LINKBLOG for January 31, 2008

TortoiseSVN - import an existing file structure - Terry Thibodeau
small source control tip

30 Things to Do to Keep From Getting Bored Out of Your Skull at Work - Leo Babauta
Some very interesting ways to get through the day

How to avoid getting lost in translation - Gojko Adzic
' I am getting more convinced every day that communication is, in fact, what makes or breaks software projects '

How YOU Can Make the Web More Structured - Alex Iskold
standards, meta data, taggin

13 Questions to Ask Before Publishing a Post On Your Blog - Darren Rowse
and if you answer no to most questions (especially 3. and 4. stand out as simple dividers), by all means don't post it :-)
via Jason Haley

Do constraints help creative thinking? - Scott Berkun
' A team that is on life support needs to have constraints removed. But a team that is unfocused or out of control needs tighter constraints to function well '

Why threading is hard - Mike Stall
' Locks don't make your code safe. They just reduce the number of states and hedge your bets '

Machine Key Creator - Albert Pascual
via Steve Pietrek

Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - The Weekly Source Code 14 - Fluent Interface Edition

Does your team have a Production Architect? - Paul Stovell
With infrastructure teams who don’t know the basics about the technologies we build our applications on, how can they hope to keep our applications running

Bad Idea: Exceptions as a Validation Mechanism - D. P. Bullington
' Exceptions definitely should not be used for first-chance validation purposes '

No More Secrets - Jarkko Laine
' (...) even the poster boys only become interesting when their secrets are revealed on the pages of the tabloid magazines '

K. Scott Allen : Three Rules for Database Work
' 1. Never use a shared database server for development work.
2. Always Have a Single, Authoritative Source For Your Schema
3. Always Version Your Database '
Read the article for an more thourough explanation

The Vocabulary of Software Releases - David Starr
David has a plea - and a first attempt - for a common vocabulary

Confessions of a Software Developer* - Aaron Lerch
Interesting question, continued in the comments (by the way: if an article is interesting DO spend some time reading the comments
' There is so much going on in the world of software, how can I keep up with it all, while still making progress in my job? '

Some C# obscurities - Jimmy Bogard

TFSBuild.com Build Recipes Launched - Grant Holliday
Grant starts a new site dedicated to the TFS buils system ' I’ve been thinking for a while that there’s not a lot of guidance out there on how to get Visual Studio Team Foundation Build (aka Team Build) doing more than just a compile '

LINKBLOG for January 30, 2008

• C# Generics Annoyance - Chris Brandsma
  


• The programmer who programs least, programs best - Justin Etheredge
  ' (...) I am saying that every time you add code to your application you should do so consciously '


• Your project is already dead – you just don’t know it - Jonathan Rasmusson
  via Jean-Paul Boodhoo


• Jeremy hearts C# 3.0 - Jeremy D. Miller
  espacially follow up on the comments if you're new to C# 3.0 ' What do you like about C# 3? What are you doing that wasn't possible in C# 2? '


• Did you know... You can customize the commands on the context menus? - #140 - Sara Ford
  


• Taking responsibility for broken software builds: a part of daily team communication - Elizaveta Revyakina
  ' This is where TeamCity with its handy Take responsibility feature can be a really good remedy '
  small disclaimer (for once): I've never been paid to mention a product on this blog. Should this be the case in the future, I will let you know about itX


• Thinking of Breaking Away from the Blogging Herd? - Russell Ball
  ' If you are currently considering migrating your blog to your own domain or getting ready to start your own blog and aren’t sure which direction to go, here are a few things I would recommend based on my recent experience '


• Improving Windows XP Performance - Melissa Hermanson
  If your XP slows down to a crawl for unknown reasons, these tips might help out


• Community Convergence XL - Charlie Calvert
  article overview from the Microsoft's C# department


• The 10 Part Framework to Deliver a Presentation like Steve Jobs | Cultivate Greatness Personal Development, Leadership Training & Life Hacks
  ' While most presenters simply convey information, Jobs also inspires. He sells the steak and the sizzle at the same time (...) '
  with which also a new word was learned (by me at least)...


• On Loving C.. - Michael Feathers
  C is not for me, never programmed in it, but the way the love for a programming language is described by Michael is appealing


• More brain direction mind tricks - Greg Hughes
  Greg brings this weird trick under our attention (works over here!)


• Microsoft can't speak straight any more - Joel on Software
  ' “A feature complete CTP during the Heroes Happen Here launch wave?” What on earth does that mean? '
  The second part of the sentence Joel quotes contains even more mumbo-jumbo, making it most incomprehensible to mere mortals

LINKBLOG for January 29, 2008

• Requirements: Knowledge and Understanding - Scott Sehlhorst
  ' But to truly write good requirements, you have to gain a level of understanding that surpasses knowledge '
  


• Chandler: No Version 1.0 After 7 Years - Can it Survive Post-Kapor? - Richard MacManus
  Chandler definitely looked promising some years ago. But after reading the book and even trying the 0.6 or 0.7 release I can tell you it is far from 1.0
  


• Come Work With Me And Other Great People - Phil Haack
  Care to take the blue pill?
  


• Trevor Howard on having passion for your profession - Reg Braithwaite
  ' In acting, as in love, there is no place for indifference. '
  


• Wanted: Software war stories for an O’Reilly book - Scott Berkun
  Have something to share regarding team dynamics with the rest of the world?
  


• Spare me the don’t wake up call - Sterling Camden
  hehe, getting up early is healthy :-)
  


• Security vs. Privacy - Bruce Schneier
  ... a false dichotomy


• Finding Untitled Page Titles - Steven Smith
  


• TFS 2005 to 2008 Upgrade Underway... - Greg Duncan
  Now I know why we're still waiting for our CD's. Really.


• Essential Graphic Design Tools for .NET Developers - AjaxNinja
  Not really graphically oriented, I at least use Paint.NET regularly, never found a situation where it couldn't help out in my needs


• So much for Optimization - Soon Hui
  Clear advice from Soon: if you don't intimately know the system under optimization, you're going to have a hard time making useful improvements
  ' If you don't know how to optimize your code, you can wander here and there, tweaking your code (...) '


• I've got the Iteration #1 Blues - Jeremy D. Miller -- The Shade Tree Developer
  ' Experience has taught me to be very, very pessimistic about how much recognizable business value gets created in Iteration #1 (...) '


• ASP.NET MVC Link collection - Simone Chiaretta
  ASP.NET all over the place here


• Code Gallery goes Live: New Site for Samples - Charlie Calvert
  Code gallery and the other Microsoft source repo's


• Console - Tomas Restrepo
  Cool cmd.exe replacement


• C# Enum Craziness: Sometimes What You Expect Isn’t The Case - Luke Foust
  Turns out enums are more complicated than I expected


• Don't Tell ... Ask - J.D. Meier
  Inspirational thought of the day, short and concise:
  ' Bottom line -- people don't like to be told what to do and we're wired to resist change '


• Standards and Innovation - Nick Malik
  ' When I opened my call for a Shared Global Integration Model, I expected some folks to say "we don't need that." What I didn't expect was the argument that standards are somehow a bad idea '


• To the new weblogs.asp.net bloggers - Frans Bouma
  A plea which hopefully has some effect. On the other hand, I think you can better pick out the blogs you like, not to be swarmed with an overwhelming amount of useless stuff, which you subsequently are forced to skim through


• Do you use "Presenter view" in PowerPoint - Daniel Moth
  


• Methods Are Not Just a Means of Reuse - Matt Blodgett
  The message being that methods also have their use for code that's called only once