Off-Topic

ALT.NET Seattle Registration and Mispronouncing My Last Name

Matthew Podwysocki — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:47:30 GMT

Just a reminder that ALT.NET Open Spaces, Seattle registration is still open, although we are sold out at the moment, we are taking stand-by's just in case some drop out. So, if you hadn't registered with us, go ahead and do so, and don't let the sold out scare you. Just keep in mind that you may not be selected, so I wouldn't make concrete plans if you are traveling to get there.

I'm hoping to finish up about 5-6 posts that have been sitting around since last week on F#, the Unity Application Block, Mocking versus Stubbing and so on. Hopefully today I'll get some of that done, so stay tuned. That and there is a DC ALT.NET meeting this Wednesday as well.

So, I know this is a random post, but if you caught over the weekend, the "This Week on Channel 9: Feb 15 with Scott Hanselman!" episode on Channel9, you may have noticed I was mentioned around minute 11, and it was a struggle to Brian Keller on how to pronounce my last name. Don't worry about it, people, it happens all the time, and I usually let people struggle with the first part for a while before I have to hop in. It's a definite way of telling who knows me and who doesn't... It's like "Podwa Podwe Probably not gonna work here anymore, that's for sure!" from Office Space.

Come join me at my new home...

Matthew Podwysocki — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:29:40 GMT

Well, I've decided to move my home for now. No, I'm not restarting up my MSDN blog, although I could. It's sitting all lonely out there with nobody to visit, nor any content. Instead, I have moved to weblogs.asp.net/Podwysocki. If you're using my Feedburner, and quite frankly you should be, there will be no difference for you all, as I'll just move it over seamlessly.

I'll continue to cross-post for now and take what I can. Hope you join me there!

Interviewing Redux

Matthew Podwysocki — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:57:10 GMT

I'm still prepping a few posts on F# and Design by Contract (DBC), so stay tuned in the next day or so. But, I recently read through the altdotnet mailing list about conducting interviews and phone screens. Jeremy Miller had a great response to this that I felt needed its own response. I've been interviewing people all throughout my career and I've definitely picked up on things as time goes on, honing the craft as it were.

Cloning Myself

It's true in the past I've been guilty of wanting someone who thought like me, shared some of the same ideals or even solved problems like I do. Soon after, I came to realize that we needed fresh ideas and that a mono-culture of mini-me's isn't the right answer for this. Instead, I've come to appreciate that there are at least six answers to every problem in the software world. Some of course are better than others and more applicable, some most are equally valid.

Sometimes, I would have slapped my forehead if they didn't know many of the GoF patterns and their applications. Instead, this person worked in a SOA world, where many of those things are nice to know, but not as required. Geez, they didn't know you should use a singleton pattern here and a decorator pattern there? What's wrong with you???? Or something like that. That's something I had to get over.

The Lightning Round of Trivial Pursuit

In the past, I've gone through many phone screens where it just seemed like they were reading off a sheet of paper, line by line asking a question, without having known the answer themselves. Just when you thought the questioning was over, ok, done with C#, now time to move onto ASP.NET, now time for SQL Server, now time for BizTalk, etc. My mind was swimming a bit more than if I were on Jeopardy during the speed round. What's worse is that many of these answers were quite obscure and you wouldn't know about them unless you hit a certain pain point and had to do the research yourself with any given point technology.

Of course during these lightning rounds, some like to pull tricks out of their hats that nobody in their right mind would know unless they've felt the pain and had to do workarounds. They are kept in the back pockets in case they feel that the interviewee is doing too well. I know, I've been there!

Where I've Gone

I've been more of a patterns and practices person myself. Instead of asking very pointed question about a certain BizTalk adapter's properties, I'd ask when you would use what and why. I also like to have them explain BizTalk patterns such as Serial and Parallel Convoys and why they matter. Pick some favorite code of yours and explain why it is.

I like to give logic puzzles and see how they work through an issue. For example, the elevator queuing problem is always a great one to ask. Ask them how they would design something like that with given parameters and off they go!

