DotNetSurfers Blog

I am sitting at the Cleveland airport right now, waiting for my flight back to Dallas. I spent the last 3 days at the CodeMash conference held at the Kalahari resorts in Sandusky, Ohio. This was the biggest (and longest) conference that I have been to. It was exhilarating to be surrounded by and talk to such passionate developers. You could feel the high energy levels throughout the conference. Some of the highlights for me were:

• Bootstrapping your business session with Nate Kohari and James Avery: I have great respect for entrepreneurs, and more so for those with a coding background. Nate and James shared things that worked for them in their ventures, and a lot of things that didn’t. The session was very interactive, and a great start to the conference for me.
• Ruby/IronRuby: One of my goals for going to CodeMash was to decide if I am going to spend any significant amount of time trying to learn Ruby/IronRuby this year. The passion that a lot of the developers (especially the EdgeCase folks)  had for Ruby was definitely contagious and hard to ignore. I ended up attending a couple of Ruby sessions and I hope to spend more time with it in the next couple of months. The best Ruby session for me was “Ruby and Rails for the .Net developer” by Matt Yoho.
• Meeting more geeks: I got to meet a bunch of great people I knew from twitter, and some more.
• Amazon Ninja puzzles: Amazon had the best vendor booth IMO. They had programming related puzzles for you to solve, and I found myself in front of the question board every few hours (even missed some sessions because of this :). This is me hacking away in the halls with the Amazon Ninjas next to my laptop.
• Enter the Haggis concert: There was a live concert by Enter the Haggis on Thursday night, and they played some great fusion music. This was an awesome way to unwind.

There was plenty of food and caffeine at the conference, though the Wifi could have been better. Thanks to all the organizers for doing such a great job. I hope to be there again next year.

I’ll be presenting at the Dallas C# SIG later today, and am uploading a draft of the code and slides, in case somebody wants to work on the code during the presentation. I’ll update the attachment after the presentation if there are any changes.

Download here.

A tweet this morning from David O'Hara about wanting something on the lines of Autospec for Visual Studio motivated me to look into the Test Impact Analysis feature in Visual Studio 2010. Test Impact Analysis allows you to see what unit tests have been impacted by your latest code changes. This means that you need to run only the affected tests rather than the whole test suite to ensure that you have not made any breaking changes. This is clearly a big productivity win, especially if you have a big test suite.

I created a small Calculator Class and corresponding unit tests to work with. Here's what you need to do to get started with Test Impact Analysis.

1. Open your project in Visual Studio 2010 and open "Test Impact View" window (Test->Windows->Test Impact View). You should see something like this.
   
   
2. Enable test impact data collection by clicking on the link in the "Test Impact View" window. You can also do the same by going into Test->Edit Test Settings->Test Settings->Data And Diagnostics->Test Impact.
   
   
3. To generate baseline data, you need to rebuild your solution and run all tests in your test projects. You can do this using the "Test View Window". Your "Test Impact Window" should now look like this.
   
4. Make code changes that you are working on. Since I am just testing here, I modify my Add() method to do multiplication instead of additon. Now when I Save the code and Rebuild the project, the "Test Impact Window" automatically updates to show what tests need to be re-run. In this case, I need to re-run my "AddTest". I do so using "Run Tests" link in the "Test Impact View" or the keyboard shortcut Ctrl +R,Y.
   
5. Running "AddTest" causes it to fail since I introduced a bug in the last step.
   
6. Since my test failed, it still shows up under "Impacted Tests". I now fix my Add() method, rebuild my project and rerun the unit test. My unit test passes and the "Test Impact View" becomes empty again, indicating that my code is in good shape and safe to check in.
   

While this is not as powerful as running affected unit tests automatically in the background like AutoSpec does for Ruby, it's defintely a step in the right direction. I can totally see this becoming a part of my workflow.

A couple of other things

• Since Visual Studio only recognizes MSTest unit tests, I am not sure if this would work with other frameworks like NUnit. If you know of a way to do so, please leave a comment.
• The Test Impact Analysis feature is available in Premium and Ultimate versions but not in the Professional version. See this for feature comparison between different versions.
• I tested this with Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2010.

When I recently purchased a Macbook Pro, I had a couple of options to set up my .Net development environment on there. I could use a Virtual Machine based solution such as Parallels or VMware Fusion, or run Windows natively using BootCamp. My first preference was to stay inside the Mac OS if possible. I spent some time researching which product other developers are having more success with and Fusion seemed to be  more stable and responsive for the majority of them. I downloaded the trial version from their website and took it for a spin, and have been really happy with it.

