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Herding Code 88: Julie Lerman on Entity Framework 4

This week on Herding Code, the guys talk with Microsoft MVP, MSDN Magazine columnist and Programming Entity Framework author Julie Lerman about what’s new in Entity Framework 4. 

  • The show begins with Julie providing a broad look at the new features and improvements around the EF designer, the run-time, POCO support and disconnected entities.
  • Julie talks about her world of database-first development and learning about persistence ignorance, repositories and domain driven development.
  • The group talks about the history of Entity Framework and how it is more than a typical ORM.
  • K Scott and Julie dive into the designer support for database-generated entities and starting with a blank slate for POCOs.  Julie notes that one can create the DDL in the Visual Studio designer and then generate the database from what is modeled.
  • The group talks about green field vs legacy database development and Jon comments on migrations and updating models.
  • Scott K asks about hurdles such as generated code being overwritten when using the designer. Julie speaks to updating the model from the database and using views rather than tables to generate the model.  Julie shares complications around foreign keys and RIA services and managing large models in the designer.
  • K Scott brings the talk back to POCOs and Julie discusses code generation templates customization with T4 templates. 
  • Jon mentions the Visual Studio Extension Manager and how adding template items from the online gallery is just so easy.
  • K Scott asks Julie about Code First development with EF 4 CTP4 and compares Code First to  Fluent NHibernate.
  • The conversation jumps between versioning, plain old PHP objects, ALT.NET kerfuffle and the Vote of No Confidence.
  • Julie and K Scott speak to the two types of POCO support, virtual properties, dynamic proxies, lazy loading and select n + 1.
  • Jon asks about EF’s context lifecycle management for ASP.NET and the complexity around disconnected entities.  Julie shares her recommendations on change tracking, entity state properties, self-tracking entities and persisting to the database.
  • Julie talks about her book, Programming Entity Framework, the rewrite for EF 4, her Data Points column in MSDN Magazine and the MSDN Development videos.
  • The show wraps with comments about Domain-Driven Design and the Norwegian Developers Conference talks.
  • Postscript – Jon calls Julie back to talk about the new CTP 4 release.
  • Julie talks about how some of the changes are specific to code-first, and others enhance to the core API in CTP 4 to facilitate use of code-first.
  • Julie describes the DbContext and DbSet, how they relate to ObjectContext and ObjectSet, and how they’re so much simpler to work with.
  • Julie then talks about how the code-first changes make it possible to remove a lot of code because the model is inferred, but you can override things using model builder code or attributes.
  • Jon and Julie talk about the Ugly Buddy class, which allow adding attributes to an EF model.
  • Julie talks about how the conventions have gotten a lot smarter.
  • We talk about Scott Guthrie’s post, and how he’s demonstrating how to take maximum use of the EF / Code First approach.
  • We wrap up by talking about improvements in how updates are handled. There’s support for a few workflows – manually keeping them in sync, having EF drop and create, and have EF drop / create / populate. However, as far as we can tell, this drop doesn’t include a migration system.

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Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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Herding Code 88: Julie Lerman on Entity Framework 4

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Jul 20

Herding Code 87: Jeff Atwood on Area 51 and Stack Overflow

This week on Herding Code, the guys talk with Jeff Atwood about his new Area 51 venture, the running of Stack Overflow, the community of Q & A sites, and memories of the glockenspiel.

  • Jeff walks us through the genesis of Stack Overflow and how it begot Server Fault, Super User, Stack Exchange and now Area 51.
  • Jeff explains Area 51 and the democratic process around establishing a knowledge-based site.  The guys talk about the old Stack Exchange pricing model and how Area 51’s approach is entirely different.
  • Kevin asks if there’s a concern that Area 51 will have a geek skew – especially since there’s likely a draw from the existing geek ghetto.
  • Scott K asks about bringing experts involvement into communities.  For example, including Alton Brown in a cooking site.
  • Jon and Jeff talk about the model of selling software and the magical wonderland that is Coding Horror.
  • Jeff talks about the Stack Overflow API and the Stack Exchange API Contest.  There are PRIZES!  The guys consider when an API is necessary and what APIs can provide.  Did somebody say community-built iPhone application for Stack Overflow? 
  • Jon asks if the Stack Overflow API will support OData.  Jeff answers “yes”, and then the conversation turns to talk of data analysis and the economics of Q & A sites. Jeff gets back to the OData, “the Sharepoint of sharing data on the web”, and points us to the OData web UI which queries current SO data dump.
  • Scott K notes that Stack Overflow is optimized for answerers and asks Jeff for his comments on the Stack Overflow Fatigue article.  Jeff talks about site popularity, community/user issues which don’t occur on smaller sites, and moderation tools.
  • Jon asks about expertise and tag-based badges and comments that reputation is self-correcting.  Jeff stresses that the site is really optimized for those who are the best communicators and not necessarily those who are most knowledgeable.
  • Kevin asks how Jeff responds to folks who have no chance of gaining enough critical mass to have their interests manifest into a Area 51 site.  Jeff shares his thoughts on community growth and launching and supporting sites with love. 
  • Jeff talks about open source, driving forward and evolving his sites and the problem with trying to be all things to all people.
  • Jeff fields Twitter questions about Stack Overflow SQL scalability, Stack Overflow’s testing and deployment story and how Jeff’s role has changed with the introduction of many new faces working on the app.  This triggers conversations about hosting on the Microsoft platform, the good and bad of Bizspark, the benefits of servers/hardware being cheap and general happiness with the stack.  Jeff also speaks to continuous integration and argues against unit testing all features.  Jeff speaks of the pointy-haired boss, Metcalfe’s Law, the quite guy problem and how to work with distributed teams.
  • The show wraps with Jeff sharing his dependence on human unit tests, cheating, optimizing for the “mistake fixing” and Stack Overflow’s loose web development process.

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Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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Herding Code 87: Jeff Atwood on Area 51 and Stack Overflow

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Jul 08

Herding Code 86: Saqib Shaikh on Accessibility and Developing with Limited Sight

While at Web Camps London, Jon talks to Saqib Shaikh about how he’s able to develop with limited sight and what developers can do to make our applications more accessible.

  • Saqib talks about his role on the Bing Team, data mining and deep links.
  • Jon and Saqib talk about solving problems with a little help from Twitter.
  • Saqib explains the function of a screen reader and how some people can listen to computers really fast.
  • Jon asks about common frustrations around accessibly when web browsing. Jon considers the tie-in between SEO and accessibility.  The guys dive a little deeper into structuring information, images vs text and learning the few basics.
  • Jon asks if there’s a way to do accessibility analysis? Saqib points to the “Check Accessibility.” option which is available when right-clicking on the web project in VS 2010.  (It’s there. I checked.)
  • Jon and Saqib talk about coding with limited sight. Saqib shares his general techniques.
  • The conversation continues with talk about Microsoft product development and the importance placed on accessibility.
  • The show wraps with Saqib introducing the term “Universal Design” of all things.  As a developer, you want to make your applications for the largest number of people to use. Just keep in mind that “there’s a lot of people in this world, and they’re all a little bit different.” “It’s about making cool stuff for a lot of people.”

Show Links:

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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Herding Code 86: Saqib Shaikh on Accessibility and Developing with Limited Sight

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Jun 27

Herding Code 85: Clint Nelsen on Startup Weekend

While at Web Camps London, Jon grabs a quick 15 minute interview with Clint Nelsen to talk about Startup Weekend .

  • Clint gives the elevator pitch and a brief history of Startup Weekend.
  • Jon talks about how they are incorporating Startup Weekend into Web Camps. The guys talk about project implementation.
  • Clint talks about Startup Weekend growth, reach and staff and facilitator involvement.  Clint talks about the management aspects of Startup Weekend.
  • Jon asks the types of application which Startup Weekenders are pitching. The guys talk about monetizing iPhone and iPad applications and Jon asks about Windows 7 Phone apps.
  • Clint talks about the benefit of having developers at Startup Weekend knowing a common framework/language.
  • Jon asks about Startup Weekend success stories like Twitpay and Foodspotting.
  • Clint talks about community building, relationships, launch support and current startup funding ratio around 5%.
  • Client and Jon talk about startup thinking in the Microsoft community and building a business around MS technologies.

Show Links:

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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Herding Code 85: Clint Nelson on Startup Weekend

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Jun 27

Herding Code 84: Ex-Microsoft Developer Panel with Mike Moore, Jeff Cohen, and Scott Bellware

This week on Herding Code, the guys talk to Jeff Cohen, Mike Moore, and Scott Bellware about why and how they’ve moved away from Microsoft development and into the Ruby community.

