Category: Opinion

I hate ObjectDataSource

Posted on by Scott

They’re ok if all you want to do is display data in a GridView control (and sort it, page it, etc). They become a pain in the neck the moment you actually want to modify data. The only I could get modifications to work is was by naming the parameters of your class methods exactly the same as the table column names (I’m using strongly-typed datasets in this application). I suppose it’s not so bad if you’ve named the table columns sensibly. But the database I’ve inherited doesn’t have this property.

What’s worse is the error messages you get when you haven’t configured something correctly. You get an entirely unhelpful message like “ObjectDataSource could not find a non-generic method that has parameters”. The number of search results for that phrase should have clued me in that this control was sketchy.

That’s one of the drawbacks of these new controls from Microsoft. They’re supposed to be better than code you’d write yourself–but God help you if they don’t work and you have to figure out what’s wrong. It’s not like you can debug them.

Richard Stallman on Software Patents

Posted on by Scott

I came across this opinion on software patents via the programming reddit.  It makes a great for why software patents are a problem without even mentioning Microsoft’s foray into patent trolling.

Stallman makes an interesting proposal for a new software-only form of intellectual property (IP) at the end of the piece.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it would survive the gauntlet of legislators (and lobbyists) to become law.

Hackers and Fighters

Posted on by Scott

I found this post on “street programmers” and computer scientists quite interesting because I manage a staff where the former outnumbers the latter significantly. In this environment, his conclusion that the street programmer is better than the CS graduate is wrong. The staff that have formal training consistently deliver higher-quality results when compared to the street programmers. The code they produce is easier to maintain and better-tested.

Mark Tarver’s definition of street programmer is the exception, not the rule, when it comes to people who write software for a living. It doesn’t include the people who got into this line of work because of Internet bubble; people who did it because they saw dollar signs rather than out of a genuine interest. I believe the person who self-teaches well is quite rare indeed.

I can’t dispute Tarver’s points about the state of computer science education. Far too many of them have been confirmed by friends of mine who are in Ph.D programs now. He’s certainly right about the conservatism of CS courses too. I still remember learning Pascal in the early 90s as part of my CS curriculum.

Even with the shortcomings of today’s computer science departments, the degree still serves as a useful filter when trying to decide if an interview with someone is likely to be time well spent.  I’ve also encountered enough good programmers in my time with degrees in math or physics that I’d certainly hire them if they interview well enough.

.NET Progress Bar

Posted on by Scott

I’d managed to avoid all .NET WinForms work of any consequence until today.  We’ve assigned one of our developers to fix an application in need of a working progress bar.  Since I haven’t done this before today, I’m scrambling to get up to speed on the right way to do this.

This article looks like a good place to start.

Microsoft vs. Open Source–Don’t Worry

Posted on by Scott

That’s the gist of this rather comforting post at groklaw.net about Microsoft’s claims of Linux patent infringement. It baffles me that a company which made over $12 billion in profits last fiscal year would stoop to the sort of patent trolling last seen from SCO Group.  It seems desperate.  It’s the kind of move I would expect from a company who had clearly lost the battle in the marketplace and didn’t have any other cards to play.

GUID vs. Identity Column for Primary Keys

Posted on by Scott

From the time I started using databases (Sybase 10, Microsoft SQL Server 6.5), I’d always used identity columns for primary keys in tables.  So when I came to my current employer and saw GUIDs all over the place, I wondered if that wasn’t overkill.

I did a bit of searching on the issues, and came up with these links:

The authors of these pieces can reasonably be described as pro-GUID.  They are up-front about the drawbacks of their preferred option (performance is a big one).  I tried the tip on using NewSequentialId() instead of NewId() (from Jeff Atwood) , but SQL Server Management Studio kept giving me errors when I attempted to update the default value of a table column to use it.

A rant on programmers who can’t program

Posted on by Scott

I came across this post today and wasn’t sure what to make of it.  In my current job and my previous one, interviewing potential hires for programming was part of my job.  I can’t say I ever used “FizzBuzz” types of questions on candidates, and I’m not sure that would tell me the sort of things I need to know about someone.  I find myself asking a lot more design questions and process questions with perhaps one or two programming questions thrown in.  But before even getting to that stage, I have to feel good about their resume.  I think the majority of people give you enough information in their resume that you can figure out whether a phone screen is worthwhile in a relatively short period of time.

Working with virtual machines

Posted on by Scott

A few weeks ago, my employer updated the RAM on a bunch of our machines to 2GB. The reasons was so we could do our development using virtual machines.  I haven’t done development work this way before (probably because I never worked anywhere before that gave you enough RAM).

So far, it’s only been a bit different than working with everything directly installed.  Visual Studio 2005 is a bit slower (of course).  The other minor inconvenience is that I can’t add new users to TFS from my virtual machine.  I suspect this has more to do with it being configured incorrectly than with the virtual machine not being part of the domain.  Access to network shares is virtually unchanged, since you can map network drives and connect using a different user name.