I had a great time opening up the .NET track at Open Camp this year. This was sort of a State of the OSS on .NET Talk – if you we’re, thanks for joining us and I hope this was fun and informative!

Be sure to register soon! – try the discount code “ugdotnetOC10″

Also…

• Go read Shawn Weisfeld’s post
• the MVP Blog mention

See you there!

The goal of the SOLID principals is to write better, healthier OO code that is easier to test, maintain and develop with. Essentially, SOLID embodies object oriented development done right.

It’s important to note that SOLID is a set of principals that embody the what and the why of certain OO practices. SOLID is really light on the specifics of how. The distinction is important, in that this is part of what allows the SOLID principals to be embraced across various languages and environments including Java, .NET, PHP, Ruby, etc… So, for example, the Open Close Principal can be achieved through poly-morphism, strategy pattern, IoC, virtual methods, dynamic mix-ins (ruby); the same can be said for the Dependency Inversion Principal – these are two how’s & why’s that tackle the same problem from two different directions. The application of these principals is often very similar.

You can imagine that in that context, it would be difficult to fully embody the full breadth and depth of all of the SOLID principals in a talk where the entire set of SOLID principals were one sub point (two slides) of a 10 point talk.

My goal was to pull out a couple of practical nuggets to help people embrace the SOLID principals – namely, to code against Interfaces and to adopt a Dependency Injection approach to development. In my opinion, if a developer will take on those two practices – that alone will take them close to embodying about 90% of the SOLID principals.

Imagine getting the why wrong, but being right on the how. Let that soak in for a minute.

It’s like telling your kids to wash their hands or their pants will fall off. It’s a non-sequitur, they are un-related – and yet, people should still wash their hands. That’s what happened on Friday – and what I was heckled for.

I explained the how (what you should do with your code) correctly, but miss-matched the why. I was giving the why of Open Close Principal and Dependency Inversion Principal and attributing it to Liskov Substitution Principal – my mistake.

Should I have been heckled for that? Probably not. Not many people do as much public presenting as I do, and most would find it difficult to handle a heckler – it can throw off your whole talk (especially when you’re only on the 2nd point!) Fortunately, I’ve been doing this for a while, and I don’t think that it threw me off much, as one attendee observed on twitter

Why am I blogging about this?

First, for transparency. I was wrong in my explanation of LSP (it was a minor sub-point to my talk, and not the overall goal of my talk – but still). Second, I reached out to the person that heckled me via email the following day, and we’re back on good terms. He’s apologized for being inappropriate and we’re having lunch in the next couple of weeks. I honestly didn’t know who it was that heckled me at first,  I found out later and then realized that we had exchanged (positive) emails in the past, and so I reached out to him. Since he is active in the community, and at least a couple of other people recognized him in my session – I felt that it was important to let you all know that we’re all good – and that there were no hurt feelings.

The community is strong, no one is ever right all of the time (gasp!) and it’s important that we continue to move forward as an industry together.

Incidentally, what caused me to go back and re-look at LSP, was not from being heckled, but from a very nice email that someone else sent me after my talk – I really did appreciate that email, so to the person that sent it, thank you.

If you were at the talk that day – I’d love to get your feedback on the Joind.in site that DallasTechFest is using.

Also, if anyone is interested in looking at my slides (the last 3 slides are all of the image credits) they are – and have been for some time – posted on slideshare; if you’re interested in some of the broader blog posts on this subject, they are posted on my blog including my more complete write up on SOLID (awaiting a Liskov update!)

Thanks – Happy coding!

Photo credit used in heading – on flickr by idrewuk

This Friday I’ll be speaking at the Dallas Tech Fest, and today is the last day to pre-register! Tech Fest’s are unique from other .NET Code Camp style event in that they pull some of the best speakers from a cross section of technologies. This is a great place to come mix it up and see what’s happening on the “other side of the wall”. This year the Dallas Tech Fest will have featured tracks for .NET, JAVA, PHP, Adobe Flex, ColdFusion, IT Pro and other Mixed Sessions.

This year, my friend and organizer Tim Rayburn has pulled together some elite speakers from across the country like Craig Walls (Spring in Action), Ted Neward (as in – The Ted Neward), Mark Piller (famous for his cross platform Adobe/.NET/Java applications), Matt Woodward (IT Specialist for the US Senate) and many many more.

Register today at http://DallasTechFest.EventBrite.com Use promo code LASTYEAR to save $25.00 – go register now! It’s gonna be awesome.

