Commuting with Steve Wozniak

Posted: October 11, 2004 in Other
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OK, so you don’t like DNR for whatever reasons. Try it again, Rory’s humour will really grow on you (please don’t leave the show Rory!) + heck the show is so informative any developer would be a fool not to listen. I mean what else do you do while commuting?

If you really don’t like DNR; then try this site: http://www.itconversations.com/

Last week I commuted with Steve McConnell, Joel Spolsky and best of all Steve Wozniak.
Steve tells the story of his childhood thru college thru starting Apple, all of which
was fascinating. Many of us will relate to his childhood, but perhaps not that minor
starting a world leading company bit.

HUMOUR: Got Mac? Get Therapy

Posted: October 11, 2004 in Other
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Macintosh users are a unique breed, I truly admire their devotion. Most of my Mac friends freely admit to being addicted, spending huge sums of cash on Macs with little justification other than their devotion for the brand. They are good products, but those ‘Mac-is-my-Nirvana’ adverts are a little unbelievable… well balance in the force is now established:

http://whitehathouston.com/mac.wmv

The video was referenced on Fritz Onion’s DNR episode and after stopping laughing I had to post.

October Evenings in Atlanta

Posted: October 6, 2004 in Atlanta
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>

Summer’s gone folks, and it took the long lazy evenings with it. What else is a geek
to do apart from play catch-up with technology? This is what my Axim says I’ll attend
during the next four weeks:

October

Wed 7th – VB.Net (you missed that
one, sorry!)

Mon 11th - http://www.seris.org/ (SEO
is the topic)

Mon 11th - http://www.atlantamdf.com/ (Teo
Lachev presents RS again)

Mon 11th - http://agileatlanta.org/ (Jim
Highsmith – I’ll be there, he is a well known author)

Tue 12th - Normal date for http://agileatlanta.org/ special
event moved it to the 11th

Wed 13th - The Pixes at the Fab Fox
– Now, Where IS my Mind?

Thur 14th - http://www.ale.org/ Linux
group; So as to fit in I won’t wash or change clothes after the Pixies concert

Tue 19th - http://www.ajug.org/ Java
–IMO this is the best group in town

Wed 20th - http://www.avbsg.net/ VB.Net
– beginner or expert, you will learn something at these meetings

Thur 21st - http://www.atlanta-icca.org/ Recruiter
bashing is guaranteed

Mon 25th - http://www.atlantadotnet.org/ The
main .Net group in town, somewhat impersonal

Thur 28th -

Atlanta

.Net Book Club (date subject to change)

Fri 29th - IEEE, http://chapters.computer.org/atlanta/ Pocket
protectors are mandatory

November

Mon 1st - http://www.atlantacsharp.org/ MCSDs
take turns to give Michael Earls a hard time

Web 3rd - http://www.avbsg.net/ Some
jerk named Paul Lockwood will present ‘Writing Secure Code’

Thur 4th - ISV Event (daytime: 8am-5pm)

Thur 4th - MSDN Event (free) in Lawrenceville???!!??

Thur 4th - http://www.msmobilityroadshow.net/

If this list is useful LMK, and I’ll put something more comprehensive together next
time.

Free Event Tickets – Connected Systems Roadshow

Posted: September 23, 2004 in Other
0

>

The regular price is $249, but a Microsoft
rep mailed attendees saying we can take two more people for free. If you are interested
use this URL:

 

http://go.netdesk.com/CommunityDays/EventInfo.aspx?Event=220&RSVP=isvfree

 

You can attend next Mon or Tue (Sep 27th + 28th) and it lasts all day, I’ll
be there on Tuesday so as not to miss the .Net group on Monday evening.

 

The location is:

Hilton Atlanta & Towers-Grand Ballroom A – 2nd Floor

255 Courtland St. NE

Atlanta, GA 30303

404-221-6347

Atlanta's Pocket PC User Group

Posted: September 22, 2004 in Other
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>

Show and Tell of expensive toys could sum this evening up. There were only seven developers
among the seventy or so attendees. The phrases Compact Framework or even .Net were
not mentioned once!

 

Still it was a fun evening, I got to live vicariously though other people’s high dollar
purchases (like I’d blow $800 on a PDA, do you know what kind of wheels $800 would
buy? Nice ones).
Unbelievably some rivaled Michael Earls on
the amount-of-tech-in-your-everyday-life front. It seemed like everyone there had
Bluetooth capable devices which talked to their car audio system + GPS receiver.

