Microsoft Canada Ignite Your Coding

Networking Is An Investment In Your Career

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:02:00 GMT

Back when I was a developer, coding all day (and sometimes all night), the idea of networking could not be further from my mind. I wasn’t thinking about making people aware of my professional “brand”, nor was I thinking of connecting with people – neither to start new and lasting relationships nor learn about trends and latest technologies from them. Like most, it only occurred to me that I should network when it was time to start looking for a new opportunities and challenges.

You know how they say that hindsight is always 20/20? Well that’s definitely the case for me on this one. When I did finally get around to networking, I started networking online using LinkedIn. I joined a few LinkedIn groups that seemed of interest (Ignite Your Coding, TechDays Canada, Metro Toronto .NET User Group, C# Developers/Architects) and though at first I was more following than participating, every once in a while, I would answer someone’s question or post one of my own and conversations started happening. One thing led to another and my network of friends, colleagues, and other people that I met, either online or in person, started forming. I started to get to know people and people started to get to know me. Within a very short time, I realized how much new information I was consuming and learning, how I was, through networking and simply being connected to people in my network, developing my career. That’s when I started thinking of networking as an investment.

How do I know that the investment pays off? Let’s just say that I was able to land my last two job opportunities as a result of my network, so I can definitely tell you that the investment pays off – one way or another.

The folks from TorontoJobs.ca have graciously allowed me to share the following insights, tips, and tricks to networking that were put together by Marc Belaiche who is a seasoned recruiter and helps many develop their careers and find new opportunities.

Always Be Networking
Most people only choose to start networking when they're looking for a new position. If you network continuously, when you begin to look for a change in employment it won't be something you need to switch on and off. Your network may pay off even when you're not expecting it.

Anyone Can Be Part of Your Network
You don't have to be speaking to a President of a multi-national company for you to be able to network with people who can help you. Your network can consist of friends, family, relatives, previous and current associates, your hairdresser, banker or mechanic or former classmates or people you recently met at a party. The list can be large. Ask people who they know and you will be surprised as to how your network can expand.

Organize Your Network!
Organize your contacts so that you can stay in touch with them on a regular basis. With contact management systems that are affordable and easy to use, you should be able to stay in touch with your network on a regular basis quite easily, even if it's just wishing them the best during holiday periods.

Do What You Say You Will
By not contacting people if/when you say you will, you are sending a message that you're not that reliable. Following up is so easy to do, requires a few minutes of your time and sends a very positive message about you.

Get Others Talking by Asking Questions
Don't fall in the trap of thinking that networking is telling others about yourself. Networking is about sharing information. If you're not comfortable talking, ask questions about the other person - their background, experience(s), what they like doing, etc. so a conversation will be easier to get started.

It's Not Just Who You Know
Your network consists of not just who you know, but also who your contacts know. Keep that in mind that if you show you're willing to pass on names of people you know, others will do the same for you.

Build Relationships
A relationship isn't created by meeting someone once. Stay in touch with people. Create a rapport with them.

Make Yourself Available
Go to Chapter meetings, volunteer or join networking groups. There is never a shortage of places where you can meet people - ask around and you will be amazed at places where people are. Make the time to go to these events, but don't expect a lot the first time you meet someone. Like sales, most of the benefit of networking doesn't come in a first contact.

Tips at Networking Events
When you go to networking events, keep in mind some simple things:

Bring business cards

Listen carefully to what others are saying

If you're nervous about going to an event alone, ask a friend to join you.

Make eye contact with the person you're speaking with

don't keep looking at who is coming into the room every two minutes

Shake hands and smile

Don't talk with your mouth full!

Don't fill up your plate with appetizers at a reception.

Don't just meet one person and talk to that person the whole time….mingle.

Don't flirt!

Don't use off-colour jokes!

Bottom Line
To summarize Marc’s advice, in his words: “If you stay in your own circle you'll be limited to what opportunities you will hear about. However, by continuously expanding your network you will hear about opportunities that you might never have imagined.” These opportunities can be learning opportunities, work opportunities, volunteer opportunities, and many more. The point is that networking opens up the opportunity for opportunities and as a professional in a very competitive field, that’s definitely something worth investing in. You never know what may come of it.

