Subjective

Head First Design Patterns in Retrospect

Stacy Vicknair — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:57:34 GMT

Undoubtedly opinions change over time, and seeing as I’ve waited quite a while to review this book from when I began reading it I’ve had time for the book and its concepts to percolate. My final opinion is that this book does offer a good entry level look into design patterns, and for those who take the time to read through this book you will benefit greatly to continue onto its inspiration, the original Gang of Four read, or also onto Fowler’s Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture.

Since most people will skim to about this point before skipping on happily to something else, I’ll take this time to give my review a summary:

Quickie Summary

Head First Design Patterns is a good book for those interested in breaking the ice on design patterns. Once you get the training wheels off it’s time to move on. This book is neither the beginning nor the end point for object oriented analysis and design and design patterns. Read on for recommendations of where I think we can go from here.

The Long, Painful and Boring Review

You’re still reading this? Ugh, well I guess that means I’ve got more writing to do. The Head First series is a series of books from O’Reilly that make extensive use of big images, fancy fonts and unique styles to trick your brain into paying attention. This idea is novel and does actually help in some scenarios. For myself, I find that if I can link the content of the book to my own needs, I’ll remember things doubly easy. The Head First series really helps in this department, as they tackle simplified cases of what you might truly run into.

Head First Design Patterns doesn’t depart from the style that the series requires, and quickly gets the reader immersed into patterns. Starting with the strategy pattern to keep ducks in line, the book continues on at a steady pace introducing the most important of the original GoF patterns that are still applicable today. The book also has a small section towards the back as a quick reference of certain patterns that didn’t make the cut, but were worth the mention.

The primary language of the book is Java, as with many of the Head First series. This shouldn’t be seen as a reason not to approach the book because from the book’s website you will have access to C# translations and I have also translated many of the examples to VB.NET (there are a few left out, such as MVC and one of the Proxy flavors, anyone can feel welcome to add them or join the project.) Also, although some are afraid to try, interpreting a language that you aren’t familiar with can be very beneficial.

I would recommend reading this book from cover to cover and attempting the examples in the language of your choice. Any trouble you have translating the examples will probably end up teaching you more about both Java and your desired language.

As a final note, this book is neither an end or a beginning. It assumes certain knowledge and also you might find that design patterns weren’t the right answer, or perhaps you were asking the wrong question at the time. As a recommendation, if you are looking at design patterns but aren’t sure about your understanding of OOA&D, you might check out the Head First book on that topic instead. If you’re looking to continue on to a higher level of pattern mayhem, I’d recommend moving to Fowler’s Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture which will take the basic knowledge of patterns and fit it steadfast into real enterprise needs.

Okay so I lied. One last note: Patterns are not a replacement layered or tiered architecture. They can work together to create a more robust architecture. Think of it as different levels of abstraction that the patterns operate on.

Technorati Tags: Head First Design Patterns,HFDP,Head First Series,Book Review

What are you looking forward to from E3?

Stacy Vicknair — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:20:50 GMT

So E3 has come upon us and is about to make its way out again. Anything that peaked your interests? I have to say by far I was happiest with what I can get for my XBox360 over anything coming out for the Wii (I’ve got no PS3).

The games that I’m really looking forward that were shown off this year at E3 are Crackdown 2, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Forza Motorsports 3. I’ve spent many hours playing all three of those titles, and I’m happily awaiting their releases. AC2 and FM3 are both slated later this year, and I haven’t really seen anything about when Crackdown 2 is coming out. Either way, I’m happy to have a couple titles coming my way that’ll undoubtedly rock.

Now, there were a couple new controller / controller addons announced. Although new peripherals are cool, I guess I’m more into the games. I don’t need a sensor reading my thumb and telling me how soon I’ll have a heart attack nor am I really interested in talking to creepy child-like virtual buddies.

So what are you guys looking forward to? If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Assassin’s Creed 2.

