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• Elegant Code Cast on ALT.NET and Microsoft

  Last week, David Start of Elegant Code and I got a chance to chat on ALT.NET, Open Source at Microsoft, and MEF. David was a great host who I am sure loved  responded as he through some curve balls at me. Actually it was a provocative discussion and I enjoyed being able to share my unadulterated thoughts. On this episode of the Elegant Code Cast, Glenn Block tells us about life inside Microsoft for the ALT.NET crowd . Glenn has been with Microsoft for several years and has worked in several departments during that time, trying to bring the ideals of ALT.NET to the company. His experiences in MS Learning, P&P, and now in the framework team, make for some great stories. In addition to Agile stories from inside the mother ship, Glenn spreads the good word on MEF . This discussion should finally draw the curtain on the idea that ALT.Net is anti-Microsoft. Download the podcast here . Posted Oct 20 2008, 10:52 AM by CodeBetter.Com - Stuff you need to Code Better! Filed under: misc, MEF, ALT.NET, patterns and practices

• Reminder - DC ALT.NET - 10/21/2008 - A Look at Kanban Software Development

  Just as a reminder, the October meeting for DC ALT.NET will be on October 21st, 2008 from 7-9PM.  Check the DC ALT.NET site and our mailing list for continuing updates and future meetings.  This month, Linda Cook will be presenting "A Look at Kanban Software Development".  I've been exploring a lot of Lean Software Development and Kanban, and this is an opportunity to explore the topic in depth with an established Lean/Agile coach.  My CodeBetter compatriot, Dave Laribee had introduced Kanban to XClaim Software and has some really good information on the topic. About Kanban Software Development Kanban is gaining popularity thanks to a growing number of groups, including Corbis and Yahoo!, who have been practicing and learning how to best apply Kanban to software development projects.  Kanban uses lean techniques, such as queue management, flow control and theory of constraints to optimize the workflow of a team.  As David Anderson states, "Kanban is a process that exposes the natural workflow of a system and reduces lead time by limiting the amount of work in progress." As part of this discussion, we'll look into what it means to use a Kanban system for software development and how to apply the "pull based" system, which determines the supply, or production, according to the actual demand of the customers.  Comparison and contrasting between Kanban and Scrum will also be discussed.  Kanban systems use constant inspection and adapting techniques to identify bottlenecks and defects.  Linda will share her experiences using Kanban and how it helped the team collaborate on a variety of projects. About Linda Cook Linda Cook is a Lean/Agile Coach with over twenty years’ experience in the IT industry. She mentors colleagues, creates formal and informal training programs, and helps organizations apply some of the best practices in the Lean Software Development and Agile Project Management. She is a Certified Scrum Master and completed the Lean Six Sigma program at Villanova University. Details The details of the event are as follows: Date/Time: 10/21/2008 - 7-9PM Location: Motley Fool 2000 Duke Street Alexandria, VA, 22314 Hope to see you there! Posted Oct 17 2008, 06:49 AM by CodeBetter.Com - Stuff you need to Code Better! Filed under: ALT.NET, User Groups, Lean Software Development

• DC ALT.NET - 10/21/2008 - A Look at Kanban Software Development

  The August meeting for DC ALT.NET will be on October 21st, 2008 from 7-9PM.  Check the DC ALT.NET site and our mailing list for continuing updates and future meetings.  This month, Linda Cook will be presenting "A Look at Kanban Software Development".  I've been exploring a lot of Lean Software Development and Kanban, and this is an opportunity to explore the topic in depth with an established Lean/Agile coach.  My CodeBetter compatriot, Dave Laribee had introduced Kanban to XClaim Software and has some really good information on the topic. About Kanban Software Development Kanban is gaining popularity thanks to a growing number of groups, including Corbis and Yahoo!, who have been practicing and learning how to best apply Kanban to software development projects.  Kanban uses lean techniques, such as queue management, flow control and theory of constraints to optimize the workflow of a team.  As David Anderson states, "Kanban is a process that exposes the natural workflow of a system and reduces lead time by limiting the amount of work in progress." As part of this discussion, we'll look into what it means to use a Kanban system for software development and how to apply the "pull based" system, which determines the supply, or production, according to the actual demand of the customers.  Comparison and contrasting between Kanban and Scrum will also be discussed.  Kanban systems use constant inspection and adapting techniques to identify bottlenecks and defects.  Linda will share her experiences using Kanban and how it helped the team collaborate on a variety of projects. About Linda Cook Linda Cook is a Lean/Agile Coach with over twenty years’ experience in the IT industry. She mentors colleagues, creates formal and informal training programs, and helps organizations apply some of the best practices in the Lean Software Development and Agile Project Management. She is a Certified Scrum Master and completed the Lean Six Sigma program at Villanova University. Details The details of the event are as follows: Date/Time: 10/21/2008 - 7-9PM Location: Motley Fool 2000 Duke Street Alexandria, VA, 22314 Hope to see you there! Posted Oct 01 2008, 04:08 PM by CodeBetter.Com - Stuff you need to Code Better! Filed under: Agile, ALT.NET, User Groups, Lean Software Development

