DotNetSlackers Latest ASP.NET News in Category Software

Telerik Hudson Office Signs

Steven Smith — Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The new signs went in earlier this week, replacing the NimblePros signage with Telerik in the new Hudson office location. Youll find our office at the corner of Stoney Hill Drive and Darrow Road (SR 91) in Hudson, Ohio. This is the second company Michelle and I have run at this office location and later sold, and it feels good to have the transition mostly behind us.

Teleriks Hudson office supports the former NimblePros team and is set up to deliver software using agile methodologies. Weve actually had some interest in our layout from other companies in the area who are looking to redesign their cube farm office layouts into something that works better for team collaboration. Our space is basically modeled after XPs caves and commons approach, with several open team rooms set up for pair programming with lots of white boards, and small individual spaces that serve as offices or private meeting rooms / quiet workspaces.

The building we occupy can probably support a staff of about 25 or so, but there is additional office space available in the neighboring building, which we may also use for training or early-access labs at some point in the future. If youre in the area and would like to stop by for a visit, contact me. Also, if youre a software developer in Northeast Ohio, you should check out the Hudson Software Craftsmanship group and let us know if youre interested in working on challenging projects with a great team of motivated professionals.

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Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

If doctors would work like software engineers, no-one would consult them

Frans Boumas blog — Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

When I woke up this morning, in the vague state of my barely booted mind a thought popped up: we software developers bicker and debate almost solely about procedure, never about diagnostics and which solution to apply to a given problem. It looks like what's really important about what we do is how we create solutions to problems, not about finding out what's wrong in the first place. For doctors things are precisely the opposite: they first and foremost try to get a diagnose what the problem is,...

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Mash This Episode 8: Turning Your API Into a Business

Keyvan Nayyeri — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

My most recent blog posts have been nothing but announcing new episodes of Mash This podcast, and this one is no different. Episode 8 is up that is about turning your API into a business. For this episode we host two guests from the business community of software, Alex Hillman and Chris Nagele from Wildbit. Along with two online commercial services (BeanStalk and PostMark) , they provide bootstrapping support for start ups called Thinkstrapped. Apparently, nothing works without money,...

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Wed, 23 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Introducing GitHub For Windows

youve been HAACKED — Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

For the past several months Ive been working on a project with my amazing cohorts, Paul, Tim, and Adam, and Cameron at GitHub. Ive had the joy of learning new technologies and digging deep into the inner workings of Git while lovingly crafting code. But today, is a good day. Weve called the shipit squirrel into action once again! We all know that the stork delivers babies and the squirrel delivers software. In our case, we are shipping GitHub For Windows! Check out the official announcement on the...

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Using Absolute Positioning to Create Flexible Mobile Layouts

Chris Love's Official Blog - Professional ASP.NET — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Struggle isn't exactly the right term. More like prolonged torture describes the frustration and experience I have had with some CSS concepts. Let's face it CSS is more of an art than some place where engineers can thrive. But time, practice and just...(read more)...

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Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

When somebody changes my code...

The Code Project Latest Articles — Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

This blog entry is about that 'non-deterministic' behavior that sometimes happens to 'us' while developing software and all of the sudden something does...

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Achievement unlocked: Mobilism 2012

QuirksBlog — Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Wow. Mobilism 2012 is done, and it was a lot more awesome than I thought. Not that I thought it would be a dud, but it’s always pleasant when your expectations are exceeded.We have worked with this particular venue, A/V, catering, and wifi crew before, during Fronteers 2011, so we knew what to expect: good service all along, with a few moments of sheer brilliance.Even better, the conference topic also resonated with the support crew. We already knew a few A/V technicians were web developers, and...

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Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Selling software using PayPal IPN as an eCommerce platform

The Code Project Latest Articles — Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Use PayPal API to automatize software selling, send templatized emails with license keys to customers...

