.Net

The End of a Decade's Work

Chip Lemmon — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:43:43 GMT

Well I guess I should be satisfied that I sustained a company for 10 years. But it is a bit anti-climactic. I've screwed up a lot, learned a lot and accomplished a lot since 1998. I like to think of it as a long MBA program based in real world experience. I wouldn't trade anything for the experiences I have gained over the past 10 years.

Nothing is more "real world" than being your own boss and running your own company. Nothing is more real world than not getting paid by a client for more than 90 days. Nothing is more real than being on the bench for several months watching your annual profits disappear. And yet nothing is more satisfying than knowing I did it for 10 years and did a damn good job at it.

I've seen a lot of crazy stuff. Crazy stuff other contractors do, crazy stuff clients do, crazy stuff client's employees do and crazy stuff partners do. I've been everything from developer to CTO. I've been a contract developer, business partner, CTO, Chief Architect, Sr. Developer, Project Manager, Advisor to a State Health Dept. and a member of a PMO.

I managed to survive more than 6 CTOs at one client and helped two clients when they sold their companies to other companies. I was once offered 0.5 percent, that's right one half of one percent of a start up as compensation for architecting their entire solution. Which by the way the company could not exist without as it enabled their entire offering. I even ran an off-shore operation for a while.

I was offered a job at just about every substantial client that I consulted for. I was laughed at of course when I told them how much it would cost to hire me. But that was okay because they just kept me on contract for a long time at my billing rate.

One side benefit I never expected nor planned for came around 2004. It was an introduction to the "community". I came across and subsequently hired a big personality in the .Net Community. We were friends instantly and I was immediately drawn into the community. I have met amazing people since that time from the typical .Net companies and some not so typical companies. I was given great opportunities to present to the community (which has probably fullfilled me more than those that attended my sessions.) While not as active as I once was I will always hold the .Net community in the highest regard and among some of the fondest memories over the past 10 years.

So why the long rant? Well because in March I decided to take a full time employment position and I actually enjoy it very much. And so to clean things up I have decided to close my shop. So in August 2008 I will close my company exactly 10 years after starting it. A company that has brought me joy and tears, excitement and fear. If you have ever run your own company, you'll get why this is such a big deal. If you haven't you should try it some time. It will certainly give you a different perspective on full time employement.

Maybe I'll be back on the independant side some day. But for now I've hung my hat at a GREAT company with huge opportunities. So while I focus on my new career this blog will probably fall silent.

Thanks,

--chaz

I can see the light -- Silverlight 2.0

Chip Lemmon — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:31:57 GMT

Silverlight 2.Oh My God! Shawn Burke posted about his endeavors with Silverlight 2.0 and he says one very important thing... "I'm having fun!" Man that is what it should be about. Programming should be fun and not a hassle. I am expecting some instant gratification from Silverlight 2.0.

Shawn also points to Scott Gu's blog. If you aren't watching that blog like a hawk already you really need to subscribe. Not to be overly dramatic, but coming from a thick client background, Silverlight 2.0 is going to change my world!!!!

--chaz

Do you WCF/WPF/WF/Silverlight?

Chip Lemmon — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:16:24 GMT

Okay so we've had an onslaught of new things hit in the Microsoft stack lately. I am curious how many folks are using WCF, WPF, WF (workflow), Silverlight, LINQ, etc. And for what types of problems you are trying to solve.

It would also be nice to know if you are using the P&P Guidance Packages and Ent Libs. Oh and which Visual Studio version are you mainly working with these days?

If you are not using this stuff yet why? Did you pitch it to your boss and they said no for some reason? Did they get it or not?

I consider this a reverse blog. It is probably better suited for a discussion board than a blog, but so be it. Talk back to me. I want to know which foundations are being embraced and which are being rejected.

Thanks for the feedback!!!!!

--chaz

FireStarter NYC

Chip Lemmon — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:20:18 GMT

I will be presenting on the interaction of ASP.Net, ASP.Net AJAX, and Silverlight 1.0 this Saturday at Microsoft in NYC. I'll also be showing off a small bit of Expression Blend 2 December Preview.

It is amazing how easy it is to pull all of these technologies together. Some of what I will be showing this Satruday is just a bridge until Silverlight 2.0 is released. But it is all relatively simple and once you've done the work once it is very re-usable.

Hope I'll be seeing you there.

--chaz

Options For Porting Java to .Net

Chip Lemmon — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:10:29 GMT

I am working on a port of an opensource domain specific Time & Money java library written by Eric Evans to .Net. To the best of my knowledge there are 2 ways to directly convert Java to .Net;

1. Use the built in Convert function within Visual Studio 2005/08. This lets you point directly at the java classes and allow studio to handle the conversion to C#.

2. Create a J# project, and include the java files in your project.

Using the first method there are a lot of conversion problems because a number of Java methods have no direct equivilant in .Net. A typical error is java.util.Calendar.add could not be converted. And since this domain is all about Time, there are a lot of these issues.

The second method is a little better, but still not great. I was able to bring the java classes right into J#. The only significant issue was that there were a ton of "asserts" in the code. J# didn't handle it well, so I had to clean that up. So my next step was to get it from J# to C#. I copmpiled the J# and then used Reflector to reverse it to C#. I didn't get everything I wanted.

