After attending Nothing But .Net Bootcamp I noticed none of the classes that were written in the course had a Manager suffix. I've sort had a eureka moment and have a good idea on why this is. JP heavily emphasized the Single Responsibility Principle throughout the course. If a class is only has a single...

Continue reading "Manager Suffixes Are A Code Smell"

After a big of pleading I got the privilege of being able to attend Jean-Paul Boodhoo's Nothing But Dot Net Bootcamp!

JP is quite well known in the .Net circuit for his passion for development and his pragmatic approach to software design. Typical posts about his course underline that you'll be giving up your home life for a week. Since I'm a bachelor, it wasn't a big deal for me, but I did feel a bit bad for the guys that had wives and kids at home. Our typical day was no shorter than 14 hours, and one lasted 20 hours. This was for a grand total of 80 hours of training in a 5 day span! The crazy part was that the material was flying at you so fast you didn't even get a chance to be tired.

What I wasn't prepared for was how inspirational JP can be. Not just as a developer but as a person. Not only did he feed us enough developer fundamentals, he also provided management tips, and inspirational stories and references. He shed a new light on what it means to be a developer. I greatly appreciated these tangents, and it has made me think a bit more about what I am trying to accomplish in this world.

The other great takeaway from the course was the great people that attended it. There was a total of 15 of us from all backgrounds and skill levels. Not only were there great programmers, there were some great personalities too. I'll be making sure I keep in touch with all the local developers, and plan on a 6 month re-union with them in the future. I have to give a shout out to Ted, and Peter from AndOrNot for keeping things entertaining.

This is getting long enough, and I know that trying to write everything that I experienced in the course is next to impossible. I'll probably be referencing skills I learned in the course for quite a while.

If you stumbled upon this post because you are thinking of attending his course, I highly recommend that you do! Even if I had to front my own money for the course I would. It's the best investment you can do for your career.

Continue reading "I Survived JP's Nothing but Dot Net Boot camp!"

Today I've decided to commit to my desire to be more keyboard centric. Mouseless computing has always felt faster but it takes a bit of will power to force yourself to not reach for the mouse. What I will be doing is updating a twitter account with a keyboard shortcut. I will then enforce that keyboard...

Continue reading "Keyboard Shortcut of the Day"

For a project I'm currently working on I need to write a Csv Parser. Simple enough, right? Well... each csv file has different parsing criteria, each has a completely different structure and data, and each manages to change its ways every now and then. Not only that, each file needs to be merged into...

Continue reading "Handling Dirty Data is Dirty"

Tonight I ventured out for a bit of pool to take a break from the computer. While playing 9-ball I had one of those moments where you relate something you do in life to software development. We all do that, right? I managed to run the table and I thought about the predictive nature of my run-out. My...

Continue reading "Software Estimation is Like Predicting a 9-Ball Game"

Matt Hamilton wrote an excellent blog post about something that I've been thinking about for a long time. As a developer you want to keep improving, but the more you know the more choices that appear. When first coding projects that require database access you get used to learning the SqlCommand class...

Continue reading "The Paradox of Choice in a Developers Life"