Technorati Tags: E3,E32009,Microsoft

Balsamiq Mockups – Quickly Make Informal, Approachable Designs

Stacy Vicknair — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:27:19 GMT

After reading Michael Neel’s article on Devlicio.us about Balsamiq Mockups, I thought that the article must be insincere. Go ahead and check the article, itself even titled “You should be using Mockups”. Back yet? Well I’ll continue anyways…

As I was saying, the article was too good to be true, and this Adobe Air application seemed to be too much of a dream. Well, needless to say, I decided to check the tool out, and I also flaunted my blog and MVP status to get a chance to test out Mockups for myself. The condensed version of this article? Now I understand why I have to have this product.

Design with appropriate tools

As Michael noted, making a prototype with the tools you use for design is inefficient. Sure you think you’re saving time by handling some of the work up front, but what if there are drastic changes, and you’ve got to rethink how you’re feeding mock data to the app you built just for prototyping? You’re basically shooting in the dark with a airsoft gun.

Michael’s experience is actually a bit different from mine. When I started producing my own functional specs, I took the advice of a good friend and used inkscape to make the designs. The time it takes to create a design in inkscape is probably quicker than it would take to make a design in Visual Studio, but I don’t have the controls like I would in VS. I could make my own set of controls in inkscape and use them each time I prototype, but that’s an amount of work that I shouldn’t have to do if I used a tool meant specifically for mocking. My method is like shooting in a dimly lit room with blanks.

Enter Mockups. Mockups has the convenience of Visual Studio’s drag and drop controls without the hassle of mocking data (we’ll get to that soon). Mockups also has the convenience of using a tool like illustrator or inkscape by allowing for easy export of the mockups. It’s the best of both worlds, it’s a tool meant for the job. To continue with my horrible analogies, Mockups is like rigging a room with the nail bombs from Saw V. Quick and effective; meant to get the job done.

Quick and reusable

So to test out Mockups, I decided to throw together a design that I’m familiar with: the WTFNext.com design (a basic SubText template). The results are below. This mock took me about 10 minutes, which for me is probably good. This includes learning curve and my minutes of tweaking to create the perfect design. To me, this is quick.

The other good news is that I can reuse that work I did in 10 minutes. I can group the elements that make up my page and then copy them to a new mockup and build a different page. I could even construct a template for complex controls and use that!

Informal and approachable

The informal look of the wireframe designs are a blessing that you might not recognize. The design effectively conveys that the prototype is just… a prototype! It is meant for criticism, and the pseudo-drawn comic sans feel allows those involved in decisions to realize that the design isn’t set in stone. In fact, it’s still wide open. It’s begging to be changed, and thanks to using a tool meant for mocking applications, it’s easily done.

Tiny criticisms

I do mean tiny. There are very few problems that I have with Mockups, and many of them are being actively addressed, and the Balsamiq crew is more than happy to work with customers to improve the application. Here’s my small list:

No true way to make your own controls. You can sort of create a control by grouping other controls and setting their functionality, but they still act as separate items. Balsamiq knows about this, and they will work with you if you’ve got a great control suggestion.
Things snap in place, but you’re still dealing with “sketchy” shapes. If you try to put a rectangle in a browser object, you’ll get it to snap in place, but not necessarily a clean cut snap because of the sketchy nature to objects.
Containers aren’t really containers. This is something I’d love to see Mockups take on. Containers allow for snapping in smart locations, but the containers don’t truly act as containers. Why is it important? I think it could solve my previous problem, where snapping a rectangle into a browser or app window would have a clean line on the snapped edges.

However, these are all minor minor minor issues. Almost non-existent considering the time I save with Mockups to begin with. At $79 a license, this application is a steal.

Technorati Tags: Balsamiq,Mockups,Prototyping

Safari Books Online – A First Look

Stacy Vicknair — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:20:05 GMT

Buying books can get expensive. If you’re like me, you’ve got a collection surmounting that takes up more room than you should probably afford. So what are your options?

You could use the library, but then you’re fairly limited in readings. Many of the classic timeless books will be around, but the latest and greatest will be a long time from hitting the shelf, if at all. You could do book trading, if you live in the heart of a thriving technical community. But, we don’t all have that sort of availability, and we also don’t all have that passion for social interaction either.