  • K Scott asks the guests about why they switched. Jeff talks about how his switch from desktop development on Windows to Rails development started around 2005 and was primarily driven by the Ruby language itself. Mike agrees that it’s all about the Ruby language. Scott B talks about how he straddles both worlds but only sees .NET as a smart choice for building Windows applications now. Scott B goes on to talk about how it’s a philosophical thing for him as well, and how he prefers to work on a stack that’s more purely open source.
  • Scott K talks about the dichotomy in moving from Windows to get away from a proprietary platform and then you find yourself working on a Mac. Go Debian! Scott B talks about how Vista was a tipping point for him to move to Mac. He felt like Microsoft was too focused on shipping products – even if they weren’t good products.
  • Mike and Scott B talk about moving from ALT.NET to ex-.NET, and how they feel like it’s fear and investments in the .NET platform that prevent more people from moving. The guys talk about the “technology treadmill.”
  • Scott K talks about the problems in “dropping paygrades” in moving from being a senior .NET developer to being a junior developer on another platform.
  • Mike Moore asks why developers are investing in a technology that another company owns. Scott B says it’s not about Microsoft owning .NET, it’s about not being able to make decisions about where the platform is going. He says he sees Microsoft as a manufacturer of 21st century office equipment for large companies with the most influence. It works, but it can be heartbreaking when you see Microsoft moving into markets in a way that’s not as elegant as existing technologies (e.g. Entity Framework) because you know that the surrounding industry will move there, and eventually your work will move there as well. The result is a technology treadmill.
  • K Scott points out that as the average developer, you’re not really in charge of where Linux, Rails, or other open source platforms are heading either. Mike and Scott B clarify; it’s not about ownership so much as trusting where the Rails community is going.
  • Kevin asks Jeff about some recent criticisms he’s made towards Rails 3 recently. Jeff talks about all the things he likes about Rails, but says that he is disappointed that Rails is making changes designed to broaden acceptance and appeal to the enterprise. Despite that, he says that he hasn’t lost faith in where Rails is headed. He brings up the relative ease of doing TDD on Rails as opposed to .NET as an example of how Rails works more like he wants to work as a developer.
  • Scott K talks about how Microsoft has a conflict of interest as a tools vendor, and how a willingness to work with other IDE’s makes moving to other platforms pretty easy.
  • The conversation move towards talking about how Intellisense affects system and platform design. Other platforms like Rails are built so you don’t need Intellisense to be productive. Rails was never built to sell anything, and that shows in the platform. Mike talks about how he had to leave the .NET platform to find a place where people really cared about getting from 12 lines of code to 4 lines of code.
  • Scott B talks about how Rails committers are all building Rails applications, and points out that WPF didn’t get the attention it needed until Microsoft used it in Visual Studio. He then talks about how Rails will feel free to make modifications (monkey patches) to Rails, which often graduate to plugins and then move into the core. The key is that this is a continuous process rather than focused on a big product release cycle. Scott B talks more about the Ruby/Rails meritocracy.
  • The conversation shifts to the entrepreneurial nature of the Ruby on Rails community. Mike talks about how development cost is a major factor and that people who will take a risk in moving to a new platform are also more likely to take a risk in business.
  • Mike and Scott B talk about how polyglot programming is much more prevalent outside of the Microsoft development community.
  • Scott B talks about how ASP.NET was positioned as a competitor to Ruby On Rails, and how the two differ.
  • K Scott asks how much the move away from .NET is based on culture and developers are looking for a new community with different values. Mike talks about how he was on the verge of leaving programming altogether when he found the Ruby community, and how it reinvigorated him. Scott B says that there are things about developing in the .NET space which drive burnout and, in turn, reduces passion in the community. Jeff talks about how stumbling on Ruby showed him that it was just a lot more fun than what he was doing in his current job.
  • Scott B talks about how the plugin experience in Rails differs from the .NET development world – where you’re often waiting for services that just aren’t quite there yet.
  • Mike and Scott B talk about how they like reading Ruby code. Scott B talks about how the Ruby culture places a value on making code readable to the point that it’s competitive.
  • Scott K talks about how programming has become a business now, but he’s always liked to learn things just because it was fun. Scott B says that the skill level in the Rails world seems to be higher, but the people are less intimidating.
  • Mike points out that many of the leaders of the Ruby community were previously leaders in the Agile community. Scott B talks about how he’s seen Uncle Bob Martin moving to Rails over the past few years.
  • Scott B then talks about the problems in toolmakers who make tools but don’t use them.
  • The show ends, but not really. lots of crazy speculation about starting over with a new runtime on top of .NET.

Show Links:

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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Herding Code 84: Ex-Microsoft Developer Panel with Mike Moore, Jeff Cohen, and Scott Bellware

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Jun 27

Herding Code 83: Ayende Rahien on RavenDB

This week on Herding Code, the guys talk with Ayende Rahien (a.k.a. Oren Eini) about RavenDB, a new Open Source (with a commercial option) document database for the .NET/Windows platform.

  • The shows starts with a general definition of document databases.  Ayende then contrasts RavenDB with two other popular document databases, Mongo and CouchDB, and comments that RavenDB is much more similar to CouchDB than Mongo.
  • Ayende talks about how RavenDB indexes work – they’re written when you store data, but not immediately after. He continues with an explanation of transactions – data is transactional, but indexes aren’t.
  • Scott K brings up Node.js and asked if Ayende had looked at the event driven approach over spinning up threads. Ayende talks about how RavenDB previously worked like that, but it made debugging very painful. Instead, the architecture is now focused on the end goal – RavenDB will never make you wait for a write.
  • The guys take a question from Twitter about whether there are plans to support Mono. Ayende says yes, but outlines some of the changes that will be required to make that happen.
  • Scott K asks if traditional RDBMS performance tweaks based on moving data and indexes to other spindles are possible and useful on RavenDB.
  • Jon asks about how this relates to Reactive Extensions, and Ayende discusses how Event Sourcing works in RavenDB.
  • Jon and Scott K ask some questions about storage formats – JSON, binary serialization, etc.
  • The group digs into how Map / Reduce works.  Ayende explains Map / Reduce in generally terms as well as how it pertains to RavenDB.
  • K Scott asks questions about indexing – how it’s done, how indexes are defined and impacts of keeping a lot of indexes. Ayende talks about how indexes are essentially materialized views, and how the RavenDB query engine can use both LINQ and Lucene syntax.
  • K Scott asks about transaction support, embedded support, and concurrency.
  • The guys talk about the “sweet spot” for RavenDB and document databases. Ayende talks about advantages of working with a document database, and the benefits of working without a defined schema.
  • Jon asks if ORM’s just go away in a document database context and the conversation moves on to talking about different architectures and development strategies that come into play when working with schema-less documents.
  • K Scott mentions that this seems like it would work really well with Aggregate Roots in Domain-Driven Design.
  • Ayende and Jon discuss how aggregate queries compare in the context of some of the inefficient queries in MVC Music Store.
  • Kevin drills a little deeper into the versioning challenges.
  • Jon asks about the use of .NET 4 features with RavenDB including the Task Library and the Expando object. Ayende talks about how they made heavy use of the Dynamic keyword and MEF in RavenDB. Basically, everything except for storage and indexing is handled via MEF.
  • Ayende talks about the extensibility points such as read and index previews.
  • Jon begs for punishment by asking for Ayende’s comments on the MVC Music Store. Ayende talks about how he prefers tutorials be very explicit about what they’re not going to cover in detail. He recommends completely removing details which aren’t the focus of the tutorial. Then he goes on to talk about how things like shopping carts just seem to work more smoothly with document storage rather than relational databases.
  • Jon asks about the licensing models. Ayende talks about how people were unhappy with the initial pricing model due to the differing deployment expectations, and how he worked with customers to establish a pricing model that works for everyone.
  • Ayende teaches the gang the term “Chinese Interesting.”

Show Links:

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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Herding Code 83: Ayende Rahien on RavenDB

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Jun 12

Herding Code 82: Cory Foy and Will Green Compare .NET and Ruby Development

This week on Herding Code, Cory Foy and Will Green join the guys to discuss general differences between .NET and Ruby development approaches. Is the grass always greener on the other side? Listen in on this week’s talk about how languages, frameworks, tools and cultures shape the way we implement .NET and Ruby solutions and judge for yourself! 

