January 2012
6 posts
1 tag
Scrum Practice: The 15:5 doc
As my role within our scrum project team has evolved into a lead developer, I find myself in more and more design and collaboration tasks with my developer teammates. I was initially going through oral and white board design sessions with my team to convey how the technical design for the sprint was evolving.
However, our team has grown to 5 developers (including myself), 2 QA analysts, a...
3 tags
Personal Asp.Net with IISExpress builds
Recently, I ran into an issue where my team wanted to run their local Asp.Net project builds so that their IISExpress instances were visible to the other team members. This is a non-trivial setup, as a simple checkbox in the Asp.Net project properties window activates IISExpress to host the project, but does not make it visible outside of the local machine.
To configure IISExpress to answer to...
2 tags
Data Access Layer decisions
I am now more than 3 months into the development of a greenfield application for my employer. In October, after 2 weeks of heated discussions and gnashing of teeth (jk), we decided on using the Entity Framework as a data access layer for this project. This decision came about for the following reasons:
Abstraction of database access, allowing us to focus on the business entities we need to...
1 tag
AJAX performance and Session Management
Asynchronous loading of content on a web page is an effective way to make web pages with slow loading content appear to run faster. However, beware abusing this technique, as you may end up making your initial problem worse.
Consider a web page with 2 div elements that will be loaded by a jQuery ajax load function. If you simply list these two load commands one after another in a javascript...
1 tag
Windows Phone testing begins
I have been struggling with this decision for months. Finally today, I’ve taken the plunge, and I have a Windows Phone. A Verizon HTC Trophy with Mango is now in my possession.
I’m still carrying my iPhone 4S, but the Windows Phone is just so much easier to use and work through social interactions with my family and friends. But honestly, this is not the real reason I purchased the...
1 tag
ORM vs. CQRS/ES - Part 7 - Intro to CQRS
Before we plunge into the CQRS approach, a brief description of the CQRS architecture is in order.
CQRS stands for Command Query Responsibility Separation. For the common developer like you or I, this could be simplified to mean a 2-datastore architecture. In this architecture, we construct a read-only datastore and a write-only datastore. Of course these two are not ONLY for read and write,...
December 2011
2 posts
1 tag
K-Cups - are they worth it?
Over the Christmas holiday, I wrestled with the idea of buying a Keurig coffee maker for the wife. Yes, I know… quite romantic, an appliance for a holiday gift. For the past 5 years, I’ve had and been using a faithful Cuisinart Grind-and-Brew coffee maker that does a great job in making a pot of coffee for me.
Each morning, or programmed from the night before, I set my Cuisinart...
1 tag
Sorry for the delay
An initial apology is in order. I’ve tried in the past to make blogging a part of my daily / weekly habits, and several life-changing events have happened to me that have delayed that process.
A month ago, I went through some significant pain and several rounds of tests with a handful of doctors. All of this resulted in the diagnosis of Celiac Disease. In hindsight, I believe I have been...
October 2011
1 post
ORM vs. CQRS/ES throwdown - Part 6 - Entity...
Before we get into the CQRS implementation, lets take a comparative look at using the ‘built-in’ ORM tool in the .Net framework - the Entity Framework (EF). Unlike NHibernate, you do NOT need to go digging across the internet (or load some NuGet packages) to get EF running.
Microsoft has really done their homework with the tooling surrounding EF. In NHibernate, we needed to...
September 2011
8 posts
ORM vs. CQRS/ES throwdown - Part 5 - Web UI
I’ve been tip-toeing around this topic, but I think it should be addressed now. How are we going to access this architecture from our website? What work is Asp.Net doing in this thing?
First off: I am faithfully drinking the Asp.Net MVC kool-aid. This is some great stuff, and I intend to use that web application model for this example. I believe that MVC Views should be stupid - check...
ORM vs. CQRS/ES throwdown - Part 4 - NHibernate
Its now time to start with our first entrant into the ORM throwdown: NHibernate. I’ll spare you the nonsense about what NHibernate is and why you should use it. For now, I’ll just point you to nhforge.org for more information about the tool.
As a good practice, I prefer to isolate my NHibernate implementation of the data access layer in a class library project. This implementation...
ORM vs. CQRS/ES throwdown - Part 3 - The Database
Next up… the MsSql 2008 database structure. If we’re building a typical n-tier application with ORM, we need the “R” - the Relational Database in this mix. This is in preparation for the construction of an NHibernate data access layer (DAL). If you are like me, when it comes to building an application, the first thing you design out is what and how we’re going to...
ORM vs. CQRS/ES throwdown - Part 2 - The Problem
Let’s approach a simple data domain problem that everyone can relate to. I’m not going to do the e-commerce or blog demos. This time, we’ll do something slightly different, we’re going to build a simple Product Evaluation website.
To facilitate a fair set of tests and the ability to swap these models (NHibernate, Entity Framework, and CQRS/ES) in and out, this common...
