Vikas's Technical Blog

The myth of Infinite Scalability

2012-01-07T08:14:00.000-08:00

Udi Dahan has written a nice post about Scalability.

I agree with him that Infinite Scalability is a myth.

Scalability costs and actives users count is different and dynamic as compared to Total Users Count.

My thoughts are

1. Know You System

Know the bottlenecks and have solutions ready. If you system is not scaling well with increase of active users or requests/per user, you should be able to give solutions to management. I have seen how people’s career has suffered because they could not provide answers to management.

2. Measure, Measure and Measure

Know you system's vital statistics

3. Follow Good practices

Good Practices never hurt. If x number of industry experts are saying that Y is a good practice. Follow Y practice if one don’t time to evaluate it. Hardware Scalability generally costs money where System Refactoring /Re-writing requires more cost and money.

How do Manager and Programmer run ?

2011-12-18T08:29:00.001-08:00

Programmer
runs for x minutes/hours

Manager
Sets a goal(Calories or Distance)
Calculates how to achieve goal in shortest time.

How does BMW produce Ultimate Driving Machine?

2011-11-24T14:21:00.001-08:00

According to Csaba Csere, a former editor of Car and Driver magazine

BMW’s goal is to make the Ultimate Driving Machine. If you work at BMW in any capacity and you’ve got a decision to make, you can sit there and say “ We’re the ultimate driving machine. Which one of these decisions is going to advance that objective”

Referenece:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43730198/ns/business-cnbc_tv/t/bmw-drives-engineering-perfection/

How to sell TOGAF to management?

2011-11-21T19:36:00.001-08:00

How to sell TOGAF to management

1. Asset Management

2. Common Building Blocks

3. Easy Access to Information/Single Repository

4. Architecure Principles :-

get defined , evangelized and implemented.

5. Better Security Across Enterprise

6. We have a structure within which we can manage change

7. TOGAF solves the following problems

Wild growth from short term planning
Perversions of standard
Isolation of information in silos
Disappointment of management& Cost
Poor Management understanding of IT capabilities and exploitation
Constant innovaton via new technologies.

8. Addresses Stakeholder's concerns and requirements.

Difference between Factory Pattern and Abstract Factory Pattern

2011-11-18T03:36:00.001-08:00

Factory Pattern : Produces IProduct Implementation

Abstract Factory Pattern: A factory-factory produces IFactories, which in turn produces IProducts.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1001767/design-patterns-factory-vs-abstract-factory

TOGAF: Archtiecture Principles

2011-11-06T06:13:00.000-08:00

My Architecture Principles
1. Domain Layer should be independent and lightly coupled to UI and Data Layer
2. Application should be automated tests friendly.
3. Requirement based change
4. Easy Maintenance
5. Configurable
6. Control Diversity

http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap29.html
Architecture principles are a subset of IT principles that relate to architecture work. They relflect a consensus across the enterprise, and embody the spirit and thinking of the enterprise architecture.
Architecture principles can be further divided into :
1. Principles that govern the architecture processes, affecting the development, maintenance and use of enterprise architecture.
2. Principles that govern the implementation of the architecture , establishing the first tenets and related guidance for designing and developing information systems.

Architecture principles are used to capture the fundamental truths about how the enterprise will use and deploy IT resources and assets.
Too many principles can reduce the flexibility of the architecture. Many organizations prefer define only high-level principles , and to limit the number to between 10 and 20.

Business Principles

Primacy of Principles
Maximize benefit to the Enterprise
Information Management is Everybody's Business
Business Continuity
Common Use Applications
Compliance with law
IT Responsibility
Protection of Intellectual Property

Data Principles

Data is an Asset
Data is shared
Data is Accessible
Data Trustee
Common Vocabulary and Data Definitions
Data Security

Application Principles
1. Technology Independence
2. Ease of Use

3. Requirement based change

4. Responsive Change Management

5. Control Technical Diversity

6. Interoperability

TOGAF

2011-11-06T06:04:00.000-08:00

TOGAF is an architecture framework.

TOGAF 9 can be used for developing a broad range of different enterprise architectures.

The key to TOGAF is the method the TOGAF Architecture Development Method(ADM) - for developing an enterprise archtiecture that addresses business needs.

Architecture in the context of TOGAF

"The fundamental organization of a sytem, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution."

TOGAF embraces and extends this definition .In TOGAF , "architecture" has two meanings depending upon the context

1. A formal description of a system, or a detailed plan of the system at a component level to guide its implementation.

2. The structure of components , their inter-relationships , and the principles and guidelines governing their design and evolution over time.

Looking back at Agile Methodology

2011-10-01T06:46:00.001-07:00

Went to an Agile Seminar and here are my thoughts

• This is little doubt that Agile Methodology has been accepted as a Software Methodology for Team of 1-10 programmers working together at a site.

• Software thinkers are still thinking who to make it work for distributed teams and very large teams(1000 + developers)

• Agile Methodology solved the waterfall’s lack of user feedback problem and RUP’s heavy documentation.

In the Agile Seminar, there was a very interesting exercise. Speaker wanted to demonstrate flaws of rigid process vs. flexible/lean process.

It didn’t go the speaker’s way. Deliverables of both processes were same. Result was a tie. What spoiled the exercise was the fact that customer gave very complex requirements.

IOC and DI Containers Comparison

2011-09-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

The following link gives very good comparison of different IOC and DI Containers overview

http://elegantcode.com/2009/01/07/ioc-libraries-compared/

Distributing the best people

2011-08-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

I was reading an interesting article about an air war between two countries. There was analysis about the performance of whole air force of one country . Performance was lacking. Why did some squadrons with same aircraft do very well and some poorly?
That's because a fighting squardon is just about 16 pilots.In any group of 16 people, he said, you would find a few that would be totally fearless and competent, a few who would become fearless again in the company of these, and the rest who would then be simply positively overwhelmed by this peer pressure.
The Air force realized that its fighter squadrons were not properly balanced.Some had too many of his first category, and did brilliantly, and some had too few and did poorly.
The key to success lies in distributing the best people evenly amongst all your teams.

Border Closing

2011-08-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-07-20-Borders-Effect_n.html
As a person who preferred books as compared to pdfs or online tutorials, I really saddened by the Border Closing Event.
At the height of dot com craze, people used to speculate that there will no brick and mortar malls but only online malls.
That didn’t come true but Internet did kill technical magazines and now borders store.
May be it was for good.
May be it is for good for earth. Earth may be greener without border. No need to cut more trees for books.
IPads make PDF more fun to read. I am not buying books because I don’t have any shelf space left for new paper books. PDFs are cheaper than books. They will be cheaper for customers to buy and bring more royalty for authors.
What is next, public libraries with eReaders and no books.

What a Software Professional should know?

2011-07-30T20:50:00.000-07:00

I have been reading Robert C. Martin’s book “The Clean Coder”.
A must read book for every software professional.
In chapter 1, Bob mention the minimal list of things that every software professional should be conversant with:
1. Design patterns.
One should be able to describe all 24 patterns in the GOF book .
One should also have a working knowledge of the component principles.
2. Design
One should know the SOLID principles
3. Methods
One should understand XP, Scrum, Lean, Kanban, Waterfall ,Structured Analysis and Structured Design
4. Disciplines:
You should practice TDD, Object-Oriented design, Structured Programming, Continous Integration and Pair Programming
5. Artifacts:
You should know UML,DFDs ,Structured Charts, Pertri Nets, State Transition Diagrams and Tables, flow charts and decision tables.

One Solution vs Multiple Solutions

2011-07-10T19:40:00.001-07:00

Is it a good idea to have one solution or multiple solutions?

"One Solution" Advantage
1. Easy to build
2. No need to switch between multiple solutions
3. No psychological barrier
4. Cool New Stuff get added to project
Exisitng Project may be web form based .New modules can be written in MVC.

Opportunity to upgrade the project to latest technology and framework.

"One Solution" Disadvantage
1. Too many people working on same solution.
This pain has been minimized by TFS branching and Merging. We can have multiple people working on branches. Application Architecture and Framework should dictate that there are boundaries and no cross over happens. Code Reviews can also help.