So what about eBooks? I’m not talking about those ones that you got off torrents of FTPs that your mother’s been telling you you’ll go to jail for, I’m talking legal eBooks that you pay for and have the right to use. Well, even eBooks can get expensive, costly a small amount less than buying the hard copy, which if you’re like me you’d rather the hard copy to begin with, if it weren’t threatening to evict you from your home forcefully as your collection grows.

Well, nowadays there are newer options. eBook subscription services! Notably, we’re talking about Safari Books Online this time around. As a member of GeekWithBlogs I was grateful to receive an extended trial and want to give my impressions on the service.

First impressions are lasting ones

Altogether, I have to say I’m genuinely impressed with Safari Books Online. The service is easy to use and provides instant access to so many books, you’ll be busy for years. When I logged on I was welcomed by a well designed home page. Everything was in an understandable location, and I wasn’t overwhelmed by a cluttered nightmare. I immediately had my bearings and went straight for a book to test the whole thing out.

My worst complaint about reading books online is that I hate html based books. I think you lose readability in the generic formatting that applies to every book, instead of the intended formatting the print version has. That’s a nonissue with Safari Books because of the ability to view at “Print Fidelity”, which is the same as viewing the PDF version of a book. At work I was experiencing a slight delay in the loading of pages (which load in square segments, and important squares were taking their sweet time) but this was quashed when I looked from home.

Searching for the right book

When I searched for the book I wanted in Safari Books, I found it. In particular, my searches were for the Head First series from O’Reilly and also Don’t Make Me Think from Steve Krug. Had I looked for the Gang of Four instead, that’d be another story, but understandably the Safari Books archive is huge but can’t have everything.

The search has optional suggestions for searches. As you can see here, I get the book I want easily by searching. There are quirks however, if I put an apostrophe in don’t then I won’t get any suggestions. The suggestions can really help steer a general search as well. Putting in “web” will list suggestions of web design, web services, web 2.0, and even websphere. I could see it being helpful in a time when I know a genre I’m interested in, but not sure exactly what about it I currently want to read through.

And what about when you find that perfect book? You then can easily make notes in it, save it as a favorite (depending on membership), or even save out chapters or the entire book (by a paid token system). By far, virtual notes is my favorite of these features. It makes reviewing a book a snap, and helps you remember where you were and what you liked without a torrential amount of post-its.

Let’s make a deal

So what about pricing? This is where I’m iffy about the service.

I’m a poor and cheap man. I can justify purchasing a book every once and a while, but I’m not 100% sure I’m willing to pay for an eBook service for a collection that is easily fleeting depending on my income. And these days income can be fleeting. Starting at just $10, you can have limited access to the book collection, where you are forced to shelve books you want, in which those books must remain shelved for 30 days. Five books per month is what you get. For an arm more, you get 10 books at a time. Then, for over $400 a year, you get unlimited read access, and some free tokens per month for download.

Conclusion

My first impressions of Safari Books online are very positive, the service is great, and caters to how you want to read your content (unless of course you want to read it in a real book, but you can still make purchases through the service). The site is intuitive, and helps you easily get to the information you want. However, since I’m cheap and would rather buy certain books and have them forever over buying a subscription that I can’t ever truly call my own, I’m not certain if I’ll bite the bullet and pay for the service after my trial is up.

Some good news!

For a limited time, Safari Books Online is offering GeekswithBlogs readers a 15 day free trial, plus a 15% discount on a monthly subscription for a full year. Learn more and start your free trial at: http://www.safaribooksonline.com/geeks/mobile/?cid=200904-my-geeks-blog

Technorati Tags: eBooks,Safari Books Online

What Programming Language Should I Learn, In Response to Bill Tudor

Stacy Vicknair — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:41:01 GMT

A fellow GWBlogger, Bill Tudor, recently blogged about the progression he would suggest for someone who is getting started or looking to further themselves as a developer.

Some small changes I’d suggest is that when it comes to learning an object oriented language, VB.NET is viable object-oriented, managed runtime language. Sure, the syntax is a bit different, but VB.NET is a competitor too. Also, an alternative to Scheme and Haskell could be F#, still leveraging the .NET framework.

However, all of these suggestions are just that, suggestions. In the end, as Bill mentions, languages are fleeting. The main point to learning a different language isn’t to learn the syntax; it’s about learning how to leverage a new type of language, whether it be imperative, object-oriented, dynamic, functional, or even a culmination of them all. Learn the language type and understand its power and ability.