ORM vs. CQRS/ES throwdown - Part 1.5 - Definitions
Before I proceed much further into this series, I realize that some readers may not know the abbreviations and terminology being discussed. Therefore, a quick introduction to some key terms and technologies:
Relational Database - A data storage mechanism that utilizes a series of tables to store data that relates to data in other tables. Typical examples of this include Microsoft Sql Server,...
ORM vs. CQRS/ES throwdown - Next Steps
Over the next week, you should start to see posts on a daily basis from me (a rarity) outlining all of the steps that I have taken in this comparison.
I will be posting my code to my GitHub account in an open source repository, with each step of the process tagged appropriately.
I’m also using this documentation process as a test to determine how much I enjoy blogging, and if its something...
ORM vs. CQRS/ES throwdown - Part 1 - Introduction
For almost 18 months now, I’ve been reading and reviewing the CQRS architectural approach. I’ve been using a typical “n-tier” ORM-like approach to structuring my web applications since I started programming in this space more than 10 years ago.
I met Udi Dahan in the Spring of 2009 at a Philly.Net code camp. I was speaking on Asp.Net MVC, and he was presenting on some...
Started first blog post of at least 5 parts discussing ORM-n-tier architecture vs CQRS/ES. I hope to correct some misconceptions. #fb
October 2009
79 posts
A windows 7 launch party with tech ppl seems like a waste. I’ve invited friends who will greatly benefit from my personal knowledge
Wearing my Windows 7 launch shirt… HAPPY WINDOWS 7 DAY!… and happy birthday to my daughter Jeanine, who turns 6 today #fb
RT @devhammer: …chat about #Win7 with Bill Vanko on WBAL this morning: http://bit.ly/3SgzFn ^CSF - Great job Hammer!
RT @shanselman: Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Beta 2 people! Details and new splash screen: http://bit.ly/2QjYZE - RT with a vengeance!
If you’re a developer, and ppl are using your code, you ARE a good developer. You become a BETTER dev by shipping MORE code that ppl use
If we raise $2k for LiveStrong, can we get @thedavedev to shave his head as well?
I like the CDNs that are carrying jquery… but where can I find one that will respond to HTTPS requests?
Huh.. how many people can say their wife pulled them away from Twitter so she can PLAY WoW with them? Ahh MARRIAGE! #fb
For those interested, my session materials are posted on GitHub: http://bit.ly/8E9Xq - #PhillyCC
Had an AWESOME time at #PhillyCC today. Great to see @RachelAppel @danidiaz @thedavedev @SaraJChipps @jptoto
http://twitpic.com/lwjh0 - My session announcement at #PhillyCC #fb
Finished my presentation at #PhillyCC .. I feel good about the content, lets see about the evals
Heading out for PhillyDotNet CodeCamp…. I hope I have enough material for my 1230.. #PhillyCC #fb
Setting up a GitHub project to hold the sample code I am working through during #PhillyCC
http://twitpic.com/lt8yt - R U Kidding me? A Snuggie for DOGS? #fb
http://twitpic.com/lt8yt - R U Kidding me? A Snuggie for DOGS?
. @donttrythis When you did research for the Duct Tape episode of MythBusters, did any manufacturers want to appear on the show?
Watched the Baseball Tonight analysis of the @PhilliesMLB game. Could Kurkjin be a bigger homer for the Dodgers?
Listening to @933WMMR and putting final touches on my presentation for #PhillyCC tomorrow. Asp.Net WebForms + Asp.Net MVC = FTW!
Did someone Hanselman the StackOverflow rack, and take it down? I can’t get to any of their properties
This thing looks like the ship from Flight of the Navigator #boyinballoon
When are they going to get the girl who fell in the well on the news to discuss what its like to be in this scenario? #balloonboy
Blog Post - The DOTSS - Virtual Earth Mashup: It started innocently enough, it was 4am on Thursday mo.. http://bit.ly/2lD3pP
Blog Post - Compression is your friend, Introducing DOTSS: After some investigation, and a lot of p.. http://bit.ly/grllh
Back in the saddle, plowing through MVC views… and finding a bit of duplication… REFACTOR!
Rocking the Linkin’ Park and Chevelle pretty heavily this morning…
Hello VS2010b1! Why is my compile taking 5+ minutes when I have 6 processors doing nothing, and 6 GB free…
Air cleared… My apologies for the tweets yesterday… and apologies accepted.
So, @donttrythis if you stick duct-tape to itself, as @grantimahara did for he cannon, does it double the tensile strength?
After @donttrythis and @grantimahara prove how GREAT duct-tape is, will Wal-Mart report increased Duct Tape sales tomorrow?
Great, duct-tape works with water and boats.. how about the other way? Make a hot-air balloon out of the stuff
Are u kidding me? @donttrythis is about to build a BOAT out of DuctTape on MythBusters - Discovery Channel #fb
Its simple folks, I only tell the truth on Twitter.. and if you don’t like what I’m saying, then FIX IT, and I will issue a retraction