AzamSharp

My Requirements for Presenting in an Open Space Conference

I am willing to come and teach about how cool TFS is and how easy it is to setup and use specially when deleting and renaming items. The session will last 4-5 hours in which I will explain how to download TFS from bit torrent, how to use KeyGen to generate a key for TFS install and other important stuff.

But of course I have conditions.

1) I will require Halal food. You can order Chicken Biryani.

2) For drink I will prefer Pakola (Available on any Pakistani/Indian Store).

3) I hate driving so you need to arrange a car to pick me up from my house. And please no car models before May 2009.

4) I will require 5 giant posters of TFS which says "TFS Rules", "Git Sucks", "Got TFS!".

5) I also require 3 high definition camera which should be focused on me!

6) I will also require crowed cheering sound when I walk in. You can get the cheering crowd sound from WWE The Rock vs Hulk Hogan.

7) I will also require at least 3 cheer leaders who will cheer whenever I perform a successful check-in.
8) I will require the My Therapy Buddy to complete my TFS session. It is available here.

These are my demands. Now, the ball is in your court.

Passing JavaScript Objects to the CLR World

Recently, I had the need to pass a JavaScript object to the C# side using Ajax. There are number of ways of performing this action. The simplest method involved sending the arguments as primitive type as shown in the code below:

<code>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

    var customer = new Customer('John', 'Mary', 28);

    var a = 0;

    function greet() {

        LearningWebApps.AjaxService.InsertCustomer(customer.firstName,customer.lastName,customer.age,function (response) {

        });

    }

</script>
</code>

I am using Microsoft Ajax framework in my example. The defination for the JavaScript customer class is shown below:

<code>
function Customer(firstName, lastName, age) {

    Customer.prototype.firstName = firstName;
    Customer.prototype.lastName = lastName;
    Customer.prototype.age = age;
}
</code>

The server side InsertCustomer methods is shown below:

<code>
[WebMethod]
        public string InsertCustomer(string firstName, string lastName, int age)
        {

            return "Thanks!";

        }
</code>

This will work as expected and you will receive all the three arguments in your WebMethod. The problem arises when the list of arguments to pass increases. In that case you will have to increase the number of parameters for your InsertCustomer method which is a bad idea. It is always a good programming practice to have minimal number of parameters for your methods. If the method is taking lots of parameters then you should always replace parameters with a single class instance.

The question is what parameter type should be use for InsertCustomer method. Let's try with the System.Object type and see how it behaves. The implementation below shows the updated InsertCustomer method that takes "Object" as an input parameters.

<code>
   [WebMethod]
        public string InsertCustomer(object customer)
        {

            return "Thanks!";

        }
</code>

The JavaScript call also changes since now you are sending the complete object instead of the individual parameters.

<code>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

    var customer = new Customer('John', 'Mary', 28);

    var a = 0;

    function greet() {

        LearningWebApps.AjaxService.InsertCustomer(customer,function (response) {

        });

    }

</script>

</code>

If you debug the application you will notice that all the properties of the customer JavaScript object were successfully passed to the InsertCustomer method. The interesting thing to note about this object parameter is that it has the type of Dictionary<String,Object>. This is because JavaScript treats the properties as HashTable. If you like to access the properties from the C# side you can use the following code:

<code>
[WebMethod]
        public string InsertCustomer(object customer)
        {
            var values = (Dictionary<String, Object>)customer;

        // values["firstName"] returns John


            return "Thanks!";

        }
</code>

Since now you know that the object passed is of type Dictionary<String,Object> you can replace the object with Dictionary<String,Object>. But instead of going down that path let's see if we can find a different way.

I created a CLR class called Customer with FirstName, LastName and Age properties as shown below:

<code>
public class Customer
    {
        public string MiddleName { get; set; } // just for fun
        public string FirstName { get; set; }
        public string LastName { get; set; }
        public int Age { get; set; }
    }
</code>

I updated the InsertCustomer method to take the CLR Customer object as an argument as shown below:

<code>
[WebMethod]
        public string InsertCustomer(Customer customer)
        {
            return "Thanks!";
        }
</code>

The result is shown below:

I don't know about you but I find it fascinating how the values fit properly in the CLR object properties. Well, there is nothing fancy about it. If you check out the JavaScript proxy generated then you will notice that the JavaScript object will simply fill in any Dictionary containing any of the fields exposed by the Customer JavaScript object.

This means I can even have a CLR Order class with FirstName, LastName and Age and it will fill it up properly.

<code>
public class Order
    {
        public string FirstName { get; set; }
        public string LastName { get; set; }
    }
</code>

If you are using VS2010 then you can also make use of the dynamic keyword. The dynamic keyword will end up being Dictionary<String,Object> and you will have to use Name,Value pair to access the values as shown below:

If you are looking for a much cleaner design then you can always have CLR classes for the sole purpose to hold the passed in JavaScript objects. This means you will have a separate class for JavaScript Object called JSCustomer which will be responsible to hold the values passed from the client side Customer object.

Please note that I used the Microsoft Ajax framework for sending Ajax request. In the next post I will check if the same behavior exists when using JQuery Ajax framework.

So, how do you pass objects from JavaScript world to the CLR world?

Who Will You Hire?

