Indoor enthusiast. Co-founder of Stack Overflow and Discourse. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. Find me:
asp.net
I just posted a new article to CodeProject, User Friendly ASP.NET Exception Handling. I casually mentioned in the original article that I didn’t think a global unhandled exception management class designed for WinForms and console apps was appropriate for ASP.NET apps, and that I had a separate-but-equal
code organization
I generally dislike these kinds of “Me, too!” posts, but I have to make an exception for Ned Batchelder’s excellent blog entry on deleting code. I’ve often run into this phenomenon with other developers, and it bugged the heck out of me, although I couldn’t quantify exactly
project management
Sometimes I feel like I learned everything I needed to know about software project management on Monster House. Monster House is a television show on The Discovery Channel. Five random builders and the host, Steve Watson, perform a “monster” makeover on someone’s home in five days. If the builders
.net 1.0
This is something of a dying art, since Microsoft is doing their level best to pretend that .NET 1.0 doesn’t exist any more – but here are a few key utilities you’ll need when running .NET 1.0 and 1.1 side by side. Each website on an
programming languages
I’m fairly happy with my global unhandled exception handler for WinForms and console apps. I also successfully adapted a version of it for use in ASP.NET apps, where it interfaces with the Application_Error event in global.asax: Sub Application_Error(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As
gui design patterns
With all this talk of high-falutin’ coding design patterns, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more sites that cover GUI design patterns, like welie.com*. What a great site! Consider the iPod: it’s a 2.5″ hard drive, strapped to a battery and a LCD, that plays MP3
programming languages
I mentioned in a previous post that I recommended Andrew Hunt of pragmatic programmer fame to speak at our group offsite. He happens to live in the area, which makes it very cost effective. I have to admit I didn’t know much about these guys until I ran across
task manager
Shamelessly stolen from Scott Hanselman’s most excellent Ultimate Developer Tools List, Task Manager Extension is one of my favorite new addins. Like Notepad, Task Manager is something I use on a daily basis: it’s an essential part of my toolkit. I took a look at some replacements, but
software development concepts
It’s because I’m so humble, obviously. Allow me to illustrate with an excerpt from the personal character chapter of McConnell’s Code Complete 2.0: The intense inwardness of programming makes personal character especially important. You know how difficult it is to put in eight concentrated hours in
.net
This question comes up periodically, and Microsoft has a fairly definitive whitepaper on the topic, Performance Comparison: .NET Remoting vs. ASP.NET Web Services. The article has a number of charts with crazy legends, so let me provide a better one: ASMXWeb ServiceWS_TCP_BinaryWindows Service remoting host, TCP protocol,
debugging
I debug remotely at home, mostly because I prefer not using the crippleware version of IIS. It's kind of a pain to get it running, because you have to be more careful with permissions and configuration, but basically it works. At least, it worked until I installed XP
software development
Although it's a little hard to parse through, I was blown away by The Rise of “Worse is Better”, because it touches on a theme I've noticed emerging in my blog entries: rejection of complexity, even when complexity is the more theoretically correct approach. Two famous