 

Obviously there is quite lot to learn about mobile devices apart from just programming
them; my favorite was the new nick name for the BlackBerry: CrackBerry –
apparently checking Email becomes an addiction creating a Pavlovian response
from its incoming email alert. For you single guys: If you fly often it appears a BlackBerry will
pick up more chicks than a PocketPC equivalent. My $200
Dell Axim probably means Jocks will be stand in line to
kick my nerdy ass.

 

The main speaker was Dale Coffing, he
showed off some cool products including a pair of kakis that I’ll be buying. The SCOTTeVEST pants
have eleven hidden pockets and compartments – ideal for stowing a PDA and blunt metal
objects discretely (in case of attack by Jocks in Airport lounges). SCOTTeVEST also
sell Jackets… get ready to salivate… Their jackets have up to 42 hidden pockets all
begging to contain an expensive gadget, the jacket even has hidden cable routing to
link any oh-that’s-so-90’s wired gadgets together. And just think of the new people
you’ll meet at Airport security. The Jackets are here:

http://www.scottevest.com/v3_product_info/features.shtml

 

If anyone knows of an

Atlanta

based Compact Framework Support User Group please let me know.

Atlanta's Java User Group

Posted: September 21, 2004 in Development (General)
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Atlanta’s Java User Group is excellent. Tonight Justin Gehtland talked about his new book Better, Faster, Lighter Java. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, even with the numerous (and almost all inaccurate) .Net jibes.

Prior to the main event Burr Sutter (who I already knew) led a great discussion with the audience on a raft of subjects. Our .Net groups are missing someone with his panache to work the crowd; he is at least a DCC level speaker.

A fundamental subject of the book is Why Do Many Java Project Fail? As a former Java developer I agreed with many of the assertions including:

. Complexity – Java people love buzzwords and apply any they know anywhere!

. Taking things too far – e.g. Layering everything

. EJB misuse – Been there personally!

. Peer Pressure to write ‘smart’ code

It was also interesting to see just how fragmented the Java tools/ platform extensions market has become since I booted the JVM out of my career (March 2001). The number of commercial-quality Open Source tools available is amazing. In fact commercial companies are now viewing projects like Hibernate as serious competition. In my view this fragmentation lowers each tool’s user base and hence their quality. Why is the CLR, .Net Framework and VS.Net so stable? Because a massive number of sales means Microsoft can afford serious development and gargantuan testing efforts. Java EJB Servers cost around $100K and are apparently as stable Scott McNealy’s career. Without the effort of a Microsoft style Product Development Lifecycle you just cannot create Microsoft quality products. I would love to yatter on about the evening but no one reads long blog entries, so watch this space for news from future Java meetings.

Code Complete 2 – Essential Reading

Posted: September 7, 2004 in Book Review
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If you only buy one programming book in your life, buy this one.

Many of you will have heard me rave about Code Complete and Rapid Development. These are both by Steve McConnell and my successful programming career owes an enormous debt to them, most of my ideas on projects seeded from these books.

Back in 1997 the first revision took me over three hard months to read. Much of the material was new to me, and it really took time to sink in – some of it never clicked. Fast forward to June 2004; The Second Edition grew about two hundred pages to incorporate new fashions on the block like xp, refactoring and design patterns. I ordered it ASAP but only just found the time to read it.

Despite ten years having passed since the first edition, many fundamentals have stayed the same, and it looks like some chapters were only lightly updated. This is proof of how good the first edition was. Personally I read the first edition about four years after completing a post-grad degree in Comp Sci. As I said there were many sections that I just did not understand fully. It is now eleven years since the degree, and the book was a total pleasure to read. So many partially illuminated light bulbs are now glowing brightly. Yes everything in the book is pretty basic stuff. The Design Patterns/ Extreme Programming/ XAML/ Avalon/ only-in-pre-Alpha release crowd will not be impressed, there are few new buzzwords to impress people with. IMO it is far more important to have good grasp of the basics before we go out looking for new hammers to use on our next project. How many of us have seen a Design Pattern used inappropriately, just because a developer happened to read about it lately?

The book is only $34 from Amazon and Steve has made some chapters available for free.

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