  • Kevin kicks off the conversation noting differences between design patterns and best practices in the .NET and Ruby worlds. Kevin opens up a discussion by calling out the .NET developer obsession with persistence ignorance versus the use of the ActiveRecord pattern found in Ruby on Rails. 
  • Cory talks about basic CRUD applications vs complex domains and how applications tends to model themselves after organizational structure.  Often times you will find .NET code tends to be more complex whereas simpler domains are often represented in Ruby code.
  • Kevin asks about domain-driven design. Cory talks about the expressiveness of Ruby code and how the introduction of the dynamic keyword makes expressiveness a little easier in .NET.  Will talks about Ruby mixins facilitating a different development approach.  Will also comments on the ceremony of creating .NET vs Ruby classes and how easily you can express the business concerns in Ruby.
  • Scott K talks about his general impressions of Rails – focus on the presentation layer first rather than a DDD approach which would focus on the model first.
  • K Scott talks about manifest typing and states that there is an importance placed on types rather than behaviors in .NET coding.  Will calls out the fact that in .NET coding we often are most interested in what an object is whereas in Ruby we primarily care about what an object can do.  This ties back to static typing vs duck typing.
  • Cory speaks to outside-in development in Ruby, exposure to TDD and learning Rails with Cucumber from the beginning. 
  • Jon acknowledges the language and framework differences and asks how cultural differences between the two development camps might drive development practices.  K Scott talks about .NET developer dependence on the compiler rather than working with customers.
  • Kevin talks about the “need” for viewmodels in .NET MVC whereas models are being passes around throughout a Rails application. Cory talks about the power of meta-programming in Ruby and the shift between classes being parsed in .NET vs classes being executed in Ruby.  He also speaks to how fundamental constructs will shape a development strategy.
  • Cory talks more about meta-programming and convention over configuration.
  • Kevin talks about the “No Magic String” rule, static analysis, and Resharper-driven development.  Will states you don’t really need refactoring tools or even an IDE when coding Ruby. Cory talks about the emphasis on writing tests for Ruby code and how this acts as a replacement for the static code analysis testing you might get from the compiler. Scott K speculates that there’s so much more code in C# so there’s a larger need for refactoring tools. 
  • Cory ask why we are still not testing in the .NET world? Why aren’t we doing migrations?  Why are we so focused merely on what is available in the Visual Studio IDE?  Scott K feels .NET developers are still unsure of what they should test.  Scott K also thinks it is hard to mock stuff and .NET developers aren’t used to writing decoupled code. Will speaks to the fact that Ruby all classes are open all the time and nothing is sealed.
  • For better or worse, Jon notes that it’s easy to think of the compiler as the first .NET test and, though it could be considered a crutch, the IDE provides one with a lot valuable coding help with intellisence. Cory talks about craftsmanship and how the primary audience for IDE support and refactoring tools is not the TDD developer.
  • Kevin speaks to the fact there’s no need for an IoC container in Ruby and Cory shares the dangers of becoming married to any framework in .NET development.
  • Jon asks if Ruby development can become unwieldy because it’s so easy to get started. 
  • Scott K asks about new language features (for examples, lambdas, dynamic keyword, optional parameters) and how this adds to the complexity of .NET development. Will talks about complexity vs power and Cory adds that new features allows developers to approach problems differently.
  • Kevin asks about techniques which can be used with the dynamic keyword.  Scott K talks about the addition of Eval() in C# 5.  Jon jokes about the “Compiler as a Disservice.”  Cory talks about fundamental challenges with Dynamic and Eval() in a statically typed language.
  • The guys talk about dependency injection.
  • Cory talks more about craftsmanship and code quality. Will talks about values and taking a stance when promoting a frameworks and points some blame at Microsoft for giving .NET development dozens of ways to complete a single task.
  • Kevin asks about the focus around Behavior-Driven, integration testing in Ruby rather opposed to the fine-grained unit testing approach often found in .NET development.  Will speaks to the outside-in testing approach but also the importance of unit testing in Ruby.
  • Scott K asks if IronRuby makes .NET development easier.
  • The show wraps with Will and Cory pimping their up-coming presentations in Florida and Norway.

Show Links:

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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Herding Code 82: Cory Foy and Will Green Compare .NET and Ruby Development

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Jun 06

Herding Code 81: Simplicity, balance, and focus in teaching software development

This week on Herding Code, the guys discuss compare notes on how to teach software development topics. Is hands-on instruction key? How much should you simplify to focus on mechanics? How do you teach, and how do you like to learn?

  • Jon talks about his impressions on the effectiveness of hands-on learning at Web Camp Toronto.
  • K. Scott questions if people really learn at Code Camps, and Scott K. talks about hack-a-thons at Code Camps.
  • We talk about open source contributions as development. Jon demonstrates that he’s bad at doing math while he talks.
  • Jon asks Scott K. about what works for him with his training classes with Pluralsight.
  • We all talk about the MVC Music Store, and the gaps between marketing, introductory training, and advanced training.
  • Jon and K. Scott talk about the difficulty in finding the correct focus and simplicity level in introductory training.
  • Jon talks about the mistake he’s made several times in not clarifying the level of content he’s presenting.
  • Kevin talks about how he expects to see unit tests in any samples, but Scott K. says that won’t save you from public shame.
  • Scott K. asks if we should be focusing on concepts and “why?” questions rather than products or frameworks.
  • Jon and Scott K. talk about the fun of looking at the ASP.NET MVC source code.
  • Kevin comments on the difference in complexity he sees in .NET code and Ruby source code. Scott K. talks about how Fubu MVC code is pretty easy to read, too.
  • Jon asks about the difficulty of doing “real world” samples, and K. Scott asks whose real world we’re talking about.
  • K. Scott drops a surprise mini-lightning round on us with a question about the effectiveness of video as a learning tool.

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Herding Code 81: Simplicity, balance, and focus in teaching software development

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May 25

Herding Code 80: RxJS with Jeffrey van Gogh and Matt Podwysocki

This week on Herding Code, the guys speak with Jeffrey van Gogh and Matt Podwysocki about the Reactive Extensions for Javascript.

  • Matt talks about how he’s been involved with RxJS.
  • Jeffrey talks about how RxJS and Reactive Extensions came out of the the Volta project.
  • Matt talks about how RxJS simplifies the callback model in Javascript.
  • Jeffery adds on how this also has benefits to asynchronous operations.
  • Jon asks about how this works with queries over events which will happen in the future.
  • Mat talks about how this works with jQuery’s bind and live events.
  • Jon asks the standard question about querying over mouse move events. Matt and Jeffrey use the example to explain about how composable operations over events can be really powerful.
  • Jon asks how Reactive Extensions relates to functional reactive programming, and to functional programming in general.
  • Kevin asks about how RxJS interoperates with jQuery.
  • We take questions from Twitter about jQuery integration and use of RxJS to manage script loading and script scoping.
  • Kevin asks for some concrete usage examples.
  • Kevin asks about the library size and the overall release status.
  • Jon asks about Jeffrey’s blog posts on using RxJS with Node.js and Script#.
  • We talk about Matt’s extensive blog post series on RxJS.
  • We talk about recent RxJS presentations: Erik Meijer’s talk at MIX10, Jeffrey’s talk at JSConf, and Matt’s at the Imagine Cup.
  • Jon asks about what exactly is involved in adding RxJS support to different Javascript libraries.
  • Scott K asks about the tradeoffs of bringing the CLR to the browser vs. bringing things like RxJS into the browser via Javascript.
  • We talk about how Javascript development has gotten easier with development environment improvements, testing systems, etc.
  • Matt talks about how it’s often easier to do things in Javascript than in a statically typed language like C#.
  • Scott K asks about how scope is handled in RxJS.
  • Jon asks about how the code is licensed.
  • Kevin asks about the naming conventions used in RxJS, supported browsers, release plans.
  • Jon asks about Reactive Extensions for .NET, and we talk about how it’s especially useful in Silverlight.
  • Jeffery mentions that Reactive Extensions will be included in Windows Phone 7.
  • We pretend to end the show, but the discussion keeps going and K Scott joins the party.

Show Links:

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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Herding Code 80: RxJS with Jeffrey van Gogh and Matt Podwysocki

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May 18

Herding Code 79: JSConf Recap with Chris Williams, Rey Bango and Matt Podwysocki

This week on Herding Code, the guys speak with Chris Williams, Rey Bango and Matt Podwysocki about this year’s JSConf.

  • Chris begins the show with a conference overview which will leave you chomping at the bit for JSConf 2011 registration to open. Hackers’ Lounge. Multiple tracks. One killer speaker list. Hyper-caffeinated, hyper-intoxicated privates! Salmagundi. And lots of JavaScript!
  • The guests discuss their favorite parts of the conference. Beyond the quality of the talks, Rey and Chris both comment about the invaluable conversations which were had out-of-session in the Hacker’s Lounge and at the ScurvyConf. Quote of the Show: “I am a firm believer of drinking beer, and shooting the poop, and when you do that, magic happens.” – Chris Williams
  • Chris talks about the excitement around Tobias Schneirder’s presentation on Gordon, an open source Flash runtime written in pure JavaScript.
  • The guys talk about Alex Russell and Google Chrome Frame and how IE6 must Die.
  • Chris praises Billy Hoffman’s JavaScript’s Evil Side presentation.
  • K Scott and Chris talk about JavaScript outside of the browser and functional programming,
  • Chris and Scott K talk about a seemingly new found interest in Server-side JS
  • Jon asks about JS library duplication in competing platforms. Rey talks about what Resig has done with Sizzle and how each library has their own niche.
  • Chris talks about the need to learn JavaScript and how we should be JavaScript developers, not just developers who use JavaScript libraries.
  • Matt teases us by mentioning that he’ll be talking about Reactive Extensions on next week’s Herding Code episode.
  • Jon asks which percentage of cool JavaScript stuff is just waiting on browser adoption.  Chris doesn’t think too much and prompts Matt talks about progressive enhancements.
  • Chris talks about the importance of security and how we shouldn’t only be taught how to write good code but also how to break bad code.
  • Kevin asks what is happening with JavaScript, the language itself.
  • The show wraps with talk of diversity in computing, JSConf EU, JQuery Conference, JQuery UI 1.8 release, JavaScript conferences and craft beers in the D.C. area.

Show Links:

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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Herding Code 79: JSConf Recap with Chris Williams, Rey Bango and Matt Podwysocki

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May 02

Herding Code 78: Ruby on Rails, View Engines, Web Security, Section 3.3.1 and Visual Studio 2010 with Rob Conery

This week on Herding Code, Jon, Kevin, Scott K and Rob Conery discuss Ruby on Rails, using dynamic languages to write views, web security, advanced javascript techniques, recent Twitter news, Section 3.3.1 and the official release of Visual Studio 2010.