Ignite Your Coding LinkedIn Group

The Ignite Your Coding LinkedIn group is our way to help you, and other Canadian developers, connect with peers, engage in interesting and informative discussions about the latest technologies and industry trends, ask questions and get them answered, but most importantly, to network and learn in order to grow and be successful in your career regardless of the tools or platform you use.

Join other Canadian Developers in the Ignite Your Coding LinkedIn Group >>

Marc Belaiche

Marc Belaiche is President of TorontoJobs.ca, an internet recruitment and staffing company specializing in helping companies find candidates in the Greater Toronto Area. Marc has been in the recruitment industry since 1995 and has made many radio and television appearances as well as conducted many presentations on recruitment across Canada.

Announcing the Ignite Your Coding Web Development Series!

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 20:03:00 GMT

Every year, around this time, my colleagues and I organize a series of conversations called Ignite Your Coding. Its purpose is to spark your inner awesomeness by providing you with knowledge and insights on software development. Why? It’s simple: we want to support you; we want to help grow your skills; we want you to be successful. For Ignite Your Coding, we take a humble approach we asking the “Top Guns” from the developer community to assist us. The way we see it: We facilitate the conversation by connecting you with the smartest and brightest folks possible; the experts who have poured the blood, sweat, and tears understanding this stuff.

This brings us to today.

Finding the time to keeping your skills current can be a challenge – especially in the world of web development. Ideas and technologies move so fast in this space that it’s sometimes hard to keep up. That’s why – in addition to covering this topic – we felt it was a good idea partner with Richard Campbell (@richcampbell) and Carl Franklin (@carlfranklin) of .NET Rocks!. Richard and Carl have a great deal of experience in this space and, quite frankly, have voices that are much nicer on the ears that anyone on our team.

As part of this four-part series, you’ll hear about HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and Microsoft’s work around interoperability through web standards. Here’s the breakdown of episodes along their publication dates (links to be added later):

March 3: Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp on HTML5

Carl and Richard talk to Bruce Lawson (@brucel) and Remy Sharp (@rem) about HTML5. Bruce and Remy have been involved with HTML5 from the early days, although more as activists than movers-and-shakers. They provide some great insight into how HTML5 has come to be and how regular developers can get involved and affect the outcome of an important specification. Bruce and Remy have one of the very first books out on HTML5, creatively named Introducing HTML5.

About Bruce Lawson

Born into the tech world when he was hastily delivered on a table in the London Science Museum, Bruce evangelises Open Web Standards for Opera. He co-authored Introducing HTML5, the first book on the subject, and was a member of the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group. Previously, he’s been front-end technical lead for the Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority web sites, tutor to a princess’ daughter in Thailand, a movie extra in Bombay, and a tarot card reader in Istanbul. He blogs at brucelawson.co.uk, drinks Guinness and is training for a blue belt in kickboxing.

About Remy Sharp

Remy Sharp is the founder and curator of Full Frontal, the UK based JavaScript conference. He also runs jQuery for Designers, co-authored Introducing HTML5 (adding all the JavaScripty bits) and is one of the curators of HTML5Doctor.com. Whilst he's not writing articles or running and speaking at conferences, he runs his own development and training company in Brighton called Left Logic. Generally speaking, he's about as crazy about JavaScript, HTML & CSS as a squirrel is about his nuts during the winter!

March 10: Kent Alstad Makes JavaScript Perform

Carl and Richard talk to Kent Alstad (@kentalstad) about the state of JavaScript today. Kent admits that he has fallen in love with JavaScript of late, that the newest browsers make JavaScript incredibly fast and powerful. The conversation digs into how to keep JavaScript fast, which is primarily focused on downloading the right bytes at the right time - when in doubt, delay! Kent is down in the nitty-gritty of web site performance, his insights on what to do to make things go faster will blow your mind.

About Kent Alstad

Kent Alstad is principle or contributing author on all of Strangeloop's pending patents. Before helping create Strangeloop, he served as CTO at IronPoint Technology. Kent also founded, Eclipse Software, a Microsoft Certified Solution Provider, that he sold to Discovery Software in 2001. In more than 20 years of professional development experience, Kent has served as architect and lead developer for successful production solutions with The Active Network, ADP, Lucent, Microsoft, and NCS. "Port View", an application Kent architected for the Port of Vancouver, was honoured as "Best Administrative System" at the 1996 Windows World Open Competition. Kent holds a bachelor of science in psychology from the University of Calgary.

