I'm not even going to write much on this road map topic, I'm just looking forward to the ASP.NET MVC.  In almost every application I have lined up, even a lot of the prospective business intelligence work I have lined up this pattern architecture will be ridiculously useful!  Separation of concerns is of vital importance in so many aspects.

I'm all about being organized and neat in my code, to the point of a slight obsession.  The fact that the MVC enables a lot of this is absolutely great.  However I have to agree with Andy Wardley that MVC is not particularly the magic bullet that is going to give us a "100% clear" separation of concerns, but does guarantee us a separation.  There are however other segments and pieces that could or even do demand a separation.  The MVC is kind of a start.  What I have seen from the examples present by Hanselmen, Guthrie, and the other crew on the team the MVC they are producing will be one of the, if not the coolest MVC out.

Being that I have a year under my belt of the monstrosity that CAB and the SCSF attempted to piece together, I'm all that much more exited about their implementation.  I reviewed my entries from over a year ago, they're rather crappy and not very informative, I'll definitely have to provide some new entries with a solid set of examples for the new MVC.

With that, I'm signing off for the day, off to another geek meet and hopefully some cool Silverlight work tonight!

In almost every business, even when there are only two participants, there is always a need to communicate.  The emphasis of teaching others to speak well, write well, and in general communicate their point clearly and decisively is very important.  I however have found that one soft skill that is just as much, if not more important, is making sure that whoever you are communicating to is hearing what you are saying.

All to often in work environments people communicate the entire day with a mere percentage of that being effective.  The problem is not always clear and decisive communication but getting and knowing when someone is hearing and understanding you.

In the technology field that is multitudes more important, everything is loaded with context, and even a slightly wrong assumption, or notion will land a task or effort at risk of being completed properly.  In the technology industry doing something improperly is often as bad or worse than just not doing it at all.

I just happened recently to start thinking about some past companies I have worked at and realized that one of my strong points is communicating, however I have a weak point inside the strong point.  I don't always get, or even know how to get people to listen and hear me.  I've told people things that are of immense importance to be brushed aside, only to state, "I told you so" a few months later.  Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the I told you so statements, but I'd rather just be heard and be able to have effective communication and efforts done right the first time.

In the business intelligence community this need exists and is expanded to more disparate persons.  Often executives are asking for things directly to the actual geeks (the BI people).  Fortunately, and maybe I shouldn't admit it openly, BI is a pretty easy toolset and skill to learn.  Often the hardest part to grasp is that there isn't that much to grasp.

I've found that the hardest part is getting clear cut instructions on what end users (executives and managers) really and truthfully want.  In addition to that it is often unclear what they even want to derive from the data they are going to get.

Now after all that said I pose a question and pondering.  What other things, what other sources are out there, to help improve the soft skill of noticing and assuring people are hearing and understanding what is really being communicated?

I was just thinking of what description or title I should put on my next iteration of business cards.  My current title reads as "Software Architect and Solutions Developer".  I really like the "Solutions Developer" part because I've always been fond of the idea of creating solutions to problems.  I've done exactly that a LOT.

The other part of the title description, Software Architect, is something that has left me somewhat frustrated as of late. Also my previous discussion on the topic still leaves specifics on what the heck an architect really is.  Not the function of what has come to be a software architect, but the other connotations and annoyance by many in the industry by the title.  Let me outline a few of these;

1. An architect is traditionally someone who designs based on a standard or proven practice within the building industry.  These people create great structures which we work in, live in, play in, and generally use for all sorts of things.  They design the architecture for physical buildings.  Generally they do not fail.
2. Software architects do a similar task, designing things that do things for us.  Often software architects fail, maybe I shouldn't say the architects, but more software projects.  The industry has no real solid practices or methodologies, we're working on it, but none are proven like those that are in the building industry.
3. Software architects are often very dumb about the use of the word architect than those that are traditional architects.  Architect is NOT A FREAKING VERB.  Architect is an adjective.  It describes and does not do anything.  It drives me nuts how such an educated lot of society uses a word with such incorrect context on so frequent a basis.  Stop it!
4. Solutions developer sounds creative to me, software architect does not.  It just sounds like someone who sits in an ivory tower and dictates things.  Maybe sometimes that is exactly what software architects do (those that most closely match their more traditional brethren), but generally it just sounds stuffy and boring to me.  I'm someone who implements solutions.