2. Security
Every module should has its own master page.
Entry Global routines know what is user's landing page and User authorization boundaries.
User should not be able to cross the boundaries.
More Work for QA.

3. Other group changes can jeopardize some other release.
Module should be written in a way if we need to pull it out of application and create a solution,
We should be able to achieve it with minimum pain and effort.

Conclusion:
We should follow middle path. We don't have to have one solution but at the same times we should not have too many solutions. Whenever a request comes for a new module, we should investigate that it belongs to which solution. Module should be loosely coupled to each other.

ASP.Net MVC Best Practices

2011-07-04T07:32:00.000-07:00

ASP.Net MVC Best Practices
1. Create Extension Methods of UrlHelper to generate your url from Route.
2. Create Extension Method of UrlHelper to map your Javascript,Stylesheet and Image Folder
3. Abstract DI Container
4.Keep your controller free from HttpContext and its tail
5.Use UpdateModel Carefully
6. Avoid ViewData,user ViewData.Model(Say No to "Magic strings"
7. User PRG Pattern for Data Modification
8. Action Filters
Use ActionFitlers for "shared " data. Use Action filters to retrieve data that is shared among different views. Use Partial view to display them.
9. Write your own HTML . If there ia n if , write an HtmlHelper.
10 . Do not put javascript in you code
11. User JQuery and JQuery UI
12. Create new ActionResult if you need one.
13.

References:
1. http://weblogs.asp.net/rashid/archive/2009/04/01/asp-net-mvc-best-practices-part-1.aspx
2. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/709429/asp-net-mvc-best-practices-tips-and-tricks

How to become iphone developer in eight easy steps

2011-06-26T15:27:00.001-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/feb/10/gameculture-apple

Step 1: Buy Mac
Step 2: Download the SDK
Step3: Learn Objective C
Step 4: Start Writing Something
Step 5: Sign-up as official developer
Step 6: Prepare for last weeks of work
Step 7: Submit you app to Apple
Step 8: Adapt, market and survive

Is blogging dead?

2011-06-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

Read some interesting emails about whether blogging is dead.
Did twitter and facebook kill the blogging ?

Blogging became famous when .Net has just come out.
There was lot of heated debates about
1. Dot Net vs Java
2. Dot Net Good Practices vs Bad Practices
3. Domain Driven Design vs Data Driven Design
4. O/R Mapper vs Data Access Code Generation

With all debates settled and no winner emerged, people have moved on to iphone development.

Evaluating Entity Framework 4.0

2011-06-21T19:58:00.001-07:00

I have been evaluating Entity Framework for Enterprise projects for last couple of days.
We are using Entity Framework for some small projects.
When using Entity Framework v 1.0 , we found out querying Entity object using reflection is slower than querying a dataset.
I bought Programming Entity Framework book by Julia Lerman.
It is a very good book on this topic.
PROS:
-Entity Framework is O/R Mapper plus wraper over ado.net (gives you DataReader as well as DataSet
-POCO Supports
-supports stored procedure

CONS:
-POCO does not feel right.Ayenda of NHibernator Fame explains very nicely in this post.
http://ayende.com/blog/4038/why-defer-loading-in-entity-framework-isnt-going-to-work
In short, they are tightly coupled with Entity Framework Context.

Ayende gave other examples how nhibernator is superior as compared to Entity Framework
http://ayende.com/blog/4351/nhibernate-vs-entity-framework-4-0

View -> Controller ->Model ->Business Objects ->Data Layer ->Enity Famework ->Databases
-->Automapper

Don't like Structs . AutoMapper can be your savior.

2011-06-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

Automapper is object-object mapper.
http://automapper.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Getting%20Started

Example of converting Struct to Class
http://geekswithblogs.net/MarkPearl/archive/2010/02/03/test-header.aspx

Technical Debt is Good

2011-05-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

Software Leaders need to incur Technical Debt to ship the software to market quickly.
Software Leadership requires incurring Technical Debt.
Software Leaders prioritize their work.
That means that you have to live with bad code.
Great Technical Leaders have Great Technical Debt but they know how to manage.

Is Silverlight dead?

2011-03-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

I was googling the current buzz about Silverlight. I was thinking of useful search term and google provided me one . The useful term was

Is Silverlight Dead ?

.
Three years back when all architects and Microsoft Speakers are all gaga about Silverlight, I was full of doubts. I asked one Microsoft speaker why does he think that Silverlight will succeed when ActiveX controls, ActiveX documents and Java Applets failed, he dodged my question.
During one presentation, I asked Rockford Lhotka same question one year back. He was kind and prudent enough to answer that it depends on failure of HTML5.

Programming Entity Framework - Julia Lerman

2011-03-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

We have been using Entity framework on all new projects.
I have been in the camp if_you_are_building_enterprise_applications_you
_don't_use_ORM.
I think that Entity Framework has changed.
With Entity framework , I believe that you can build both Industrial and Non-Industrial strength Software Intensive Systems.

Don Box "If you are .NET developer Entity Framework is where we'are going. We're there . Get on board, it's time."

The Entity Framework is another enhancement to ADO.NET , giving the developers an added mechanism for accessing data and working with results in addition to DataReaders and DataSets.

Does my application has Architecture?

2011-03-12T16:52:00.000-08:00

Is there separation of concerns?
If a developer has already worked on a component, can he easily understand other modules?
Is any good practice,design patterns followed?
Is it easy to add new features?
Does fixing bugs introduce more bugs?

Beautiful Architecture -1 Conceptual Integrity

2011-03-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

Beautiful Architecture
Architecture should have conceptual Integrity. Developer working on one component should be able to work on any other component of the system with ease. Conceptual Integrity comes from consistency in things such as decomposition criteria, application of design patterns and data formats. As we move from system to “system-of-systems.” The conceptual integrity must also be maintained in the architecture that integrates the systems.

Reference:
Beautiful Architecture

IIS 7.0 Architecture

2011-03-12T06:52:00.000-08:00

IIS 7.0 ArchitectureInclude the following components
1. HTTP.Sys
2. World Wide Web Publishing Service
3. Windows Process Activation Services(WAS)

HTTP.SysIs part of networking subsystem of Windows operating systems, and is implemented as a kernel mode device driver called the HTTP protocol stack(HTTP.sys). HTTP.sys listens for HTTP requests from the network, passes the requests onto IIS for processing, and then returns processed responses to client browsers.

WWS :No longer manages worker process. Instead WWS is listener adapter for HTTP.sys.
Is primarily responsible for configuring HTTP.sys,updating HTTP.sys when configuration changes, and notifying WAS when a request enters the request queue.

WAS:
Manages application pool configuration and worker processed instead of WWS

Reference:
http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/101/introduction-to-iis-7-architecture/

.NET 4.0 (Code Contracts) - 1

2011-01-25T17:38:00.000-08:00

Code Contracts

Code Contracts provide a way to specify preconditions, postconditions and object invariants.

Benefits
Improved Testing
Automatic Testing Tools
Static Verification
Reference Documentation

Preconditions

Click the Project Properties Context Menu

If you don't see Code Contracts, download and install code contracts from the following link
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/dd491992.aspx

Run the solution

PostCondition Code Contract

Object Invariant

Software Quality and NDepend

2010-12-23T11:02:00.001-08:00

Measuring Quality with NDepend
http://www.troyhunt.com/2010/04/measuring-code-quality-with-ndepend.html
NDepend is a Visual Studio tool to manage complex .NET code and achieve High Code Quality.
With NDepend, software quality can be measured using Code Metrics, visualized using Grpahs and Treemaps, and enforced using standard and custom Rules.

http://www.ndepend.com/Features.aspx#Metrics
1. Application Metrics
2. Assembly Metrics
3. Namespace Metrics
4. Type Metrics
5. Method Metrics
6. Field Metrics

Adding Additional Blogs to My Blog Portfolios

2010-11-13T19:15:00.000-08:00

I am adding the following blogs to my blog portfolios

1. HealthCare Domain
2. Business Intelligence /Statistics

Being Steve Jobs Boss

2010-10-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

Some very interesting points from link

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/111102/being-steve-jobs-boss?mod=career-leadership

Steve felt that computer was going to change the world , and it was going to become what he called "the bicyle for the mind".He is minimalist.
The Japanese always started with the market share of components first. So one would dominate, let's say, sensors, and someone else would dominate memory, and someone else hard drives and things of that sort. They would then build up their market strengths with components, and then they would work toward the final product. That was fine with analog electronics, where you are trying to focus on cost reduction — and whoever controlled the key component costs was at an advantage. It didn't work at all for digital electronics, because you're starting at the wrong end of the value chain. You are not starting with the components. You are starting with the user experience.