I have used both XP and Windows 7 in a VM with Fusion, and the performance has been pretty flawless. I allocate both processors, 40 GB of hard disk space and 2 GB of RAM to a VM. Some of my peers have long been advocating the advantages of developing using VMs, and now I totally get how cool this way of working is. I can create and restore snapshots at any point of time, create a new VM to try out any beta software, and keep my development environment isolated from softwares/utilities that it does not need (avoiding software bloat). I am using a Windows 7 VM right now for the most part and playing around with Visual Studio 2010 on it. I intially found the Unity feature in Fusion (it gives the illusion of running Windows apps natively on the Mac OS)  to be really cool, but I don't really use it much. I have dedicated a Space to my VMs, and tend to work in full screen mode.

If you end up going the same way as me, I would recommend looking at multiple vendors before purchasing Fusion. I bought if off Amazon, and it cost me $23.49 (including a $10 mail-in rebate). Other sites,including VMware, offer it for upto $80.

It all started when I got my new IPhone (3gs) about a month ago. I had been using a Nokia E71 since the start of this year, and have owned a couple of Windows mobile based phone before that. To describe my experience with the new IPhone briefly, its usability and slick interface just blew me away. I could not believe I had missed out on owning this marvellous device for so long. My previous cell phones offered most of the features that my IPhone does, but there's a big difference in the user experience. It would not be a stretch to say that the IPhone serves most of the functions that I had recently bought a netbook for. After playing with some really well designed IPhone apps (facebook, tweetdeck etc), I really wanted to check out the development environment and get familiar with the basics at least. Unfortunately, you can develop an IPhone app only on an Intel based Mac. When I dug for more information on the interwebs, I discovered that a bunch of other .Net developers have been using a Mac as their primary workstation for quite some time using either Bootcamp or a VM based solution such as VMware Fusion or Parallels. I decided to take the plunge and ordered a 15 inch Macbook Pro with a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4 gigs of memory and a 320GB 7200 rpm hard disk. Here's my experience so far with the new Macbook Pro.

To put things in context, my primary workstation at home right now is a Dell desktop with 2.5 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 6 gigs of Ram and running the latest 64 bit Windows 7 RC. I am very happy with the that machine and use it with a dual monitor setup (see image below, the one on the right is a an Asus netbook).

To get upto speed with my new Macbook Pro, I shut down the Windows based desktop completely and have been using the Macbook as my primary computer for more than a week now. The device itself is a pleasure to use and looks very slick. I like the spacious keyboard and am really digging the trackpad. It has excellent battery life (>5 hours) in my usage so far. This is the most responsive machine I have ever owned. It takes around 2 seconds to revive the system from sleep mode, and unlike my Windows experience, I do not have to keep an eye on memory and processor usage all the time. I do prefer desktops over laptops for working for longer time periods because a laptop forces me into a slouching posture and puts more strain on the wrists. I tried to find a good docking station for the Macbook but was mostly unsuccessful. The only docking station I found was from BookEndz which had mixed reviews and a very high price tag (~$300).  I ended up buying a lapstop stand instead and currently attach my 20" monitor, ergonomic keyboard and trackball when working at home. On weekends, I usually work from a coffee shop and carry the laptop around with me. I tried pairing the Macbook with my 24" monitor, but it did not feel comfortable to use due to the big difference in screen size. Here's a picture of my updated setup.

The Leopard OS is pretty easy to get used to. I did have some trouble initially understanding how applications are installed and kept on launching them from the Downloads folder rather than copying them to my Applications. I like the Spaces feature and it gives the experience of a larger screen area. I use different spaces for the Windows VM, web browser, chat/twitter clients right now. The biggest issue I am facing right now is constant switching between the keyboard and mouse/trackball. On windows, I use slickrun and any available shortcuts to keep my hands on the keyboard as much as possible. I found a great free app called Quicksilver for the Mac which is an application lancher (and more). Other useful applications are AppZapper (application uninstaller), Adium (chat client) and Textmate(text editor). For editing blogs, I am using a free editor called Qumana right now. I have always used the Firefox plugin FireFtp for FTP purposes, and the same suffices for my needs right now.

I have installed the IPhone SDK and am checking out Objective C and the XCode IDE right now. I plan to write another post soon describing how I set up my Windows development environment on the Mac soon. Stay tuned.

At the C# SIG meeting in Dallas last week, David mentioned something really interesting about using a productivity add-on such as ReSharper or CodeRush. I think his exact quote was:

“If your not using a productivity tool, you’re ripping off your customers and wasting your time”

While I have met and worked with many ReSharper/CodeRush users in the past and talked about the value that such tools add, the sentiment has never been so strongly expressed. I have been playing around with both the tools over the last several months and am a happy ReSharper user now. I found CodeRush to have a lighter memory footprint, but the graphics and effects just got in the way of my work. ReSharper, on the other hand, was very usable and intuitive and had a minimal learning curve. Your experience might vary, but I would encourage you to take both the tools for a spin and try using one, if you are not already doing so.

Coming back to David’s statement, I think I agree with him more or less. Not only can you save some serious time by using such a tool, these add-ons generally encourage you to write cleaner code. You also deliver more value to the client in less time, and that could possibly lead to better feedback, more projects or recommendations to other  clients.