I’m frequently asked about new computers from our friends and family, and I’ve blogged about buying a new computer in the past, but this post is about the common things that you should download and install once you have that new computer, right after you do all of the Windows Updates and un-install all of the “trial” software that came with your computer. As with anything, you can take this advice or leave it, I’m really curious to know what sort of things you think I need to add to this this. Feel free to add anything that I’ve missed in the comments!

Microsoft Security Essentials. I won’t go through the discussion about whether or not Mac get viruses, they do; I will however say that you should have anti-virus software installed on your computer. This one is free, built by Microsoft, and works really well. This is the first thing I install on a new computer. (note: You’ll probably need to uninstall whatever “free 90 day trial” antivirus that your new computer came with probably Norton or McAfee)

Live Mesh. Mesh is awesome. Install it on every computer that you use. Mesh does three things for you.

1. It Synchronizes files between computers. just pick the folders that you want to have participate in the synchronization, right click and select “add to mesh”
2. Mesh Synchronizes files to cloud. That is, on of the “computers” that you can synchronize your files to is the mesh.com website. Just log in, select connect to Live Desktop and there you go, your files – available from any computer with an Internet connection.
3. Mesh let’s you “remote desktop” to any computer that is running mesh. What’s that, forgot to add that file to your mesh folder and now you’re away and need to access it? No problem, remote in to your home computer, add the file to the folder, it’s now available on your laptop. Awesome.

Another “essential” on the list of installs is ironically, Windows Live Essentials. With Live essentials you get:

1. Live Messenger – you can chat with family, even do video chat and remote assistance with friends and family
2. Movie Maker – fyi..this is what I’ve used for every CommunityCast TV video – it had *some* short comings, but for the most part – will do whatever you need, easily, for making videos
3. Mail – I’ve honestly never used this for email. I’ve always just used gMail or Outlook. But if I didn’t have Outlook installed – I’d definitely give this a go!
4. Photo Gallery – this actually does a real nice job organizing your photos, and helps when you need to scan images for expense reports!

OK, that’s it for the critical stuff, obviously as a developer, I also install a host of tools that I use on a daily basis, and that will probably make a nice future post (in the mean time, go check out Scott’s ultimate developer tools list)… but here are  some of the optional installs for everyone!

Virtual CloneDrive Why this functionality isn’t just baked in to Windows – I will never know. This is just perfect. You have an ISO that you want to use? No problem, just double click it and it will be as if you just stuck the CD/DVD in to your drive. Awesome.

Image Editing – GIMP (requires Java), Paint.NET (Requires .NET)

IE Spell – Spell Check is built in to every browser *except* Internet Explorer

OK, I think that’s the important stuff. Feel free to add your top items in the comments!

Ok, I know that the first and last aren’t really NERD exclusive, but they’re what I like. … so, based on that start, what are your top picks? Date my Avatar? Crazy Frog Thing? Nerdcore Rising? One of the many WOW spoofs that are out there? Red vs Blue? One of the Starwars spoofs? Starwars kid? Something else? What would you go with? Check out some of my other favorite videos for ideas. Have fun!

I’ve never shied away from VB. In fact, VB6 with classic ASP is where I cut my programming teeth, and VB.NET was my first move to a true OO language. That being said, I work day in and day out with C#… I’m much more fluent there, and I realized that there were a ton of new features in VB that I wanted to cover that I wasn’t up to par with, fortunately I was able to call on my network of super smart friends and recruit/hire a fellow MVP’er to help me out for the day (thanks Cory for doing that 2 days after your wedding!)

One of the things that tripped me up was using Lambdas in VB. Lambdas are especially important if you are going to use a Mocking framework like RhinoMocks (which I do). Doing Lambdas in VB – especially when I was trying to raise an event from a mock – sort of tripped me up…

First – if you are working with Rhino Mocks, you should go have a look at the excellent Wiki. http://ayende.com/Wiki/Rhino+Mocks+3.5.ashx I find that a lot of people (read: I had) skip the “documentation” since RhinoMocks is so fluent and straight forward, but it’s definitely worth the read!

Second, if you’ve never raised an event in mock from your test in C# here’s the code:

viewMock.Raise(x => x.CalcShippingRequest += null, this, EventArgs.Empty);

and in VB:

view.Raise(Sub(x)AddHandler x.CalcShippingRequest, Nothing, Me, EventArgs.Empty)

It’s the “AddHandler” part that kept tripping me up.. that’s basically += in C#.

