SBC DotNet Weblog
-
Building Distributed Systems (vertical industries)
Phil Stanhope has some interesting points to add to Sam Gentile's posting on 'Building Distributed Systems'. We are certainly in the midst of a change not just in technologies but the methodologies to go with it. Back in the late '80s and early '90s - I had spent considerable time on developing systems for the Insurance industry. While the technologies evolved, the methodology (predominantly the 'waterfall') remained the same. It was only after the works of Boehm ('spiral'), Davis ('software engineering') and others ('XP') had permeated, did the industry make its changes (it's still evolving). Phil's point on vertical industries is a good one but different industries take different schedules in adapting to something new.
-
Are Programmers Engineers? (some thoughts on Eric Sink's thoughts)
Maestro Eric Sink answers a very pertinent question - Are Programmers Engineers? I think a lot has happened to the software development field since we started in it (Eric - I'll raise your T-Square with my 1401 punched-card deck). I think the folks at Carnegie Mellon would concur as well. The question really to ask is when or what project does one have to be (or behave like) a “professional engineer”. I think engineering for most part and regardless of type (mechanical, electrical et al) is one of discipline and attitude. Software development is having a difficult time showing its engineering stripes since the placement of its effort has been difficult to classify/categorize only until recently (see graph & Scott Ambler's article).
-
Should I buy ECC or non-ECC RAM?
While prepping my new machine for 'Longhorn', I had a decision to make - Should I buy ECC or non-ECC RAM? ECC RAM costs a bit more but by not that much. ECC RAM are a necessity on servers and have now trickled down to (high-end) workstations, granted there are some performance losses (very marginal at best). Oliver Aaltonen's excellent Unofficial FAQ about the Dell PowerEdge 400SC series has a very informative explaination on why ECC RAM is certainly worth it. By the way - if you are a Dell PowerEdge 400SC owner, I highly recommend Oliver's website (and support it too).
-
Carl to speak again..
Carl Franklin's prior presentation on 'Whidbey' was cancelled due to a snow-storm. He's back again on Feb 24th at the Connecticut .NET Developers Group meeting. Looking forward to it.
-
What 'Indigo' does..
Software industry pundit David Chappell's column 'Indigo: The end of the rainbow' explains why this forthcoming effort by Microsoft is radically different. Worth reading if you have to explain to your boss what it's all about. “In a world that has both .NET and Java, the announcement of Indigo is an unassailably good thing.”
-
'Pareto' (Dell PowerEdge 400SC) - my new Longhorn machine
-
Free book chapters about UML (Activity & Use Case Diagrams)
Free book chapters - Learning UML (Activity Diagrams) and UML Pocket Reference (Use Case Diagrams).
-
Free book chapter: XLink - XML Linking language
From Erik Wilde and David Lowe's XPath, XLink, XPointer, and XML: A Practical Guide to Web Hyperlinking and Transclusion. Describes the XML Linking Language (XLink), which defines how hyperlinks can be used in an XML-based environment (in PDF format).
-
Programming Microsoft InfoPath: A Developer's Guide.
-
New England (well, Connecticut) .NET Dev bloggers evening (with Rory)
This is a tentatively scheduled event - New England (well, Connecticut) .NET Dev bloggers evening (with Rory) on March 5th or March 6th. This is being done under the auspices of Franklins.Net who'll bring in the guest of honor, the indefatigable Rory Blyth. Carl will decide upon the location which may be in New Haven, Middletown or the old Dutch Tavern in New London. The latter may be familiar to .Net Rocks listeners. Stay tuned.