I just came back from the Big Design Conference held today in Dallas, and my brain is just flooded right now with all the information I picked up on different design and development topics. It was one of the most well organized conferences I have been to, with 4 parallel tracks (Social Media, Code Development, User Experience and Strategy) going on throughout the day. The hardest part was to pick a session out of the different choices to go to. I ended up attending Chris Koenig’s session on touch based apps, Stephen Anderson’s talk on seductive interactions, Caleb Jenkins’ Silverlight 3 talk and Todd Wilken’s session on saying No and learning. All sessions had great content and I even got to play with a Microsoft Surface Unit, which was again very impressive but is still very expensive (~$12K-15K) to own a personal unit.

There were lots of Macbooks (designer conference, duh) and netbooks being used in the audience, and the conference twitter stream was buzzing throughout the day with reviews and feedback from the attendees. The conference organizers even had the twitter stream displayed to the public in the hallway.

This just goes on to show the increasing importance of social media like twitter at such events. Overall, it was a great experience and I got to meet some really interesting people in the Dallas area as well as attend great presentations. A big thanks to the organizers for arranging this.

I gave a brownbag presentation at my current client recently about the common tools (in addition to Visual Studio), that I use on a regular basis for working with .NET or web development in general. I also threw in some non-development tools that are a part of my day to day life and make things easier. Here’s the complete list:

Note: For a completely awesome and Ultimate Developer’s tool list, be sure to check out Scott’s blog post.

Just follow these simple steps ( I am using the Ajaxcontroltoolkit library as an example here)

1. Download Sandcastle (http://www.codeplex.com/Sandcastle).

2. Download and install Sandcastle Help File Builder (http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=SHFB).

3. Check http://www.ewoodruff.us/shfbdocs/Index.aspx?topic=html/8c0c97d0-c968-4c15-9fe9-e8f3a443c50a.htm for other requirements. If you have Visual Studio installed, you should probably be good.

4. Run SandcastleBuilderGUI.exe, Create a new project and save it in the same location as your solution file. You can add it to the solution for easier version control maintenance.

5. Add your main assemblies to be documented using the Add button. Make sure your Visual studio project for that assembly is set up to generate xml documentation file (Project->Properties->Build->XML Documentation file should be checked).

6. In Project Properties within Sandcastle Help File Builder

a. Under Build -> Dependencies, Add the folder containing all the referenced assemblies, or add them individually.

b. Select the correct version under Build ->FrameworkVersion.

c. Under Build -> HelpFileFormat, choose the output type (chm and/or website).

d. Under Help File, you can add things like copyright, header, footer, feedback email address etc.

e. Set visibility for different type of members under Visibility.

7. At this point you can build project within Sandcastle Help File Builder to create help file manually. You can see an example of sample output here.

8. To create the help file from the command prompt, use SandcastleBuilderConsole.exe and pass the path to the help project file as a parameter. E.g.

"C:\Program Files\EWSoftware\Sandcastle Help File Builder\sandcastlebuilderconsole.exe" "C:\utils\libs\ajaxcontroltoolkit_help.shfb".

This can be used in a post-build event to automate the generation of help files.

I was one of the participants last week at the We Are Microsoft Charity Challenge Weekend here in Dallas. The event was organized very well by Toi Wright with support from MS Developer Evangelist Chris Koening . The idea was to build or enhance a charity's  Website (chosen by MS) within the weekend and give a 5 minute presentation on Sunday about the work done.
Our team was called 4 Devs, a Designer and a non-profit. The developers were Reza,  Tuan, Tim and  myself. We were lucky to work with Hillyer, a designer whose input really improved the look and feel of our work. And finally, the charity we worked for was The Child Abuse Prevention Center. Here's a team picture minus Tuan who fell ill on the last day.

 
(L to R) Hillyer, Chris, Reza, myself and Tim

Our goal was to completely redo the Website to give it a Web 2.0 look and feel and add some new features such as users and membership roles as well as a calendar module on the side. The overall task seemed too big to manage within a weekend, but I think we did pretty OK. Here's our final output that we demoed at the presentation.
We were pretty much feature complete on sunday, and had some really cool features going for us including built in multi-language support and  on the fly translation capabilities using Rick Strahl's awesome Localization Resource Provider.
Even though we didn't grab a place in the top 3 teams (there were a total of 20), I got to meet some great people, do some networking, eat great food and load up on caffeine. I also landed a Visual Studo 2008 Pro license as a door prize, and my teammate Tim nominated me for a cool "Coding Machine" award for staying up and coding through Saturday night. We still have some improvements to do on the site, and a lot of refactoring. We are going keep on working together till our client is happy with the output and gets all his features. If you get a chance to participate in an event like this, I highly recommend it. Check out http://givecamp.org/ for more information.