As with all good posts, I’m going to start with a disclaimer. I don’t care which framework you use. I’ve always believed in two big things:

• People are more important than tools for the success of a project
• It is more important to focus on the ‘what’, not the ‘how’

Or if I were to put that on a slide:

1. People
2. Product
3. Process

So whatever programming language or framework strikes your fancy, use that.

With that out of the way, I wanted to unload some thoughts inspired by my trip to Austin this week for Lonestar Ruby Conference. This is not normally a conference I would seek out as a long-time .NET guy, but thankfully my job forces me out of my comfort zone every once in awhile. I’ve felt like I’ve been visiting another country on this trip. And not just because it’s in Texas. I’ve heard that you get really tired when visiting foreign countries where you don’t speak the language because your brain is on overdrive the whole time. Well, I’m exhausted.

I know there are other frameworks besides Rails and ASP.NET. Keep in mind the context I just explained.

Why haven’t I learned Rails yet?

I’ve tried sitting down and learning Ruby and Rails probably a half dozen times now since the infamous build-a-blog video was released long ago. Every time it doesn’t work. So I started wondering, what’s my hang up? I think I’ve narrowed it down to these reasons.

1. Too familiar with current tool set

I get somewhat offended when people say that .NET devs are too dependent on Visual Studio. I know they’re overgeneralizing, but it doesn’t apply to me the way they intend that statement to mean. What they call crutches, I call productivity. I like IntelliSense because I spend less time memorizing the framework and more time thinking about what I’m building. Switching to working on an MVC view or some JavaScript in VS dramatically slows me down because it forces me to context switch between my code and the docs. This is what I always feel like when I play with Ruby. I know I can get this in VIM or a subpar Rails IDE, but those are unnecessary hurdles.

Switching tools like this is like being able to ride a bike, then trying to switch to a unicycle. The concepts are the same in theory: find your balance and pedal to your destination, but in practice, one is much more difficult.

2. My typical motivation for learning is absent

Almost everything I’ve ever learned in computers was because I had a problem to solve. But in trying to learn Rails, I’ve been doing it just for the sake of doing it. The timing has never lined up with a project I’ve needed to work on.

3. Not experienced enough to be good at translating my skills

I’m a self-described ‘hack’ (as evidenced by #2). Despite doing lots of programming (or maybe scripting is a better term to describe it) for years now, it wasn’t until about 2-3 years ago that I actually started to understand what I was doing on a lower level. Previous attempts to learn Ruby didn’t work because I was trying to learn a new language by doing a mental Find/Replace on the syntax. If you tried doing that with a spoken language, it would be very difficult to become a sufficiently good speaker. You would be able to recognize words and maybe get by, but you’d never be fluent.

4. I suck at Linux

And only recently started using a Mac full-time and doing Ruby stuff on Windows is awful.

What’s the draw?

Why do I even want to learn? If people and product are more important than tools, why do I spend any effort trying to learn Ruby instead of building out the ideas I’ve got domains and Twitter names sitting around waiting for? Well first off, I didn’t say tools weren’t important, just that they weren’t the most important thing. And I want to be a good craftsman, and learning new things helps shape my point of view on my existing tools of choice. And if there’s a better tool that helps me build better products, I want to use it.

Rails isn’t that tool for me. ASP.NET MVC is not what’s holding me back from building something great or being more productive or anything of the sort. Rails or any other tool would not fix either of those problems for me. So if I were to actually start working on one of these ideas I’ve been bandying about in my head for years and all else being equal it came down to Rails or ASP.NET MVC, I’d pick ASP.NET MVC. But there’s an important caveat there, all else isn’t equal.

This isn’t a new revelation. Everyone knows there’s an elephant in the room when it comes to Microsoft products. And that elephant is MICROSOFT. I have defended this company for many years. I’ve made a good living because of them. But they’re killing me! ASP.NET MVC is such a bright spot I’m amazed it even exists. Razor is a major advance in web templating and miracle of all miracles, it doesn’t have a Microsoft-y name. There are obviously other good MS products, at least technologically speaking. But a lot of those (most notably SQL Server) are too costly to realistically consider.

Aside: I feel like a discussion that involves BizSpark or uses StackOverflow as an example here is inevitable, so I’ll address it. BizSpark is a nice way to save money for three years, but don’t think if you make it that long that you’re guaranteed be successful enough to be able afford your licenses on day 1096. Or that you’ll be able to justify the cost (time, money and technical) of migrating to something else. And as far as SO goes, if you’re that successful and high profile, MS will be making special arrangements for you anyway so they’re not a fair example for anything outside of their situation.

