Alex Lowe's .NET Blog

Blog moved....

AlexLowe — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:12:00 GMT

My blog moved to http://callmealex.com/cs.

Kick my butt on fantasy football.....

AlexLowe — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 17:43:00 GMT

Tim created a fantasy football league for all of us .NETers. Anybody can join and it should be a good time!

What's a local office to do.....

AlexLowe — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 04:04:00 GMT

Roy brings up a great point that was raised in his comments - local Microsoft offices have a new challenge as the product groups become more transparent and involved in the online communities.

As someone who works in a local Microsoft office in the United States, this is something that I think about frequently. I agree with Roy that the bar has been raised and the local offices have to work harder to be involved in and support the local markets.

I will also say that supporting the local community is difficult in the US (and we get a product group roadshow or two to stop by each year) so I can only imagine how difficult it is for the other subsidiaries. I know that the product group tours are being planned for the next twelve months and I think you will see the support from both the local and Redmond based community efforts increasing in scope and value.

I want to comment on Roy's analogy a bit. Roy's analogy compares a 'closed' market to an 'open' market and how that relates to Microsoft's local offices before and after the product groups began their community push. While this analogy is accurate at face value, it neglects to take into account that there is one subtle but oh so important difference - in the case of the Microsoft offices and the product groups, the product groups are the only ones that can actually provide telephone service. The Microsoft offices were operating in a closed market but they could not actually provide telephone service, they merely provided a face for the service, support for the service, and the contracts you needed to sign to use the service.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm NOT saying that the local Microsoft subsidiaries or offices (I work in one for heavens sake!) have no value but I am saying that what a local subsidiary or office can provide to the local community is much different than what the product groups can provide. Also remember that the focus and goals of these two different groups of people are very different so don't expect the tasks they perform to achieve their goals to be similar either.

OK, so I've soap boxed about the differences. Hopefully this gives you a different perspective on the issue (and believe me I agree with Roy that there is an issue). So, after reading what I've just written, what can the local subsidiaries/offices do to better support the local developer community? I'd love to hear generic suggestions that can be used in any geography as well as geography specific suggestions (I'll try to make sure they get to the appropriate person in your geography so fire away).

Visual Studio 2005 May CTP Class Designer Tricks/Tips.....

AlexLowe — Tue, 15 Jun 2004 15:28:00 GMT

Here are a few things I've learned about the Class Designer and ASP.NET Projects:

The Class Designer will *not* pick up classes defined inline in a .aspx page
The Class Designer will pick up classes stored in the new /code directory (read more about /code)
If no class files are present in your ASP.NET project and you try to create a class diagram, Visual Studio will only let you create a C# class. This is a known issue and will be fixed going forward. Again, this is only an issue if you have no class files. To work around this problem you simply add a .vb file to the project and all is well.

High School kids build ASP.NET Websites using Linux and Microsoft WebMatrix.....

AlexLowe — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 22:54:00 GMT

Ok, so the heading is a little misleading and I'll explain in detail why later in the post.

A few months ago (in March) I volunteered to work with a group of high school students at a local high school here in Detroit, MI. U of D High is a private all boys school and I attended a public school in Michigan so it was an interesting experience for me to see such a different environment. At any rate, the students at U of D High wanted to learn something about Microsoft and the web technology we use to build web applications. Naturally, we (the class) decided to focus on ASP.NET.

The Environment

The school had two computer labs and one of them had old (Pentium 100Mhz) computers in it. The newer lab runs Windows XP but is taken every evening because they use it to teach “official“ classes through the school. So, we got the old lab. The old labe runs RedHat linux. The lab configuration presented the first challenge for the myself and the class. I wanted to teach them about Microsoft software so while I'm sure I could have cobbled something together with Mono, an important part of the class was that we were using something Microsoft produced.

Once you remove Mono (and other non-Microsoft .NET clones) from the equation, you aren't left with many options on the Linux platform. We decided that Microsoft should donate a copy of Windows 2003 Server to the school's Tech Club, install Web Matrix, and then provide terminal access from Linux to the Windows 2003 Server. We locked down the server and setup the terminal sessions so the students could only launch Web Matrix. Web Matrix, if you're not familiar with it, is a free development environment for building ASP.NET applications. We also installed MSDE for them to use as a database back end. This was a solution that didn't cost the school anything but the time that myself and the network administrator spent setting it all up - we could all live with that.