And you can see today the tremendous problem Sony has had for at least the last 15 years as the digital consumer-electronics industry has emerged. They have been totally stovepiped in their organization. Sony should have had the iPod, but they didn't — it was Apple. The iPod is a perfect example of Steve's methodology of starting with the usAn anecdotal story: A friend of mine was at meetings at Apple and Microsoft on the same day. And this was in the last year, so this was recently. He went into the Apple meeting (he's a vendor for Apple), and as soon as the designers walked in the room, everyone stopped talking, because the designers are the most respected people in the organization. Everyone knows the designers speak for Steve because they have direct reporting to him. It is only at Apple where design reports directly to the CEO.

er and looking at the entire end-to-end system

Hello IPhone

2010-09-05T06:13:00.001-07:00

Enterprise users are asking developers to provide access to their applications through their smartphones particularly IPhone.

1. through App
Pros:- 1. Great User Experiences

Cons:-
1. Need to be published through App Store
2. Need developer with additional skills
3. Need Hardware

2. IPhone version of website
Pros:- 1. No need of App Store
2. Developers can use their skills in the Microsoft Shop
3. Effort Level less
Cons:
1. Less Interactive

Useful links

1. http://codebetter.com/blogs/peter.van.ooijen/archive/2010/08/30/catching-the-iphone-in-the-net.aspx

Decision to Refactor

2010-06-26T21:29:00.000-07:00

Decisions To Refactor:-
Tactical vs Strategic Refactoring
Tactical Refactoring is prerogative of Developers. They should use this judiciously at their will.
Whereas Strategic Refactoring cannot be done overnight and can’t/shouldn't be hidden from Management and Business Owners.
Strategic Refactoring cannot be sold to Stakeholders with the reason that this will make the developer’s life easy.
How to sell Strategic Refactoring
1. Badly written code generally performs badly
2. Badly written code is very difficult extend
3. Badly written code increases production downtime
4. Is it a strategic product to Business

Badly Written Code Symptoms/Bad Code Smells
1. No Coding Standard
2. No Separation of Concerns
3. Quick solutions
4. Duplications of Code
5. Long functions and long files
6. Silly function and variable names(Domain Driven Design Ignored)

Don’t Overdo Refactoring
• Doesn’t give any additional feature to Stakeholders
• Can’t rewrite everything

Avoid need for Refactoring
1. Employ Domain Driven Design
2. Invest into Tools which encourage good coding design, standards and practices
e.g.,(FxCop ,Resharper)
3. Have Coding Standards

The 7 habits of Highly Effective People ( 5 out of 5)

2010-06-14T19:47:00.000-07:00

7 habits of Highly Effective People is an excellent book.

For technical problems , there are design patterns books to help you to solve problem in certain context.
Did you wish that you had such book to deal with Managment and Leadership issue?

This book fits the bill.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Developers

2010-06-14T19:45:00.000-07:00

Found through google.
Hilarious but true

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2919209/Seven-Habits-of-Highly-Effective-Developers

Don't be a Bermuda-shorts-wearing-Cadillac-driving farmer

2010-06-06T15:06:00.000-07:00

Recently read the book Influencer
http://www.vitalsmarts.com/influencer_book.aspx

There’s a story of a researcher who attempts to get farmers to use a more disease resistant strain of corn, but the farmers don’t view this person as experienced and don’t want to risk their crop. So, the researcher sets out to find that one person who will try the new strain of corn, thereby, setting an example for all the other farmers. So, the researcher finds this farmer that dresses in Bermuda shorts and drives a Cadillac, who is open to innovative farming techniques and who successfully uses the new strain of corn to grow a bumper crop.

This brings us back to our Bermuda-shorts-wearing-Cadillac-driving farmer. As it turns out the other farmers did not respect this farmer because he was different and because he didn’t think and do things the same way they would. Hence, they rejected the cold, hard data that his crop surpassed them and, as some might say, “bit their nose to spite the face"

http://www.jpmorgenthal.com/morgenthal/?p=38

Why should one upgrade to .Net 4.0 ?

2010-06-06T07:18:00.001-07:00

Why should one upgrade to .Net 4.0

1. Named Arguments and Optional Parameter in C# 4.0
I have used this feature in old VB versions and loved it. I really missed it in C#.
Should make code more readable
2. URL Routing with ASP.Net 4 Web Forms.
3. Built in Chart Controls (though I love ChartFx controls)
4. Great Intellisense help for Javascript(I will stick with Rubmine)
5. Pinned DataTips
6. VS2010 Debugger Improvements (Breakpoints Labeling, Data Tips and Import/Export)
Data Tip looks like a very cool feature . It should make debugging more easy.
You can add the notes. I liked the noted added by Scott to demonstrate the capabilities.
7. Clean Web.Config
Do you hate your Web.Config? I hate mine.
Important Note: .Net 4.0 includes a new version of the CLR and a new .NET 4 specific machine.config(which is installed side-by-side with the one user by .NET 2, .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5)
8. Cleaner HTML Markup with ASP.Net 4.0 Web Forms – Client IDs

Good bye to ctl00_ContentPlaceholder1_ListView1_ctrl0_Label1 ids

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/08/25/vs-2010-and-net-4-series.aspx

IIS 6 Web Site/App pool (Memory Related Issues)

2010-04-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

What is the maximum memory that IIS6 Web Site/App Pool can Use

http://serverfault.com/questions/4720/what-is-the-maximum-memory-that-an-iis6-web-site-app-pool-can-use

To summarize, set the memory limit to the smaller of 60% of physical RAM or 800 MB.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972959.aspx

Are Automated Acceptance Tests worth it?

2010-04-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

Jim Shore the coordinator of the Fit Project says Automated Acceptance tests are not worth it
1. ROI is low
2. Customers not interested

http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/04/dont-automate-acceptance-tests

What is the alternative?
He provides the answer
http://jamesshore.com/Blog/Alternatives-to-Acceptance-Testing.html

I totally agree with him and that is that I am going to follow

Managers vs. Programmers

2010-04-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

Managers vs. Programmers

Do Managers work? Do programmers document?

1. Don’t step on someone’s shoes.
2. Prioritize the work

Golden’s Rule
1. Start developing people
2. Delegate. Believe the people
3. Document
4. Hire best, fire worst
5. “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.”
6. Share the vision
7. Be careful about your role. As a manager, it is your duty to optimize available resources, meaning that if you’re the best programmer on the team, you management rolw will require you to take on the programmer role, leaving no room for managing… instead, as a manager, user your programming skills to seek out programmers that are better than you and put your trust in your own judgment of their skills.
http://www.seoforclients.com/hr/manager-vs-programmer/

• Leadership means to focus the actions of your team on a defined goal
• You define the goals but should let your team members as much freedom of action as possible and only limit where its necessary because of the integrity and coherence of the project and your set goals.
• Leadership requires to have respect for your team member, trusting them in their decisions
• In order to reach your goals, team members need to understand your intentions. Communcate the reasons for your decisions. Be honest about it.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/249544/programmer-to-manager

Management also demands much more developed time management and communication skills, so brush up on your ability to truly listen to your employees and co-workers. A good leader must take into consideration the need of his or her followers in order to be successful. When a manager listens to his or her employees, he will garner respect from them and possible increase his or her understanding os his colleagues.
http://www.helium.com/items/278851-from-programmer-to-it-manager-making-the-transition

JQuery Rocks(Architecture Recap)

2010-04-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

After being burnt by UpdatePanels in a project, switched to javescript and page methods.