Other Microsoft products that are attempting to be relevant to a present-day software startup are inadequate me-too latecomers. Most notably Azure and Windows Phone.

Put all of this together and I’m starting to resent Microsoft a little bit more all the time. It’s this sort of resentment that’s pushed so many people toward other frameworks. I’m constantly amazed how many Ruby people I run into that are MS expats. They jumped because they couldn’t take it anymore (IE6 and Vista didn’t help either in the overall MS resentment department) and they want to be happy while they work. Who can blame them? I want to be happy too!

So I could starting doing Rails in earnest and write a big "Goodbye .NET" blog post and be on my way to happiness once I figure out how to install RVM and configure Apache, or Nginx, or even which one I should be using, and Passenger, and Rack or if I should just punt and use Heroku, until my app gets popular and I can’t afford that anymore either and so on. That stuff all sounds like tons of fun, doesn’t it? No, of course not. If the main appeal for you is happiness, you’re probably going to be disappointed because there will always be stuff that isn’t fun and sunshine. And eventually people will tire of the current generation of frameworks and there will be some new hotness everyone will flock to. Rinse, wash, repeat.

I’ve basically gone in a big circle here. .NET is fine but MS sucks so use Rails which isn’t for me in different ways so I’ll stick with .NET. A lot of words just to say the obvious: use what you like, don’t be ashamed of it, learn from the others and focus on building great stuff to solve people’s problems. People, product, process.

Managed Assembly and @dotnetlinks

I have sold Managed Assembly to DotNetKicks. If anyone can take this site and make something of it, it’s James Avery whom you probably know from The Lounge ad network and TekPub. I don’t know his exact plans for it, but I trust it will be great. Control of @dotnetlinks was transferred in this transaction as well. Looking forward to seeing what comes next for my little link sharing site!

jQuery Snippets for Visual Studio 2010

I’m very happy to announce that Jon Galloway and Rey Bango have taken over maintaining the jQuery Snippets for Visual Studio 2010 project on CodePlex. I can’t think of two better people to take the project and run with it. Rey is a member of the jQuery team and Jon is best known for being my first Twitter follower. Thanks Jon and Rey!

If you’re into this sort of thing, I highly recommend DevCheatSheet.com, the most comprehensive directory of cheat sheets out there. The interface is clean and not overwhelmed with ads like most sites of its kind. They’ve listed my sheets since they launched and I’m appreciative of their support.

My question is: would you watch it? Is it something you think would be valuable? Got a clever name I can use?

You can listen to the episode here.

Starting April 5th I’m going to be starting as a Developer Evangelist, although I like to think of more as a Developer Advocate. My job is to help developers get the most out of Twilio. I’ll be writing blog posts, recording screencasts, manning the forums, building example applications and hitting the road to spread the word. If you’re a developer and you need to add phone calls or text messaging to your apps, then I’m your new best friend.

So I’m no longer a full-time .NET developer. At the heart of Twilio is a REST API and which is inherently platform-agnostic. I will still be doing a lot of .NET though (including working on the RestSharp-based TwilioApi wrapper I released) and since it’s the platform I know best, will still be actively participating in that community. But at the same time I’m actively ramping up on different stacks as well. I love learning new technology so even though I’ve just started the horizon broadening, I’m already thoroughly enjoying it.

What this means for RestSharp

Only good things as you can probably imagine.

What this means for RIM Systems

Nothing, still going to be doing that on the side.

What this means for my other projects

Nothing. The jQuery snippets project needs a new caretaker, but I was already looking for that. ManagedAssembly is a little bit up in the air right now. Have a good idea for it? Want to take it over? Want to buy it? Let me know!

Breaking up is hard to do

I’ve been incredibly fortunate the last few years to be able to work at Treefort. I learned an incredible amount, got to work on a lot of interesting projects (Screenfeed most notably) and worked with some really fun people. To Jeremy and the others there: thanks for the opportunity, I had a blast and it was the best job I ever had.

See you around

If you see me at MIX this week or at any other conference you’re at be sure to say ‘Hi’. And if you think there’s a conference I should be attending, please post it in the comments below. Looking forward to meeting as many developers and startups as I can. Follow me on Twitter to find out where I’m headed next.

Can’t wait to get started!