The Kids

The technology we build at Microsoft is great but the kids were a blast. I have a pretty extensive Linux background so it was a lot of fun exchanging ideas on Linux and Windows with the couple students who were Linux fans. In fact, we (myself and a couple students) spent two hours after one session talking about what it would take for one of the students to migrate from Windows to Linux. That is, what it would take to replace every application he uses in Windows with a Linux equivalent and what that experience would be like. It was fun educational for all.

The class was made up of about 15 kids from 14 to 17 years old. A couple of the kids had prior programming experience but most were very new to programming.

The Class

We spent 2 hours on 8 Tuesday afternoons after school working on the material. The MSDN Academic Alliance has a wonderful curriculum repository. We used material from that repository. There was a lot to learn for many of the students because some of them had zero programming experience so I spent some time with them focused on the basics of writing code. Thankfully, WebMatrix made things fun no matter what because even with their limited ability to write code, they could still do some cool stuff (obviously nothing complicated) with the tool.

The Contest

The last two weeks of the class we spent time on a contest that we (Microsoft) decided was a fitting end to the course. We gave three prizes (first prize was an XBOX w/ three games!) so they had incentive to spend some quality time on the contest. I worked with the schools IT manager to come up with a contest that could be turned into something useful for the school once it was complete. We decided that the students should all build an online school store (Cub Corner). The details about the contest and more about the winners can be found here.

The Lesson

I think a lot of lessons were learned. I think the kids learned a lot about web development in general, Microsoft (the people, the culture, the company), and some of them learned that web development was something they'd like to continue doing (Mr. Hanschenekt now has 5 new students for his Tech club).

I learned a lot about my teaching skills (or lack there of at times) and about what it can mean for students to interact with professionals. We, as Microsoft employees (as do all people), have a lot we can give back to our local communities. I hope that more Microsoft employees will consider doing something similar to this course in their geography as it is a truly rewarding experience.

I see that other Microsoft employees have been doing something similar. And, as Josh Ledgard said, I wonder how many more things like this are going on around the world? Forget Microsoft, I wonder how many more things like this are going on around the world using any kind of technology? Got a story to share?

New version of Microsoft Solutions Framework (with Agile twist).....

AlexLowe — Mon, 24 May 2004 19:35:00 GMT

Technically, there are now two models for MSF - formal and agile.

Oh, and one cannot forget Visual Studio Team System (something I've been drooling over for months now). All I can say is, software development life cycle tools for .NET development have fully arrived.

Anyway, exciting stuff coming out that I think will have as big an impact on development teams as any feature added to VB/C#, VS.NET, etc.

If you could make Microsoft do five things for developers.....

AlexLowe — Tue, 04 May 2004 02:46:00 GMT

Robert Scoble believes that MSDN Magazine is like the PDC (in terms of content) but a cursory glance at the articles over the last 17 months doesn't support that claim. There wasn't a single issue in 2003 with content (that made the cover - most articles are referenced on the cover) focused on future technology. Three of five this year have covered/focused on future technology. I don't think that is very consistent and it certainly does not indicate that it is like the PDC (which is virtually 100% forward looking) as you suggest.

The bottom line is that we (Microsoft) have development tools (VS.NET 2002, 2003) in use today. These tools have bugs (some big, some small) and they have not been fixed in the current versions of our software. There are many scenarios in which these tools can be used and many of the scenarios have not been written about in MSDN magazine or the MSDN on line presence. Don't get me wrong, I think the content that is out there is generally quite good. However, if I'm a software developer trying to get my job done today, I want the following things:

1) Microsoft to fix the bugs (in Visual Studio .NET, .NET Framework, etc.) that make it harder for me to build software
2) Microsoft to create more content that addresses the topics/scenarios that I face everyday
3) Microsoft to give me the ability to redistribute .NET Framework QFEs with my product (regardless of what size ISV I am) and make QFEs available to a wider audience (yes, I know that means more testing, etc.)
4) Microsoft to put more mployees on the lists, newsgroups, forums, etc. That is, I want folks that can help me with support type issues and I also want folks with experience actually implementing the technology.
5) Microsoft to expose a Bugzilla like database for .NET development related bugs. I would like to know if a bug I've encountered has been reported, if a fix is in the works, etc.

