Month: February 2009

This week, the Herding Code cast talks shop with Scott Watermasysk about cloud computing, blogging platforms, Internet Explorer, the DotNetOpenId project and much more:

• Scott W, Scott K and Jon discuss Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google App Engine.
• Jon asks Scott W to share his thoughts on blogging platforms and the difficulties around their development due to their many edge cases and full feature set.
• Scott W answers a listener question about his thoughts on Silverlight.
• Scott K, Jon and Scott W rant about corporations continuing to run IE6, why IE8 killed Scott W’s inner child and why, oh why, won’t Microsoft just rewrite Internet Explorer already.
• Scott W shares his strategy for evaluating and learning new technologies and how to successfully manage remote development teams.
• Scott W and the guys talk about the demise of SQL and the higher dependency on ORMs and traditional database alternatives like CouchDB.
• Scott W comments on Silverlight and ASP.NET MVC and whether these technologies help solve his customers’ problems today.

Show Links:

• Scott Watermasysk’s blog – http://simpable.com
• Telligent – http://telligent.com/
• Community Server – http://communityserver.com/
• Community Server Evolution – http://telligent.com/products/community-server-evolution/
• Azure – http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
• Amazon Web Services – http://aws.amazon.com/
• Google App Engine – http://code.google.com/appengine/
• Mix 2009 – http://2009.visitmix.com/
• CouchDB – http://couchdb.apache.org/
• BigTable – http://labs.google.com/papers/bigtable.html
• SubText – http://www.subtextproject.com/
• BlogEngine.NET – http://www.dotnetblogengine.net/
• .Text – http://forums.asp.net/149.aspx
• .Text on GotDotNet (web archive)
• Oxite – http://www.codeplex.com/oxite
• Zawinski’s Law – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zawinski’s_Law_of_Software_Envelopment#Quotes
• IE8 – http://www.microsoft.com/windows/Internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx
• Gecko – https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Gecko
• WebKit – http://webkit.org/
• Browser Speeds Test – http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10030888-92.html
• Silverlight – http://silverlight.net/
• MEF – http://www.codeplex.com/MEF
• The Greatest Scott of Them All – http://weblogs.asp.net/Scottgu/
• dotnetopenid Project – http://code.google.com/p/dotnetopenid/
• CardSpace – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480189.aspx
• NHibernate – http://www.hibernate.org/343.html
• Subsonic – http://subsonicproject.com/
• Entity Framework – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa697427(vs.80).aspx
• Apology-Based Computing – http://simpable.com/software/apology-based-computing/
• Eric Evan’s Book – http://domaindrivendesign.org/books/index.html#DDD
• Tokbox – http://www.tokbox.com/
• Velocity – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B24C3708-EEFF-4055-A867-19B5851E7CD2&displaylang=en
• ASP.NET MVC – http://www.asp.net/mvc/
• Phil Haack – http://www.haacked.com/

Download / Listen:

Episode 36: Scott Watermasysk
[audio: //herdingcode.com/wp-content/uploads/HerdingCode-0036-Scott-Watermasysk.mp3]

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
[audio: //herdingcode.com/wp-content/uploads/HerdingCode-0035-Fun-at-work.mp3]

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
[audio: //herdingcode.com/wp-content/uploads/HerdingCode-0034-Chirp-and-Witty-WPF-Twitter-Clients.mp3]