Some classes are decorated like this;

[

I was hoping for a complete break from Java. I guess I will have to do this port the old fashion way. I'll have to understand exactly what each module does and then write copy or write the C# equivilant accordinly.

So much for getting away cheap and being lazy. It was worth a try. By the whole port exercise was very interesting.

--chaz

JavaInterfaces("2;java/lang/Comparable;java/io/Serializable;")]

Philly Code Camp Registration Open

Chip Lemmon — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:16:49 GMT

Registration for the Philly Code Camp on January 12th is now open. I will be presenting "Entry Level Event Models". It is a part of my "Entry Level" series that will attempt to get "the willing" up to speed on fundamental architectural, design and development practices.

I'm psyched to kick off 2008 with a code camp presentation. This should be a good one, so go register now!

--chaz

Dear ALT.Net Attendees:

Chip Lemmon — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:12:44 GMT

This is an open letter to the attendees of the upcoming ALT.Net gathering in Austin TX.

Dear Friends,

Sadly I will not be able to join you at ALT.Net due to some poor planning on my part. I regret missing out on the opportunity to surround myself with some of the brightest minds in our industry. If I were to attend ALT.Net though, my goal would have been to represent the "marginal developer". The developer who gets it, but doesn't practice it in the work place due to circumstances beyond his/her control. Or the developer who wants to get it, knows he should get it, but just doesn't.

My biggest fear is that the top 1% of the class is getting together and they will come up with things that will leave the "marginal" developer behind. Please remember to check your egos and agendas at the door and do what is best for the community. There are countless developers out there that look to you guys to blaze the trails. So long as your final message is not condescending or too abstract you will set the pace for others to follow.

To be clear about this what I mean is that there is a tendency to feel as though we are all unworthy to call ourselves developers right now if we are not an Agilest. Even if that is not the intent, it is the perception. And we all know that perception is reality. Please don't let that happen from the ALT.Net effort. You guys are on to something here.

If there is one thing I have learned from ALT.Net already, it is that a namespace is not something to take lightly. From the countless posts about what ALT.Net really is one might say that our industry is jam packed with anal retentive literalists. Let's move past the term ALT.Net already. Just don't change the namespace to ShoveItDownMyThroatLikeAgile.Net ;) Oh, just kidding, lighten up!

Oh and my final word on the ALT.Net thing. It makes me laugh when people argue that this is a movement against the Microsoft tool set. It is especially comical when non .Net or anti-Microsoft developers comment on how bad and evil Microsoft is. And how the horrible empire is following its own vision and not ours. Shut up already with this crap. Bottom line is that this is not a Utopian society. Microsoft is trying to make a buck on its efforts. And here is a dirty little secret... So are all of us. So use their tools, or use somebody else's but don't throw your hate around anymore, because it is just old.

Yes a lot of us do things for free to better our profession. But if we were all honest we do this because it puts bread on our table and not for the betterment of man kind. So great, there are languages out there that are grass roots, that don't come from an "evil empire". If that's your thing, go ahead and use it. But just stop the Microsoft bashing non-sense. I don't love MS but I don't hate them either. I think I have a practical perspective on what they are and how they help me do what I need to do for a living. In the end they are a business like any other. So enough already!

Well I guess that was a bit more than a final word, but I had to get that rant off my chest. It has really been killing me.

So ALT.Netters, have fun, keep it real and bring home some good ideas!

--chaz

Infragistics Web Grid on a Web Tab

Chip Lemmon — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 19:04:22 GMT

I am writing a bit of client side code to move data from one Infragistics UltraWebGrid to another. To do this I have given the user a button on each row of the main table. If they click the button in a row the contents of the id and descrition columns should be inserted into the destination grid.

This all should have been real simple. Except my javascript did not work. Here is my original code:

So the code is syntactically correct. My destination grid has an Id of MergeGrid. But remember my UltraWebGrid is on an UltraWebTab. This causes a problem. When I run this function, my row is never added to the grid. That is because behind the scenes, my grid was renamed. This is how I finally got the function to work.

Notice that I replaced the MergeGrid name with UltraWebTab1xxctl0xMergeGrid. I found this name by running my ASP.Net web project and viewing the source of the page from the web browser. There may be a better way to do this and if there is I'd like to know.

--chaz

WPF Starter

Chip Lemmon — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 14:26:25 GMT

A great post from Karsten Januszewski should help you get started with WPF. I like this not only because Karsten points to great resources, but because it is oganized into a nice 5 day self paced course. Really cool!

--chaz

User Interface Smackdown 2007

Chip Lemmon — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:01:00 GMT

As I had mentioned in my review of the NJUX meeting the User Experience movement seems to still be in its infancy stages. So I am psyched to see things like Josh Holmes' blog about the User Interface Smackdown 2007. These are exactly the types of meetings and conversations that need to happen to bring more momentum and attention to the User Experience.

It was also great to see that the attendees were cross vendor (Microsoft & Adobe). This is a reaffirmation for the NJUX that we need to be cross vendor and cross discipline.

--chaz