March 17: Jon Snook Takes CSS3 Seriously

Carl and Richard talk to Jonathan Snook (@snookca) about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Jon is a designer and developer, which makes him a rare creature indeed. He talks about the history and role of CSS in web development and how CSS3 makes significant strides in equalizing design and layout between browsers.

About Jonathan Snook

Jonathan Snook is a designer and developer who has worked for agencies, worked freelance and is now working as Lead Prototyper for Yahoo!. He shares tips, tricks and bookmarks on snook.ca along with speaking at conferences around the world. Along with the fine folks at Sidebar Creative, Jonathan puts on workshops focused on front-end design and development.

March 24: Jean Paoli is All About Web Interoperability

Carl and Richard talk to Jean Paoli, General Manager of Interoperability Strategy at Microsoft. Jean Paoli was part of the team at the W3C that created the XML specification. Jean does a great job of helping folks understand how huge the interoperability effort at Microsoft is. He also digs into the iterative process of developing web specifications by building prototype code and taking that experience back to the working group.

About Jean Paoli

Jean Paoli is General Manager, Interoperability Strategy at Microsoft, and one of the co-creators of the XML 1.0 standard with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). He has long been a strong and passionate advocate of XML and open standards. Jean manages the Interoperability Strategy team that coordinates the technical interoperability activities across Microsoft.

I really hope you enjoy these interviews! Please do take the time to check them out as well as subscribe to the .NET Rocks! podcast for many more interviews with industry experts that I know that you’ll find interesting. Also, don’t forget to test drive Internet Explorer 9 and check out the Dev Unplugged Contest for web developers.

Join the “Ignite Your Coding” LinkedIn Group!

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 16:14:38 GMT

The Ignite Your Coding LinkedIn group is a place for Canadian Developers to find out the latest tech news, see what’s happening in the world of Microsoft and other platforms, make announcements, exchange ideas and get to know other Canadian developers. Although we folks at Microsoft Canada’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team run the LinkedIn group, it’s open to all, no matter what platform you develop for. It’s a a place for all Canadian developers to connect, network, and learn in order to help them grow and be successful in their careers regardless of the tools or platform they use.

Let me say that again: the Ignite Your Coding LinkedIn group is for all Canadian developers, not just Microsoft ones. (And we’re not too fussy about the “Canadian” part, either.)

For those of you interested in certain niches of development, the Ignite Your Coding Linked group has subgroups as well:

Mobile Development: for developers and designers building apps for all mobile platforms – not just Windows Phone 7, but also Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, whatever!
Windows Development: for developers and designers building applications for Windows.

Join Ignite Your Coding, participate and reap the benefits!

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

This Week on “Ignite Your Coding”: Uncle Bob!

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 22:18:19 GMT

Say “Uncle”!

This week on the Ignite Your Coding live webcast, we have a very special guest: Robert C. "Uncle Bob" Martin!

His business card may say “Robert C. Martin”, founder and CEO of the Object Mentor consulting firm, but we know and love him as “Uncle Bob”. He’s been coding since the Beatles broke up, and in that four-decade span, he literally wrote the books on agile and extreme programming as well as the letters UML, OOP and C++. Throughout the industry, he’s known as a champion of proper design, test-driven development and just plain writing good code. We’ll chat with Uncle Bob in this one-hour webcast, where we’ll talk about software craftsmanship, why it takes work and why it matters.

What’s Ignite Your Coding About?

Ignite Your Coding is a webcast series all about helping you, the software developer. We want to help you find ways to stay on top of the technological, economic and social changes that affect you and your work every day. We contacted some of the biggest thinkers and doers in our field and asked them if they’d like to chat about the industry, how they got started, where they see the opportunities are, how they deal with change and how to be generally awesome. We hope it informs and inspires you!

How Do I Catch the Live Webcast?

You’ll need:

A Windows machine
Live Meeting (you can get a free version of Live Meeting here), which will let you see visuals, hear the audio and type in questions to ask Richard
To register for the webcast (it’s free), click here; you’ll get the link for the webcast
To catch the webcast on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern / 11:00 a.m. Pacific!

