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?

Show Links:

• Dependency Injection Inversion
• Mocking Mocking and Testing Outcomes
• Moq
• Rhino Mocks
• Matthew Podwysocki
• DC Alt.Net Group
• Craig Andera’s Clojure Presentation Materials
• Clojure Refs
• Clojure CLR
• Scott K’s Clojure Gist 
• Audacity
• Chris’s Dynamic Compressor
• Gimp
• IronJS
• node.JS
• Simon Willison
• Ruby EventMachine
• Twisted
• Codeplex
• Mercurial, bitbucket
• Git, GitHub
• Rails Commits comparison from SVN to GitHub
• Larry O’Brien – Tablet PC Programmer Responds to Apple iPad
• Michael Ruhlman
• Topless Robot
• Swiss Miss
• Indexed
• Nathan Bowers, UX Hero
• Jin Yang (jzy) 8164.org
• Strange Maps
• Ex Unum, Pluribus!
• FakeSteveJobs
• Art of Manliness
• Archie McPhee
• Monkey Goggles
• Handerpants
• Dave Barry

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

Download / Listen:

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

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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.

Show Links:

• Rob Conery’s Blog
• James Avery’s Blog
• Hello from 2020
• Ayende
• db4o
• MongoDB
• DocumentDB ??
• mongomapper
• CouchDB
• redis
• NHibernate Profiler
• NHibernate
• TekPub
• AutoMapper
• MVC or Web Forms? A Dying Question
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Dynamo
• Bison
• MUMPS
• Victory in Software Development
• Ask the Mountain to Come to You
• Whither Alt.Net?
• Art of War, Sun Tzu
• MVC Storefront Series
• Git
• Cucumber
• BDD
• Javier Lozano
• Elijah Manor
• SubSonic
• @BillGates
• DotNetKicks
• The Lounge
• Joe Brinkman

Download / Listen:

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!

This week on Herding Code, Scott Bellware returns to talk about . 

• Scott talks about the frustrations in working with “HTML Specialists”
• Scott discusses the team issues caused by specialists in a software team who aren’t in touch with the entire product development cycle
• The problem with handoffs: loss of workability
• Eventually, things turn to the technology issue involved in working with HTML and CSS
• Are HTML tables necessarily evil
• Scott and Scott K discuss whether CSS purity is a premature optimization
• Jon and Scott discuss whether clean markup can be deferred until the end of a project
• Scott talks about the lunacy of delivering design work as “final”
• Scott talks about how optimization fights with workability
• Scott enumerates some of examples of websites which might not benefit from accessibility
• Jon posits that tables might not be easier than CSS design, it’s just what we learned first
• Scott K talks about how CSS floats drive him nuts
• Scott talks about how crazy CSS is when viewed as a programming language
• K Scott talks about some technological workarounds like lesscss
• Scott talks about how he doesn’t see Silverlight as an improvement, because it brings along a lot of other challenges
• Scott talks about how working in teams and in “small batches” solves the problems with handoffs
• Scott talks about the joy of a January 1st project date

Show Links:

• Scott Bellware’s Blog
• Scott’s consulting company, ampersand GT

Download / Listen:

Herding Code 69 – Scott Bellware on HTML Specialists

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In this episode of Herding Code, the gang talks about what happened last year and what they think will happen in the years to come.  Oh, and K Scott brings us the first lightning round of 2010!

• How will the guys manage the show in 2010?  Google Docs and listener requests?
• Are you bitter because today’s coder has little appreciation for how rough devs had it 10 years ago?
• Phone wars. Big, smart ones. Will Android dethrone the iPhone?
• Place your bets!  Biggest box office hit in 2010: Ironman 2 or The A-Team Movie?
• You don’t see the Fail Whale quite as often, but it’s still fun to listen to the guys continue to complain about Twitter and its clients.
• Next ten years – will C# continue to rule the .NET roost?
• Ever ask WolframAlpha “Who uses this site?”
• What secret project is John Lam working on?  Will IronRuby live on?
• You love maps, right? K Scott does too.   Who knew?
• Ever wonder if the iSlate will take over the (Kindle) world?
• Are you planning to improve your skill set in 2010? How?
• Really? Jon’s default search engine is Bing! How’s about that Infinite Scroll!