  • The show begins with talk of Kevin’s recent dabbling into Ruby on Rails. The guys talk about Ruby 2 vs Ruby 3, how MS developers love their IDEs and finally Rack.
  • Jon mentions Jimmy Shimenti’s demo of Visual Studio 2010 File > New > Ruby on Rails with IronRuby.
  • The conversation segues into the benefits of trying out other platforms and how trying out other platforms doesn’t necessarily mean one is jumping ship.
  • Kevin shares why he has a hard time getting excited about IronRuby.
  • Scott K introduces a recent Alt.NET Seattle Fishbowl Topic – Is C# is the best language for writing views or should dynamic languages be used instead?
  • Rob Conery shares why he loves the Haml view engine and Kevin speaks to why he really likes Spark?
  • The guys talk about html encoding and XSS vulnerabilities.
  • The guys consider advanced techniques one can implement with jQuery and how really learning javascript can affect the way one writes C# code.
  • Scott K briefs us on his recent Alt.Net open space presentation on Node.js.
  • The guys passionately discuss the business of Twitter, hovercards, Twitter’s @Anywhere API, the Library of Congress, and the importance of security and password management.
  • The guys talks about why Apple Changed Section 3.3.1.
  • The guys talk about the Visual Studio 2010 installation and developer experience.
  • Rob pimps TekPub with background music .

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Herding Code 78: Ruby on Rails, View Engines, Web Security, Section 3.3.1 and Visual Studio 2010 with Rob Conery

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Apr 20

Herding Code 77: Eric Hexter on MvcConf, C4MVC, and MvcContrib

This week on Herding Code, Jon, Kevin and Scott K discuss MvcConf, C4MVC and MvcContrib with, open source and community extraordinaire, Eric Hexter. 

  • Eric talks about his role as consultant and Director of Open Source at Headspring.
  • The guys walk through Hexter’s impressive resume.   Eric is the co-founder of MVCContrib, he established the Community for MVC (C4MVC) virtual user group and is currently coordinating MvcConf, the Virtual ASP.NET MVC Conference scheduled for July.  No wonder the most popular listener question for this week was “How is Hexter so awesome?”
  • Eric takes us through the general theme of MvcConf  – “interactive” presentations around extensibility, testability and building maintainable, high-volume, enterprise applications with a focus on best practices like database migrations. 
  • Eric issues a call for speakers. Who’s interested?
  • Jon asks about Portable Areas in MvcContrib and Eric digs into the embedded view engine and synchronous message bus.
  • Kevin asks a question.
  • The guys talk about Input Builders, Dynamic Scaffolding and Fluent Html Helpers.  Jon also asks about MvcContrib Grid’s popularity.
  • Scott K asks about extending ASP.NET MVC, “Are you fighting with the framework or at least fighting with the C# language?”  Have you gotten the feeling that Scott likes a good fight?  Scott considers how and why various frameworks are developed and Eric praises ASP.NET MVC for having all of the the right extension points in place. These leads to a group discussion about the ASP.NET MVC team releasing source drops and not working in a bubble.
  • Eric and Jon talk about the MVCContrib TestHelpers and the importance of testing routes.  Hexter tells us about the UI Test Helpers built around WatiN and the benefit of strongly type views. Jon oohs and ahhs.
  • Kevin asks another question.
  • Scott K comments on SubControllers.  Eric tell us if SubControllers smell and shares the general argument against RenderAction.
  • Jon talks about model validation via data annotations and how one might test.  Eric shares some of the patterns they have established (strongly-typed views, 1:1 mapping between view and viewmodel) and how he uses data annotations for data type validation and how complex validation is handled via a command processor’s rules engine.
  • The show wraps with Eric singing about a few of his favorite things – continuous integration and testing. He pimps the early access edition of ASP.NET MVC2 in Action and Tarantino Database Migrations and announces that the Virtual ALT.Net folks and he will be open sourcing their video recording management scripts.
  • Final question, “How does Eric get so much done?”  “Automate, automate, automate!”  Of course!

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Herding Code 77: Eric Hexter on MvcConf, C4MVC, and MvcContrib

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Apr 05

Herding Code 76: John Sheehan on RestSharp

This week on Herding Code, John Sheehan joins the cast for a conversation about his open source project, RestSharp. The gang dives into REST and .NET open source. Makes sense, right? And the show wraps with talk of OData and a MIX10-inspired Lightning Round.

  • John talks about his exciting new evangelist job at Twilio. Twillo provides a web-service API for businesses to build scalable, reliable communication apps. Wait! The evangelist is going to tell you all about it.
  • The guys quiz John about RestSharp. John talks about what RestSharp has to offer and the direction of the project. 
  • The gangs talk about the oddities of .NET open source project development – forking, closing source, project naming, boredom and a plea for project takeover.
  • Jon leads the group into dangerous territory and forces an OData discussion. Is OData good? Is it REST?  Hear what the guys have to say. 
  • K Scott dazzles us with a power-packed Lightning Round.  Don’t step away for a second or you’ll miss it!  Just like lightning.
  • John kicks off our first Official Pimp Your Stuff segment talking about ManagedAssembly – a community for .NET developers which is poised to be taken over.  Just ask.  Please.

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Herding Code 76: John Sheehan on RestSharp

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Apr 01

Herding Code 75: Barry Dorrans on Developer Security

This week on Herding Code, Barry Dorrans educates, entertains, insults and scares us with his expert commentary on application security, threat modeling, analysis tools and common attacks.  You’ve been waiting for this show.  I just know it.  Listen in as Barry talks security, pimps his new book, and comments on his new position at Microsoft, book burnings, guns, money, proper pronunciation and Jon’s bald head.

  • Scott K shares that public facing applications and services seem to get the least attention when it comes to security – until there’s an audit. Barry talks about the lack of security education and how training should be baked in from the ground up.
  • Jon notes that folks don’t start off projects thinking about security.  First you code and then you worry about the risk.  Barry speaks to the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) and continuous threat modeling.
  • Scott K asks if there is a security checklist which developers should consult when developing a web application.  Barry references his book, OWASP, CDE and Miter.  Barry states that can’t think like a hacker but you can think about the risks and “what happens if this goes wrong” or “I leak this information” or “there is a cross site scripting attack.”
  • Jon notes there are some security measures which are baked into the .NET Framework.  Barry talks about a defense in depth strategy and the Web Protection Library (WPL.)
  • Barry dives into a few of the security and code analysis tools like CAT.NET and FxCop which are available for Visual Studio.  But how, by the way, no tool offers a silver bullet.
  • Scott K asks where emphasis should be placed when implementing security measures.  Barry responds by putting his security hat on and assuming that all users are scum.  Trust no one!
  • The guys get into encoding rules (when and where), XSS, SQL Injection and Cross-site request forgery.  Jon asks more about the measures built into ASP.NET Webforms and ASP.NET MVC which help prevent attacks.
  • Kevin asks a question about automatic encoding by the framework.  Barry states this is a tricky solution to implement and suggests that frameworks should provide tools but developers should handle the encoding manually. Jon notes the new syntax in MVC 2 which facilitates this approach.
  • Jon asks about testing frameworks and asks Barry for a checklist of steps which developers must complete if they wish to secure their applications.  Barry rattles off a bunch of must-dos actions, pimps his book and pokes fun at American money.
  • The guys talk about RIA, Silverlight and Flash and briefly touch upon security benefits and issues.  And then they discuss social engineering security/privacy issues.
  • Scott K moves away from web applications and services.  What about client applications?  Barry talks about trusted sources, and the .NET and Java sandboxes.  And the guys speak of OS sandboxes and vitualizing applications and Code Access Security (CAS.)
  • Barry talks about FoxPro thanks to a Twitter question from @jglazano and the show finishes up with talk about blue and black hats, security snake oil and scary security stories.  But wait!  Jon remembers he wanted to talk about OpenId and the show continues with a discussion about OpenId, CardSpace and OAuth and OAuth WRAP.

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Herding Code 75: Barry Dorrans on Developer Security

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Mar 05

Herding Code 74: Javier Lozano on MVC Turbine and Composed Applications

This week on Herding Code, K Scott leads a conversation with ASP.NET Insider and MVP, Javier Lozano, about his open source project, MVC Turbine, and extensibility and composition with ASP.NET MVC.