How Do I Get the MP3 Recording of the Webcast?

It’ll be posted on this blog in about a week.

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

This Week on Ignite Your Coding: Jeff Atwood!

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:27:33 GMT

Our guest on Ignite Your Coding this week, Jeff Atwood, has certainly made his mark in the programming world with the Coding Horror blog as well as his project with Joel Spolsky, the online developer forum Stack Overflow (which in turn gave rise to the Server Fault and SuperUser forums). Join me and John Bristowe this Thursday as we chat with Jeff about Coding Horror, Stack Overflow, software development, fake plastic rock, P=NP and whatever topics you, the listener, want covered.

We’ll be chatting with Jeff live this Thursday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern (11:00 a.m. Pacific) online.

What’s Ignite Your Coding About?

How Do I Catch the Live Webcast?

You’ll need:

A Windows machine
Live Meeting (you can get a free version of Live Meeting here), which will let you see visuals, hear the audio and type in questions to ask Richard
To register for the webcast (it’s free), click here; you’ll get the link for the webcast
To catch the webcast on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern / 11:00 a.m. Pacific!

How Do I Get the MP3 Recording of the Webcast?

It’ll be posted on this blog in about a week.

Who’s Coming Up on Ignite Your Coding?

Robert C. “Uncle Bob” Martin on software craftsmanship

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

This Week on Ignite Your Coding: Scott Hanselman!

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 04:00:00 GMT

This week’s guest on the Ignite Your Coding live webcast needs no introduction: it’s Scott Hanselman, Principal Program Manager at Microsoft, whose job is to talk about software development and how to do it right, primarily using The Empire’s tools and technologies. He’s a household name in the minds of .NET developers worldwide, and even when I was deep in the world of open source software, I’d heard of him, what with his blog, the Hanselminutes podcast, his presentations at various Microsoft conferences and (of course) his membership in the elite group known as “The Gang of Foreheads”. His influence in the Microsoft universe is like that of the Illusive Man in the Mass Effect universe.

John Bristowe and I will chat with Scott about a topic near and dear to us: the state of the .NET developer nation. It’s an exciting time to be a .NET developer: we’re a year into Windows 7, a couple of days after the release of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0, Windows Phone 7, Silverlight 4 and Internet Explorer 9 looming in the not-too-distant future and Microsoft making a lot of right moves. I can’t think of a better time to pick Scott’s brain and find out, straight from the source, what’s hot and what’s not in the world of .NET development. We’ll also pick his brain for tips on how to stay on top of your game as a developer in today’s ever-morphing industry.

We’ll be chatting with Scott live this Thursday at 2:00 p.m. (11:00 a.m. Pacific) online.

What’s Ignite Your Coding About?

How Do I Catch the Live Webcast?

You’ll need:

A Windows machine
Live Meeting (you can get a free version of Live Meeting here), which will let you see visuals, hear the audio and type in questions to ask Richard
To register for the webcast (it’s free), click here; you’ll get the link for the webcast
To catch the webcast on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern / 11:00 a.m. Pacific!

How Do I Get the MP3 Recording of the Webcast?

It’ll be posted on this blog in about a week.

Who’s Coming Up on Ignite Your Coding?

Jeff Atwood on “Horrors, Overflows and Fake Plastic Rock”
Robert C. “Uncle Bob” Martin on software craftsmanship

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

This Week on “Ignite Your Coding”: Richard Campbell

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 01:59:59 GMT

Who’s On This Week?

The Ignite Your Coding live webcast returns this Thursday with Richard Campbell. If you’re from the .NET world, chances are that you’ve heard Richard on .NET Rocks! (the online talk show for .NET developers), on RunAs Radio (the online talk show for IT Professionals) or at his many speaking engagements, including those at TechDays. He’s both a Microsoft Regional Director and Most Valuable Professional thanks to his work supporting the Microsoft developer community. For more than 30 years, he’s been helping major organizations design and build applications: Barnes & Noble, Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson Health Care Services, Reuters, Subaru/Isuzu and the U.S. Air Force.

John Bristowe and I will talk with Richard about how he got started in the world of software development, the projects he’s working on and how to deal with issues of scalability and performance. He’s applied that knowledge in building a network appliance that accelerates website performance at the company he co-founded, Strangeloop Networks, and we’ll pick his brain about how to make better, faster, scalable applications.