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Herding Code 68 – New Year Shenanigans

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Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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:

• CodePlex Foundation
• Bellware’s CodePlex Foundation Write-up
• jQuery Foundation
• The Apache Software Foundation
• The Eclipse Foundation
• Mozilla Foundation
• Bing Visual Search
• Office Space
• NHibernate
• NUnit
• Jeff Atwood
• Damien Guard
• Google Code
• Google’s Summer of Code
• ScrewTurn Wiki
• Gimp
• Audacity
• Inkscape
• SourceForge
• Oren Eini
• Microsoft Ajax CDN
• CodePlex Foundation Board of Directors
• Miguel de Icaza, Novell
• Shaun Walker, DNN
• SugarCRM
• Rob Conery
• Bil Simser (@bsimser)
• Log4Net
• Zune HD Release
• jQuery Validation Library
• Akamai
• Barry Dorrans – Quick thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX CDN
• Brad Wilson
• Zune Pass
• Last.fm
• Pandora
• The Hype Machine
• Hanselminutiae-seven (Scott Hanselman with Richard Campbell)
• Miles Davis Kind of Blue
• Kind of Bloop

Download / Listen:

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

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Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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:

• Jeremy Miller, Dovetail Software
• Ward Bell, IdeaBlade
• Rob Eisenberg, Caliburn, Blue Spire
• Glenn Block, Microsoft
• Expression SketchFlow
• Expression Blend
• Balsamiq Mockups
• Jonas Follesoe
• NDC2009 – Norwegian Developers Conference
• Windsor
• Pattern and Practices
• Build Your Own CAB Series by Jeremy Miller

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!

Whether you just want to write cool software for yourself or you are looking to kick off a side business, you can get started with little upfront investment. This week on Herding Code, the guys talk about the ease of becoming a one-man independent software vendor (ISV.)

• Scott K starts off the show with a list of free online invoicing and financial tools along with a number of services which provide free disk space.
• Jon notes that advertising and micropayments are cheap and easy to setup in minutes.
• Kevin talks about his recent endeavor, review2Q, an ASP.NET MVC application, hosted in the Azure cloud, which helps automate the management of his Netflix’s queue. It was an itch that he just needed to scratch and, with little overhead on his part, it’s now available for you, too.
• The guys discuss super cheap hosting and the numerous APIs and Services which provide tons of data available to re-mix.  They also discuss using Azure or Google App Engine to scale up as one grows. 
• Jon comments on how free site templates and store/blog theme systems can make design a snap. 
• Jon also calls out the fact that for most web developers the barrier to entry is so low.  Thus, one is somewhat susceptible to having their idea quickly copied.  This raises the question; will your investment pay off long-term? 
• Kevin jokes that there’s an alternative approach to implementing your own, self-serving solution – just wait long enough and someone else will implement your idea.
• Kevin and Jon discuss why the web is such an appealing platform to start a venture. It is all about the low barrier to entry, the instant gratification and immediacy of making your product available and easy accessibility.  Not to mention many sites are self-sustaining.
• The guys brainstorm a few one-man startup website and mobile development ideas, wonder if they would ever again hear from Jon if he came upon 4 million dollars and question whether or not K Scott has fallen asleep.

Show Links:

• Google Docs
• Zoho
• Office Online
• Skydrive
• Box.net
• Dropbox
• Google App Engine
• Markus Frind, Plentyoffish.com
• Adsense
• Kevin’s Dente’s review2Q
• Netflix
• ASP.NET MVC
• Azure
• SQL Data Services
• RSS
• RESTful API
• Trusted Database Interpretation (TDI)
• Open Source Web Design
• WordPress
• OneNote
• Yahoo Pipe
• Stackoverflow
• Hanselminutae-five with Richard Campbell
• iPhone Development
• Windows Mobile
• 37signals

Download / Listen:

Herding Code 44: Microbusiness

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Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

This week on Herding Code, K. Scott kicks off an amusing conversation about office pranks and general fun in the workplace:

• Jon explains why you might send goat pictures to your coworkers.
• Kevin comments about the hazards of new carpet installation.
• K. Scott talks about making an HP Printer come to life.
• And learn why you must always, always keep one eye on Jon when he’s working…

Show Links:

