Jeffrey Palermo, Microsoft MVP, Author, Speaker, Clear Measure Chief Architect, Azure DevOps Expert
Eric Hexter and I just released a new drop of MvcContrib this morning. In short, head over to the project page and check out the new download. It has many patches applied since March, 2009 as well as Eric Hexter’s “Opinionated Input Builders”.
As an executive of a company on the Inc 500 list, I’m getting lots of sales calls from people wanting to supply me with programmers. Most often, they want to supply me with programmers who are not in Austin, TX. Some are in other countries and some are just is different places. This got us thinking a bit about why people in Austin use Headspring. We have one location, and we serve clients in one region. People in Austin choose Headspring because we are real people working out of their offices. Real faces. Real relationships. Never mind the rigorous extreme programming practices that yield insane levels of quality.
Going forward, we are taking a stand. We are proclaiming from our home page: “No Offshoring”. That’s what we are about. If you call Headspring, you know what you are getting. Here is a clip from the home page.
I couldn’t resist being a little excited when I saw our book, ASP.NET MVC in Action, at the Barnes and Noble bookstore at the Arboretum in Austin, TX. Here is a picture of it.
On a more interesting note, googling for “asp.net mvc in action” brings of some good results but also a site where a pirated copy of the ebook can be had. I’m not too upset about this. It’s the same issue with movies and music. I realize that the people who pirate the book likely are not the same people who would pay for the book.
On another interesting note, I just discovered that the computer science department at Texas A&M University will be using ASP.NET MVC in Action as one of their textbooks.
Eric Hexter and I demonstrate how to use the Tarantino project’s database migrations feature to keep solid configuration management around a SQL Server database schema by leveraging good version control and build automation techniques.
I hereby declare a agile/geek/programmer/software dinner/supper on Thursday, Sept 17 at Mangia pizza from 6pm-8pm. The menu is pizza. The topics are agile and software engineering. (map)
I will be at Mangia pizza in NW Austin, TX for AgileAustin’s AskAnExpert (volunteer) meeting. I’ll be available for questions on software engineering. Come out for supper and some good agile software talk. I’m volunteering my time for people to ask questions, but typically, everyone learns from everyone. I’ll end up learning from you as well.
If you are interested in volunteering to host a future session, go here.
I received my book today in the mail. Some people on twitter have already reported receiving their copies, and if you have ordered it during the MEAP, you should have it today or tomorrow. I want to thank my two co-authors, Ben Scheirman (who has received his copies also) and Jimmy Bogard for working with me on this book. I could not have done it without them. You’ll also see Jeremy Skinner’s picture in the book. He was a terrific technical editor (recently accepted as an ASPInsider).
If you haven’t purchased the book, go to http://bit.ly/mvcinaction or your local bookstore.
And thanks to the Mohammad Azam for the plug in his screencast.
On Sept 19, from 0900-1200, Mahendra Mavani is teaching a refactoring workshop in Austin, TX. It’s free. Just make sure to sign up to ensure your seat.
This workshop is going to be facilitated by Mahendra Mavani. Mahendra is an agile software developer with 8 years of consulting experience. His consulting span accross working with esteem clients from 5 different countries (USA, South Africa, Netherlands, Singapore and UK). Mahendra initiated carrier with waterfall and RUP methodology but quickly jumped onto the track of Agile/XP. Personally Mahendra believe in designing simplest solution for the complex business process and hence strieve for architectue/design which is open for extension-close for modification with high degree of automated test coverage and one with least possible technical debt.
Mahendra has worked with combination of web and windows application development. Earlier phase of his career includes designning Use Case, IDEFØ diagram, Sequence diagram and Activity diagrams as well as honoring CMMi 5 quality standards. However his current inclination is towards user story based iterative development.
Refactoring Workshop:
This is session, full of code drive to demonstrate refactoring techniques mostly influenced by Michael Feathers in his book, “Working Effectively with Legacy Code”. The session will be lively by mean of audience interaction while demonstrating how to approach this refactoring for practical scenarios. Session will start with discussion on the topic of dependency and will go towards the direction of how to break those dependencies and introduce testing harness for any legacy code.
**This is a technically oriented session**
We ask that you bring a laptop capable of running Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2008 or Visual Studio 2008.. (More details on where to download will follow closer to the class date, emailed to attendees.) You should also be familiar with C#, .NET or be comfortable enough with programming to work in pairs or groups with those who are familiar with .NET syntax.
Productivity plug in Resharper, although not required, is highly recommended to have. 30 day tirl version of Resharper 4.5 can be found at http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/download/
All the Refactoring terminology, would be taken from following books:
"Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code" by Martin Fowler (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201485672)
"Working effectively with legacy code" by Michael Feathers (http://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Michael-Feathers/dp/0131177052)
An introductaring pdf about Michael work can be found athttp://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/WorkingEffectivelyWithLegacyCode.pdf
Go here to sign up:
(see Eric’s blog post here)
Headspring has partnered with Microsoft to provide monthly workshops to the local developer community for free. Usually on the 2nd or 3rd Tuesday of each month, these workshops focus on developer skills that are of critical importance to the market in our area.
Headspring provides a free afternoon of training and mentoring in an interactive classroom setting at the local Microsoft office, and registration is free.
This month, Eric Hexter and I are leading a CI (continuous integration) workshop from 1pm to 5pm on Sept 15th.
This workshop will cover the core concepts of Continous Integration and show examples of implementing it for .NET applications and systems. The workshop will be presented by Eric Hexter and Jeffrey Palermo.
For more information about Continous Integration see the website: http://www.integratebutton.com/ and the book: Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk
Austin Microsoft Office
9606 N Mo Pac Expy
Austin, TX 78759
(map)
I have been crazy busy lately, and I have missed quite a few of these lunches. AgileATX is a great venue to discuss agile software engineering with other developers.
If you aren’t familiar with this group in Austin, TX, go to the Yahoo Group. You can subscribe to the Google Calendar for the group here.
It is important to get to Central Market Cafe promptly at 11:30 because it gets crowded for lunch. Order your food (or buy from the full deli) and head upstairs. Look for the folks pulling a bunch of tables together. Introduce yourself and talk with someone you don’t know. Build some relationships.
Every 2 weeks at 11:30am on Thursday
Central Market Cafe, 4001 North Lamar, Austin, TX
Here is a link to add a reminder to your google calendar.
There is a 50% discount coupon that expires today for ASP.NET MVC in Action. Use it today because it won’t work tomorrow. And, as always, I’ll try to keep some current discount coupons up on http://jeffreypalermo.com/blog/asp-net-mvc-in-action/.
50%: mvc50f