So with those reasons enumerated, anyone got some ideas for title descriptions?  I ponder what else I should put on my business card, since in reality, it only reflects me as an individual and not particularly a company.  I want it to specifically detail what I do though, because I am proud and very satisfied with what I do, and it is a huge part of my life.

Ideas?

I strolled down today to meet everyone at the first Stumptown Coffee Meet of entrepreneurial geek types.  I didn't get to stay too long, but had a good time chit chatting and meeting everyone.  To all my readers, I would highly suggest swinging down on any future coffee meets in downtown Portland!

I will discuss making this a monthly event as it would be a great early day break and definitely provides good networking with some of the best in the city.  Any future coffee meets I'll be sure to post here!  Otherwise stay tuned here and on the PADNUG site.

Hat tip to the language war by David Rupp.

Martin Fowler is currently working on a book in reference to DSL, Domain Specific Languages.  A preview is available on his site.

SOA Governance seems to be the debate of the century in the advanced development community.

An interesting and scathing blog entry (I wouldn't call it that bad though, he's just making some points that almost any team could heed).  Also an article appeared on Info Q about this entry.

On another topic of keeping up, I found it funny that VS 2008 doesn't really work to well with SourceSafe.  I thought that SourceSafe was supposed to be going away?  Oh well, it continues to haunt us.  I hope it works better than it did 2-3 years ago!  My advise is to NOT use SourceSafe, but pick up Subversion or something instead.

...and on a parting topic of keeping up, InfoQ also has an article on bringing onboard new members to a team.

I found the solution Kevin Dente's blog.  Hat tip!  If you run into the problem, the solution is really easy.

The key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers called %tempdir%\setup.exe, DELETE IT.

All done.

I finally got Visual Studio 2008 installed and running after the little download debacle yesterday.  I loaded it on a virtual machine so it should be super easy to break things and just start clean.  My next moves will be to start playing around with some of the new features, check out to see if the unit testing improved, and finally to make sure that ReSharper and all the other awesome tools that rock still rock with VS 08'!  I'm sure the ReSharper crew is working dilligently right now to assure that even more ass kicking is to be had with the ReSharper version for Visual Studio 2008.

I'm stoked, I'm sold, and I'm ready to do some 08' dev!  I look forward to products being built with this new technology stack, and I definitely look forward to the power that is inherent in finally getting 3.0 and 3.5 framework pieces into place!

So cheers to happy coding!

I was complaining recently about getting MDX a week or so ago.  I wanted MDX generated from my Cube in BIDS.  Well I found a kick butt tool that helps one do that.  Not only does it help with getting the MDX, but it also provides printer friendly dimension usage, dimension "health checks", and other functionality.  It is definitely one of the "helpful" tools out there that should be in the toolbox of any BI/Cube Developer.

So you BIDS users, go check out the BIDS Helper.

(BIDS == Business Intelligence Development Studio)

Yo Microsoft!  Get your act together, that was a rude, crude thing you did yesterday!  VS 2008 is release with .NET 3.5 my ass!  I went scurrying to my MSDN subscription to download that sucker and really get to reviewing the new material - HANDS ON!  Here I am navigating to the download area and the only thing available ARE THE FREAKING 90 DAY TRIALS!!!!!

Who freaking cares about the 90 day trials on MSDN?  Why the hell would anyone even download those!  I'm liable to get uber vulgar about this rather disrespectful action.  I know others have, so why does Microsoft wonder about their reputation when these things happen!  Come on, the product is coming early, don't goof it up with faux releases!  ARGH.

Anyway, I guess I'll keep plugging along with VS 2005 for a few more days.  On a positive note, dibs to the early release Microsoft!

UPDATE In addition to all the confusion this other download manager has caused, it seems that I wasn't the only person having issues.