by Janakiram MSV

Entry #4:  Funky, by Tony Bouch

Entry #5: JDasBlog, by Justin-Josef Angel

Entry #6: VitaminCSS, by James Green

Entry #7:  Lizard Lounge, by yours truly (this one can’t receive any votes, since I am a sponsor of the contest)

All of these themes are available online at the dasblog sample blog (http://www.dasblog.info/dasblog).

My current work computer has one of those crappy OEM Realtek Sound Manager craplet pieces of software.

I really hate it when hardware companies (especially sound card manufacturers) think that they should abandon the well-known and incredibly standard windows framed interface and invent their own scary window interface.

Anyway, I normally would never open this app, but it forces itself in focus when I plug in my headphones.  (Yes, you read that correctly)

Umm, WTF?  It obviously knows what I plugged in because it is highlighted and checked.  The headphones don’t work until I click OK on this box.

The worst part?  Uninstalling the application renders the sound card useless.  Pfft.

Face it.  The windows command line interface has always sucked.  Maybe that’s why most Windows users don’t use it…

Lately I’ve become enamoured with Console, the open-source replacement for the basic Windows command prompt.

The reasons I like it?

• Tabbed interface
• Alpha Transparency
• Support for lots of colors and fonts (Consolas kicks ass)
• Integration with cygwin

Seriously, now…  which looks better?

This….

or this….