Paul Wilson's .NET Blog

I have an interesting story from work today.  First, this is just my second week at PRG-Schultz.  I know who my manager is, and I know his boss, who is a VP in the IT division, but that's about it.  I know I've been told lots of other names, but I'm not good at names, and I probably don't really care either.   Now I've already been working on one project, and I had put together a simple prototype.  I've met one chief user, and my coworker showed my prototype to him yesterday.

My second week at PRG-Schultz is now just about over.  I finished my coding standard for all new .NET development and we went over it today.  It went pretty well for the most part, although that's probably equally attributable to my manager as to my work.  As for my part, since I just summarized and referred to the MSDN docs and other similar standards, its hard to argue with the rest of the .NET world.  I think the existence of FxCop for easy self-checking also won a few people over, since it doesn't mean lots of policing.  The consultants on the team were probably the most receptive of all, even though one wasn't involved with .NET and the other is still rather new to it.  They are just more used to change and some type of client standard or other expectation.  On the other hand, I have a most excellent manager (are you reading this Frank?) that actually did a little research and calls to others to prove to himself that this really is the industry standard in .NET.  As a result, he prepped the team so that it was understood it was a done deal and not open to much change, although gripes were more than welcome this one time.  One person that had told me he would not change seemed content with accepting it, and one other is what I suspect is the one that every shop has.  But it went real well overall, and so far they appear to be a very solid team, evidenced even more by a team-building session we had yesterday.  Some of them are going to be very new to .NET, as this is a very diverse team, but I think we'll make it.

Yet another tip on viewstate from a reader of mine, Cliff Harker.  Basically, there are some proxies out there, including AOL apparently, that cut off any hidden fields that are greater than some size.  This obviously screws up viewstate, so this code breaks viewstate up into multiple smaller fields to get around this problem:

Here's a tip relating to saving viewstate on the server I received from Johan Åhlén:

I started my new job at PRG/Schultz last week here in Atlanta, and had a very nice first week.  One of my first tasks is to create a coding standard for all new .NET development.  Now anyone that reads the MSDN docs should know what Microsoft recommends.  There are also others besides Microsoft that have adopted this new coding style.  There is even an automated compliance checker called FxCop available from Microsoft.  Most all .NET books and articles are also written to this new standard, checked by FxCop.  So it seems obvious that the Microsoft recommendation should certainly be the first choice.  Especially when you consider large corporations assume that people will come and go over time.

Today is my last day at Roche Diagnostics, where I have been the Software Architect for 2 1/2 years.  This site was originally an acquisition and they finally decided to close it.  I've known for over a year, and I finally got my notice 2 months ago, and now its over.  Some of my colleagues still have some things to do, but they are due to be out soon also.  They're all really sharp guys, so let me know if anyone is needing developers in coming months.

Here's my list of favorite features coming in the next version of .NET:

I haven't blogged in a long time, so I guess its time I provide some type of update.  First, I'm approaching my last day of work at my current employer and I'm still looking for my next gig to start on August 11.  I've had a couple of interviews, with another one later today, but most people haven't really wanted to talk until lately since they always want someone “immediately” and I had 60 days notice.  Hopefully now that I've got just 2 weeks left that will no longer be an issue, and so far I've been very picky and things still appear promising at this point.