Better yet, if in a room with a whiteboard, the FizzBuzz problem is always a great one to ask. It's a basic logic puzzle that has little to do with the language implementation, as I've done it in C/C++, C#, Java, Ruby and even PHP. Any pseudocode will do. Also, I'll show a screen of code and ask for code smells and possible refactorings. It's always interesting because you'll get a new answer each and every time. Heck, you might learn something. But, I'd like to see if they grok TDD as well. It's not an easy thing with just an hour interview, but, given a scenario, they should be able to handle Red, Green, Refactor with just a simple ASP.NET MVP pattern, testing a Presenter.

It's about looking for passion, looking for willingness and eagerness to learn. I love it when a candidate actually blogs, and contributes to the community as a whole. That shows to me true dedication to the craft of software development. The willingness to get up in front of a crowd and explain what and why they did a certain thing, and defend it is great. But, what's also great is that they listen as well. I've had plenty of cocky interviewees and it's a big turnoff. Yes, you're confident, but it also shows you may not listen to your customer either.

Of course the conversation won't be completely devoid of technology, but the when to use what and why is pretty important. For example, knowing between using SQL Server Broker, versus SSIS versus BizTalk is a pretty good topic to know. When would it make sense between a WPF application, a WinForms app or a Web application?

Conclusion

So, over time, in my adventure in the software world has evolved, as has my interviewing style. It's less important of getting clones of myself, but more of diversity of ideas, the willingness to share, mentor and learn. It's not about lightning rounds of trivial pursuit, it's a way of tackling problems with logic. The technology comes easier when you know which angle to tackle that problem.

Now, back to your technology posts!

Are Code Comments An Apology for Bad Design?

Matthew Podwysocki — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:44:29 GMT

Very recently on the CLI_DEV (formerly ALTNETCONF) mailing list, Joe Ocampo asked whether the standard saying, "Code Comments are an apology for bad design" holds in regards to documenting your non-public API. I believe that question arose once before and usually a flame war erupts of some sort.

I found this button sums up my feelings best!

But, anyhow, it's a real valid question and believe it or not, people have quite strong opinions on the matter. With tools like Resharper and other refactoring tools, it's quite easy for code comments to get out of sync, and therefore not really useful. Your public and protected APIs should be pretty self describing.

My usual feelings on the matter is this. Use XML code comments in your public and protected APIs. This includes not only declaring your parameters, but also your possible exceptions as well. Without having something like Spec#, they can be the next best thing. Something like this usually suffices for me.

/// <summary>
/// This adds the given value to the list, only if it is unique.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="value">The unique value to add to the collection</param>
/// <exception cref="System.ArgumentNullException"><paramref name="value"/> is <c>null</c></exception>
protected int AddValue(string value) { ... }

But, this is really only helpful on the public and protected stuff. The inner workings usually get refactored too often for them to stay in sync and useful.

// TODOs are usually useful if you need reminders on where you need to put in more functionality before your code is complete. I've found that is the case a few times, where it currently works, but look for refactoring opportunities. // HACK: also works for me.

But, other than that, I like the noise to comments as low as possible, except if it isn't blatantly obvious what you are doing and why. Maybe around 10% of code is commented suffices on non-public API code. But, please don't tell me your opening a file, when I see it right before me. Let the code do the talking. Some legacy code just needs it because you can't refactor it as much for fear of breakage, so using it might not always be intuitive. Yes, I know, straddling a fence...

Making Yourself Better for 2008

Matthew Podwysocki — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:45:43 GMT

In a previous post, I talked about the things I'm going to do this year, now it's your turn.

Here's what I'd like to see from you this year.

Be a mentor
Contribute to open source
Get involved with the development community through user groups, forums, etc
Start a blog and share your voice
Step outside your comfort zone to find new ways of solving problems and check with the community as a whole
Read open source code and understand it for six products.
Learn a new language such as:
- Ruby
- Boo
- C#
- Python

Making Myself Better for 2008

Matthew Podwysocki — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 03:25:59 GMT

Last year was a very good year for me, but I'm always looking for ways to learn more and better myself for the next year. After all, it is hard to top 2007, the year in which I buy a house, get married and have a great honeymoon in Italy. So, somehow I need to top myself yet again!