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DotNetNuke Top 50 CMS

Shaun Walker — Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last week Website Magazine published their June issue which contained a list of the Top 50 Content Management Solutions available in the market. The list included both open source as well as proprietary content management systems and the ranking was based on a custom formula of website popularity based on average daily unique visitors and page views. Aside from the list itself, Website Magazine also tried to explain in laymans terms the definition of a content management system and how they add...

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Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Tiny UML Sequence Diagram Markup Language for Agile Developer Documentation

The Code Project Latest Articles — Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I hate overdocumented software components and frameworks. There are top 3 reasons for that: Only the code tells the truth (programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Only_the_Code_Tells_the_Truth) The good component expresses it’s intended way of usagethroughgood structure, expressive na...

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Peer Code Review – Are they worth the hassel?

Joe Brinkman — Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Over the last many months the Engineering Organization at DotNetNuke Corp. has been making many process changes to deliver high-quality Software. As Scrum Master and Lead Developer, Id like to dedicate a blog series on what we did, how it helped and the lessons we learned. In this blog, Id like to talk specifically about Peer Code Review that we implemented over 10 months ago.Category: DotNetNuke CorporationCategory: Development...

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Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Metrics - A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing (or `Why you`re not clever enough to interpret metrics data`)

Simple Talk — Thu, 03 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

At RedGate Software, I work on a .NET obfuscator called SmartAssembly. Various features of it use a database to......

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Quest Tools Aimed at Easing Exchange Online, Office 365 Migration Challenges

Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine Online | Todays Top Picks — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Quest Software announced two new migration solutions for organizations moving to Exchange Online and Office 365....

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Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Here we grow again. Telerik acquires NimblePros

the telerik blogs — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

It doesnt even feel like its been that long since I wrote a post on Telerik in Numbers (almost 10 months to date), and that blog content feels very out of date. While I plan to update you with some new, fresh stats in the future, today I wanted to update you with some exciting news that will impact the stats I gave you on the number of offices and people we have.

I am really happy to announce the acquisition of NimblePros. Throughout the years weve had many touch points with Michelle and Steve Smith, the founders of NimblePros. Weve ran across Steve at many events, Telerik was a customer of Lake Quincy Media, the ad agency they had built, Steve had come to speak to DevReach in Sofia, their team worked on several Telerik products, and many more. Along the way, we developed a great relationship and mutual respect. Knowing the quality of the team and the culture at NimblePros, for Telerik it felt like a natural progression to deepen our relationship. Luckily, the NimblePros team felt the same way about Telerik and they decided to join forces with us in our quest to deliver the industrys best tools for software development and collaboration.

At Telerik the NimblePros team will be part of our Enterprise Services Group. As part of it, they will be working with customers and partners worldwide to help them discover the amazing possibilities of our products. In complex and very demanding projects sometimes people struggle with the implementation and need handholding, training, architectural guidance. The NimblePros team will join forces with the rest of ESG to address exactly that and ensure that our customers and partners get the most of their relationship with Telerik and have the assurance that they made the right technology bet.

You can read the official PR announcement here. With this last expansion, we are now just shy of 550 employees, and the Hudson, Ohio, office is our 5^th office in the USA, and 11^th worldwide. BTW, we are hiring 35 positions are currently open. Are you ready to deliver more than expected?

Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Principles of Product Development Flow Book Review

Steven Smith — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

One of the more advanced books Ive read relating to the subjects of Software Development and Lean is The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen. I recently published a Pluralsight course on Kanban Fundamentals, and as part of my research for that introductory-level course I read a few related titles, including this one. I previously reviewed some of the others:

If you were looking into learning more about kanban and lean as it relates to software development projects, I would probably suggest you read them in the order I have listed above, with Principles of Product Development Flow following these. It is certainly the most advanced of the books. It also has the most to offer to any product-oriented business, and does a good job of debunking certain myths about lean as it relates to software development. Unsurprisingly, writing custom software without a script is not entirely analogous to manufacturing known goods using known techniques as quickly as possible. Reinertsen does a good job of demonstrating where and how lean manufacturing principles do not directly apply to software product development, and provides models and principles that can be applied with confidence.

