Ryan Rinaldi

Using Custvendagingstatistics to get aging info from AX

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Took me some time but I was able to track down how to get aging information out of AX through it’s Business Connector. I’m putting this here as a reminder of how to get it done.

using (var cust = ax.CreateAxaptaRecord("CustTable"))
{    
    //Find the customer you want to get aging info for    
    ax.ExecuteStmt(String.Format(@"SELECT * FROM %1 WHERE %1.AccountNum == '{0}'", acctNum), cust);    
    while (cust.Found)    
    {        
        var custVendStats = ax.CallStaticClassMethod(
        "CustVendAgingStatistics", 
        "construct",         
        cust, //Customer record        
        "", //Aging bucket name goes here         
        2) //Document type        
        as AxaptaObject;        
        custVendStats.Call("calcStatistic");
        var accountSum = custVendStats.Call("TmpAccountsum") as AxaptaRecord;         
        while (accountSum.Next()) //the secret to getting results is to call .Next() before reading.        
        {            
            //Do something super interesting with the aging.                    
        }         
        cust.Next();    
    }
}

promote-better-js

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

programming-by-coincidence

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

I’m using Twitter. Follow me @rrinaldi

As a developer it’s of super duper importance that we understand what each and every line of code that we write does and how it works. While a lot of code that we write leverages libraries to provide wonderful abstractions over complex implementations we owe it to ourselves, the businesses that we work for and other developers on our teams to understand what these libraries are doing and how they are doing it.

But why? Because when they fail (and they will fail!) you need to know where to begin troubleshooting and without an understanding of what the code is doing you are up a creek. So since you can’t troubleshoot you need to find an alternate implementation that does work. But an alternate implementation of what?!? You don’t have the foggiest idea what the code was doing in the first place so how can you write (or, sigh, find) code that does the same *thing* but in a different way?

This leads developers to go down the rabbit hole of CPDD (Copy Paste Driven Development). A few copy-pastes later from the

bathroom wall of code and you have a mess of code that nobody really understands but “works” (for a very small value of “works”). Now you back where you started. A bunch of code that appears to be doing what you want and you are oblivious to the implementation details.

So the next time you are copying some code from Stack Overflow do me a favor, heck do us all a favor, and just ask yourself “What is this code doing?”. Once you have the answer, and you are satisfied that it is working the way you really intended feel free to paste away. But until then, don’t infect your codebase with germy disgusting code that you got off the bathroom wall.

mix10-ndash-windows-7-series-phone-architecture

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Rearchitected from the ground up

Hardware Architecture

Capacitive touch – 4 or more contact points

Sensors

GPS
Accelerometers
Compass
Light
Proxmity

Camera

Multimedia

Memory

GPU

CPU

Only 2 resolutions

Software Architecture

Built on WinCE

MS is writing almost all of the device drivers instead of OEM

App updating, Licensing built in

New UI model

Shell frame
Direct3D

XBox LIVE, Bing, Location, Push notifications

Apps all built on CLR (no unmanaged code)

Silverlight, XNA, HTMl/JavaScript

Frameworks built for you to access all phone features

App Model

What is an app?

Uniquely identifiable and servicable product packaged as XAP

Application deployment

Windows phone marketplace

Application license

Crypto-verifable object issued to grant rights to the applications

Phone only installs .xap pakcages signed by marketplace

phone handles all aspects of .xap installation based on manifest

you cannot make arbitrary changes to the phone during install

Users control install, update and uninstall, while the marketplace controls revocation

Phone only runs apps that have a valid marketplace license

Apps are sandboxed into separate security accounts while installed and at runtime

Resource allocation policy keeps the foreground app responsive

Resource management policy ensures the user can always use Start to run an app.

App hosting

Each app executes inside an isolated, least-privileged host process
all app code is transparent and CLS-verifiable
Frameworks enable app code to interact with app model, UI model, phone functionality

Frameworks

CLR
Silverlight
Device & phone
Cloud

UI Model

Concepts

Application – UI and logic for functionality exposed through pages
Page a single screen of user interaction elements
Session – An ordered workflow of user interactions spanning applications

UI metaphor – Web

Sessions can be paged out when inactive.

Page State – Contains data that describes an instance of a page, analogous to browser cookie

Allows the phone to discard all UI info when app is inactive
Rehydrates page ui based on Page State info

Graphics composition

Each page gets it’s own layer on top of the Direct3D surface

Cloud Integration Services

built-in user experiences and APIs

Familar APIs for interactingwith existing web 2.0 services

Rich support for incorporating custom web services

Location Service

support for consuming GPS, AGPS and Wi-Fi based location
reverse geo-coding

Push notification service

Managed APIs for notification-driven interaction
When battery is low the service may shut down
This is not guaranteed message delivery.
Based on the state of the phone, message could be delayed, batched, or dropped.

Gamer Services APIs

mix10-ndash-design-fundamentals-for-developers-ndash-part-2

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Design is composition

Everything needs to work together and support each other

“Unity”

Determines the total impact of a design

Unity is relationships

Manage relationships so the work together

Order

Simple

Triumph of design is Complex Seems Simple

Grid

Things that are close together and aligned are implicitly connected
The Grid is old. Simple grids used in scrolls way back when
old old old old old

Appeals to us and our sense of order.

Powerful way to organize a lot of information.

Zune app is a great example of grid layout

The grid is made to be broken.

Dominance

Things that are more dominant on a page are more important

Size, color or shape

Dominance matters when you have density in information.