We’ll be chatting with Richard live this Thursday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern (11:00 a.m. Pacific) online.

What’s Ignite Your Coding About?

How Do I Catch the Live Webcast?

You’ll need:

A Windows machine
Live Meeting (you can get a free version of Live Meeting here), which will let you see visuals, hear the audio and type in questions to ask Richard
To register for the webcast (it’s free), click here; you’ll get the link for the webcast
To catch the webcast on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern / 11:00 a.m. Pacific!

How Do I Get the MP3 Recording of the Webcast?

It’ll be posted on this blog in about a week.

Who’s Coming Up on Ignite Your Coding?

We’ve got some great guests coming up:

Scott Hanselman, who’ll talk about the State of the .NET Developer
Jeff Atwood on “Horrors, Overflows and Fake Plastic Rock”
Robert C. “Uncle Bob” Martin on software craftsmanship

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

David Laribee Today on Ignite Your Coding

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:29:43 GMT

It’s Thursday, which means that it’s time for another live Ignite Your Coding webcast! Today’s guest is David Laribee, who coaches the product development team at VersionOne, has over a dozen years’ experience building enterprise software and coaching lean/agile teams in many industries. He recently wrote about technical debt in MSDN Magazine, and that’s just one of the topics he’ll cover in our live talk today.

How Do I Catch the Live Webcast?

You’ll need:

A Windows machine
Live Meeting (you can get a free version of Live Meeting here), which will let you see visuals, hear the audio and type in questions to ask David
To register for the webcast (it’s free); you’ll get the link for the webcast
To catch the webcast on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern / 11:00 a.m. Pacific!

How Do I Get the MP3 Recording of the Webcast?

It’ll be posted on this blog in about a week.

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

Ignite Your Coding, Episode 3: Jeremy Miller

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:13:00 GMT

Last week, John Bristowe and I interviewed Jeremy Miller -- “the Shade Tree Developer” – in a live Ignite Your Coding webcast. Jeremy holds the title of Chief Software Architect at Dovetail Software, Austin’s coolest ISV, and we talked about open source in the .NET world, StoryTeller, dependency injection and many other topics.

In case you were wondering what Ignite Your Coding is all about: It’s all about helping you, the software developer, find ways to stay on top of the technological, economic and social changes that affect you and your work every day. We got our hands on some of the biggest thinkers and doers in our field and asked them if they’d like to chat about the industry, how they got started, where they see the opportunities are, how they deal with change and how to be generally awesome. We got some big names from the Microsoft/.NET world, but we also went farther afield and got some people from beyond that world as well, because a different perspective is often helpful.

The recording of our webcast with Jeremy (which took place on March 18th, 2010) is linked below, and we’ll set up RSS, Zune and iTunes feeds shortly.

Direct Download:

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

Ignite Your Coding, Episode 1: Andy Hunt

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:01:00 GMT

Andy Hunt has been behind some of the biggest ideas in everyday software development in the past decade. From co-authoring the Agile Manifesto and The Pragmatic Programmer to starting The Pragmatic Bookshelf, one of the most influential developer book publishers, to helping bring about the rise of MVC web frameworks, chances are that he’s had some influence on your day-to-day work. In this one-hour webcast, we’ll talk with Andy about the ideas in his latest book, Pragmatic Thinking and Learning. We’ll discuss why your brain is where software development really happens, how you can refactor your thinking and as he puts it, “just the plain old weirdness that is people”.

You can listen to the recording of the webcast (recorded on March 4, 2010) in a couple of ways:

Download the MP3 below, or
Subscribing to the feed and downloading it to your iTunes / Zune software.

Direct Download:

Subscribe to the podcast: (so you don't miss an episode)

As always, if you have questions, comments or suggestions on how to make Ignite Your Coding better, we want to hear from you! Feel free to email either of us – John Bristowe and Joey deVilla.

About Ignite Your Coding

Ignite Your Coding is a series of interviews where Microsoft Canada Developer Evangelists John Bristowe and Joey deVilla talk with some of the brightest lights in the professional programming world about their areas of interest, dealing with the constant change in the industry and their suggestions on how to be a better software developer.

Podcast Participants: Andy Hunt, John Bristowe and Joey deVilla.