Principles of Product Development Flow is organized into nine sections. The first one, The Principles of Flow, sets up the rest of the book by describing the problems with the current accepted best-practices of product development. It is in this section that the author first mentions that the book is organized into 175 principles. When I first read that, I thought it was a typo, but it is in fact correct. The books organization into small, cohesive principles is actually a great feature, as they are easily able to reference one another and they are easy to refer to yourself as needed. In some ways, the authors organization of the book is akin to well-designed software, with small, focused modules organized into larger, cohesive modules.

If youre debating whether to buy this book, this section is the one to read, as it will sell you on the books promise (not in a bad way it does a good job of demonstrating the need for the book to exist). Just a few of the important points described are a general failure to apply basic economics to decisions relating to product development, a systemic blindness to queues in software and knowledge work development, a worship of efficiency, and a blind hostility toward all sources of variability. These, and eight other, problems are described in the first section, with the remainder of the book dedicated to solutions to these problems.

The second section focuses on the economics of how we control projects. One of the recurring themes in the book is the U-Curve, first introduced in this chapter with principle E6: The U-Curve Principle: Important trade-offs are likely to have U-curve optimizations. That is, when making a decision, its unlikely that only a single variable is involved usually there are at least two worth considering. For example, when considering the optimal batch size for a given process, one should consider, at a minimum, the Holding Cost, which increases as batch sizes (and presumably time) increase, and Transaction Cost, which increases as batch sizes shrink. A typical curve is shown here.

Reinertsen suggests that when considering the optimal batch size, one should consider the U-Shaped Total Cost, as opposed to blindly believing that small batches are always better or striving for One Piece Flow (a nirvana of some lean approaches). Note too that these curves are merely examples, and that in order to apply this principle you must first understand the nature of the holding and transaction costs that apply to your process. You can also then work on changing the shape of these curves in order to lower your total cost, perhaps reducing transaction costs through automation.

The next eight sections of the book cover these major themes:

Economics
Queues
Variability
Batch Size
WIP Constraints
Cadence, Synchronization, and Flow Control
Fast Feedback
Decentralized Control

Again, there are 175 principles covered. A few highlights I noted include:

Principle Q14: Dont control cycle time, control queue size. Cycle time is a trailing indicator; queue size is a leading indicator. Thus, measure and manage queue size.

Queue size multiplies the cost of delays. When we have 20 jobs in a queue, a 5 minute delay generates 100 minutes of delay time. When there are only two jobs in line, a 5 minute delay generates 10 minutes of delay time. You can apply this same logic to overloaded web servers, for which queued HTTP requests immediately result in massive performance degradation.

On variability: We cannot add value without adding variability, but we can add variability without adding value.

A key point in the variability chapter and the book as a whole is that small batch sizes and low variability are not universally desirable. Rather, there are economic payoff functions for each and cases where reducing batch size or variability can actually be the wrong decision, economically (which of course should be our basis for decision-making). When we do wish to reduce variability, one way to do so is by using principle V5, Variability Pooling: Overall variation decreases when uncorrelated random tasks are combined.

On WIP constraints, there are several principles that can be used to attack queues as they emerge. W9 suggests that when a queue begins to emerge, adding even inefficient resources to it can have a dramatic effect on throughput. W10 notes that part-time resources that are up-to-speed on the task at hand have great surge potential when needed. W11 suggests that the Big Guns the best talent in the organization be kept available to combat emerging bottlenecks rather than being over-utilized, as is typically the case in most organizations. Finally, W12 introduces the notion of T-Shaped Resources team members who have a wide breadth of skill but are masters of one area, or jack of all trades, master of ONE. These offer great flexibility, as they can shift to other assignments as needed to combat queues.