Anyhow, these are the things I'm looking to do this year to make me a better designer, developer, etc:

General
- Read a new book a month
- Run a marathon (Well, only running 5 miles a day right now)
General Development
- Give more user group presentations (DC ALT.NET/CMAP/etc)
- Master Ruby and Boo
- Continue deep dive with MVC frameworks
- Contribute more to open source
ALT.NET
- Organize an ALT.NET Code Camp Track
- Stay active in the DC ALT.NET community and the ALT.NET community as a whole
Blogging
- More posts with coding examples
- More downloadable samples
- Be more responsive to questions (sorry about that)
- Explore BDD and DDD more

Rather ambitious, I know, but it's always great to look back earlier on the year to see what changed over the year and what really happened.

And I'm back...

Matthew Podwysocki — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:31:01 GMT

Well, I've decided now to come back to blogging. It's been over a year break from doing this and I think that I missed quite a bit while I was away. Over the past couple of months, I've been following the ALT.NET movement pretty heavily and I think it's well worth people checking out if they haven't already.

GMaps Pedometer - A Google Maps Based Pedometer

Matthew Podwysocki — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 19:47:00 GMT

Since I'm a pretty avid runner, I love the ability to keep track of how much I run per day and what distances. My brother of all people sent me the GMaps Pedometer which is based upon Google Maps which allows you to record your walking (or in my case, running) path with just a simple double click.

It's by no means perfect, but it gives you a pretty good idea where you run and how far. The line connector works in straight lines only, so if you run on a curvy road, good luck on getting it to be the exact match. Below is an example of that:

On the left hand side, you can even turn on a calorie counter which you enter your weight and it will calculate based upon the distance recorded. This just makes outdoor running that much more fun!

Unsolicited Car In Backyard - The Day After

Matthew Podwysocki — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 12:18:00 GMT

I posted the pictures yesterday of the night of the crash, so today I thought I'd post on what it looks like today. It might give you a clearer picture of what I have to deal with going forward. The fun of it all!

The first picture is the actual crash path. As you may notice, I do live in a little bit of a curve. It's not huge, but when someone is speeding, and the road is wet, this might happen.

So, the path is quite clear, and the hole in the ground is where the fire hydrant used to be. The hydrant has a cutoff valve which prevents it from spewing like you see in the movies; however, I do think one down the street had a problem with the change in pressure and went a little haywire.

Now here's a picture of what my side yard in my backyard now looks like with all the debris still there.

The last shot from today is a view from the neighbor's house over to my house. As you can see, most of my fence in my backyard is now gone. Gee, I always wanted a free and clear view of the street!

I have nothing but praise for the Loudoun County Sheriff's department for the way that this has been handled to far. I hope the process of getting things repaired won't be too painful, but you never know!

An Unexpected Car in My Backyard

Matthew Podwysocki — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 14:35:00 GMT

Ok, so it was about 12:30AM this morning when I was doing some research on custom ASP.NET Membership Providers when I heard squealing tires, which wasn't unusual because we get those "Fast and the Furious" idiots around here all the time. This was a little different because I heard scraping then some of the loudest bangs I've ever heard in my life. So I called 911 and the rest ensued.

I don't want to get into the full details of what happened pending the police investigation and trial, but I thought I'd share some photos of the ordeal.

The first picture was taken from my deck. As you can see, the car went through my fence and smack into my neighbor's deck.

Looks pretty brutal doesn't it? Here's a closer shot of the car. As you can see, there is a nice wooden plank sticking through the windshield. How there wasn't much bodily damage, I don't know...

The whole wood through the windshield is pretty scary. Let me show you how close it really was.

One more look at the inside to see how crazy this was.

On the way over to visiting my backyard, it seems they made a little visit to a fire hydrant too.

Here's a picture of me in kind of a bewildered state while waiting for firefighters and the police to look things over.

The tow truck had to do some awkward movements to get the car out, but he did a pretty good job!

And lastly, this is what my backyard looks like after all the fun and games.

After all was said and done, I probably got done with everything around 3AM and I'm still exhausted. The rest of the pictures can be found here: http://geekswithblogs.net/podwysocki/gallery/4741.aspx

This wasn't the first incident though to happen to our neighborhood. Last summer in fact a woman fell asleep behind the wheel and took out my neighbor's deck. If they hadn't had that deck there, the car would have probably ended up in their living room.