JQuery simpley rocks.

It compact syntax, support for multiple browsers makes it must have building block of any system architecture.

Tools:-
Cateogory: Architecture
ASP.NET,MVC,Jquery,Code Generator.

Aircraft Crash

2010-02-09T19:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/transportation/jan-june10/airline_02-09.html

The airplane was on final approach to Buffalo. The landing gear came down. And it started losing speed very quickly.

Very soon, a warning system came on, a wheel-shaker, to tell the pilot that the plane was going too slowly to fly. He is supposed to push on that wheel when that happens. Instead, he pulled back. The speed got even slower. And then another system kicked in, a pusher, in which the plane tries to push the nose over itself to gain airspeed.

Instead, the captain pulled back. And then the first officer put the flaps up. And that made matters worse. The plane stalled, spun, and crashed into the ground.

Apple vs Google

2010-01-18T17:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_04/b4164028483414.htm
I was reading a very interesting article in BusinessWeek.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_04/b4164032489508.htm
There was a “the same the different’ comparison matrix sheet.

Some interesting tit-bits

Employees that matter in Google are Engineers where as those mattered in Apple are Designers.

Key to Success in Google is/are algorithms where as in Apple, it is elegance.

Mac on CNBC

2010-01-05T19:41:00.000-08:00

Some Highlights

A Mac is not a computer but a personal accessory.

Mac Trade Show is Mecca for its users.

1996
Apple will be in business ?
25 million loyal mac users are there .

Evangelist :- used by MAC to connect to it loyal users.

Steve Jobs returned and improved the fiscal health of the company.
Mac is more successfully but user community is not that cohesive

Users group are front end soldiers but Mac does not/can not control them.

iPod, Phone and Internet Communicator in one and that is iPhone

Good Tip for Automating Unit Tests for existing system

2009-12-20T11:09:00.001-08:00

Test first a walking Skeleton

Get a walking skelton and implement the infrastructure.

Duct Tape Programmer

2009-09-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

Nice thoughts from Programmer

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html

Reminds me a nice incident narrated to me by my civil engineer friend.

My Friend has to deign a curve. He used all his techniques to come up with the angle
but could not come up calculation.

Then a labour came forward to help him. With his rudimentary tool, he just drew the curve and finished the job.

Software Development and Construction

2009-09-06T06:02:00.001-07:00

Recently stayed at Rome resort in Wisconsin .

Their main advertisement depicts their resort as Roman relic.

It is simply a wall . Behind the wall, it is traditional resort.

The Fascade Design Pattern.

http://www.thehotelrome.com/

Nice quote

2009-09-04T09:37:00.001-07:00

Put two economists in a room and you will get three opinions.

Put two software professionals in a room and you will get a
1. 10 opinions
2. Ego clash
3. One dead body
4. Nothing or all of above

What kind of consultant are you

2009-07-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.imaginativeuniversal.com/blog/WhatKindOfConsultantAreYou.aspx

I could identify myself with following characters
Jack Bauer + House + Maverick + Krammer = Me.

Gambling and Software Development

2009-05-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

Can Gambling Rules/Techniques can be applied to Software Developments ?

1. Know the rules
2. Know the players
3. Know the Keywords(Communication)
4. Build your position according to game
5. Know when to quit the game
6. Know when to cut the losses

Statuatory Note:
Gambling is injurious to your financial wealth.

Is ASP.NET MVC divisive?

2009-05-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

Why ASP.Net MVC is so divisive
With ASP.NET MVC, you are going to loose server side controls and postbacks.
Not everyone is happy to give away.

With ASP.NET MVC, developers need to be more proficient with Javascript and HTML,CSS
Any Website worth more than 10 cents has to be interactive .Users want great user experience and better resposiveness from websites. That was step in right direction

ASP.NET MVC Links

2009-04-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

13 ASP.NET MVC Extensibility Points you have to know

http://codeclimber.net.nz/archive/2009/04/08/13-asp.net-mvc-extensibility-points-you-have-to-know.aspx

Setting up a minimal ASP.NET MVC Project in Visual Studio
http://michielvoo.net/blog/setting-up-a-minimal-asp-net-mvc-project-in-visual-studio/

Best MVC Practices
http://weblogs.asp.net/rashid/archive/2009/04/03/asp-net-mvc-best-practices-part-2.aspx

MVC Future
http://blog.maartenballiauw.be/post/2009/04/02/Back-to-the-future!-Exploring-ASPNET-MVC-Futures.aspx

MVC
http://weblogs.asp.net/rashid/archive/2009/04/01/asp-net-mvc-best-practices-part-1.aspx

Why fit is dying?

2009-04-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

http://perseus.franklins.net/hanselminutes_0151_ward_cunningham.pdf

Nice comments from Ward

1. It is not flashy
2. It was supposed to be communication tool between Users and Programmers.
Tables turned out to be hard to written by non technical users.
3. Community support was missing

Recent Great Events in .Net Technology Arena

2009-04-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

1. Resharper 4.5 Released

(There are two type of programmers i.e., Good Programmers and Programmers who don't user Resharper)

2. ASP.net MVC Framework Released

Walking on Water

2008-12-29T20:11:00.000-08:00

Walking on water and developing software to specification are easy as long as both are frozen.

Murphy's Law from Microsoft.Net Architecting Applications for the Enterprise.

This law made my day. LOL.

Reference
http://vikasnetdev.blogspot.com/2008/12/stuff-that-jeremy-do-like.html

Stuff that Jeremy do like

2008-12-28T20:08:00.000-08:00

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2008/12.aspx

How does this guy get the time to read and try all this stuff.
Excellent and cool list.

1. New Architectural Guidance coming from patterns and practice.

2. The general direction of xUnit
My Comment: I will stick with MSTest right now.

3. AAA syntax and mocking styles in Rhino Mocks and Moq.
My Comment: Loved it. I liked more Moq for its simplicity but keep Rhino Mocks as back up.

4. Nate Kohari's approach to convention based setter injection in Ninject
http://dojo.ninject.org/Conventions-Based%20Binding.ashx
My Comment: Interesting. I am okay with Configuration or Custom Attributes approach for AOP. Convention approach sounds little backward but can be handy in certain situations.

5. Autofac’s extensibility Model
http://code.google.com/p/autofac/wiki/GettingStarted
My Comment: Another DI framework

6. StructureMap

7. New Language features in .NET 3.5
1) Lambda expression
2) Var
3) Object Initializer
4) Collection Initializer
5) Extension Methods
6) Anonymous Types
7) Auto Implemented Methods
8) Partial Methods

8. Expression Tree

9. JQuery
http://jquery.com/
My comment:- I am going to buy a book to master this javascript framework.

10. MassTransit
http://code.google.com/p/masstransit/wiki/BatchMessaging

http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2008/06/04/Reviewing-Mass-Transit.aspx
http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/09/nservicebus
My Comment:- It sounds more like command pattern. There may be more. I need to investigate more into this.

11. Linq to NHibernate and Linq in general of course
My Comment: Since Generics in .NET2.0, LINQ is best thing that has happened in .NET3.5

12. More powerful Auto Mapping and convention support for Fluent Nhibernate
http://code.google.com/p/fluent-nhibernate/
My Comment:- I will stick to LINQ for SQL time being. I hated the XML configuration for Nhibernate as it was error prone. Active record was a compromise.

13. Bellware's SpecUnit assertion extensions
My Comment:- Makes unit test more readable and maintainable.

14. Fluent Fixture
http://blog.eleutian.com/2007/09/29/FluentFixtures.aspx

15. Prism Project
Composite Application Guidance for WPF

16. MVC
My Comment- MVC rocks

17. Common Service Locator

18. Any Tool written by Jet Brains
Resharper Rocks

19. AutoMocker and Interaction Context base Classes

20. Dino Esposito's latest book on .Net architecture
My Comment:- I did a quick reading at book store. My rating 5 out of 5.