NOTE: This is a gender free article. For the sake of simplicity I have used he/him for both male and female.

I have been to a lot of job interviews and found each of them different from the other. Some asked for the University GPA, the others were more inclined towards the prior work experience.

After all these interviews and exercises, I sometimes wonder what I will ask if I am on the other side of the table? Here are list of things that are very important for me to hire the next developer.

1) User Group Attendance:

Most of the US cities have local user groups and for most of the groups there is no fee associated with them. Some big cities like Houston have multiple user groups to benefit the people living in different areas. Being part of a user group is very important to me. It shows that you are passionate about learning something. It shows that you are willing to sacrifice extra 2-3 hours to fill your geek appetite.

I would like to ask the job seeker to name some of the sessions that he has attended and explain what was discussed in those sessions.

Some big cities including Houston also host TechFest. Since this is a big event which occurs only once a year, some cities put a price tag on it. Fortunately, Houston does not charge a single cent to the attendees. This year at Houston TechFest 2009 almost 900 people showed up. If you are applying for a job in my company and have previously attended TechFest, then you scored good points in my book.

2) Blogging:

If there is a good time to start blogging then it is now! Blogging has never been easier. There are a countless number of services available that allows hosting a free blog. This includes Blogger.com, WordPress.com, LiveJournal.com, Geekswithblogs.net etc.

Blogging is an excellent way to publish your thoughts on the web. The problem with beginner bloggers is that they give up too early. Sometimes it takes one year of continuous blogging to get noticed. This one year timeline is the most challenging part as a big percentage of new comers lose hope as well as interest and focus on more important things in life like watching soap operas and changing their status on Facebook every 10 seconds.

Blogging is extremely important to the newly graduate students who are ready to step in the real world. With no real world horror stories on their side, blogging might be their only way to enter the virtual world of code and popularity.

3) Open Source Projects:

Open source software has taken the software companies by storm. Even Microsoft has to bow down and embrace this change in the form of Codeplex Foundation. I have high respect for open source developers and the contributions they make to the community.

As a job seeker I would like to see your participation in open source projects. It is not necessary that you are contributing to the project but you can even be an innocent bystander watching the magic show. You should be able to tell what the project is about and how it works. There are many places to find open source projects including CodePlex.com, SourceForge.net, GitHub.com etc.

4) Participation in Forums and Discussion Boards:

If you know me then you should also know that I have passion for forums and discussion boards. There is no feeling like helping someone in need and learning something new at the same time. When I stepped into the .NET world, I was completely lost. There were so many questions that I needed to ask. Luckily forums were there to guide me along my journey. The best part about participating in forums is that the questions are real and not some fancy baloney. I have learned a lot from forums and I think it is one of the most practical ways of learning new technology.

At present, two of my favorite forums are www.asp.net and www.stackoverflow.com. I am more inclined towards StackOverFlow because of cleaner design and fast response, but the idea behind any forum is the same which is to share knowledge.

5) Build a Project or Ten:

In order to participate on the forums you must be either willing to help or seeking help. I will assume that as a fresh graduate you will be in the latter category. It is hard to come up with questions when you are writing demo code. I would suggest start building an application. The application can be anything. It can be something that you need on your day to day basis or it can be something for your friend???s dad to help him in his car repair business. The main idea is to build the application and practice the joys of software development.

It is highly likely that you will seek help during your implementation. This is where the power of discussion boards and forums kicks in. If you are stuck in some problem then write a detailed post about your problem and post it on one of the forums. Most of your problems will be solved in few hours and as you solve your problems, you can blog about them so others can benefit from it.

6) Celebrity Check:

When hiring a mid level or a senior developer, I would like to perform a quick celebrity check. The idea behind the celebrity check is that I will show the job seeker a picture of a rock star in the area he is applying for the job. For example, if he is applying for ASP.NET position I will show him a picture of Scott Guthrie. If he is applying for C# developer then I will show a picture of Anders Hejlsberg.

If the person recognizes the celebrities then it is a good indication that he (or she) is following/reading the right people to increase his knowledge.

7) Live Coding:

Most people don???t like the idea of coding on the spot, but I think it is extremely important to find out if the candidate can code or not. You would not like to hire a singer without hearing him first, would you? Maybe you don???t even have to go as far as live coding. You can simply introduce the candidate with some code and ask him to find the problem in the code.

In my book ???passion??? carries more weight than the made up grades and certifications you receive after one night cramming session. Be passionate and you will go a long way.

Acceptance Testing Using Cucumber and IronRuby

I was finally able to publish my latest article on Cucumber and IronRuby. The article discuses how to perform acceptance testing behavior driven way using Cucumber and IronRuby. You can check out the article below:

Behavior Driven Development Using Cucumber and IronRuby

Show Me Your Love Vote for ME!!

Have you ever visited HighOnCoding? Do you like the hundreds of free articles, screencasts and podcasts hosted on HighOnCoding? Have you seen the awesome screencasts on AspAlliance? Do you find this blog useful?

If any of the answer to the above questions is yes then you can now show your love by giving me your important vote. The banner below links to a competition in which my wife and I have entered. My wife created the complete script for the video which also includes the video effects and pictures. I was merely an innocent bystander.

The voting begins from October 14th till October 28th 2009 and you can vote everyday. If you want to show your love then this is the time.