  • Javier provides a twitter-like overview of his open source project: “MVC Turbine helps you build modular applications on top of ASP.NET MVC and that’s pretty much it.”
  • K Scott asks about the advantages of using MVC Turbine to add features to your applications. Javier talks about MVC’s extension points, controller factories, view engines, and “the blade.”
  • The guys talk about MVC Turbine’s support for multiple IoC containers and whether or not MVC Turbine is merely “IoC for IoC.”  Javier speaks of his design approach and the need to register components on the fly.
  • K Scott notes that though ASP.NET MVC has many extensibility points it may not have been built with IoC in mind. Javier talks about the pros and cons of this and how it factored into his design.
  • Scott K asks if there are any features Javier would like to implement into his project which he hasn’t been able to address because of limitations with the MVC framework.  
  • K Scott asks about Action Filters and Inferred Actions. Javier explains.  Jon comments on Inferred Actions’ awesomeness and how they really reduce your controller code.
  • Scott K asks about Inferred Actions and strongly typed views. Javier talks about how the current implementation effectively serves up static pages without a model but the ideal implementation (which is doable) would provide an inferred models and more. 
  • Scott K talks about defaulting return types.  For example, if request doesn’t include the mime type then default to Json.
  • The guys talk about general extensibility in ASP.NET MVC and how various open source applications are addressing concerns.
  • K Scott gets back on topic and asks Javier to dig deeper into filters.
  • Jon and Javier talk about MEF and how it might play a roll in MVC Turbine. Bingo!
  • K Scott notes that MVC Turbine is hosted on Codeplex and asks how it’s going?  Javier notes the source code is now hosted at GitHub, and Jon asks if recent Codeplex support for Mercurial might lure Javier back to Codeplex. The guys talk/joke about version control systems.
  • The guys talk Visual Studio 2010 versions and games of yesterday.
  • Javier turns the tables and asks the guys about their thoughts on compositions in general.  Scott K has thoughts – it’s painful. Jon states that MVC Turbine is doing it and you can use Attributes so what’s missing in the .NET framework that makes composition so painful.
  • Javier talks of folks interest in contributing to his framework, producing documentation and video, and what’s next for MVC Turbine. 
  • Jon asks if MVC 2 provides features (validation or templating, for example) which may be leveraged in MVC Turbine.
  • Lightening round! Have you used Google Buzz?  What’s the funniest comment thread you have ever read?

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Herding Code 74: Javier Lozano on MVC Turbine and Composed Applications

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Feb 22

Herding Code 73: Daniel Plaisted on Model-Based Testing in Action on the MEF Team

This week on Herding Code, Jon leads a discussion with Daniel Plaisted about Model-Based Testing and the progressive practices of the MEF team.

  • Daniel speaks of the primary development roles at Microsoft and how the MEF team addresses testing concerns. Guess what.  Developers write tests, too.
  • Daniel talks about Model-Based Testing and validation of transitions and states.
  • Scott K is reminded of a presentation he attended at Northwest Python Day which spoke of protocol and framework testing.
  • Daniel shares the need of trim test cases to manageable sets which will still ensure adequate coverage.
  • Jon asks about mapping out the endless states that may be found when testing MEF. 
  • Jon asks about test frequency. Are tests run on each check-in?  Are they scheduled?
  • The guys address the difference test types – unit, functional, performance and stress tests.
  • Kevin asks about coordination of developer and tester efforts.  Who produces which tests and where is each group’s focus?
  • Daniel explains Exploratory Testing
  • Scott K asks about Heisenbugs and how closely testers work with developers to resolve hard-to-reproduce defects.
  • Jon asks if the MEF testers use any debug/test tools which are built into Visual Studio.
  • Kevin asks if any special considerations must be made when QAing an open source project. 
  • Daniel explains how model-based testing works well for verifying cache states.
  • Scott K asks about test environment setups and how deep the MEF testers need to dive into the bugs in order to adequately report on them.
  • Jon asks Daniel to share tips to help developers improve their own unit tests and improve broader testing.
  • Daniel talks about MEF’s beginnings. It’s not an IoC container.  Oh wait. It is.
  • What type of tester are you?  The guys speak of a recent Google Tester Blog post on tester types.
  • Kevin ask if the progressive approach which MEF takes is gaining traction throughout Microsoft.
  • Jon asks how Daniel became a tester, a Microsoft MEF tester.
  • Kevin asks how much collaborating occurs between the various testing teams at Microsoft.
  • Daniel briefly talks about Synchronization Coverage.

Note: The audio’s a little rougher than usual this week. Sorry about that.

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Herding Code 73: Daniel Plaisted on Model-Based Testing in Action on the MEF Team

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Feb 14

Herding Code 72: Questioning Uncle Bob, Clojure Magic, Mercurial Support at Codeplex, Thoughts About the iPad and Handerpants

This week on Herding Code, the gang discusses Uncle Bob’s self-titled blatherings about DI, IoC and Mocking, Clojure and polyglot programming, managed javascript, and recent support for Mercurial at Codeplex. The show finishes up with another K Scott Lightning Round with questions about the iPad and non-technical blog recommendations.

  • Uncle Bob recently published two articles which are a little down on DI, IoC and Mocking. Was he merely trying to get a rise out of the community or was he sending a subtle message about poor use of our tools?
  • K Scott attended Craig Andera’s Clojure Presentation at a recent DC Alt.NET meet up. This sparks a discussion about Clojure Magic – functional programming, transactional memory, concurrency and multi-threaded programming.
  • The guys talk about the polyglot programmer, Scala running on the JVM and Java interop. Scott K shares his interest in getting a Clojure, Scala and F# guy in the same room and Kevin gives his thoughts about the language explosion.
  • Scott K leads a conversation about managed javascript, node.js, and IronJS.
  • The group offers their opinions on Codeplex support for Mercurial and address questions like “Why not Git?” and “Does this make Codeplex more appealing?”
  • Lightning Round Question #1: Who’s going to buy an iPad?
  • Lightning Round Question #2: What non-technical blogs do you read?

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Herding Code 72: Questioning Uncle Bob, Clojure Magic, Mercurial Support at Codeplex, Thoughts About the iPad and Handerpants

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Feb 06

Herding Code 71: James Avery and Rob Conery on NoSQL and a bunch of other stuff

This week on Herding Code, James Avery and Rob Conery join the cast in a lively discussion about NoSQL, TekPub, the new DotNetKicks and the technical debate du jour, ASP.NET Web Forms vs ASP.NET MVC.

  • Kevin asks Rob and James to share their views on NoSQL and the use of object and document databases.  James challenges the idea that all data must reside in a relational databases. Are ORMs so last year?   What’s going to be happening in 2020?
  • Rob claims he wouldn’t accept a ride to the bar in an 18-wheeler.  Whatever!
  • Jon asks what we’re saving with object databases – don’t ORMs abstract the database away?  So what’s the point?
  • James pimps TekPub
  • Rob talks it bit about domain-driven design and how we marry relational tables to object-oriented system. K Scott fails to see how the choice of a UI pattern is influenced by the type of database one is using. Rob explains.
  • Jon asks about maintainability and supportability issues and what’s your boss going to think if you suggest moving away from your current relation database solution. James gives examples on why non-relational solutions are easy to maintain and support.  Rob talks about quick ramp up time, scalability and performance like he’s given the speech 1000 times before.
  • The guys pleasantly discuss MSDN.and VB.and ASP.NET Web Forms.
  • K Scott shares his opinion on the future of MVC, Web Forms, Silverlight and Sharepoint as they will exist both inside and outside of the firewall.  Scott K, James and Rob also offer their opinions (shocking) and Jon’s chance to interject is taken away when the luminous “Page Lifecycle” crashes down upon him. 
  • James and Rob dig a little deeper into object and document databases and normalized database nightmares are exchanged.
  • Kevin asks how versioning works in an object database, the guys speak of Json and Bison, and serialization and deserialization.  James speculates that object databases will ultimately be more popular than document databases.
  • Rob addresses the idea that he’s condescending and rude.  The group talks about opinions and share their views on recent technical debates – ASP.NET MVC vs Web Forms, VB vs C#, ORMs vs Stored Procedures, and Jets vs Sharks. Can’t we all just get along?
  • Rob and James pimps TekPub again.
  • K Scott kicks off a flash lightning round – one question about VB6.
  • Rob answers Twitter question from @elijahmanor about TekPub’s technology stack and elaborates about video options.
  • James pimps DotNetKicks.

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    Herding Code 71: James Avery and Rob Conery on NoSQL and a bunch of other stuff

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    Length: 1:18:38

    Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

    Feb 01

    Herding Code 66: Brad Wilson and Scott Densmore on iPhone Development

    What do Brad Wilson and Scott Densmore have in common?  They’re expert .NET developers, a couple of Mac fanboys, and they’re both joining the guys on this week’s episode of Herding Code.  Listen in while Brad and, yet another, Scott talk about the Mac, Windows, and the ins and outs of iPhone development:

    • In case you’ve never heard of them, Brad and Scott D introduce themselves and share their interest in the Mac and iPhone development.
    • Brad and Scott D talk about Objective-C as it compares to other languages including SmallTalk, C, Ruby, Python, and C#. 
    • In order to be a great Cocoa developer, do you need to be a good C developer?  Brad and Scot D discuss.
    • The guys talk about pointers, memory management and the benefits of following language conventions.  Not to be a shill, but Brad notes the brilliance of P/Invoke.
    • The guys talk through Interface Builder, Xcode, Blend, Visual Studio, the difference between Mac and Windows developer workflow, and the passion around UIs in the Mac world.
    • Scott K asks about ADO.NET vs Core Data. Jokingly, he asks if there’s even a way to save anything using Core Data.
    • The group quickly discusses available charting APIs for Cocoa and Core Animation libraries.
    • Brad and Scott D explain that Mac plists are sets of name/value pairs or bastardized xml and Jon asks for clarification on how Mac installations work under the hood.
    • Kevin asks if MonoTouch is best for C# developers due to language familiarity, the benefits of the rich libraries, garbage collection and potential productivity gains.  Brad and Scott D agree that learning the CocoaTouch platform is most crucial. In comparison, one’s language choice a insignificant. So, if one already knows Objective-C, is MonoTouch a waste of time? 
    • The show starts winding down with a quick discussion on how MonoTouch may be providing views to run on Android, the status of Moonlight and the unbelievable pace in which the Mono team develops.
    • The group leaves iPhone-land to talk about real-life work. Brad talks about the ASP.NET MVC 2.0 Template and Model Validation work he’s been up to, and Scott D notes he’s been working on bringing ASP.NET MVC applications the cloud – the Azure Cloud, that is.

