Ever wanted a quick/easy/automated way to get syntax highlighted code from your editor of choice into PowerPoint? EVERY time I do a technical presentation I need this. Usually I resort to taking a screenshot, or finding an “export to html” type plugin for the editor I’m using at the time (Visual Studio, Vim, IntelliJ IDEA, […]
I just finished reading Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug (perhaps you know him from his other book Don’t Make Me Think). Here’s what I thought. What’s the point? Learn how to do usability testing yourself to gain most of the benefits of hiring someone to do it, and losing most of the negatives […]
Teaching StructureMap About C# 4.0 Optional Parameters and Default Values
This week I ran into wanting to use C# 4.0 optional parameters, but wanted StructureMap (my IoC tool of choice) to respect the default value specified for those optional parameters. The Problem In this example, we’ll be pulling a command out of the container. The important part is the optional constructor parameter (level), and it’s […]
Book Club Foreword A couple years ago I brought up the idea of doing a book club here at SEP because I had participated in a couple before coming to SEP, but we called them SEDG (coined by Steve McConnell in Professional Software Development). I don’t really like that term, so we called it book […]
IndyTechFest is teh awesome! I was privileged enough to be a speaker alongside some other ridiculously awesome regional speakers (and even had a few of them IN my presentation!)… star struck having @dburton, @timwingfield, @skimedic, and other community leaders like @myotherpants and @maggielongshore in the audience. I am truly humbled. Thanks to the organizers for […]
In .NET we’ve got this cool little language construct called default, that’ll give you the default value for any given type. That is, null, for any reference type, or zero/false/DateTime.Min/etc. for value types. Here it is in action (nothing amazing going on here): var x =default(DateTime); So what if you don’t know the type you […]
I got beautiful teams a few months ago and tore into it hoping for lots of wonderful insights about how to help culture/foster/create functional and beautiful team environments. Instead, I ended up with a collection of stories from some people (some of which I’ve heard of, most of which I haven’t) that have been on […]
Maybe I should title this post ‘How to write a better error message’ instead. I just went on a wild goose chase trying to find the solution to an error I kept seeing in SQL Server Management Studio every time I tried to run a query or open a table for editing (or anything else […]
I’ve recently started to practice the pomodoro technique. Holy F! This super simple practice has uncovered how much time I completely waste in a workday (not to mention my non-work time). I feel like I’m cheating myself and my customer (read employer), so I’m going to do something about it. I’ve never read much of […]