21. Ben Scheirman's new fluent API for testing routes in MVC

22. Rake Build Tool

24. DotNetRock Guest List

Graduating from TDD to BDD

2008-12-27T18:14:00.000-08:00

After being ardent supporter of TDD, I think that I am graduating to BDD. (Courtesy Rhino Mocks)

References:

1. Using mocks to stand-in for modules of code which have not yet been written

CLSA .Net 3.6 Overiew

2008-12-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.lhotka.net/weblog/OverviewOfCSLANET36ForWindowsAndSilverlight.aspx

I have added the Expert 2008 Busines Objects to my 'to read' list.
I also share the Rocky's view that UI future belongs to WPF/Silverlight/XAML .

Subsystems of CSLA.NET 3.6

1. 90% of the code will be shared between .net and silverlight applications,with less than 10% code being different.
My Comment - Amen

2. Databinding
My Comment -Databinding reduces the plumbing between UI and business objects. That is something our frameworks should exploit

3. Object Status Tracking(new, changed , marked for deletion)
My Comment - Cool

4. Standardization of business and validation rule processing

5. Integration with, and simplification of , .NET authentication model.

6. Undo capabilities
Not too exciting feature for Web Based applicaions.

7.Enhanced support for LINQ queries against your business model.
My Comment--
LINQ is for major enhancement in .NET 3.5 platform since Generics in .NET 2.0
LINQ is something definately that one should exploit.

8. Aysnchronous data access and Asynchronous Validation Rules
My Comment--
I can understand that one can run the queries and expect to notified by the system.Aysnchronous Validation. Beats me.

These subsystems are exposed through a set of base classes from which you inherit to create your business objects. These base classes enable a set of object stereotypes:
1. Editable Root
2. Editable Child
3. Dynamic list -- Not for asp.net
4. Read-only root
5. Read-only Child
6. Name/Value List
7. Command

My Comment-
Only Command Pattern sounds interesting other bases classes sounds more like noise in the framework.
It is interesting how one can abstract Command Pattern in the framework.

Mobile Objects-
My Comment - With Remoting out of favor, Mobile objects sound more like a philosphical approach than tactical solution.

CSLADataSource & DataMapper
My Comment -- Having burnt my fingers with Object Data Source, having Custom Object Data Source is way to go. With Mobile Objects out of favor, you need DataMapper to convert proxy objects/Data Objects into real Business Objects.

WindowFlowManger:-
Simplifies launching,suspending and resuming a workflow instance.

CSLA.Net for SilverLight

Does TDD mean less ROI (Return on Investement) ?

2008-12-25T17:49:00.002-08:00

1. There is a belief that TDD means more development effort.

Code + Unit Tests = 2 Times Code

It should be replaced by
Code + More Features = Code + More Features.

It sounds very logical and is considered to be insane to spent time on unit tests.

2. Found a nice link

Mark Needham says that in most of organization, first release is considered, and in this case then yes. It may be quicker to develop a system in Non TDD way.
Average life of a software system is 3 years. If we develop a system in 6 months , we have a two and half year of maintenance hell.

3. For Mark Needham Post, Microsoft recently released a paper which suggested that code written using a TDD approach takes longer to write originally but puts less bugs in the system.

4. My thinking is that whole argument is wrong. TDD means writing a failing test first and then writing your programs. When you estimate every programming task, you also allocate unit testing also. Programmer has the privilege either to automate the unit test or manually test the program. Automated system will save the programmer to manually test the system whenever he makes the change.
So, a TDD based approach with right programmers should save time.

5. Basically the real argument is whether building industrial strength applications takes more time than non-industrial application. Answer is yes. TDD means that one has to adopt multi-layer and multi-tiered architecture. If you don't want enterprise application, TDD is not for you.

Moq,RhinoMock and Lambda(AAA) expressions

2008-12-25T13:37:00.001-08:00

Last time I played with RhinoMock , I was in state of shock and awe. I was awed because it improved my design. It requrired that the code under test should to be isolated from rest of application. That was done using Interfaces . Contract based programming is always best way of programming. I could test behavioral aspect of my code.It would have been little difficult using xUnit framework. It was almost creating a simulation flight envrionment and enjoying the pleasure of real flights.

I was also shocked by the fact that my behavioral tesing Line of codes were many times more than code under test.

I was left in no doubt that Mocking is very powerful and advance technique of TDD. Also at the same time, It will make selling TDD difficult to people new to programming.

Hopefully Lambda expression may help in that direction.

Lamdba Expression (It started as syntactic sugar)

2008-12-25T13:25:00.000-08:00

A Lambda expression is an anonymous function that can contain expressions and statements, and can be used to create delegates or expression tree types.

Lamdba expressions are used in method-based LINQ queries as arguments to standard query operator methods such as where.

Func Delegate

Encapsulates a method that has one parameter and return a value of the type specified by the TResult parameter.

using System;

delegate string ConvertMethod(string inString);

public class DelegateExample
{
public static void Main()
{
// Instantiate delegate to reference UppercaseString method
ConvertMethod convertMeth = UppercaseString;
string name = "Dakota";
// Use delegate instance to call UppercaseString method
Console.WriteLine(convertMeth(name));
}

private static string UppercaseString(string inputString)
{
return inputString.ToUpper();
}
}

After using Func Delegate becomes

using System;

public class GenericFunc
{
public static void Main()
{
// Instantiate delegate to reference UppercaseString method
Func convertMethod = UppercaseString;
string name = "Dakota";
// Use delegate instance to call UppercaseString method
Console.WriteLine(convertMethod(name));
}

private static string UppercaseString(string inputString)
{
return inputString.ToUpper();
}
}

Exrpession Tree Basics
http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie/archive/2008/01/31/expression-tree-basics.aspx

Expression Tree

http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie/archive/2008/01/31/expression-tree-basics.aspx

Lambda Expressions gave birth to new Mocking Framework called Moq and influenced the RhinoMocks to also include this syntax

http://www.lostechies.com/blogs/jimmy_bogard/archive/2008/10/05/three-simple-rhino-mocks-rules.aspx

I am finally sold to Agile Methodology

2008-12-24T06:23:00.000-08:00

This year, our company held two days Agile Workshop.
The workshop was conducted by Robert Martin.
Before attending the workshop, I had some reservations about Agile Methodology as a complete Strategic Methodology for technology department.
Bob gave a 360 degree overview of Agile Methodology.
After the technical workshop, I am convinced that Agile Methodology can be effectively used to bu id the whole systems (from Requirement to Release).

Some highlights
1. Agile Methodology works as a whole. You can't take some part of it and make it work.

2. All developers need to have designing and architecting skills

3. Your production code can have some bad code but not automated Unit/Integration tests

4. Aim for 100% Test automation

5. If a test execution time is short, it is a unit test otherwise it is a integration test.

I also used this opportunity to get his autograph on his famous book Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices

Next Year Resolution

2008-12-24T06:13:00.000-08:00

Business Aspect
1. To Be Domain Expert

Technical Aspect
1. Keep learning new technologies and frameworks related to .Net
(SilverLight 2.0,JQuery)
2. Learn Ruby on Rails
Last time I tried with a Expert level book and failed. This time , I am going to try with easy book and succeed.
3. Brush up my Java knowledge.

Selling old books to make room for new books

2008-12-24T05:42:00.001-08:00

My books on Sale
http://shops.half.ebay.com/vikasnetdev_W0QQmZbooks

Books that I would like to buy/read

1. Framework Design Guidelines (version 2)2.

2. Microsoft® .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise (PRO-Developer) (Paperback)

I use books written by Dino Esposito as reference books for .net. I will definitely buy his any book and specially if it is recommended on codebetter.com

3. Any Good Silverlight 2.0 book

4. Any Good JQuery Book

5. Expert 2008 Business Object

Job Satisfication -- Full Time vs Technical Contractor

2008-12-14T13:25:00.000-08:00

After one year being as full time employee, I have come to conclusion that quantifying criteria for Job Satisifiction is different than that of Technical Contractor.
Programming/Designing is just one part of Job.
There is nothing called

Perfect Systems

.
Take constraints and build the

Good Enough Systems

within those constraints.