• Upcoming Events - Richmond, Ruby DCamp and more

  The next couple of months are pretty busy for me.  There are several items worth noting whether I'm speaking or just plain attending.  This is a great season for community events and chances for continuous improvement.   Richmond Code Camp - October 4, 2008 This weekend, I'm going to be attending the Richmond Code Camp in Richmond, Virginia.  I have the privilege of presenting "Approaching Functional Programming in C# or How I Lost the ForEach and Learned to Love LINQ" in which I discuss many of the topics around functional programming aspects while using C#.  This discussion will include functional programming concepts, where C# fits, where it doesn't along with things you need to keep in mind.  Amanda Laucher will also be in attendance presenting some functional programming concepts, so a good time will be had by all. As part of the discussion, my sample code as always is available on MSDN Code Gallery at the Functional C# Project .  I'll post my slides shortly after the discussion as well.  Hope to see a great crowd there.   Ruby DCamp - October 11-12, 2008 Another great event coming to the Washington, DC area is Ruby DCamp.  Up until very recently, many Ruby conferences have followed the traditional paid speaker and audience mold.  Instead, this is an Open Spaces event for Rubyists from all areas to converge on our nation's capital to decide the agenda.  I've found the Ruby community to be filled with some very bright people, especially in the Washington DC area with the DC Ruby Users Group (DCRUG) and Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group (NOVARUG) . RubyDCamp will be held at the Holiday Inn in Arlington, VA.  Best of all, it's metro accessible as well.  Visit RubyDCamp.org for more details.  Register today at Eventbrite !   KaizenConf - October 30 - November 2, 2008 The Continuous Improvement in Software Development Conference will be held at the end of October over Halloween and into early November.  This looks to be a great event for sharing ideas on how we advance our craft through continuous improvement.  I will be leading a workshop on Functional Programming Concepts and more in particular F#. But, what is it all about anyways?  Some of the questions that we need to consider are: How do we improve? How do we recognize new improvements? What improvements in the past led us to where we are now? How do we decide which improvements to make? What values drive our decisions for improvement? What improvements can we be making right now? What obstructions impede improvement? What improvements are on the horizon? How can we adapt easier to the changes that improvements bring? What are the practices and processes that enable improvement? Getting to share ideas on continuous improvement are quite important to me, and getting to share them with the likes of Mary and Tom Poppendieck will be wonderful.   QCon San Francisco... Posted Sep 30 2008, 11:05 PM by CodeBetter.Com - Stuff you need to Code Better! Filed under: C#, F#, ALT.NET, Conferences

• DC ALT.NET - Building ASP.NET MVC Apps Wrapup

  I want to thank Troy Goode for his presentation tonight at DC ALT.NET .  He gave a great demo of how to build from scratch an ASP.NET MVC blog engine, which is a lot to ask given our two hour timeframe.  And yet, he pulled it off nicely.  As promised, Troy has posted his materials from the presentation here . I'm hoping in the near to set up some workshops in the Washington DC area on such subjects to take a single topic and go deep as we can on it.  I think this would be a pretty valuable experience for a lot of people, and topics like building real-world applications doing TDD with ASP.NET MVC would be high on the list.  Stay tuned to more details. Next month, we're going to be covering Kanban and Lean Software Development .  This is a topic that has been on my mind a lot and covered a bit by my CodeBetter compatriots here and here .  Reading "The Toyota Way" , the two Lean Software Development books by the Poppendiecks and the Lean Software Development mailing list has me definitely thinking.  Stay tuned to the mailing list for more details. Posted Sep 24 2008, 09:33 PM by CodeBetter.Com - Stuff you need to Code Better! Filed under: ASP.NET, ALT.NET, User Groups