Sometimes Dominance is an entry point or sometimes it’s a way to show relative importance of different things

Don’t use too much dominance

Hierarchy

3 levels of hierarchy works. More than that really doesn’t

Important
unimportant
everything else

Containment

Harmony

To make harmony use theme

“On the road” by Jack Kerouac – Read it
Speakvisual.com – Great use of theme

Gestalt

tendency to perceive things holistically and find meaning in the way the parts relate

Similiarity – implied realtionship between things that are the same

Contrast – things that are different are implicilty somehow different

Color
Shipe
size
position
orientation

Avoid the trap of “sameness”.

Increase contrast and you have the ability to say more things

increases your visual “vocab”

Chunking

Figure/Ground

What’s on top and what’s the background

Closure

Use negative space to imply other shapes

Good Continuation

Balance

Whitespace

Negative space

Empty space

Empty space doesn’t have to be empty (WTF)

Same damn thing as figure/ground

Yes, space can be wasted

Empty space is not wasted space (sometimes)

Empty space is not there to be filled. It is there to be manipulated.

Benefits

Feeling of quality
Legibility and readability
Reinforce order and structure.
Create interest.

mix10-ndash-design-fundamentals-for-developers

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Just arrived in my first workshop. (And yes, I was able to knock the cobwebs loose and I remembered which workshops I signed up for!)

Presentation is by Robby Ingebretsen – Created KAXAML

Design is everywhere and design touches everything. The process of design is the process of creating.

We all need to consider the implications of design.

If you create things, you design them.

Stop evaluating yourself as a developer versus designer. Just be both.

Time for us to get Smart about design

Improve design vocab

Add to design knowledge

Increase design confidence

Design

Design is order
The more “invisible” the design the better the design is
Design should “fad away”
Design is problem solving

Check out the book “How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer”.

Be empathetic. Put yourself in end users shoes. It allows you to communicate with them in more effective ways.

Art has a subjective goal. It is something that you want to make.

Design has an objective goal. You are trying to create something that solves a problem.

Design by

Process
People
Synthesis

Creative process is really 2 things: Flow and Edit

First part of flow is research.

After research is brainstorming

Apple uses a 10/3/1 rule

Come up with 10 pixel perfect designs
Choose 3
Refine those 3
Choose 1

“Babies” and “Ponies”

“Babies” - Don’t fall in love with designs that you spend a lot of time on if they don’t solve the problem
“Ponies” – Things that stakeholders want that don’t add to the design.

Process docs

Brief

Kick off a project
Spec

Pitch

A first response to the creative brief
In the end you need to land on a direction to go

Wireframe/Sketch

Describes the Information architecture
layout
Navigation
user flow
high level information structure

Interaction Spec

Doc that describes how people will interact between the design and observer

Motion guide

a guide to the personality and tone of the of the animation and movement in the application

Comp

establish the final visual design

Prototype

a complete or semi-complete sample of the final design

Love the quote “Saul Bass is awesome” :P

“Anybody in the room can be a great designer, err at least a passable one” – At least he is honest!

The trick to being a great designer is:

Hard work
Observe the world around you synthesize it.

More after the break. :)

mix10-ndash-asp-net-mvc-bootcamp

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Presented by Jon Galloway (Twitter, Blog, Podcast)

2 different templates for MV2

MVC 2 Web Application
MVC 2 Empty Web Application

(BTW, this is code heavy demo so there might not be a lot of notes.)

I’m going to point out that Jon couldn’t get his first demo to compile. :P

We are building a store

Home page
Store
- List page
- Details page

Routes map between URLs and Controller Actions.

Controller actions and views are mapped by convention.

New HtmlHelper in MVC2 – EditorFor and EditorForModel (Interesting stuff!)

Support for Display and Editor templates

(Templating stuff looks very interesting. Need to find a real project to try this stuff out on.)

mercurial-sure-why-not

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Some of the new super cool things on the block are Distributed Version Control Systems and being somebody that is into super cool new things I figured I would spend some time and get to know them.

A couple months ago Steve and I had a hack-a-thon weekend and he introduced me to Git. I have to say that I didn’t really like Git. I found it a bit cumbersome and confusing. Honestly, that is probably more my fault than Git’s because I had no idea how DVCSs worked and Git is a little to powerful to be put in the hands of a novice. Needless to say handing me Git was like handing me a .45 and pointing it at my foot. It was only a matter of time until I shot myself.

So after blowing off both of my feet and a few other appendages I wrote DVCS off as a bad idea. Luckily Joel Spolsky wrote a very awesome intro to Mercurial that peeked my interest again. Reading the intro filled in a lot of the blanks in my mental model of how DVCS works. I suggest you spend some time reading the intro and then do as I did and go purchase the really awesome Mastering Mercurial series from TekPub. Once you watch that I think you’ll find Mercurial (and Git) a very compelling SCM solution. I found it compelling enough to get a Kiln account and try it out on a real honest to goodness (private) project.

mix10-ndash-expect-many-posts

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Just like every other conference I go to, I will be writing a blog post for each session I attend. My coworkers Steve and Angela (no url for her, yet!) are in this session with me and I believe Steve will also be blogging a bit during MIX so feel free to check out his site for more info.

mix10-ndash-day-0

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Getting all set for a day of pre-con sessions. Already caffeinated and just waiting for my lazy coworkers to get downstairs so we can get all registered!

I hope the tell me what pre-con sessions I signed up for. I completely forgot what which one I have this morning!