Herding Code

Latest Episodes:

Episode 36: Scott Watermasysk Feb 20, 2009

Show notes

Episode 36

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

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

Show Links:

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

Download / Listen: Episode 36: Scott Watermasysk

Episode 35: Fun at work Feb 15, 2009

Show notes

Episode 35

This week on Herding Code, K. Scott kicks off an amusing conversation about office pranks and general fun in the workplace:

Jon explains why you might send goat pictures to your coworkers.
Kevin comments about the hazards of new carpet installation.
K. Scott talks about making an HP Printer come to life.
And learn why you must always, always keep one eye on Jon when he's working...

Show Links:

Fun With C# and HP Laserjets - http://www.odetocode.com/humor/68.aspx
Goating - http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000997.html
Favorite Harmless Computer Practical Joke - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/65116/whats-your-favorite-harmless-computer-practical-joke
Google April Fools - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google's_hoaxes, http://www.pcworld.com/article/142620/googles_top_17_easter_eggs_gags_and_hoaxes.html
Kindle 2 - http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Generation/dp/B00154JDAI/ref=sr_tr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234330860&sr=1-1
Apple Asks Google to Not Use Multi-Touch - http://www.pcworld.com/article/159260/google_backs_off_multitouch_to_please_apple_report_claims.html
Microsoft Announcement of Windows 7 Versions - http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1890
Android Multi-touch Capable, Just Disabled - http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-devices/news/2008/11/18/Android-Multi-touch-Capable--Just-Disabled/p1
Cooked Windows Mobile ROMS http://xda-developers.com

Download / Listen: Episode 35: Fun at work

Episode 34: *Chirp and Witty - WPF Twitter Clients Feb 06, 2009

Show notes

Episode 34

This week on Herding Code, Jon, Kevin and Scott K discuss *Chirp (since renamed blu), Witty, Twitter usage, open source and WPF development:

The guys review *Chirp, a new WPF Twitter client from thirteen23. Scott compares *Chirp to Paris Hilton, Jon reminisces about old Simpsons episodes and Kevin shares that *Chirp is very pretty, nicely designed, and what WPF is all about.
Kevin, Jon and Scott discuss their involvement with the Witty project. The guys talk about their favorite features, most wanted enhancements, and how they hope the project will evolve going forward. Jon subtly promises a Witty Easter Egg.
The guys briefly talk about Twitter, how they manage their “rivers of information” and how varying strategies makes Twitter client design/development difficult. Not to mention what is/isn’t available via the Twitter API…
Jon and Scott comment on drive-by contributors and general challenges of open source development.
The guys candidly talk about learning/knowing WPF and the difficulties of debugging WPF applications without tools. Kevin shares how WPF violates the principle of least surprise and Jon shares why making a textbox’s background is difficult.

Note: *Chirp has since been renamed to blu. We tried to get the folks from thirteen23 on the podcast, but we didn't hear back grom them until after this show was published. We still love them, though! Show Links:

Witty - http://code.google.com/p/wittytwitter/
blu - http://www.thirteen23.com/experiences/desktop/blu/
Snoop - http://blois.us/Snoop/
Silverlight Spy - http://silverlightspy.com/silverlightspy/introduction/
Spy++ - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa242713(VS.60).aspx
ClickOnce - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa497348.aspx
Alan Le - http://blogs.vertigo.com/personal/alanl/Blog
WPF Twitter - http://www.codeplex.com/WPFTwitter
Model/View/ViewModel (MVVM) - http://blogs.msdn.com/johngossman/archive/2005/10/08/478683.aspx
TweetDeck - http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
Adam Kinney - http://www.adamkinney.com/
photoSuru - http://www.photosuru.com/
Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) - http://www.codeplex.com/MEF
WPF Commands - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms752308.aspx
Laurent Bugnionhttp://www.galasoft.ch/
RSS Bandit - http://rssbandit.org/

Download / Listen: Episode 34: *Chirp and Witty - WPF Twitter Clients

Episode 33: Intertube Inauguration and Questions From Listeners Jan 30, 2009

Show notes

Episode 33

This week Kevin leads a discussion about the inauguration on the web, then we field some questions from listeners. Topics