Twin Cities Code Camp 8 is coming up and I’d like to submit a talk for consideration. REST has sort of been my thing lately but I don’t want to do an exact repeat of my Twin Cites .NET User Group talk.

Which of the following talks sounds the most interesting to you?

Talk #1: State of REST in .NET

Topics covered:

• 5-minute ‘What is REST’: what, why and how.
• Examples creating RESTful services in MVC, Siesta and OpenRasta (in-depth on one method, quick demo of differences with others)
• Examples consuming RESTful services with framework classes, RestSharp, and ServiceStack.net (in-depth on one method, quick demo of differences with others)
• WCF REST Toolkit probably not covered (there’s only so much time you know)

Talk #2: RestSharp in Depth

Topics covered:

• Assume knowledge of how REST works and how to create/consume services
• What RestSharp does and doesn’t do for you
• How it does it
• Challenges encountered while building it
• Future plans

Talk #3: Utilizing Web Service APIs in your Applications

From my MIX10 open call submission: "Can your web application send and receive phone calls? When your employees call your help desk and leave a message are their messages transcribed and a ticket automatically created? This talk will show you how and explore other practical ways to integrate third-party web service (REST) APIs into your applications. Technologies put to use include ASP.NET MVC, Windows Azure, RestSharp (OSS .NET REST client) and more."

The last one is essentially version 2.0 of my TCDNUG talk.

If I get the chance to present I will definitely record it and post it so even if you’re not attending, your feedback is valuable. Which talk sounds the most interesting to you?

0. Make good content

Enough said.

1. Use accurate but short titles

When possible, keep your titles under 140 characters (less than 100-120 if you want retweets or your username included) so they can be easily tweeted. Make sure your title is a good summary of the content so the promoter doesn’t have to rewrite it. If you use a title that doesn’t reflect the contents or is intentionally inflammatory (say, if you’re writing about exception handling and your post makes good points but uses a linkbait title, I won’t promote it. Not that you care Karl).

2. Use proper HTML titles

A lot of sites automatically grab the title from the <title> tag on your posts. Bookmarklets (in use on MA and DNK) also grab this. If it’s just the name of your site without the post title, it takes extra work for the promoter to copy and paste it. Don’t clutter up your title either. Site name and post name is all you need. All that extra stuff isn’t giving you the SEO benefit you think it is for starters, but it also requires a lot of clean up when posting.

3. Make your Twitter name easily discoverable

I always try to include the Twitter name of an article’s author (and I’m not the only one) when posting links to Twitter. If I don’t have time to go search for you on Twitter it won’t be included so make sure it’s visible on every page of your web site. Unless you don’t care, which is fine too.

4. Include video/podcast length

If you post videos, screencasts or podcasts be sure to include the length of the video or podcast in the post. The length of a video can be as equally important as the title when determining whether or not to watch it.

5. Space out your posts

Maximize your exposure by spacing out your posts. If you write a whole bunch at once, schedule them out to be posted over a few days. Don’t clog up link sharing sites with a bunch of your posts at once as it will dilute the votes you receive.

6. Post stories yourself, but don’t use Twitterfeed

On most link sharing sites, including MA and DNK, self-submitting is allowed. Just don’t ask your friends to vote it up every thing you post. Also, if you have a link you want shared on @dotnetlinks, just do an @reply to either @johnsheehan or @dotnetlinks and I’ll review it.

The Twitterfeed thing is a personal pet peeve. I’m probably already subscribed to your blog if I’m following you on Twitter. I don’t need to know about it twice. If you really, really want to have your feed reposted on Twitter for the people that don’t like RSS, set up a dedicated account for it. Which reminds me, time to go set up @JohnSheehanBlog.

I’m a big fan of what TekPub is doing and the video quality is top notch. While watching the Git series the other day I was thinking, "I wish I could buy this for everyone." While I can’t afford to do that, giving away some subscriptions is the next best thing.

If you recall back to almost a year ago when I launched the site I stated that one of my goals was no ads on the site. I’m compromising on this stance for a couple reasons:

• The sponsorship rewards users of the site and not my pocketbook.
• The contest will (hopefully) help bring in new users and content to the site, increasing its value to everyone.
• The sponsorship doesn’t interfere with the site in any way. I’ve only added a small graphic/link to the footer.

I think this is really an ideal arrangement for the site. Don’t worry, I won’t be adding any big ads to the front page.

Go check out the contest page and win yourself a subscription!