Design and Testability

2008-12-14T13:12:00.000-08:00

Good Question.

Can you write effective unit tests without knowlegde of designing ?
I think that Jeremy is right in saying no.
OOP is all about design.
Concepts like Object, Collaboration and Messaging or Inheritance,Polymorphism and Encapsulation are all about design.

If a person does not understand OOP,Domain Driven Design, he can hardly write effective unit tests.

In OOP , one has to take 100 design decisions(which code goes to which class or layer) per day.

TDD is advance concept to master. One has to learn OOP and Design Patterns before that.

How do you tame the many heads of the hydra? Codebetter.com

2008-12-14T11:02:00.000-08:00

http://codebetter.com/blogs/kyle.baley/archive/2008/12/10/how-do-you-tame-the-many-heads-of-the-hydra.aspx

I agree with the author

This is probably my default approach. Hunker down and get your work done within the constraints laid out for you. Fix what you can, when you can. The application will morph. Try to control the shape and rate in which it does so. Knock of one head of the hydra at a time and hope three more don't grow in its place. It's probably not the most glamourous position to take but like any stance that involves lowering your standards, it's easier to attain your goals.

When you are responsible for delivery of Software System, delivery matters.
Wait for right opportunity for refactoring and keep everything ready
(acquire the knowledge of system and have resharper).
Have right resources in your team.
Don't be afraid to take course correction.
If there is technique,framework or advancement in platform that helps you do more with less code, adopt it . (Generics)
If something is not working, abandon it.(Microsoft ObjectDataSorurce)
Break consistency, if benefits are overwhelming(Generic vs Strongly Typed Collections)

Resharper Revisited

2008-11-24T19:32:00.000-08:00

Visual Studio vs Resharper

http://www.greymatter.com/documents/pdf/00014242.pdf

Resharper(Refactoring) encourages Domain Driven Design

Resharper encourages Design Patterns

Resharper makes programmer more Productive.

Found a nice bag of goodies.

2008-10-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.codeplex.com/reflectoraddins

found via codebetter.com

ASP.NET MVC Links

2008-09-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

Start by downloading MVC from Microsoft Web Site. Some great tutorials and walkthroughs

http://www.asp.net/mvc/

If you have worked on Castle , it is very similar to Castle MVC framework.
It is easy but will require a different mindset.

Scout Gu has great tutorials of course.
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/04/16/asp-net-mvc-source-refresh-preview.aspx

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/12/03/asp-net-mvc-framework-part-2-url-routing.aspx

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/12/06/asp-net-mvc-framework-part-3-passing-viewdata-from-controllers-to-views.aspx

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/12/09/asp-net-mvc-framework-part-4-handling-form-edit-and-post-scenarios.aspx

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/09/02/asp-net-mvc-preview-5-and-form-posting-scenarios.aspx

Purification of My Soul

2008-09-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

Couple of months back , my foucs shifted away from technology and I feel my soul is corrupted.
I am going to purify my soul by architecting,designing and developing a part-time small project

Here is the architecture of my applicaion.

SilverLight2 + Asp.net MVC + WCF + Linq

Date 10/5/2008

I did some research how to asp.net MVC with SileverLight

Approach 1: WebService + ASP.net MVC

Pro :Since the framework is same , there must be some way of hacking services to point to controllers

Cons: Lot of work required. Microsoft examples show that ASP.NET MVC is not geared towards that direction

Approach 2: Add another layer, service layer in my architecture.

Business Manager should also handle the controller responsiblities.
http://vikasnetdev.blogspot.com/2006/07/soa-friendly-architecture-version-of.html

Thought of day

2008-09-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

After a long stint in consulting , I decided to try permanent position couple of months back.
During this period, my blogging activity has come down. I am more careful about my blogging now.

Latest Technologies to learn

1. Silverlight 2.0
2. Linq
3. ASP.NET MVC
4. Biztalk

Technologies to brush up
1. .Net
2. WCF,WF

97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know

2008-09-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

Some highlights:
1. Don't put resume ahead of requirements

SOA == WebSerices came from above.

2. Chances are you biggest problem is not technical

3. Learn from Architect of Buildings.
Survic is not going to like this one

4.

My Additions:
1. User Interface rules. Ignore it at your peril.

http://97-things.near-time.net/wiki/show/97-things-every-software-architect-should-know-the-book

Houston, We have a memory leak

2008-08-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

Recently I was investigating a memory leak with other colleagues. The windows service was giving out of memory exception. This windows services in short does lot of xml processing and serializes xml into business objects.

Naturally, first our needle of suspicion fell upon usual suspects i.e.. XMLDocument and XMLReader. Calling close and set them null multiple times didn’t help. While googling for a strong evidence against XMLDocument, I stumbled upon a clue that we were looking at wrong places and culprit may be XMLSerializer class. I googled for a connection between XMLSerializer and found tons of damning blogs and articles.

It is even documented by Microsoft in their MSDN documentation

To increase performance, the XML serialization infrastructure dynamically generates assemblies to serialize and deserialize specified types. The infrastructure finds and reuses those assemblies. This behavior occurs only when using the following constructors:

XmlSerializer..::.XmlSerializer(Type)

XmlSerializer..::.XmlSerializer(Type, String)

If you use any of the other constructors, multiple versions of the same assembly are generated and never unloaded, which results in a memory leak and poor performance. The easiest solution is to use one of the previously mentioned two constructors. Otherwise, you must cache the assemblies in a Hashtable, as shown in the following example.

Reference:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.serialization.xmlserializer.aspx
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=98384

A very good article about debugging memory leaks

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163491.aspx

A nice website about memory leaks

http://blogs.msdn.com/tess/archive/2006/02/15/532804.aspx

There a knowledge base article about this problem
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886385/en-us

Are we facing a a virtual bytes leak, a native leak or a .NET leak
Important Counters

1.Process\Private Bytes
2.Process\Virtual Bytes
3. .NET CLR Memory\# Bytes in all heaps
4. .NET CLR Memory\# Total committed bytes
5. .NET CLR Memory\# Total reserved bytes
6. .NET CLR Loading\Current Assemblies

If the curves for private bytes and bytes in all heaps diverge we either have a "native leak" which means that we have a native component that is leaking (in which case debug diag would be the next step), or we have an assembly leak.

http://blogs.msdn.com/tess/archive/2008/03/17/net-debugging-demos-lab-6-memory-leak.aspx

Reasons for moving VSS to TFS

2008-07-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

1. Automated Database Schema versioning
Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals delivers on Microsoft’s commitment to provide tools that reduce communication barriers and complexity across software development teams.

This new member of the Team System family fulfills increasing demand in the market for more advanced tools for managing database changes by providing a foundation to reduce risk, ensure quality and speed deployment. Database architects, developers, administrators and other database professionals can now employ integrated change-management functionality to streamline changes to their databases and reduce the risk of catastrophic failure related to the alteration of database schemas. In addition, database professionals may now drive better quality earlier in the development process through integrated database testing, including support for database unit tests, complex test authoring and automatic generation of meaningful test data.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/may06/05-31vsdatabasepr.mspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163472.aspx
2. Merging Capabilities.

How to create an architecture in 5 days?

2008-07-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

The answer is that I don't know. :)

Let us try.

1. Application Architecture (MVP,MVC,Business Layer , Data Layer, Communication among Layers)

2. Microsoft Application blocks for Logging,Exception

3. Dependency Injection(Spring, Unity)

4. O/R(Nhibernate,Linq) or Code Generation
O/R Mapper may seem tempting but Code Generation will give more value in long generation.

5. Continuous Integration

I think that one will need atleast 3 man weeks to come up with an architecture.

Leading a project

2008-07-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

http://survic.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-lead-project-opposite-of.html

The difference between Waterfall and Agile is that one does not Architecture in place and one has. (I have never seen anyone following Waterfall giving a single hoot about Architecture).
Another way of looking at this is whether we need upfront design or not.