If Im a software developer, I want Microsoft to spend as much of its resources as physically, humanly, and financially possible to address the things above. At face value, any sign that Microsoft is doing otherwise will be viewed as negative (waste of money in the case of Greg but there are many other negative views) by many. I think most executives and employees feel we are doing everything physically, humanly, and financially possible to achieve those goals. That said, I think there are many developers who are not happy with the some of the results.

I've been compiling many gripes, concerns, bits of feedback, etc. from the blogosphere and the field for over a year now and what you see above is a 30,000 foot level view on the problems most developers face. What are your thoughts? Am I way off base here? If you were in charge, what five developer related things would you have Microsoft focus or invest in to make the developer experience a better one?

Crystal Reports blog by the Crystal Reports developers......

AlexLowe — Tue, 23 Mar 2004 01:55:00 GMT

It looks like the Business Objects folks want in on the blog action and they've setup a blog and a special section for articles over at ASPAlliance.com.

I think it would be a very cool blog entry (or perhaps an article) if they'd do a comparison of Crystal Reports and Microsoft's SQL 2000 Reporting Services........

.NET Application Foundation?.......

AlexLowe — Wed, 25 Feb 2004 04:48:00 GMT

Stefan Demetz wants Microsoft to create an Apache Foundation like organization for .NET developers. Here are a few observations (and my personal opinion) regarding the .NET community:

Personal opinion: Microsoft should be a supporter and active participant in the .NET community. Microsoft should NOT be the community. That said, you obvioiusly can't please everyone - people complain that Microsoft is too involved but they also complain when they feel Microsoft isn't engaged enough. We have to work to find the happy medium (I think that will involve a constant feedback/reaction mechanism).
Personal observation: The number of developers in the .NET community that want to code for free is much smaller proportionally when compared to those in the OSS world. An Apache Foundation like org for .NET would be neat but you have to have the developers. I know there are successful and useful OSS .NET projects like the nfoo series and DotNetNuke but that doesn't mean that something like an Apache Foundation like org is going to be a success.
Personal opinion: I don't think we need another Apache Foundation like org. There is nothing that prevents .NET OSS projects from utilizing the Apache Foundation as is. In fact, I've seen Apache Foundation members post on the blogs that anyone (including .NET folks) is welcome to propose a project to Apache Foundation. Between the Apache Foundation and the less restrictive SourceForge, I guess I'm of the opinion that the resources are out there but developers have to want to write code for free (that is what I think is missing).
Personal observation: The major difference between the .NET community and the OSS community is that .NET developers, in general, are more interested in writing, coding, etc. for money than they are for the love of the technology. I'm not saying that there aren't folks in the .NET community that code, etc. for the love of the technology - they are the minority, however. On the other hand, I think the developers in the OSS community tend to fall in the “code for love“ bucket more often than not. I'm not saying that this observation is good or bad; it is simply what I see/hear when talking to developers.

What do you all think?

Developers are not clueless.......

AlexLowe — Tue, 24 Feb 2004 08:48:00 GMT

Ok, so I've now seen a bunch of posts on the subject of "why developers don't build scalable systems". Sure, it's been phrased different ways:

“Why don't .NET developers grok scalable distributed computing? “
”Disinterested Programmers “
”The Middle 70%”

Ok, enough links and enough beating on this poor dead horse. I'd like to point out that I do believe that distributed computing technologies are important, just not to everyone. I also would agree that there are developers out there who should probably have a better understanding of distributed computing technologies and don't (this doesn't mean that everyone doesn't).

I worked as a consultant in a past life and I was had the opportunity to see, add to, repair, and complain about systems that were built by someone who did not know how to architect a scalable application. That said, I think that you are a) preaching to the choir as most people who read blogs are pretty “up on things“ and b) referring to a small percentage of applications (and developers by extension) that actually need to scale in any major way.

Virtually all of the non-scalable applications that I saw (your mileage may vary) in the wild were not scalable because of poor database design and/or inefficient coding routines. The issues that prevented these applications had very little to do with the fact that they did not utilize a properly designed distributed architecture. Sure, some of them could have benefitted from a distributed architecture but that was not the overriding problem. We could make the custom software world a better place if we:

1) Keep all “developers“ out of the database. Let someone who knows how to design a database do most of the design work. Developers, you folks should be providing input in the process and pointing out things that don't mesh with how you think things will work but you should NOT be designing the database.