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    Herding Code 66 – Brad Wilson and Scott Densmore on iPhone Development

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    Dec 16

    Herding Code 65: Scott Hanselman on His Secret Ninja Squad and Jon’s new job (bonus: netbook operating system install clinic!)

    In this episode, we talk to Scott Hanselman about Jon’s new job with Microsoft, how (if at all) that affects this podcast, and running Ubuntu on a Dell Mini 9.

    • Scott H talks about how, other than the obvious request to get Scott Koon removed from the show, there’s no need to fear any changes to Herding Code.
    • Scott H bemoans the fact that people are so quick to attribute opinions to “working for the man”.
    • The group discusses whether Scott’s demonstration of a datagrid in Scott Guthrie’s PDC keynote constitutes “selling out”.
    • Scott K asks about what Jon’s new job is, and what Scott Hanselman’s STO group does. Scott Hanselman describes the difference between all the different developer community program manager groups at Microsoft.
    • Scott K asks about the lack of diversity on the STO team, and whether there will be more of a focus on data programmability in the future.
    • Kevin asks if working for Microsoft makes it tougher to criticize Microsoft. Scott K asks if working for Microsoft makes it hard to criticize competitors.
    • Scott Hanselman talks about the irritation of ad hominem attacks which discount opinions under the assumption that they’re job-motivated.
    • Scott H mentions that he’s been test driving Linux and other operating systems on his netbook in passing, which prompts a 5 minute geek-fest between Scott H. and Scott K. about Linux driver troubleshooting.
    • Scott K asks Jon what his top priorities are in his new job.
    • Scott K comments on the recent lack of focus on Web Forms, e.g. all the PDC videos he saw were using ASP.NET MVC.
    • Scott H clarifies who exactly is on his team, and how useful it is to have a team that’s got internal Microsoft access but is separate from the product teams.
    • Scott K takes us on a discussion of Microsoft certifications – whether the STO team can add some more realism to certifications. Best part: Scott K inadvertently complains about some of the VB6 exams that Scott H had written.
    • Scott H and the gang finish thing off with a discussion of certifications, education, and interviews as indicators of effectiveness as a programmer.

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    Herding Code 65 – Scott Hanselman on his Ninja Squad and Jon’s new job

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    Dec 12

    Herding Code 64: Phil Haack on MVC 2

    The guys grill Phil on ASP.NET MVC2, and introduce a new segment: Abusive Questions From Twitter!

    • Phil starts with the new <%: code block syntax, IHtmlString, HtmlString, MvcHtmlString
    • Jon asks about DisplayFor, EditorFor improvements
    • Phil discusses validation improvements – validation extensibility and client-side validation
    • MVC 2 is built on .NET 3.5 SP1
    • Phil talks about the productivity focus for MVC 2
    • New minimal templates, minimized web.config
    • Phil comments on the recent trend in software development towards streamlining – Windows 7, Snow Leopard, and how that’s also being applied to MVC and Webforms
    • Phil talks about his work on the Webforms Menu Control to clean up the markup, and how developers will opt-in to new but possibly breaking features
    • K. Scott asks about the new Areas feature 
    • Phil talks about Virtual Path Providers working in medium trust, but not until .NET 4
    • Kevin asks about what other features weren’t available due to maintaining .NET 3.5 support, and Phil ruminates on how the dynamic keyword could work
    • Phil speculates how named parameters could be helpful
    • Scott K asks about when MVC will get more opinionated, perhaps including dependency injection by default.
    • Phil talks about how MVC has never really been weak on the Model side, and how often people are really complaining about data access. Nothing new on that now, but it might be a focus in MVC 3.
    • Jon asks about bringing in some focused project templates.
    • Scott K (again) asks Phil about bringing dependency injection into MVC. Phil talks about why it’s not in there yet, and that you should vote for it in connect if you want it.
    • Phil discusses how bugs are prioritized on the ASP.NET team.
    • Scott K asks if Phil has a favorite feature. Phil likes the HTML Encoding syntax best of all.
    • Kevin asks the standard “when will the Spark view engine replace the webforms view engine” question.
    • Jon asks about which frameworks and community projects Phil’s taking inspiration from.
    • Phil talks about how he’s using Subtext to get personal experience with how the new features are working.
    • Scott K asks about adding in auto-mapping
    • Jon introduces a new Herding Code segment: Abusive Question From Twitter. We start with one by @alanstevens: why we should care about ASP.NET when there are so many other web frameworks out there?
    • Scott K talks about how people conflate languages and platforms.
    • Scott K tries to sneak in an abusive Twitter question, but fails.
    • Kevin asks what’s changing to make TDD work better in .NET and Visual Studio.
    • K. Scott talks about how he’s converted his blog over to run on Subtext.
    • Phil talks about his experiences in developing Subtext, and how that’s been a great way to get exposure to other open source projects and developers.
    • Jon asks about how improving the data access system for Subtext, because stored procedures make him cry.
    • Jon asks about the CodePlex foundation, and Scott K complains about how it’s not very transparent.
    • Phil starts complaining about how newborn babies make it hard to sleep, and things fizzle out.

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    Herding Code 64 – Phil Haack on MVC 2

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    Nov 22

    Herding Code 63: Victory in Software Development with K Scott Allen

    On the heels of his recent Concept Camp 2009 fireside keynote, K Scott brings his opinion about victory in software development to the podcast. Listen in as the guys consider how to define and measure success, how to solve business problems despite our customers and ourselves, and how to focus less on risk and more on the potential reward.

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    Herding Code 63 – Victory in Software Development with K Scott Allen

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    Oct 24

    Herding Code 62: MonoTouch with Miguel de Icaza and Geoff Norton

    In this episode of Herding Code, Jon and Scott Koon pair up with Miguel de Icaza and Geoff Norton of the Mono Project and discuss MonoTouch:

    • Jon asks Geoff Norton, engineering lead on the MonoTouch project and founder of the Cocoa# and Objective-C# projects, to give the elevator speech about MonoTouch and why one might choose it over other iPhone development tools.  Geoff explains that MonoTouch is a commercial product from Novell. They have ported the Mono runtime to run on the iPhone thus allowing developers to write full native iPhone applications in languages which target the CLR.  Some might be attracted to MonoTouch because they feel C#, for example, is fluent and expressive compared to Objective-C.  Others might use the product so they can reuse existing components or code when moving to iPhone development.
    • Miguel shares that there is a strong pattern in Objective-C where you respond to objects through messaging between classes.  In the .NET space, you are most familiar with listening to events with attached methods such as lambda expression or delegates and MonoTouch uses this programming model and expose Cocoa API to be similar to the way C# does things. For example, the use of events, properties, delegates.  He continues by stating you also have access to .NET APIs in addition to all iPhone APIs.
    • Scott K asks if there are any disconnects with which .NET APIs are available. Geoff shares that MonoTouch is not the entire .NET 2.0 BCL.  In fact, development was started with the Silverlight BCL and additional namespaces were included as development proceeded. 
    • Geoff mentioned Silverlight. Jon’s Pavlovian Trigger is fired, he starts to drool and programmatically inquires about the potential of running Silverlight applications on the iPhone (even though, as Jon mentions, Apple is currently disallowing it.  Miguel speaks to the MonoTouch’s use of the Silverlight profile drops unnecessary dependencies upon the .NET framework thus providing for a leaner precompilation.  Geoff talks about what would be required to getting Silverlight on the iPhone.  Miguel states that Silverlight on the iPhone would not be a standard Silverlight experience.  Most notably, one would have to go through the AppStore and download a Silverlight enabled application rather than access a Silverlight application through the browser.
    • Jon asks about the cost associated with developing iPhone applications with MonoTouch. Miguel shares that Mono and Moonlight were basically developed to improve the Linux ecosystem.  As for Mono for the iPhone, it was difficult for Novell to justify the investment for this highly desired feature request so they decided to charge for it. Geoff notes they have a 100% free, non-time limited evaluation version which works with the simulator. It’s only limitation is you can’t get your application onto the device. Please note that you get a $150 discount on MonoTouch if you register for MonoSpace.
    • Jon asks Geoff for an overview on how to get started with MonoTouch development. Geoff provides the high-level steps – get the iPhone SDK from Apple, pay Apple $99 to become registered iPhone developer, load up Mono Develop, create a new iPhone project from template, start typing C# code, you will be using Interface Builder for layout, build and run.
    • Scott K  calls out how Interface Builder traditionally integrates with XCode.  Geoff comments about Interface Builder with C# and the generation partial classes as code behinds which automatically connects outlets to MonoTouch engine.  Miguel speaks to the advantages of the MonoTouch approach.
    • The guys talks about XIB (pronounced zib) and NIB files and freeze drying.
    • Scott K shares listener questions from @hugeonion: Is there is anything that you can’t do using MonoTouch.NET that you could using Objective-C?  Can you mix Objective-C and .NET when you are writing a MonoTouch project?  Geoff gives the liberal-minded answer and then Miguel finishes with the short answer — “There’s really nothing that you can’t do with MonoTouch that you can do with Objective-C". “I guess you could argue it’s a Turing machine so you can do anything on anything.”
    • Scott K asks another listener question from @shamel: What are the plans to improve the MonoTouch debugging story?  Miguel says the debugger will be available faster than you might think.  It’s coming but the decision was made to push to product out sooner than waiting for MonoTouch (and debugging, profilers, code-generator, more APIs) to be perfect. Geoff talks about the updated compiler and the ability to back-trace crashes using DWARF, the standard debugging format which Apple uses.
    • Jon and Geoff talk about graphics , MonoTouch development on a Power PC Mac and static compilation. Miguel talks about coding on paper (desk checking.)
    • Jon distills MonoTouch development down to two steps: binding to the iPhone APIs and then doing the static compilation to run on the iPhone.  Geoff speaks of support for generics, Cocoa#, Objective-C#, Monobjc and binding the CLR to Objective C. 
    • Scott K asks if they’ll be moving Mono onto the Android. Miguel speaks of Android, Java, managed language, garbage collection, native compilation, current demand and their current focus being Mono for the iPhone. Jon asks if there’s a story for Mono support on Windows Mobile.  After all Windows Mobile does run the .NET compact framework. Jokes and laugh follow…
    • Jon, Miguel and Geoff talk about MonoTouch iPhone application size.
    • Miguel talks about embracing cross platform and getting Windows developers working on Mac – and looking cool at Starbucks.
    • The guys discuss XNA for Silverlight, XNA game developer studio, XNA hosting on iPhone or the fact that you can’t distribution XNA games to the Zune. They also touch upon Mono running on the WII and PS2.
    • Geoff and Miguel finish up the conversation comments about the MonoSpace, the Open Source and Cross-Platform Conference for Mono and .NET which will be held in Austin this October 27-30.