Music: Win This Race by picadillyCircus Sound Design, courtesy of iStockphoto.

Jeremy Miller on Thursday’s “Ignite Your Coding”

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT

This week's Ignite Your Coding podcast features Jeremy Miller, Chief Software Architect at Dovetail Software, the coolest ISV in Austin. In our one-hour webcast, my co-host John Bristowe and I will discuss a wide range of topics, from newer OSS efforts in the .NET developer community and how they’re trying to reduce friction, AAA-style mocking instead of record/replay mocking, the effective use extension methods for cleaner/readable/easier unit testing, jQuery magic, and many other topics.

If You Want to Catch the Live Webcast on Thursday and/or Ask Jeremy Questions…

You’ll need:

A Windows machine
Live Meeting (you can get a free version of Live Meeting here), which will let you see visuals, hear the audio and type in questions to ask Glenn
To register for the webcast (it’s free); you’ll get the link for the webcast
To catch the webcast on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern!

If You Want to Listen to a Recording of the Webcast Later…

We’ll make it available in MP3 format soon. Watch this site for details!

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

Ignite Your Coding: This Afternoon with Glenn Block!

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:39:32 GMT

If it’s Thursday, it must be time for me and my fellow Developer Evangelist John Bristowe to host another live Ignite Your Coding webcast!

This week’s guest is Glenn Block, a Program Manager for .NET FX at Microsoft. Glenn’s one of the go-to guys on Prism, Unity, MEF and ways of building maintainable and reconfigurable applications out of pieces that you can assemble and rearrange in general. We’ll talk with him about building composite applications, design patterns, the “alphabet soup” of SOLID, DI and IoC and whatever questions you ask him.

If You Want to Catch the Live Webcast on Thursday and/or Ask Glenn Questions…

You’ll need:

A Windows machine
Live Meeting (you can get a free version of Live Meeting here), which will let you see visuals, hear the audio and type in questions to ask Glenn
To register for the webcast (it’s free) here, where you’ll get the link for the webcast
To catch the webcast this afternoon at 2:00 p.m. Eastern!

If You Want to Listen to a Recording of the Webcast Later…

We’ll make it available in MP3 format soon. Watch this site for details!

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

Thursday’s “Ignite Your Coding” Webcast: “Composable Applications FTW” with Glenn Block

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:38:20 GMT

This Thursday, my fellow Developer Evangelist John Bristowe and I will host another live Ignite Your Coding webcast, where we’ll interview another high-profile software developer and pass along some of your questions.

This week’s guest is Glenn Block, a Program Manager for .NET FX at Microsoft. Glenn’s one of the go-to guys on Prism, Unity, MEF and ways of building maintainable and reconfigurable applications out of pieces that you can assemble and rearrange in general. We’ll talk with him about building composite applications, design patterns, the “alphabet soup” of SOLID, DI and IoC and whatever questions you ask him.

(We don’t have a photo of Glenn Block, but we do have the image to the right, which is the symbol for MEF – that’s Managed Extensibility Framework – which is one of Glenn’s projects. It’s a lucky coincidence that Glenn’s last name is also featured prominently in the image.)

If You Want to Catch the Live Webcast on Thursday and/or Ask Glenn Questions…

You’ll need:

A Windows machine
Live Meeting (you can get a free version of Live Meeting here), which will let you see visuals, hear the audio and type in questions to ask Glenn
To register for the webcast (it’s free) here, where you’ll get the link for the webcast
To catch the webcast on Thursday at 2:00 p.m.!

If You Want to Listen to a Recording of the Webcast Later…

We’ll make it available in MP3 format soon. Watch this site for details!

What’s Ignite Your Coding All About, Anyway?

It’s all about helping you, the software developer, find ways to stay on top of the technological, economic and social changes that affect you and your work every day. We got our hands on some of the biggest thinkers and doers in our field and asked them if they’d like to chat about the industry, how they got started, where they see the opportunities are, how they deal with change and how to be generally awesome. We got some big names from the Microsoft/.NET world, but we also went farther afield and got some people from beyond that world as well, because a different perspective is often helpful.

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

Yes, There WILL be an “Ignite Your Coding” RSS Feed

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:27:06 GMT

For those of you who’ve been wondering if we’ll be setting up an RSS feed for recordings of Ignite Your Coding, the answer is “yes”.