Before starting a new project, these are the following points to keep in mind

1. Which architectural patterns and design patterns worked for you in past
2. Current Good Practices
3. One’s Enterprise Environment
4. Business Requirements

One should have an architecture and framework which should be helpful to young member of teams as well as not restricting for senior members. Application will grow and will come complex.

UI Testing:
Follow an architectural pattern (MVP or MVC) which will force team to push major portion of code in business layer.

Have a consistent flow of requirements, prioritize them and transform them into design.

Admin:
Source Control

Coding Standards

Politics : Face it or Quit.

Links

http://agiletips.blogspot.com/2008/07/agile-bridge-analogy.html

New Ford Slogan-- Seen on TV

2008-05-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

Quality is about finding solutions before the problems happen.

Agile Estimating and Planning--My Rating--4 out of 5

2008-04-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1: The purpose of planning

Cone of uncertainity:Boehm's initial ranges of uncertainity at different points in a sequential development process.
http://www.construx.com/Page.aspx?hid=1648

Chapter 2 : Why planning fails
Drawbacks of planning by Activity rather than feature.

Mulitasking Causes Further Delays

Is Microsoft's MVC is going to be the Tipping Point

2008-04-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

If one goes by the blog buzz, the answer seems to be yes

The Tipping point is that Magic Moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold,tips and spread like wildfire.

References
1. http://books.google.com/books?id=MMlxzMNkE_0C&vq=tipping+point&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0

2.http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2008/04/07/things-really-are-changing-in-the-net-community.aspx

Who changed my Flag?

2008-03-31T19:27:00.000-07:00

I am working on complex workflow application where different services or components can modify same flag.

While we are doing good job of tracking the state of workflow, one flag in database is inadverently getting modified.

How one can track which process or component modified the flag

1. Log the SQLs.
2. Every Service/Component should modify the timestamp with its signature.
3. Search the Sourcesafe's stored procedure directory.

Toyota Production System(TPS)

2008-01-24T21:39:00.000-08:00

In the most simplistic definition of TPS all manufacturing activities are divided into adding value or creating waste. The goal of TPS is to maximize value by eliminating waste.

Defining value can be one of the most difficult tasks a company can undertake. TPS has addressed this issue with a very elegant solution; value is an item or feature for which a customer is willing to pay. When this metric of value is implemented it allows companies using TPS to have an exceedingly clear vision when analyzing an activity or process. No organization likes waste, however it is difficult to eliminate waste if it cannot be identified. The Toyota Production System forces companies to ask, “Would someone pay for this?” If the answer is no, then it's waste.

In software , generally extra value means more bells and whistles. I think that agile stories are more aligned with TPS rather than traditional up-front design.

Reference:
TPS(Toyota Production System)

The MIT researchers found that TPA was so much more effective and efficient than traditional, mass production that it represented a completely new paradigm and coined the term "Lean Production" to indicate this radically different approach to production.

Reference:
http://www.swmas.co.uk/Lean_Tools/Toyota_Production_System.php
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/vision/production_system/

http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/vision/production_system/illustration.html

Victor talks about the striking similarties betwen Agile methodology and TPS
http://www.danube.com/blog/victorszalvay/practices_without_principles_tps_without_the_toyota_way.html

Can Lean Production and Over Engineering go hand-in-hand

2008-01-24T21:32:00.000-08:00

Yes, Camry proves the above point.
Over engineering results in over delivering.
One can always drop extras with out compromising over the core features.

Reference:
How Toyota became #1

How Toyota became #1 -- 4 stars out of 5.

2008-01-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

How Toyota became #1

Stupid, it was processes not tool.

Very readable. I was able to read from cover page to the end.

Highlights

1. Focusing on the long term.
2. Jumping beyond the current trend
3. Making quality everyone's responsibility
4. Striving for continuous improvement
5. Managing Individual strengths
6. Committing to authentic transformation.

TPS(Toyota Production System) - A signature formula for lean production, in which waste is minimized and efficiency maximized.

NUMMI(New United Manufacturing, Inc) - A joint venture that was supposed to benefit the both partners. One made the most and other frittered away the benefits.

Raise the bar to unreachable heights
over engineering has its own benefits.

Take all time to take decision but execution should be speedy and efficient.

Bad news first.

Next planned reading

The Toyota way

On a lighter note: I have been critical of Corporate Software Development process in general.
If Toyota's rival has not implemented the above processes and adhering to above principles, we , in software field are then doing an excellent job.

Model/View/Provider and Black Art of Mock Objects

2007-11-25T18:48:00.000-08:00

References:
1. http://haacked.com/archive/2006/08/09/ASP.NETSupervisingControllerModelViewPresenterFromSchematicToUnitTestsToCode.aspx

2.

http://www.jpboodhoo.com/blog/AnswersToSomeGoodQuestions.aspx

3. http://blog.vuscode.com/malovicn/archive/2007/02/04/tdd-rhino-mocks-part-1-introduction.aspx

4. Rhino Mock Documentation

SOA and CRUD

2007-11-22T07:10:00.000-08:00

SOA and CRUD

There is complete census that CRUD is Anti-SOA pattern

Simon thinks that one can think of CRUD as business events rather than service operations

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/johnston?entry=crud_vs_business_operations_events

Maarten Mullender’s says to take the best of both worlds. Use CRUD interfaces for service when concurrent updates can be avoided because
1. Updates are seldom, or
2. Updates have only one source (person or system)

http://blogs.msdn.com/maarten_mullender/archive/2004/07/23/193524.aspx

Ramkumar Kothandaraman writes
If one of the services fails to handle the CRUD request, then the EA service should be able to handle this business exception. One of the mechanisms to handle a business exception involves executing a flow that compensates for prior activities.
A Business Analyst usually determines Compensation Logic. Compensation Logic can be either automated or manual. For example, a compensation action may involve alerting the monitoring facility when one of the services returns a business exception, leading to a manual resolution.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms954596.aspx

My thoughts
There are going to be CRUD operation even for a SOA scoped Application. Best way of writing optimum CRUD operations is to visualizing a client talking to a service rather than a traditional RPC application.
Service APIs will be designed or dictated by client application and it is responsibilty of client to submit bulk CRUD operation with concise payload. It is responsibility of client to make sure that it has correct state.

Have no Architect in Team and this is what you get

2007-10-12T16:11:00.000-07:00

The Winchester Mystery House

Quantifying Complexity: .NET vs. J2EE

2007-09-27T13:37:00.000-07:00

Found via
http://www.davidchappell.com/blog/2006_12_01_weblog.html

Customer may be willing more to pay for J2EE solutions(28%) because of cross-platform where .Net is still lagging behind

SOA Facts

2007-09-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

Found via Dotnet Fox

SOA Facts

They are just hilarious on lines Chuck Norris Facts

Code is Model

2007-09-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

Interesting thoughts
http://devhawk.net/2005/10/05/Code+Is+Model.aspx

Though the C# or VB Code is a higer abstraction than Cobol,C or Assembly Language.
But today we are solving far complex problems than people were solving with assembly language.

Still I think we need Model at higer abstraction for good communication among different shareholders.

Communication Patterns

2007-09-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/09/steve-jones-qcon-london

According to above presentation, business should lead IT and IT should be aligned along with Business. It is not happening because there is lot of miscommunication.
Hence there is need of communication patterns.

My thoughts
Communication patterns can be derived by use of

1. Domain Driven Design (inputs user stories, user interviews,requirements,glossaries)
2. 1 will lead to ubiquitous language

Ubiquitous Language
1.
Ubiquitrons

2. Where Does the Ubiquitous Language Come From?

Silverlight Links

2007-09-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

http://blogs.msdn.com/bobfamiliar/archive/2007/08/30/adopting-silverlight-an-architects-point-of-view.aspx

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/06/19/building-silverlight-applications-using-net.aspx

http://www.wynapse.com/Silverlight_Tutorials.aspx

http://www.vertigo.com/familyshow.aspx

http://windowsclient.net/downloads/folders/wpfsamples/default.aspx

SOA and Business Intelligence

2007-09-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.infoq.com/articles/BI-and-SOA

Had a interesting chat with Enterprise Architect sometime back.