Let’s put it all together…

Here’s the IView interface that the aspx page implements. (notice the VB 10 automatic properties)

Public Interface IView
    Property UnitPrice As Decimal
    Property ShippingDistance As Decimal
    Sub DisplayShippingPrice(ByVal price As Decimal)
    Event CalcShippingRequest As EventHandler
End Interface

The Presenter (providing the UI Logic)

Public Class ShippingCalcPresenter
    Dim view As IView

    Public Sub New(ByVal view As IView)
        Me.view = view
        AddHandler view.CalcShippingRequest, AddressOf HandleCalc
    End Sub

    Private Sub HandleCalc(ByVal Sender As Object, ByVal E As EventArgs)
        Me.view.DisplayShippingPrice(view.ShippingDistance + view.UnitPrice)
    End Sub
End Class

The logic here is simple and contrived… we calculate the Shipping cost based on the Unit price and the Shipping distance (we just add the two… like I said, simple and contrived). Also notice that it’s the event from the view (CalcShippingRequest) that causes the presenter to go in to action, namely, it calls DiplayShippingProce on the view. This could have just as easily been a writable property, but I went with a method instead.

Here is the whole test (VB) AAA Syntax using RhinoMocks

<TestClass()>
Public Class ShippingCalcPresenterTest
    <TestMethod()>
    Public Sub ShippingCalcPresenterConstructorTest()
        '*** Assign ***
        'view as a Mock object
        Dim view As IView =

               MockRepository.GenerateMock(Of IView)()
        'set View values (user input)
        view.Expect(Function(x) x.ShippingDistance)

               .[Return](8).Repeat.Once()
        view.Expect(Function(x) x.UnitPrice)

               .[Return](2).Repeat.Once()
        'Expect Shipping price of 10 to get set in view
        ' -- Presenter Logic: Price = Distance + Price
        view.Expect(Sub(x) x.DisplayShippingPrice(10)).Repeat.Once()
        '  Inject view Mock in to Presenter
        Dim target As New ShippingCalcPresenter(view)

        '*** Action ***
        ' Raise event in view... normally this would be a

        ‘ user clicking on a button
        view.Raise(Sub(x) AddHandler x.CalcShippingRequest,

             Nothing, Me, EventArgs.Empty)

        '*** Asserttions ***
        view.VerifyAllExpectations()
    End Sub
End Class

and again, in C#

[TestClass()]
    public class ShippingCalcPresenterTest
    {
        [TestMethod()]
        public void ShippingCalcPresenterConstructorTest()
        {
            // *** Assign ***
            // view as a Mock object
            IView view =

                    MockRepository.GenerateMock<IView>();

            // set view values - user input
            view.Expect(x => x.ShippingDistance).Return(8).Repeat.Once();
            view.Expect(x => x.UnitPrice).Return(2).Repeat.Once();

            // Expected Shipping price of 10 to get set in view
            // -- Presenter Logic: Price = Distance Price
            view.Expect(x => x.DisplayShippingPrice(10)).Repeat.Once();

            // Inject view mock in to Presenter
            ShippingCalcPresenter target = new ShippingCalcPresenter(view);

            // *** Action ***
            // Raise event in view - normaly this would be a user
            // clicking on a button
            view.Raise(x => x.CalcShippingRequest += null,

               this, EventArgs.Empty);

            // *** Assertion ***
            view.VerifyAllExpectations();
        }
    }

First we set up the expectations from the view mock (Assign), then we stuff the view mock in to the presenter (system under test) and then we fire off the event (Act) in the view – this would normally come from a user clicking on something, but in our case, we are simulating the action with a mock. Then we use RhinoMocks VerifyAllExpectations() method to make all of the Assertions that we expected earlier. And there you have it!

Serve hot and enjoy! Happing coding (and testing)!

Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/334379948/in/photostream/

I’m looking forward to this talk.. I’ll be covering the 10 Practices that All Developers Should Start Right Now! (based on this 10 Practices for Developers blog series)

I recently took on a new client in the travel industry, even though they are based in Dallas – I am working with their .NET development team in New York. As a part of that I am making my first trek to the big apple. I’m really looking forward to this trip to get to know the dev team that I’ve been working with remotely up until now. I’m also taking advantage of this trip visit the NYC .NET Meetup group and to speak at the local INETA .NET Developers Group.

If you’re going to be in the New York City area this week, be sure to ping me – I’d love to meet up with you at one of these events!

Be sure to RSVP!

• NYC .NET Meetup Group
• NYC .NET Developer’s Group
• Stephen Fort’s Blog announcing Thursday.

Update: The creator of this plug-in just added a quick start video… go check it out!

So, your 404 page can go from this… 

(boring WordPress Default 404)

To this…

(better Bing404 page)

and, with a little bit of PHP hacking on my part, to this…

(new and improved pimped out 404 page…)

Go see for your self (missing page) then go check out…

iPad + Velcro from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.