• Fun With C# and HP Laserjets – http://www.odetocode.com/humor/68.aspx
• Goating – http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000997.html
• Favorite Harmless Computer Practical Joke – http://stackoverflow.com/questions/65116/whats-your-favorite-harmless-computer-practical-joke
• Google April Fools – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google’s_hoaxes, http://www.pcworld.com/article/142620/googles_top_17_easter_eggs_gags_and_hoaxes.html
• Kindle 2 – http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Generation/dp/B00154JDAI/ref=sr_tr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234330860&sr=1-1
• Apple Asks Google to Not Use Multi-Touch – http://www.pcworld.com/article/159260/google_backs_off_multitouch_to_please_apple_report_claims.html
• Microsoft Announcement of Windows 7 Versions – http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1890
• Android Multi-touch Capable, Just Disabled - http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-devices/news/2008/11/18/Android-Multi-touch-Capable–Just-Disabled/p1
• Cooked Windows Mobile ROMS http://xda-developers.com

Download / Listen:

Episode 35: Fun at work

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This week on Herding Code, Jon, Kevin and Scott K discuss *Chirp (since renamed blu), Witty, Twitter usage, open source and WPF development:

• The guys review *Chirp, a new WPF Twitter client from thirteen23.  Scott compares *Chirp to Paris Hilton, Jon reminisces about old Simpsons episodes and Kevin shares that *Chirp is very pretty, nicely designed, and what WPF is all about.
• Kevin, Jon and Scott discuss their involvement with the Witty project. The guys talk about their favorite features, most wanted enhancements, and how they hope the project will evolve going forward. Jon subtly promises a Witty Easter Egg.
• The guys briefly talk about Twitter, how they manage their “rivers of information” and how varying strategies makes Twitter client design/development difficult.  Not to mention what is/isn’t available via the Twitter API…
• Jon and Scott comment on drive-by contributors and general challenges of open source development.
• The guys candidly talk about learning/knowing WPF and the difficulties of debugging WPF applications without tools.  Kevin shares how WPF violates the principle of least surprise and Jon shares why making a textbox’s background is difficult.

Note: *Chirp has since been renamed to blu. We tried to get the folks from thirteen23 on the podcast, but we didn’t hear back grom them until after this show was published. We still love them, though!

Show Links:

• Witty - http://code.google.com/p/wittytwitter/
• blu - http://www.thirteen23.com/experiences/desktop/blu/
• Snoop – http://blois.us/Snoop/
• Silverlight Spy – http://silverlightspy.com/silverlightspy/introduction/
• Spy++ – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa242713(VS.60).aspx
• ClickOnce – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa497348.aspx
• Alan Le – http://blogs.vertigo.com/personal/alanl/Blog
• WPF Twitter – http://www.codeplex.com/WPFTwitter
• Model/View/ViewModel (MVVM) – http://blogs.msdn.com/johngossman/archive/2005/10/08/478683.aspx
• TweetDeck – http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
• Adam Kinney – http://www.adamkinney.com/
• photoSuru – http://www.photosuru.com/
• Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) – http://www.codeplex.com/MEF
• WPF Commands – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms752308.aspx
• Laurent Bugnionhttp://www.galasoft.ch/
• RSS Bandit – http://rssbandit.org/

Download / Listen:

Episode 34: *Chirp and Witty – WPF Twitter Clients

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This week Kevin leads a discussion about the inauguration on the web, then we field some questions from listeners.

• Live inauguration video on Silverlight sites
• Photosynth picture of the inauguration
• whitehouse.gov on webforms – will Viewstate bring down the presidency?
• Armchair quarterbacking the whitehouse.gov site
• whitehouse.gov updates robots.txt
• And Twitter didn’t die!
• Question – What is the one thing I should learn this year
• - K. Scott – SOLID, dynamic languages, WPF
• - Jon – Pick something, declarative UI, get involved in something
• - Kevin – SOLID Principles, WPF
• Question – Comparing working in Web, RIA, and WPF
• Side discussion: What’s the deal with ClickOnce?
• Whoa! Scott Koon joins us mid-call!
• Quick discussion of jQuery 1.3
• Question – What is the one thing Scott K wants to learn this year?
• - Scott K. – Expressions
• - K. Scott – I agree that Scott K should learn expressions
• Side discussion: Why are companies so slow to upgrade .NET versions?
• - Jon – Go, go, go!
• - K. Scott – Not enough must-have features
• - Kevin – Requires customers to upgrade

K Scott leads the discussion as we look back at 2008, and speculate wildly on what 2009 has to offer.