    Show Links:

    Quote of the Show:

    • “Do your HTTP Get and parse the result like a man!” – Miguel

    Download / Listen:

    Herding Code 62 – MonoTouch with Miguel de Icaza and Geoff Norton

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    Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

    Oct 11

    Herding Code 61: CodePlex Foundation, Bing Visual Search, Microsoft Ajax CDN, Zune HD Release

    This episode of Herding Code is a roundtable discussion which includes the entire cast. The guys dedicate the majority of the show to the CodePlex Foundation – what the foundation provides, speculation on what the foundation might accomplished, and how success should be measured.  The guys also offer a glowing review of Bing Visual Search, they dig into the Microsoft Ajax CDN, and give their opinions of the recent Zune HD Release.

    Show Links:

    Download / Listen:

    Herding Code 61: CodePlex Foundation, Bing Visual Search, Microsoft Ajax CDN, Zune HD Release

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    Oct 06

    Herding Code 60: Spark View Engine with Louis DeJardin

    In this episode of the Herding Code Podcast, the guys talk to Louis DeJardin about the Spark View Engine.

    • Louis talks about how the Spark View Engine was inspired by NVelocity and hatched from a comment thread on Phil Haack’s blog.
    • Kevin asks about the HTML-like syntax syntax in a Spark view – how it was designed, how it looks, and some of the benefits of a view engine that looks like HTML.
    • Scott K asks about some of the similarities to Cold Fusion markup. After making Louis squirm a bit, Scott points out the big difference in his eyes is that Spark works as part of an MVC pattern, while Cold Fusion embedded too much logic in the markup.
    • Jon sets Kevin up to look really good by asking about a feature Kevin requested – safe by default HTML encoding.
    • Kevin asks about how Spark’s strongly typed ViewData and strongly typed models work.
    • Jon quizzes Louis about how Master Layouts differ from ASP.NET Webforms MasterPages, Kevin tries to stump him with questions about partial page caching.
    • Scott K and Louis talk about how Spark was developed, and how TDD made writing a view engine easy.
    • Kevin and Louis discuss how Spark is being used to generate more than HTML.
    • Jon asks about how he got all the smarts to write a parser / templating engine.
    • Scott K speculates about the potential for a custom view engine enabling vendors to offer controls for MVC. Louis tells him that he’s crazy, and the two discuss options for visual designers in the MVC world.
    • Jon asks some questions about how an HTML-based syntax like Spark could allow for a better designer surface, but Louis convinces him that an HTML-based syntax is probably the best design interface, both for developers and designers.
    • Kevin asks Louis about the Visual Studio integration for Spark.
    • Louis takes a listener question from Jeremy Miller about caching compiled views.
    • K Scott asks about using Spark’s JavascriptViewResult to do JSON powered updates with the same template for both initial and update rendering. Louis points out that it’s possible to write code that’s both c# and Javascript compatible, so it can be used both client-side and server-side. We all agree that’s crazy, but the right kind of crazy.
    • K Scott asks about his selection of different tracking, source hosting, etc. services for the Spark project.
    • Vladislav II asks about Dynamic Language support.
    • Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer asks about runtime vs. development time compilation, and how Spark runs under medium trust.
    • Louis explains how Macros allow you to simulate creating reusable helpers inside your templates.
    • Faustus of Byzantium asked about partials are integrated into views.
    • Edward I asks about how performance compares to the Web Forms view engine, and if there are any important tips/tricks to get the best performance out of Spark.
    • Ned Ryerson remembers talking to Louis at PDC, when Louis was pitching Spark to Jeff Atwood The Terrible. Jeff went with the Web Forms view engine which led to his eventual demise in 2012.
    • Duke Konrad I of Masovia asks Louis about the use of multiple view engines in a website to ease transition.
    • Kevin closes with some questions about Spark, such as how it plays with ASP.NET MVC 2 and where the name Spark came from.
    • Postscript – Jon catches up with Louis to ask about his new position at Microsoft.

    Show Links:

    Download / Listen:

    Herding Code 60: Spark View Engine with Louis DeJardin

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    Sep 23

    Herding Code 59: Web Standards with Milan Negovan

    In this episode of the Herding Code Podcast, the guys sit down with Milan Negovan of ASP.NET Resources to discuss web standards, usability and accessibility.  Milan also shares his opinions on the onslaught of new technologies coming out of Redmond, why developers should avoid big conferences, the benefits of independent consulting, the motivation of Microsoft MVP Program and his impressions of ALT.NET.

    • The show kicks off with Milan’s explanation of semantic markup – thinking first about content and then presentation – and the Web Standards Trinity which includes Structure (HTML, XHTML, XML), Presentation (CSS), and Behavior (JavaScript). 
    • Milan talks about Quirks Mode vs Strict Mode. Jon asks about the benefits of XHTML especially with XHTML 2 recently being shot down in favor of HTML 5. 
    • Milan states that CSS has always been more of a recommendation rather than a true standard.  He asks why anyone would use skins and/or themes. Jon bites and guesses because it is a typical Visual Studio control-first option and themes (unlike cascading style sheets) are always applied last and may enforce corporate design standards. Milan also shares his frustration with the bloated, non-standard markup generated by ASP.NET Server Controls and he names names.  That’s right, DataGrid!  He’s talking about you.
    • Milan provides an overview of his impressive Microsoft.com redesign experiment and speaks briefly of Section 508 and his Color Blindness Simulator.
    • K Scott asks what a .NET developer should do to better adhere to web standards. Milan talks specifically about control development, ASP.NET MVC and the shift back to client-side development.
    • Milan speaks his mind about Silverlight’s poor usability.  He states Silverlight is being marketed to the wrong audience and it is not a replacement for JavaScript. Milan also calls out the educational gap for developers needing to act as designers. Shall I continue?  Jon agrees but provides a rebuttal. 
    • K Scott seeks Milan’s opinion on new technologies, big conferences, independent consulting, the Microsoft MVP Program and ALT.NET.  Milan shares that you’ll go insane if you try to learn everything which is coming out of Redmond and suggests that developers specialize.  Milan describes big conferences as nothing more than “booze and noise” and recommends developers avoid conferences like Mix and participate in the local community instead.  Milan talks about life as a business owner/independent consultant, job security and building one’s personal brand. Milan questions the motivation of the Microsoft MVP program and suggests it is merely another marketing channel for Microsoft.  Milan shares his positive impressions of ALT.NET and comments on the “remarkable crap” published by Patterns and Practices.  Scott K calls Milan out for being too much of a kiss-up marketing shill. Fin.

    Show Links:

    Book Recommendations from Milan

    Download / Listen:

    Herding Code 59: Web Standards with Milan Negovan

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    Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

    Sep 08

    Herding Code 58: Presentation Patterns with Jeremy Miller, Ward Bell, Rob Eisenberg and Glenn Block (Part 2)

    How about that?  You stuck around!  It was the Waylon Jennings, Good Ol’ Boys, Dukes of Hazzard, freeze frame cliffhanger at the end of Part 1 which hooked you, wasn’t it?  Undoubtedly you have been on the edge of your seat for days, just waiting to see how the show turns out.  Well, wait no further.  Here’s the commercial free, dramatic conclusion to the longest Presentation Patterns discussion ever.