This continual yearning for learning new ways to tackle new or old tasks is what drives many of us. We love what we do as developers, and we want to continue to learn and help others learn.

That’s what the upcoming F# Dojo is going to be all about, collaborative learning to empower those new to functional programming. I’m just dipping my toes into the functional water myself, and I’m hoping that we can foster an environment to get all of our feet wet in F#.

My blog is mostly VB.NET centric, but I hope to start a series soon on F# here, running weekly. I hope that I can help someone learn more about F# as I learn more, and I hope that those who are strong with F# will peek in and give some guidance as well.

Altogether, this is what I love about community, and I hope that you all can just continue to prove me right.

Technorati Tags: Learning programming,F# Dojo,Bill Tudor

Design Patterns: GOF or Head First?

Stacy Vicknair — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:02:33 GMT

So I’m looking to make a purchase to learn more about design patterns. In Code Complete, Steve McConnell makes mention of design patterns very briefly, and I think it would be beneficial for me to go into more depth of my understanding.

Currently I’m considering either Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by the GOF or Head First Design Patterns. Amazingly both books have 249 reviews and 4.5 stars on Amazon. Personally, I think that I might benefit more from the in depth look that the GOF provide, but there are many reviews that say the GOF book is dated, and that Head First brings an updated look at the subject.

So, again I ask for the help of those who come before me. What do you guys think about these two books?

Technorati Tags: GOF,Design Patterns,Head First

At what level is Source Control Management unnecessary?

Stacy Vicknair — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:21:58 GMT

I work on a two programmer team for a federal credit union. I’ve been here for six months now, and I’d like to explain the problems that I have with working here to you guys.

Limited design experience. I have two years professional programming experience, and I’m finding road blocks when I try to learn more from the “Lead” programmer. For me, programming is a passion and something I want to know more and more about. For him, programming was a means to a job that he doesn’t want to get more out of. He landed the lead position by default, the previous lead quit and he was the only programmer left until I came.

As a result, his experience with design in his four to five years as a programmer has still been limited to less than five projects. There is no clear life cycle or methodology to his design.

In my case, I’m in the same position, but trapped. I cannot learn from him, I cannot see real case scenarios of how to expertly design a system because the legacy code is in VB6 and does not follow a good object oriented design. Does anyone know of a good resource that will help me understand software design / architecture? I really want to design the next project in a way that reflects smart programming.

No source control. Period. We don’t have any source control at all, other than the fact that we don’t work concurrently on projects. I bet the vast majority of you just either (a) had a moment of panic or (b) felt pity for how doomed I am.

Does a two man team not need source control? My thoughts would be that yes, we need source control and we need it before we find out how much we need it.

I’ve been looking into Subversion to see if I can start to grasp how it’s implemented and how I can test it out at home. OpenSim uses subversioning, but just because I know how to retrieve code from a repository doesn’t mean I understand how the process works, how it will help me, and the added stress that could result from it.

so for those of you with more years and better experiences, what is a good book / online resource for learning proper software design? And furthermore, what SCM do you use, would you recommend it, and what would you rather use?

Technorati Tags: source control,scm,subversion,software design,software architecture

Getting started with WLW

Stacy Vicknair — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:13:12 GMT

I’ve just set up WLW at work to take advantage of blogging in a very nice interface and to make the best use of the new WTFNext. I do apologize to those of you who are getting this content and being generally disappointed by the lack of context, but I’m getting myself familiar with GWB and how I can make the most of it.

The hope with this post is that I’ll get my tag cloud started, just by incorporating Technorati tags at the bottom. From what I understand thanks to JJulian, the tag cloud should magically appear once I start. I hope that my understanding of the process (Step 1: Add tags; Step 2: Magic!; Step 3: Tag cloud) is correct.

Overall I’m thrilled with the switch away from personal DNN hosting and with how well GWB works, and the community around it.

Technorati Tags: WLW,Windows Live Writer,subtext,gwb,geekswithblogs,geekswithblogs.net,technorati,tags,tag cloud