Agile .NET Geek

Last week was the Heartland Developer Conference in Omaha and, as usual, it did not disappoint.  This was my fourth year attending the conference and I always enjoy the sessions that happen.  Also at the event was a demo Microsoft Surface table that I got to play around with; and the Microsoft booth had Rock Band 2 set up. I was able to get in one quick jam during the conference; thanks to whoever sat in on the drums…

Some of the more interesting sessions I attended this year include:

• Rod Paddock on “AJAXing Your .NET Applications”: Very good presentation, especially for the more novice AJAX developers, like myself.  The biggest payback was seeing his demo of the Fiddler tool.  Very cool stuff!
• Dennis Kirlin on “Estimating in the Abstract”: This was one of my favorites.  Dennis’ presentation was unique in that he presented a number of agile concepts and practices without using any of the associated buzzwords. By doing so, the presentation sounded refreshingly new, even to those already familiar with the concepts.
• Javier Lozano on “The Zen of ASP.NET and MVC”: I attended a presentation with the IADNUG earlier in the year over this same topic, and it’s amazing the number of changes that have occurred between the earlier CTP and the recent beta release of the MVC framework.  I was unimpressed with the former, but Javier’s presentation won me back.  Now if only they could get the thing out of beta…
• Clint Edminton on “Modeling in Visual Studio Codename Rosario”: This demo was cool until he told us that these features were for the Architect Edition of Visual Studio Team System.  Does Microsoft not think that developers use UML?  At least they now acknowledge that developers do interact with databases.

The other interesting thing to note was the increase in agile-specific topics, including sessions on using Scrum with Team Foundation Server, and the aforementioned Agile Estimating session.  I’m looking forward to what is to come in 2009.

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I fired up iTunes this morning and received a message asking if I wanted to upgrade to iTunes 8.  Ever since, oh iTunes 7.2, I’ve always clicked no and then done some additional research to see if anything in this update would break my system. Some would say that’s just due diligence, but I think it’s becoming a serious problem.

In all honesty, I really shouldn’t have to be distrustful of getting software updates.  Sure, upgrading major releases, like from iTunes 7.x to iTunes 8, may warrant some additional research. But what about minor patches?

I’m definitely started to lose faith in Apple’s iTunes sofware, and here’s why:

• Lack of transparency: Have you ever tried to search for iTunes release notes? Here, try it. It’s always strange that Apple’s own web site is never top of the list (or anywhere that I can see it).  But even when I find some sort of release notes, they are vague at best.  “Fixes to improve stability and performance” seems to be the cut-and-paste phrase for every release.  That’s great, but what does that mean exactly?
• Lack of Disclosure: Ed Bott’s arcticle from ZDNet gives a pretty solid example of this. In it, he talks about all of the “extras” that iTunes secretly includes in its software updates.  MobileMe anyone?  Yea, that might be useful if I owned an iPhone/iPod Touch and wanted to use that service. But I don’t… and I don’t.  So why should I have to install it on my computer?  Unfortunately, that software sneaked onto my computer with the iTunes 7.7 update and it didn’t come with a way to uninstall it (and I haven’t yet found a way that the internet community can agree works without also breaking anything else). Though it sounds like iTunes 8 does allow you to uninstall the MobileMe software… but maybe it’s just a trick to get other software on my computer… (lack of trust, anyone??)
• Lack of Trust in Quality: Ed’s arcticle also points out the gap in QA that Apple has on the WIndows side.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen the BSOD and I’m leery of any software that would potential raise this issue.

All in all, Apple really needs to shore up its efforts in the software that it pushes out to people.  Otherwise, it’s going to start seeing people jumping off the iTunes bandwagon. After all, it’s not the only fish in the sea anymore.

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This month’s MSDN Magazine has a pretty interesting article on Object Role Stereotypes.  The article reminded me of the GRASP design patterns that I learned back in college.

The article also mentions the value of using CRC cards as a design exercise.  This is another practices that I’ve heard about, but have not had a chance to experience first hand.

All in all, a decent read if you’re interested in some conceptual knowledge around object-oriented design.

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I was recently “challenged” by a fellow agile member who claimed that Java developers have a higher maturity level then their fellow .NET developers.  His claim was that .NET developers rely too much on the mouse when programming, which makes them slower because their hands have to leave the keyboard more frequently.  Java developers, on the other hand, are more familiar with their tool (e.g. IDE) and all the keyboard shortcuts that are programmed into it.

So, I considered his claims and his challenge.  I scoured the internets, searching for the knowledge I sought that would help me master the .NET coder’s tool of choice (the great Visual Studio), until I found what I was looking for.

And so, for my fellow .NET “adolescents”, I share with you this, straight from our god herself:

• Visual Basic 2005 Keyboard Shortcuts
• Visual C# 2005 Keyboard Shortcuts

• Visual Basic 2008 Keyboard Shortcuts
• Visual C# 2008 Keyboard Shortcuts

You threw down the gauntlet, B.C. and I accept your challenge.

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Scott Ambler was in town earlier this week to be a keynote speaker at the local BADD 2008 conference, and I was fortunate enough to attend a separate presentation on Thursday night at the West Des Moines Marriott, where Scott talked to around dozen of IT individuals about strategies for scaling agile development in real-world environments.

Overall, it was a great presentation. Scott has a reputation for speaking his mind about topics, and there was no shortage of that here. However, he is also known for making arguments based on factual material and he shared a number of research data with us around the adoption and success rates of agile (of which some of the data can be found here).

It definitely had a flavor of IBM Rational bias, but a lot of the messages were applicable beyond the scope of IBM and its RUP product to agile practices in general.

Overall, the message was clear: Agile is making (or has already made) its way into the mainstream, and it is going to be around for the long term.

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