    When we last left our heroes, Jeremy Miller, Ward Bell, Rob Eisenberg and Glenn Block were in the thick of their discussion.  Jeremy had just finished explaining the role of the Screen Conductor and Ward was ready to start flushing out implementation strategies.  That is, implementation strategies which might work across most solutions. 

    But thankfully, Glenn starts by stepping back a bit and asking how the presentation patterns discussion fits in the context of mainstream development.

    Will the guys provide a single answer to the age-old question, “Which came first the View or the ViewModel?”  Is there a one size implementation which fits all solutions?  Will this conversation ever end?  Find out this week on Herding Code.

    Show Links:

    Download / Listen:

    Herding Code 58: Presentation Patterns with Jeremy Miller, Ward Bell, Rob Eisenberg and Glenn Block (Part 2)

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    Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

    Aug 24

    Herding Code 57: Presentation Patterns with Jeremy Miller, Ward Bell, Rob Eisenberg and Glenn Block (Part 1)

    Have you seen the circus gag where clown after clown emerges from the smallest car one could possibly image?  Well, this week on Herding Code, the guys attempt that very same trick!  Listen in as Jeremy Miller, Ward Bell, Rob Eisenberg and Glenn Block (that’s right, four guests!) join the cast and talk Presentation Patterns.  This conversation started earlier this week on Twitter and it is shows no sign of slowing down.  Join us this week and next for an enlightening and exhaustive discussion about Views and Models and ViewModels and everything in between. 

    • Kevin asks the four guests to introduce themselves and then turns the podcast up to 11.
    • Jeremy kicks off the conversation with the “View First vs ViewModel First” discussion.  Jeremy talks about Views, ViewModels, Presenters, Behaviors, Implementation Detail, Separated Presentation, Passive View, iView Interface, Screen Activation, and User Controls… In summary, he’s pro-ViewModel or Presenter first.
    • Ward asks if anyone wishes to defend the View First position.
    • Rob shares that he tends to create his View and Presenter at the same time (although he’s mostly a Model kind of guy.)  Rob also calls out that he does a lot of prototyping in his workflow.
    • Ward talks about where his development always starts – sketching out the UI with his clients.  The ViewModel is ultimately developed to support the interaction discovered in sketching. 
    • Rob agrees. Talks more about prototyping first, gathering requirements, user feedback, workflow, architecture and conventions.
    • Jeremy considers application navigation, behavioral aspects of screens and the contract for view.
    • Glenn calls out the difference between Balsamiq mockups and screens which are maintained by a designer in Blend.  Which approach best supports the tooling experience, maintainability, and testability?  Glenn references Jonas Follesoe and how his designer girlfriend couldn’t function unless he defined the View first.  Glenn initiates conversations about Service Locators.
    • Jeremy questions whether one needs that level of detail.  Do you need to fake in a service locator for your designer experience or are there alternatives?
    • Glenn stresses that we must think about the designer (albeit there aren’t many right now), consider tradeoffs with varying approaches, talks about Prism and Patterns and Practices experiences, and tooling – particularly Blend.
    • Rob talks about providing simple conventions which are taught to designers in lieu of using an inversion of control containers like Windsor.
    • Glenn asks what the designer would see inside of Blend in this case and Rob isn’t aware of  any limitations with this approach.  Is this an issue of designer not having sample data to work with?
    • Jon shares his experience at Vertigo – applications favor design and tooling, applications don’t have complex business rules, applications are Blendable.
    • Jeremy appreciates that appearance may be the most challenging aspect of some applications.  In this case, maybe View First is the most appropriate approach but having Blend driving workflow is a case of the tail wagging the dog.  We need to consider the line of business applications and in that case ViewModel or Presenter must come first.
    • Glenn notes that the View being created first as part of instantiation does not correlate to whether the ViewModel drives behavior from that point on. View First is at the point of activation.  Whether the view is injected into ViewModel or the ViewModel get set into the View, the ViewModel is the guy which is in control.
    • Jeremy explains the Screen Activation pattern and some fairly complex scenarios where logic is executed before the view is activated. 
    • Ward states that he is not a fan of the view determining the ViewModel or the ViewModel selecting the View and prompts Jeremy by asking if a factory could pull the right pieces together and sequence them.
    • Jeremy takes Ward’s queue and talks about the Screen Activator acting as the gatekeeper which puts screens together.  Jeremy reference the Caliburn approach.
    • Rob clarifies the Caliburn ViewModels hierarchy and the use of screen activators and the composite pattern.
    • Glenn talks a bit about complexity, CAB, debugging hierarchies, event aggregators and messaging.
    • Jeremy calls out the benefit of using a composite pattern on a dashboard type application where a part of the screen may act as an application itself but an event aggregator would be best of cross-piece communication.
    • Rob notes that communication in Caliburn is local – it is parent to child or child to parent and this approach can really simplify development.
    • Jon and Rob discuss the approach of simply navigating between two tabs.  Would you use event aggregation, publishing event, commanding or what?
    • Jeremy gives detail to the Screen Conductor role and pattern and Rob stresses the value of methods such as Initialize, Activate, Deactivate, Shutdown and CanShutdown. Jeremy and Glenn walk through an example.
    • Glenn, Rob and Jeremy consider roles and patterns and if they vary from application to application.  Is there an established best practice?  Jeremy believes roles seem to be consistent but implementation changes from project to project. 
    • Ward wraps up Part 1 stating that he agrees with the idea of like roles but not ready to lock into any implementation.  He suggests we call out the actors and see how it plays… 
    • This conversation just won’t end.  Be sure to tune in next week for Part 2.

    Show Links:

    Download / Listen:

    Herding Code 57: Presentation Patterns with Jeremy Miller, Ward Bell, Rob Eisenberg and Glenn Block (Part 1)

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    Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

    Aug 19

    Herding Code 56: Markus Völter on Model-Driven Development, DSLs and Product Line Engineering

    You know Markus Völter as the founder and voice of Software Engineering Radio. Well, this week on Herding Code, Markus finds himself on the other side of the microphone – fielding, rather than asking, questions. Listen in as Markus explains model-driven software development and product line engineering. Learn about modeling, domain-specific languages, code generation, Eclipse, development outside of the Microsoft/.NET world and much, much more, this week on Herding Code.

    • K Scott leads the discussion asking about developing with Eclipse. Jon asks how Eclipse’s plugin model compares to that of Visual Studio.
    • K Scott introduce the topic of model-driven development and DSLs. Markus steps back and takes some time to talk about terminology.
    • Markus shares why UML can’t be used to appropriately describe one’s domain and jokes that Microsoft has been ignoring UML for years but that are now gravitating toward it just as everyone else is moving away.
    • Markus discusses the difference between modeling and programming.
    • Kevin asks Markus his opinion of Oslo and M, the Oslo Modeling Language. Markus says it is difficult to compare Oslo to Textual Modeling Framework (TMF) found in Eclipse, talks about code generation being incorporated (or not) into Oslo and shares his thoughts about competition between groups at Microsoft. K Scott and Markus discuss their concern with Oslo becoming an extension of SQL and the mixed messages Microsoft is sending.
    • Markus talks about the blurring lines between External vs Internal DSLs.
    • K Scott and Markus discuss productivity gains when incorporating modeling into one’s development.
    • Markus shares the things which changed and influenced his career – design patterns and modeling. Markus stresses that building languages and generators is more applicable to software development than learning the API-of-the-day. K Scott and Markus talk about learning, focusing on the important stuff and separating technical and domain concerns.
    • Jon asks about Microsoft Axum. Markus explains Axum as “Erlang for .NET” and expands upon the benefits of concurrent and functional programming.
    • The show finishes with Markus providing a very nice overview of Product Line Engineering.

    Show Links:

    Download / Listen:

    Herding Code 56: Markus Völter on Model-Driven Development, DSLs and Product Line Engineering

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    Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

    Aug 07

    Herding Code 54: Rob Conery interviews the Herding Code guys

    Let’s keep the party going! In this very special episode of Herding Code, Rob Conery puts Jon, Scott K and Kevin on the spot as he turns the tables and asks his own questions and passes his own judgments. Do you want to know how Herding Code came about? Are you curious how Rob and the guys feel Herding Code differs from the other podcasts? Have you ever wondered how the Herding Code members might map to the cast of The View? All in good fun, Rob derails the show and gives us a behind the scenes look into Herding Code productions.

    • The guys try to explain the value of Twitter to Rob. “Twitter makes me more productive.” “You must cultivate your network.” “It is all about who you follow.” “Twitter is a fishing net.” “I can quit at anytime.”
    • Jon shares how Herding Code started with an inadvertent Skype conversation.
    • Scott K talks about Herding Code’s diverse guest list which doesn’t consist of the usual list of suspects which might be regulars on other shows.
    • The Kevin Dente Roast continues…
    • Rob compares the Herding Code with The View, identifies each cast members role and announces that Herding Code needs to build in the happy hour aspect of podcasting. Have another beer, Rob.
    • Jon talks about cannibalism and attacking oneself.
    • The guys discuss Rob’s new spokesmodel spokesman position at Microsoft, ongoing Kona development and a bit about community outreach.
    • Are you missing K Scott? Tune into this week’s show to find out what he’s doing now. You may be utterly surprised.

    Show Links:

    Download / Listen:

    Herding Code 54: Rob Conery interviews the Herding Code guys

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    Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

    Jul 18

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