Live inauguration video on Silverlight sites
Photosynth picture of the inauguration
whitehouse.gov on webforms - will Viewstate bring down the presidency?
Armchair quarterbacking the whitehouse.gov site
whitehouse.gov updates robots.txt
And Twitter didn't die!
Question - What is the one thing I should learn this year
- K. Scott - SOLID, dynamic languages, WPF
- Jon - Pick something, declarative UI, get involved in something
- Kevin - SOLID Principles, WPF
Question - Comparing working in Web, RIA, and WPF
Side discussion: What's the deal with ClickOnce?
Whoa! Scott Koon joins us mid-call!
Quick discussion of jQuery 1.3
Question - What is the one thing Scott K wants to learn this year?
- Scott K. - Expressions
- K. Scott - I agree that Scott K should learn expressions
Side discussion: Why are companies so slow to upgrade .NET versions?
- Jon - Go, go, go!
- K. Scott - Not enough must-have features
- Kevin - Requires customers to upgrade

Links

Download / Listen Episode 33: Intertube Inauguration and Questions From Listeners

Episode 32: Windows 7 First Impressions Jan 18, 2009

Show notes

Episode 32

This week Jon leads a discussion about our first impressions of Windows 7 Beta 1. Topics

Previously bundled features are now distribued via Windows Live - good or bad?
Is the Windows Live suite just a standardized crapware?
Where's our Photo Gallery?
Windows Marketplace???
Missing an ISO Mounter
The out of box experience
Window docking
Windows Explorer - side by side
Discoverability - shortcuts, etc.
"New features" that were already in Vista
New Wordpad and Paint with ribbons
Same old Notepad
Kevin's underwhelmed with the updates to Paint
Could Windows Live Essentials include some friends, like Paint.NET?
Hey, a new calculator!
Problem Steps Recorder
Send Feedback
Nothing new for Remote Desktop?
Virtual Hard Drive support, but we want application virtualization
Multitouch
Distribution - why not via BitTorrent?
IE8 is still the same old IE8 that we know and meh
Windows Scenic Animation API
Looks like the API's still all C++ and COM
The Vista Bridge project
The Ribbon control has graduated from an Office control to Windows
No WPF?
Jumplists

Links

Windows 7 Beta Download
Windows Live Essentials
PowerISO (note - the free version works just fine)
Tim Sneath's list of Windows 7 secrets
andLinux
Problem Steps Recorder
Windows Scenic Animation API [overview] [whitepaper]
Vista Bridge Sample Library

Download / Listen Herding Code 32: Windows 7 First Impressions

Episode 31: Chad Myers and Jeremy Miller on FubuMVC Jan 13, 2009

Show notes

Episode 31

This week we talk to Chad Myers and Jeremy Miller about the FubuMVC project.Topics

What is FubuMVC?
History of the project
Built to take advantage of static typing
Composition over inheritance
Dependency injection tricks
IFlattener<T> for JSONification
Application of SOLID prinicples in FubuMVC and AltOxite
View engines
TextboxFor and no magic strings - advantages for refactoring support
Thin controllers, fat models
FubuMVC as the Ruby On Rails for ASP.NET
Benefits and problems of using generics for static typing
Use of meaningful generic type names rather than <T,U,K> ugliness
Testing tools for Javascript
FubuMVC's Behaviors
Partial rendering strategies
Why they're using NHibernate for AltOxite
IOC benefits
Strategies for Javascript management
qUnit for Javascript unit testing
How do I sell this to my boss?
Why FubuMVC as opposed to Microsoft's ASP.NET MVC?
Why MVC isn't just classic ASP revisited
Benefit of FubuMVC - removing choices through opinions
Ways an open source MVC framework keep up with Microsoft
FubuMVC futures and misc. benefits
Use of Rake as a build script

Links

Download / Listen Herding Code 31: Chad Myers and Jeremy Miller on FubuMVC

Episode 30: Year-end wrapup Jan 06, 2009

Show notes

Episode 30

K Scott leads the discussion as we look back at 2008, and speculate wildly on what 2009 has to offer. Note: Scott K's taking a podcasting break to change diapers and stuff. Looking back at 2008

Google Chrome
Kevin's new iPhone
Kevin's Firefox extension addiction
Hulu
IE8 - better than expected, but still a ways to go
ASP.NET MVC
Silverlight 2
Oslo
Azure
Visual Studio 2008 SP1
ADO.NET Data Services
REST is finally accepted in the .NET world
The Seinfeld / Gates ads
OpenID
Netbooks (Oragami at last?)
Twitter's recovery
Overhyped stuff: Surface, cloud computing, multi-core madness
Functional programming
DI/IOC hitting the Microsoft mainstream
[sidebar - the tradeoff between DI benefits vs. Silverlight XAP size]
StackOverflow
[sidebar - frustration with Microsoft forums]

Looking forward at 2009

Windows 7
Office 14
Project Pink? (Zune on Windows Mobile)
[sidebar - frustrations Zune]
WPF in Visual Studio
[sidebar - is there a correlation between unmanaged code and lame Microsoft products?]

Links