My thinking before chat was that is very limited place for SOA in BI platform.
After the chat , we agreed that though BI platform is well supported by ETL process but SOA thinking can definitely make BI ecosystem a better place to live in.

http://www.webservices.org/weblog/patrick_leonard/high_performance_soa_a_contradiction_in_terms

Fire you best people

2007-09-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.testearly.com/2007/08/17/fire-your-best-peoplereward-the-lazy-ones/

Found via
http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2007/09/25/fire-your-best-people.aspx

My thoughts are that one has to wear the one or other hat at different stages of development process.
I can be the lazy developer while designing the solution and had to be the fast one while fixing the issues during QA testing.
Lazy ones do get hard time at start of project by Management. But once they are spoted, they are awarded with complex assignments, where as fast ones only get the routines programming assignment. (Some people may not consider complex assignments as awards.

Making Web Based Business Intelligence Tool Web 2.0 compatible

2007-09-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

Here is my roadmap

1.AJAX By using AJAX to give rich experience to users
2. Personalization.
3. Improving performance,performance and performance

Links
1. http://www.codeproject.com/Ajax/IntroAjaxASPNET.asp

Causes of Chinese Bridge Collapse

2007-08-14T19:06:00.000-07:00

China's Construction Project Rushed

Some Quotes from above article. Bold captions are mine.

1. Unreasonable Deadlines

They are sometimes rushed - often leading to design or building flaws - in order to finish work on time, or even before expected completion dates.

2. Lack of right skilled resources

A lack of properly trained workers also means plans are not always carried out to designers' wishes, experts say.

3. No Consistent Standards

Tao Hongyi, China director for the bridge builder Dorman Long Technology, says standards vary across the country.

"Big projects in major cities are usually built to a high standard, but lesser projects in remote areas often slip under the radar," says Mr Tao, whose UK-based firm has built eight major bridges in China.

China is a country driven by dreams, so projects have to meet targets

4. Callous Management

Mr Tao says another problem is that big construction projects are controlled by politicians in China, not engineers.

These local officials like to see projects delivered on time - it makes them look good," he says

5. Bad Design

There is also a lack of skilled foremen, who are vital if design ideas are to be turned into reality by often low-skilled workers.

6. Corruption/Low Paid Skilled Worker Force

Corruption is also an issue in the construction industry.

7. Underestimated Stress/Load test

Xiao Rucheng, secretary-general of the Institute of Bridge and Structural Engineering, says projects are now completed in ever-shorter time spans.

"In the past, designing a bridge needed at least one year, but now it usually takes one month," he said, speaking before the bridge collapse on Tuesday, in Fenghuang County in central China's Hunan Province.

"You even find bridge designers working overnight to finish the task," he adds.

Another problem, he says, is that many of China's 500,000 or so bridges were not built to withstand today's increasing traffic volumes.

"Many bridges were designed and built 20 years ago when designers did not predict the huge traffic flows today," he says.

8. Cheap Material

One foreign architect working in Beijing says developers would rather use cheap, shoddy building materials rather than more durable, but expensive, products, even on high-end projects.

Why Fit is hard to sell to Business Analysts/Customers

2007-08-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

1. Needs extra effort from Business Analyst/Customer. xUnit is sole prerogative of developers.

2. Any acceptance test which bypasses User Interface is hard to sell to Business Analysts

3. No great User Interface exists for B.A/Customers to create and Manage Fit Tests.I am very hopeful that this problem will be solved once Jeremy's StoryTeller is out.

Reference
1. http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2007/08/12/why-i-m-suddenly-down-on-fit-fitnesse.aspx

ObjectMother vs Mock/Stub

2007-08-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

http://vikasnetdev.blogspot.com/2007/01/no-stubs-no-mocks-just-use.html
I was quoted on following forum
http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/08/object_mother

Very interesting article and also do read the comments.

I think that I am on the same page with vast majority of programmatic TDD practitioners.

Another tragic accident-- Minnesota Bridge Collapse

2007-08-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20070803/cm_usatoday/abridgeinamericajustshouldntfalldown

A bridge in America just shouldn't fall down

In 1983, a 100-foot span of the Mianus River Bridge, part of Interstate 95 in Connecticut, came crashing down without warning in the middle of the night. The toll — three dead, three injured — would have undoubtedly been higher had the collapse happened during rush hour, as occurred Wednesday evening in Minnesota.

In 2003, more than one of every four bridges was designated as "structurally deficient" or "functionally obsolete."

New technologies — ultrasound to find cracks that aren't visible to the naked eye and computer programs to predict the future condition of bridges based on current data — could greatly improve the safety of the nation's aging bridges

Professional Rich Internet Applicatons : AJAX and Beyond -- My Rating 5/5

2007-08-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

Generally I don't give 5/5 to any book unless it influences my thinking. This book did the trick and brought my brain to live state again.
A must read not to just stay fashionable but also to make sure not to get technically obselete.

Chapter 1. What characterizes Rich Internet Applications

Excellent Chapter that brain washes one brain to buy this book.If you want to build a killer application that can cause envy to google. This chapter is a must read. A nice point raised by authors is that Rich Internet Applications has to be developed using Service Oriented Architecture mindset.Generally I am against scoping an application using SOA mindset in Conception/Design phase that involves creating imaginary users for services. But it does not hurt to figure out what strategic advantages other applications can acquire using this application.

Chapter 2. RIA Foundations
XML,XHTML,CSS, Javascript
I cannot disagree with Author or Survic

Chapter 3. Programmable Web : The Mashup Ecosystem

If you dont't know Mash or think that it is something of voddo magic that you cannot use,just read this chapter.

Chapter 4. Getting Started: Creating your First RIA
If you thought AJAX is just a buzzword , marketing hype then this chapter is for you.
Author builds an excellent case for one to think about using AJAX to enhance the user experience.

Chapter 5. Debugging the Client Side
Debugging Tools : Firefox, The Mozilla DOM Inspector, The Javascript Console,Venkman,Firebug,Markup Validation etc.
Logging : The Alert Function

Chapter 6. The Model View Controller Pattern
I am glad that I implemented in some form in my applications.

Chapter 7. Javascript Library Survey

Why use Javscript Libraries

Various Libraries: Dojo,MochiKit,Script.aculo.us, Yahoo!UI Library

Chapter 8. Compiling to Javascript
Google Web Toolkit

Chapter 9. An Introduction to ideaStax

Chapter 10. Form Validation

Client -Side Validation with Dojo

Chapter 11. Form Usability

Chapter 12. Drag and Drop

Chapter 13. User Interaction, Effects and Animation

Chapter 14. Tagging and Rating

Chapter 16. Providing an API

Is not posting frequenty == brain dead?

2007-08-07T18:54:00.000-07:00

Yes.
Thanks God that I do read survic blog and picked up a book called Professional Rich Internet Applications(AJAX and Beyond) from library.

Reckless sturctural changes to supporting beams lead to building collapse and 24 deaths

2007-07-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

Accoriding to news clips, reckless structural changes to supporting beams by a Jeweller who owned the shop on ground led to collapse of building. This resulted in 24 deaths including three his relatives(his wife and two kids).

Lessons for software Architects from this tragic incident
1. cover your framework by automated tests
2. Never make changes to framework unless you know what you are doing
3. Never make changes to framework if you running short on time.
4. Have a plan B
5. Never let junior programmers mess with framework.

Links

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289861,00.html
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Top_Headlines/Police_form_special_team_to_investigate_collapse/articleshow/2218153.cms

Books that Influenced me

2007-07-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

1. VB5.0/6.0 Business Objects VB.Net/C# by Rockford Lhotka

This book influenced me to read following books

1. Object Oriented Design by Grady Booch

2. UML

3. Refactoring

4. GOF Design Patterns

and then

1. FIT

2. Software Architecture in Practice

Link
http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2007/07/04/the-books-that-influenced-me.aspx