On Sunday I added the full Microsoft web development stack (ASP.NET v3.5, Silverlight, MS SQL 2005) to the hosting options I can now offer clients.
First client to make use of this new capability was Tiered Solutions Hosting itself - I knocked up the web site and published it in a few hours. It was great to be using VS2008 and all of the lovely ASP.NET features rather than the PHP I’ve been using for the last 8 years.
I’ve been using Rhino Mocks v3.5 for the last month and it kicks butt! The new AAA notation, the use of mocks without creating the repository and the lamda notation mean that mocking out tests is a helluva a lot faster and much easier to read than previous versions.
I can now say that I wouldn’t want to go back to previous versions of the .NET framework just becuase of this one tool you get with v3.
.. hmm going to have to read up on this one some time.
Basically it sounds like (brief speed reading of a few blogs and this article) that WFF is a bit simplistic when it comes to parallel activities.
Note to self: Must always remember to TDD any new technology to make sure it does what I think it should do and not simply assume that it will work in a particular way.
ReSharper 4.0 Nightly Builds - at long bloody last, light at the end of the bloody tunnel.
Okay not a proper release yet but surely a step in the right direction.
Using Object Modelling, VS2008, WCF, SOA, strong emphasis on quality coding and the tools/processes to support it: CI, CC, Resharper, NUnit, NCover and a whole bunch of other usefull stuff 
Basically I’m very happy with the stuff I’ve learnt so far from the Filewatcher experiment that I’ve conducted over the last few months but I reckon it’s come to it’s natural end. Unless I want to turn it into an actual system that will be used in anger I see no reason to continue .. sure I won’t be getting the knowledge that comes with having a system that’s been up and running for a few versions but I never seriously thought I would be doing that with this work.
Instead I’ve more than succeded in my aim of improving my understanding of some of the current thinking with Agile development and also updated my technical .NET skills with some of the .NET 3.5 technologies.
I’ve followed TDD with new code, gotten a much better understanding on Mocking, I now appreciate some of the issues/arguments developers are having over the whole “DI just for testing” thing, had a good old go at WPF, looked into WWF and also WCF as a messaging framework - even “borrowing” a Publish/Subscribe library to good effect. I’ve learnt about a totally new mocking framework that until a month ago I’d never heard of: Typemock.
I’ve learnt a bunch of stuff about ASP.NET AJAX including the idea of reverse AJAX (pushing from the server rather than polling from the client) and watched a whole bunch of videos on ASP.NET dev in general.
So now I’m moving on .. to dig deeper into Domain Driven Design and Object Modelling. It’s an area of my technical knowledge that I simply haven’t needed to invest much time and effort into historically but I want to change that. I want to come up with a more .. formal .. repeatable .. rigorous methodolody for how I create my systems in future. So just like I’ve spent the last year improving my TDD knowledge I now want to do the same for my modelling techniques. I’ve got around a week and half before my next full time contract starts so I should be able to make a good start .. although I have a feeling some of my other work interests may get in the way.
We’ll see, either way it’s the start of another technical adventure.
I’ve just negotiated 20 days worth of work spread out over the next month and half .. which works out that I’ll be doing normal client work 3 days a week and for the other 2 days a week I can do what I like.
As long as I don’t go off climbing (must resist) I’ll use that 2 days a week to continue my development work of the File Watcher system and my own personal training in all of the various .NET 3.5 technologies as well as best practices for OO, advanced TDD and the like.
TBH the last month or so has been too much .. trying to study out of hours at the rate that I have (till gone midnight for many nights a week, all weeks) is just not sustainable.
However, looking back, this is all working out perfectly .. I’ve now got enough experience of these new technologies and techniques under my belt that come these 2 day stints I should be able to really research and investigate well. If I hadn’t done the initial studing then I would have “wasted” this golden opportunity just getting my mind up to speed.
Although the ultimate aim all along has been to increase my knowledge and software coding skills in areas of .NET software development that I simply wouldn’t have time for during client work .. I’ll probably end up generating a whole bunch of useful resources and code too
Trying to think up some general rules of thumb for the seperation of responsiblity between developer (who supplies the data) and the designer (who is responsible for how the data is presented).
Well .. the first one i can think of/encountered is:
1. Default values = Developer. This is actually a business rule of sorts and should therefore be made to be consistent across all consumers of the data .. including the designer.
I’ll build this list up over time:
A game writing blogger - looks v. interesting.
I’ve been meaning (when I’ve got the time) to investigate some better ways to create th UI parts of a business work flow solution. Found the following blog article and thought to save it as a starter into this investigation.
Matt W’s Windows Workflow Place - Introducing the Pageflow Sample - Most people think of workflows as a tool to represent and automate back-end business processes. Back-end business processes normally require some user interaction but their main purpose is not to drive the user experience or manage the UI. However, there is a growing type of application that leverages workflow as a tool to drive the user interaction and drive the user experience of an interactive process. This type of technology is called page flow.
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