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 '