November 2007 Entries

Fresh off a quick tour of Ontario, I'm getting ready to head off to Manitoba and Saskatchewan to talk to the .NET User Groups out there.  On Tuesday the 4th of December I'll be in Winnipeg .NET User Group talking about Brownfield Software Development Techniques.  The next day, Wednesday the 5th, I'll be in Saskatoon talking to the Saskatoon .NET User Group about an Introduction to Alt.NET.  On the 6th I'll be in Regina showing the Regina .NET User Group some of the new language features in C# 3.0 and .NET 3.5. If you're in any of these cities...

I'm home from a 3 day junket through south and eastern Ontario.  I'd like to take the time to wrap up the three events here.  First huge thanks go out to MSDN Canada and their endless support of the community through the speakers bureau.  As a user group leader I know that getting speakers from different cities and regions into a local group can be very instrumental to sparking a communities interest in a technology, methodology or technique. East of Toronto .NET User Group Big thanks to Chris Dufour for setting going through the process to make this...

I forgot to put the link to the downloadable source code for the Object Conversion post that I did yesterday.  I have fixed that post and downloads are available here.

A while back JP posted about how he likes to use a different set of objects for transferring data to the UI layer  (Screen Bound Dtos) than the ones that he has implemented in the domain model.  This is my preferred way to manage data flow as well.  I find that it allows me to push data to the UI in only the context that is required for the one screen that I am working with at the time. As part of a couple of discussions I had last week, I showed the implementation that I used on my...

I'm flying to Toronto on Air Canada right now.  I rarely fly AC because my experience has shown the seats to be uncomfortable and the service to be sub-par.  I skipped the lines in the airport (and thus the experience of dealing with an AC representative) by using the self check-in kiosks littering Edmonton International.  If you have nothing but carry on, I suggest these as I was into the airport and on my way to the security line (at a much slower pace than I was asked to in Winnipeg) in about 3 minutes. I digress though.  I'm...

Unlike most people, my travel experiences, especially flying, have been of the positive variety.  Every so often I have something disturbing or inconvenient happen, but rarely have they caused problems or too much angst.  This week I was out in the Mecca of western Canadian civilization, Winnipeg.  My flight there was uneventful and even could be rated good as I met an old college roommate that I hadn't seen in 10 years.  The story really starts today with my flight back to Edmonton. When I initially booked my flights I realized that I was going to have to be...

I feel unquestionably blessed to live in a country that has a military heritage as strong as we Canadians have.  From The War to End All Wars, to the Second World War, Korea, the countless and thankless Peace Keeping missions and most recently Afghanistan.  Like Tom, I too have served with the CF and perhaps it is because of this that I feel such a bond with the people who have in both the past and present chosen to serve.  To those who have served in the past, thank you.  We owe you a debt of gratitude that...

For those of you that aren't privy to the Fountain Tire television ads here in Canada, that is the final line in one of them.  Yep....Winnipeg.  If you're in the City of....what the hell is Winnipeg the city of?  Looking at the official city website, there's no mention.  Maybe they're the City of Flooding-Every-One-Downstream.  Or they're they City of Rebellion.  Maybe they're the City of Red River Carts.  Who knows. Anyways, if you're in Winnipeg on the night of the nights of the 12th, 13th or 14th of this month, drop me an email and we'll setup a geek...

I'm booked up for the end of November to be in Ontario doing a whirlwind speaking tour.  On the Monday the 19th I'll be at the East of Toronto .NET User Group speaking on the new features in .NET 3.5 and C# 3.0.  The abstract and registration links can be found here. The following night (Tuesday, November 20th) I'll be speaking for the Metro Toronto .NET User Group in combination with the Toronto Visual Basic User Group.  That presentation will be on Alt.NET development practices and principles.  Registration and abstract can be found here. My last stop on this trip will be in...

Wally McClure just released a great podcast on Alt.NET.  He interviews David Laribee who articulates the mantra behind the movement (practices and principles over tools and frameworks).  I have to say that I didn't get the chance to meet Dave when I was in Austin, and I'm a little disappointed now that I've heard this.  This interview certainly shows him as a very articulate and passionate person.  Here's hoping that I get the chance to have a conversation with him at the next Alt.NET Open Spaces Conference. If you're new to the Alt.NET world, or if you're an old timer, take...

For the last few days I've been thinking about some things that were said in a system design conversation that I had.  To set the tone, we were talking about a greenfield web application that was to be written using the Microsoft development stack. The conversation headed down a rabbit trail that covered beliefs in a number of different areas including the age old Stored Proc vs. Parameterized SQL.  That's one argument that I'm sure all of us have seen batted around enough to be able to speak clearly, professionally and with authority on.  The discussion point that caught me off guard...