• Reminder - DC ALT.NET - 9/24/2008 - Building ASP.NET MVC Applications

  Just a reminder that the September meeting for DC ALT.NET will be on September 24th, 2008 from 7PM-9PM.  Check out our site and our mailing list for more information as it becomes available.  This month, Troy Goode will present on building applications with ASP.NET MVC.  This will be a basic introduction, but also how to build practical applications, such as a blog engine using MVC.  Download the latest bits, ASP.NET MVC Preview 5 and follow along as I will be. I'd like to thank Cynergy Systems, Inc for sponsoring this month's event.  As a side note, they are actively looking for experienced .NET developers with interest in WPF and Silverlight.  So, if you're looking for a great company that is a leader in the Rich Internet Applications area and want to work in downtown Washington D.C., definitely check them out.  The information is as follows: DateTime: 9/24/2008 - 7PM-9PM Location: Cynergy Systems Inc. 1600 K St NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20006 Show Map Be there and hope to see a passionate crowd! Posted Sep 22 2008, 05:18 PM by CodeBetter.Com - Stuff you need to Code Better! Filed under: ASP.NET, ALT.NET, User Groups

• Attending Continuous Improvement conf (and giving a workshop)

  The name alone pulls me in. Continuous improvement at the end of the day is really what we're striving for. The names and methodologies we use to get there aren't important, what's important is that we get there.  With that in mind, I'll be attending the Continuous Improvement in Software Development conference in Austin to see how I can improve (at least from a software engineering perspective). While I am there, I'll be joining Jeremy and others and delivering a workshop. So far the topic chosen is a Prism "nuts" and "bolts" however it doesn't have to be. This workshop is for you, not me, so in keeping with the spirit set by my predecessors :), what would you like me to speak on. Here's some options: Prism "Nuts" & "Bolts" Opening up your app with the Managed Extensibility Framework (Why it's not a traditional IoC container) Separated Presentation Patterns in WPF You decide....... Posted Sep 17 2008, 12:47 PM by CodeBetter.Com - Stuff you need to Code Better! Filed under: ALT.NET, conference, kaizen

• The Two ALT.NET Criterion

  Glenn Block has a post up enumerating a set of principles that matter to people participating in the ALT.NET community. In it you'll find usual suspects (SRP, DRY, SoC, etc.), no suprise there. What I really like about this post is that it's trending away from tools and toward the more primary things this community should -- in my view -- be about. The question should (categorically) not be about ALT.NET, as Glenn says. ALT.NET is merely a context, a flag. If the only thing you're doing is flag waving, then you're not considering the deeper meaning of what we're trying to do here: create a community that accelerates and supports continuous improvement and change. The list he presents is important from an engineering standpoint, but I think there are a number of other elements that count ( check the comments in Glenn's post). Specifically I would say TDD/BDD and DDD can add a lot of value to projects. I'd go farther still and say that, as a community, there's a good subset (no, not all) of folks interested in things like Lean, Agile, coaching, and business alignment. I wouldn't limit the list to just the principles required to create a "good" object system. My point is that there are and will be a number of interesting fronts in the ALT.NET context and those topics will change overtime, but there are really only two main criteria for determining whether or not you belong in this little movement we've got going on: 1. Do you write software or otherwise work in a team using the .NET Framework? 2. Are you interested in learning and improvement? That's you? Great! Welcome ; you meet the criteria. Posted Sep 13 2008, 11:20 PM by CodeBetter.Com - Stuff you need to Code Better! Filed under: Opinion, ALT.NET

• DC ALT.NET - 9/24/2008 - Building ASP.NET MVC Applications with Troy Goode

  The September meeting for DC ALT.NET will be on September 24th, 2008 from 7PM-9PM. Check out our site and our mailing list for more information as it becomes available. This month, Troy Goode will present on building applications with ASP.NET MVC. This will be a basic introduction, but also how to build practical applications, such as a blog engine using MVC. Download the latest bits, ASP.NET MVC Preview 5 and follow along as I will be. I'd like to thank Cynergy Systems, Inc for sponsoring this month's event. As a side note, they are actively looking for experienced .NET developers with interest in WPF and Silverlight. So, if you're looking for a great company that is a leader in the Rich Internet Applications area and want to work in downtown Washington D.C., definitely check them out. The information is as follows: DateTime: 9/24/2008 - 7PM-9PM Location: Cynergy Systems Inc. 1600 K St NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20006 Show Map Be there and hope to see a passionate crowd! Posted Sep 08 2008, 01:49 PM by CodeBetter.Com - Stuff you need to Code Better! Filed under: ASP.NET, ALT.NET, User Groups