Architecture is about People

 Architecture  No Responses »
Apr 092012
 

Admiral Adama: In your opinion, off the record, what was Garner’s flaw?
Major Lee Adama: He was used to working with machines. Command is about people.
- Battlestar Galactica Episode “The Captain’s Hand”

A couple weeks ago I found that Netflix was providing every episode of the Battlestar Galactica series online. While I was watching it (and enjoying it thoroughly I might add), the above quote stuck with me. The quote refers to an episode in which an engineer is promoted to commander of a ship, and his command turns out to be quick and unsuccessful. The quote got me thinking about being an architect, and how often people promoted from the ranks of programmers into architects have the same problem. Sure, architecture requires a good understanding of technology, but understanding people can be much more crucial. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 10:40 AM  Tagged with:

Importance of Quality Attributes in Software Architecture

 Architecture  1 Response »
Mar 312012
 

I’ve often been asked to define what a software architect does. We do many different things, and the job description varies quite a bit among different companies, and across different sub-disciplines such as infrastructure architect or application architect. But the best definition I’ve come up with for what a software architect does is this: we balance the different quality attributes of a system so that they are best aligned to delivering business value for our organization. In this post I will talk about what quality attributes are and how they are employed when architecting a system.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 2:36 PM  Tagged with: ,

Azure through MSDN Subscription – Offer Not Available

 .NET  No Responses »
Mar 252012
 

I decided to spend some time this afternoon getting started with Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. Since I have an MSDN Subscription, I am allowed a certain amount of usage for free, and I figured I should check it out. I started by logging into my MSDN Subscription, clicking on My Account, and then clicking on Activate under the Azure section. I was greeting by this less-than-helpful message tell me “The offer is not available”. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 6:45 PM  Tagged with:

Silverlight Revisited

 .NET  1 Response »
Mar 242012
 

In December 2011, Microsoft released version 5 of their Silverlight platform. With that release, they filled in all of the remaining gaps and made Silverlight an excellent platform for internal line-of-business applications. It provides web-based deployment, COM integration, support for in- and out-of-browser modes, and all that using C# and XAML. What could be better for the thousands of run-of-the-mill data entry applications that are written everyday inside large corporations?

And yet developers are afraid to use Silverlight. Most devs I talk to think it is somewhere between dead and dying. Microsoft abandoned it, didn’t they? Aren’t you supposed to use HTML5 now? There is some truth to this, but plenty of confusion as well. In this post I’m going to update my position on Silverlight since I last wrote about it, and attempt to give developers a more clear direction on when it still makes sense to use Silverlight, and what it will mean for your career to invest your time in learning it.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 3:16 PM  Tagged with: , ,

Converting from BlogEngine.NET to WordPress

 General  No Responses »
Mar 042012
 

I spent the last day converting this blog from BlogEngine.NET to WordPress. I already discussed the reasons behind this, but this post describes the mechanics of actually installing WordPress, converting the content, and getting everything working. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 11:57 AM  Tagged with: ,

Unchoosing BlogEngine.NET

 General  No Responses »
Mar 042012
 

When I first started this blog, I decided to use BlogEngine.NET as the blog engine. There were a few different reasons for this, which I discussed in this post.

I haven’t been blogging in awhile, and one of the reasons was a general lack of satisfaction with the BlogEngine.NET software. I looked at WordPress, and it seemed like a much more robust platform with a much bigger community. I spent about a day installing it and tweaking it to my satisfaction, and I couldn’t be happier with the move. Hands-down I prefer WP over BE. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 10:57 AM  Tagged with: ,

Back in the Saddle

 General  No Responses »
Mar 042012
 

I’ve decided to get back into blogging again. I’m pretty sure that no one is actually out there actively awaiting my next words, but if so, you may have noticed that I haven’t posted in several months. This is due to a few factors, especially buying a house and gaining more responsibilities at work.

But my lack of speaking was definitely not due to a lack of something to say. I’ve been digging into some cool technologies such as NuGet, and getting more and more into the best practices for software architecture with .NET. Expect some posts about these and other geeky topics in the near future.

 Posted by at 10:36 AM

Content from WCF RIA Services talk at New England Silverlight Guild

 .NET  1 Response »
May 162011
 

Thanks to everyone who attended my talk at the New England Silverlight Guild at the MS NERD Center in Cambridge, MA. WCF RIA Services is a really cool technology that makes line-of-business apps on top of Silverlight a heck of a lot easier. Hopefully my talk served as a good introduction and convinced a couple people to give WCF RIA Services a try. This zip contains the slides and code from the talk. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or leave a comment on this post.

WCFRiaServices.zip

 Posted by at 12:38 PM  Tagged with: , ,

Content from MAF talk at Code Camp Waltham

 .NET  No Responses »
May 072011
 

Thanks to everyone who attended my talk at Code Camp 15 in Waltham, MA. I hope you know more about the Managed Add-In Framework now than you did. This zip contains the slides and code from the talk. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

IntroToMAF.zip

 Posted by at 10:04 AM  Tagged with: ,

Rename Visual Studio project in Subversion

 .NET  3 Responses »
May 052011
 

It can get pretty tricky to correctly rename a project in Visual Studio so that you can correctly commit the change back to Subversion. I always run into trouble with it, and so I’m recording the steps here so I don’t have to keep repeating the same mistakes. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 10:45 AM  Tagged with: ,
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