Here’s how Ignite Your Coding works:

On the actual day of the Ignite Your Coding live event, we do the interview live, as implied by the phrase “live event”. From 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (Eastern) on that day, we chat with our guest and you can listen to it as it happens if you’ve got a Windows machine running the Live Meeting client (available for free from the Live Meeting download page). The Live Meeting client also lets you see what visuals we’re putting up – mostly just information about our guest – and you can also use it to type in questions for us to ask our guest.
After the live Ignite Your Coding event, we take the recording of the event, do a tiny bit of post-production (adding an intro and outro, checking sound levels and so on) and post the interview in MP3 form, with a link to the recording in an RSS feed so that your favourite podcatching application or system can grab them.

I’ve got my plate full with more than the usual amount of tech evangelism activities, so there’s a team doing all this stuff. Once they tell me where they’re putting the recording and RSS feed, I’ll tell you. I’m told it’ll be soon.

Want to know about the upcoming guests on Ignite Your Coding? Check out the Ignite Your Coding site!

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

Ignite Your Coding Starts March 4th with Andy “Pragmatic Programmer” Hunt!

cdndevs@microsoft.com (Microsoft Canada) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:05:06 GMT

It all starts next week on Thursday, March 4th: Ignite Your Coding, the live webcast where we interview some of the biggest brains in the industry, and then hand over the interview to you!

In Ignite Your Coding, my fellow Developer Evangelist John Bristowe and I will talk to developers who’ve made their mark on the industry and ask them how they got started, what sorts of projects they’re working on, what interests them, where they see the industry heading, all with an eye towards helping you make sense of the changes happening in the world of software development. We’ll ask the questions for the first part, but then it’ll be your turn to ask them. The webcast will take place on Thursdays in March and April, and it won’t cost you a thing to catch them.

Our First Guest: Andy Hunt

Are you into agile programming? Andy Hunt co-authored the Manifesto. Does The Pragmatic Programmer occupy a special place on your bookshelf? (And really, it should.) Andy co-wrote that too. Have you ever coded using Ruby on Rails or ASP.NET MVC? Chances are you picked up some knowledge, either directly or indirectly, from a book published by Andy’s book publishing company, The Pragmatic Bookshelf.

We’re quite fortunate to have Andy as our first guest, and we’re looking forward to the interview! Our live webcast with Andy will take place on Thursday, March 4th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern (11:00 a.m. Pacific) and run for an hour. To catch the webcast, all you have to do is register – it’s free!

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning

There are all sorts of books out there that talk about how to get the most of your programming tools, from IDEs to utilities to languages to frameworks to methodologies. But of all these tools, the most important tool is the one that’s largely ignored: your brain. Enter Andy’s latest book, Pragmatic Thinking and Learning, which I declared “My Favourite Geek Book of 2008”. There are many books and tools for refactoring your code; this one’s about refactoring your brain. First, it presents the brain in a way that a programmer can grasp:

…and then talks about the many ways you can refactor it:

Taking advantage of R-mode (often called the “right brain” in pop psychology), which often gets ignored because of its non-linear, non-linguistic, unpredictable and even “artsy” nature. It’s actually an amazing problem-solver, so much that PT&L suggests that you should “lead with R-mode and follow with L-mode”, or more colloquially, “write drunk; revise sober”.
Working around the bugs in your brain. And there are many, from the primitive “lizard brain” that likes to override our higher cognitive functions to cognitive biases to generational affinity.
Learning deliberately: what learning is and isn’t, how to plan to learn, figuring out what your learning style is and how to best take advantage of it, and harnessing mind maps, documentation and teaching in order to learn.
Gaining experience, which includes understanding the importance of fun and how pressure kills cognition, learning the “inner game” and why your mantra shouldn’t be “learn to build”, but “build to learn”.
Managing focus, a very important topic since there are so many things vying for it, from office interruptions to the siren song of the internet, with email, IM, Twitter, Digg, Reddit and LOLcats. One of my favourite bits in this section was some research whose results indicated that constantly checking your email lowers your effective IQ more than smoking a joint.

Get the book, then meet the author! Register for Andy’s Ignite Your Coding session!

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]