2) Get developers to read code complete.

I think there are many other important things that we should be harping to improve the quality of custom software in the wild - things like an automated build process, instrumenting code, setting up a proper development environment/model, utilizing design guidelines, and utilizing test driven development. There are so many great concepts that developers should be using in all virtually all applications; given that, I don't see how I can push distributed programming down all of their throats. Honestly, distributed computing falls pretty low on my list of wishes for developers because I believe that it will have a dramatically smaller effect on the big picture of software development when compared with all of these fundamentally important aspects of the software development lifecycle. Then again, maybe it's just me that is clueless.

Are you using the Microsoft JVM?

AlexLowe — Tue, 24 Feb 2004 06:58:00 GMT

Are you using the Microsoft JVM? If you should know that (the quote below is from here)......

“In a settlement agreement reached in January 2001 to resolve a dispute over Microsoft's distribution of its Java implementation, Sun and Microsoft agreed to limit the duration of Microsoft's use of Sun's source code and compatibility test suites to support the MSJVM. Because some developers and enterprises have expressed concern about their ability to eliminate dependencies on the MSJVM in the time period originally provided, Sun and Microsoft have agreed to a longer period to permit a smooth transition from the MSJVM.”

The new extension allows Microsoft to support the JVM until September 30th, 2004. You should be thinking about whether or not you need to migrate from the Microsoft JVM. There is a great transition FAQ and transition guide available on the microsoft website. There is also the Diagnostic Tool for the Microsoft JVM that will help you identify if your applications have dependencies on the Microsoft JVM. You should also begin to identify any 3rd party applications you own that may have dependencies. Many of the vendors are working on mitigation strategies so you should contact them to stay in the loop.

To Webcast or to hold a local event?

AlexLowe — Tue, 24 Feb 2004 06:46:00 GMT

I would like to know if developers are more likely to watch a webcast or attend a local event (assuming the topic is the same and it is of interest to them? Personally, I like the local events because there is more to be gained from the event than just technical information. The networking and other small talk can be very beneficial. On the other hand, it is nice to be able to sit back and watch a webcast in the convenience of my cube or reclining chair at home. What is more useful to you or which do you prefer?

Do you subscribe to MSDN Flash?

AlexLowe — Tue, 24 Feb 2004 06:42:00 GMT

Is MSDN Flash useful to you? Do you subscribe? If you do, what do you like/dislike about the newsletter?

James Avery on Sam Gentile on Distributed Computing

AlexLowe — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 02:47:00 GMT

James Avery has written my thoughts on Sam's post better than I could in this post. Enterprise Services and Remoting are things that every “Enterprise Developer” should be aware of and using in many of their applications. That said, not everyone is an “Enterprise Developer” working on large applications that need Enterprise Services and Remoting.

I would like to point out, because James didn't, that Sam also notes in his post that *not all* applications require Enterprise Services or other distributed computing technologies. I believe Sam was saying that he believes there are a lot of applications that could benefit from Enterprise Services or a distributed architecture. However, he notes that many of these same applications don't make use of the technology because the developers are scared of the technology or don't understand it. I think he is spot on in this regard.

James has a great understanding of how software development works (and should work) in small, medium, and large companies. If you don't read his blog, you should. Rock on James!

Different part of the world means a different DevDays...apparently......

AlexLowe — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 02:26:00 GMT

I've seen a few posts in the blogosphere regarding the DevDays events that have occurred throughout the world. The one thing that is very apparent is that you are not guaranteed to see the same content or even get the same “goodie bag” from one DevDays to another. In fact, you are not even guaranteed to have paid the same price. I'll be honest and tell you that, while I have a few ideas of why this is the case, I'm not involved in the planning of DevDays throughout the world so I'm not going to speculate.

UPDATE: This post gives us a good idea why the DevDays in Belgium was different than others - “Microsoft Belgium decided to bring together their 2 major technical audiences (developers and IT professionals) in one big event: the Microsoft Belgium Developer & IT Pro Days 2004.”

However, I'm interested in hearing what you folks think about the differences? I mean, does it make sense that they are different? Do you think there is value in customizing the content for the geography? What about the other differences - “goodie bags”, etc.?

We want this event to be a great event throughout the world so I'm interested in what could be done to improve it.