Theres a wealth of additional information on the effects of congestion on highways and how this applies to product teams as well as comparisons of synchronized and unsynchronized batches and adjacent operations. Reinertsen uses telecommunication and Internet routing protocols as models for how to efficiently route and prioritize work packets from a source to a destination, and then shifts gears to explain how the US Marines Corps deftly combines centralization and decentralization to successfully manage warfighting in the face of extreme uncertainty. I found the many principles to be well-founded, interesting, and applicable to software development in general and product development in particular.

Have you read the book? What did you think of it? Let us know.

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Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Peldi Guilizzoni: Geek of the Week

Simple Talk — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Peldi is one of the most likeable of the new hybrid IT generation; part entrepreneur, part geek. Balsamiq is Peldi's creation, a tool for creating mockups of software. Balsamiq has shown what a good framework Adobe Air is, and how successful single-purpose software that completely fills a need can be....

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Microsoft Announces Open Technologies Inc. Subsidiary

Shaun Walker — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

A few weeks ago Microsoft surprised many folks in the industry by announcing a new wholly owned subsidiary known as Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. The stated goal of the new enterprise is to advance the companys investment in openness including interoperability, open standards and open source. "The subsidiary provides a new way of engaging in a more clearly defined manner. This new structure will help facilitate the interaction between Microsoft's proprietary development processes and the company's...

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Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

.NET Popularity Increases, Java and PHP Decrease…

Shaun Walker — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

TIOBE Software has maintained a Programming Community Index for more than 10 years. Updated on a monthly basis, it is an indicator of the popularity of programming languages in use around the world. The ratings are based on the number of skilled engineers, courses, seminars, and third party vendors actively using the various technologies determined primarily through search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu. The April 2012 edition was recently released and...

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The Syndrome of Brute-force Management

Keyvan Nayyeri — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

For those who are not familiar with the term, brute-force refers to the most naïve approach of designing an algorithm or strategy to solve a problem that consists of more than one possibility by trying all of them until we hit the answer. For example, a brute-force approach in search is to iterate through all the items on the list until we find a match. As is obvious, brute-force approaches are expensive, slow, and inefficient. Brute-force has found its way to many aspects of our lives and...

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Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Activating the Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone

JohnPapa.net — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I received my Nokia Lumia 900 today and was very excited to open it. I had 3 goals for today: 1) activate it 2) make sure my unlimited data plan was still in place 3) get my apps to the new phone I accomplished 1 and 2 and I am currently working on 3. Ill be doing an unboxing post shortly after this here. Disclaimer: this review is purely about the ordering, activation and setup process. So this is entirely on ATT Ill be reviewing the phone and the OS in a later hands on post. Dont forget the Micro...

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DotNetSlackers Latest ASP.NET News in Category Software

Telerik Hudson Office Signs

Presented By:

If doctors would work like software engineers, no-one would consult them

Mash This Episode 8: Turning Your API Into a Business

Presented By:

Introducing GitHub For Windows

Using Absolute Positioning to Create Flexible Mobile Layouts

Presented By:

When somebody changes my code...

Achievement unlocked: Mobilism 2012

Presented By:

Selling software using PayPal IPN as an eCommerce platform

DotNetNuke Top 50 CMS

Presented By:

Tiny UML Sequence Diagram Markup Language for Agile Developer Documentation

Peer Code Review &ndash; Are they worth the hassel?

Presented By:

Metrics - A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing (or `Why you`re not clever enough to interpret metrics data`)

Quest Tools Aimed at Easing Exchange Online, Office 365 Migration Challenges

Presented By:

Here we grow again. Telerik acquires NimblePros

Principles of Product Development Flow Book Review

Presented By:

Peldi Guilizzoni: Geek of the Week

Microsoft Announces Open Technologies Inc. Subsidiary

Presented By:

.NET Popularity Increases, Java and PHP Decrease&hellip;

The Syndrome of Brute-force Management

Presented By:

Activating the Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone

Peer Code Review – Are they worth the hassel?

.NET Popularity Increases, Java and PHP Decrease…