Note: Scott K’s taking a podcasting break to change diapers and stuff.

Looking back at 2008

• Google Chrome
• Kevin’s new iPhone
• Kevin’s Firefox extension addiction
• Hulu
• IE8 – better than expected, but still a ways to go
• ASP.NET MVC
• Silverlight 2
• Oslo
• Azure
• Visual Studio 2008 SP1
• ADO.NET Data Services
• REST is finally accepted in the .NET world
• The Seinfeld / Gates ads
• OpenID
• Netbooks (Oragami at last?)
• Twitter’s recovery
• Overhyped stuff: Surface, cloud computing, multi-core madness
• Functional programming
• DI/IOC hitting the Microsoft mainstream
• [sidebar - the tradeoff between DI benefits vs. Silverlight XAP size]
• StackOverflow
• [sidebar - frustration with Microsoft forums]

Looking forward at 2009

• Windows 7
• Office 14
• Project Pink? (Zune on Windows Mobile)
• [sidebar - frustrations Zune]
• WPF in Visual Studio
• [sidebar - is there a correlation between unmanaged code and lame Microsoft products?]

Download / Listen

Herding Code 30: Year-end wrapup

Kevin leads a discussion on what every web developer needs to know.

Topics

• Javascript – language or toolkits?
• Does clean HTML matter? What are the tangible benefits?
• Working with designers who only speak Photoshop
• Basic usability
• Tools every web developer needs
• Progressive enhancement
• K. Scott introduces the Lightning Round

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Herding Code 27: What every web developer should know

While we were at the Microsoft PDC 2008 conference, we met up with the guys from the Deep Fried Bytes podcast as well as Jeff Atwood (StackOverflow, CodingHorror) for a podcaster roundtable. The first part of this discussion is over at Deep Fried Bytes (Episode 18).

Download / Listen

Herding Code 25: PDC 2008 Podcaster Roundtable with Deep Fried Bytes and StackOverflow (part 2)

This week Jon leads a discussion of real world development. We talk about how our development practices in our jobs and personal projects match up with the way we’re “supposed to be” developing. Topics:

• What are the non-negotiable practices that we always use on any code we write?
• Jon isn’t always Test Driven. Does that make him a bad person?
• Where do code reuse and maintainability stack up when it comes to other real world priorities, like hard deadlines and short technology lifespans?
• Is there a place for “forms over data” development? How about System.DraggyDroppy?

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Herding Code 21: Real World Development

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This week Scott K leads a discussion on remote work, remote access technologies, and synchronization software:

• What software and services help with remote development
• The joy of being your own network admin
• Source control implications (TFS, Subversion, GIT)
• The social tradeoff – fewer incidental conversations, more intentional conversations
• Remote access software
• Synchronization software

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Herding Code 19: Pajama Driven Development (working remote)

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This week Jon leads a discussion on the new crop of browsers:

• What’s new in Google Chrome
• Comparison of Javascript engines
• What does crazy-fast Javascript mean?
• Is Webkit taking over? Why’s Firefox sticking with Gecko?
• IE8 Compatibility Mode – Will it save us from IE6?
• Is it time for the IE team to try “File/New/Browser”?
• Do web standards mean anything when IE doesn’t support them?
• Where does Silverlight fit in?
• Objective-J

Links:

• The Google Chrome Comic
• John Resig’s Javascript Performance Rundown
• Why Mozilla’s sticking with Gecko
• The Acid 2 Test
• E4X (ECMAScript for XML)
• Jon’s post (circa 2005) asking when IE would support E4X
• New Javascript features in versions 1.6, 1.7, and 1.8
• IE8 Beta 2 Developer Toolbar
• Objective-J (Objective-C for Javascript)
• Dare’s comparison of new browser features
• IE8 Beta 2 Compatibility View

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Herding Code 17: Browser Roundup

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This week Kevin leads a discussion on interviewing software developers:

• What interview styles we find effective
• What sort of questions actually help us evaluate a candidate
• Why API trivia and puzzle questions don’t work
• Hiring mistakes we’ve made based on errors in our interview style
• Why we don’t do very well when the tables are turned and it’s our turn to be interviewed

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Herding Code 16: Interviewing Software Developers

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