Dev Dawn

This evening I had the wonderful experience of going back through all the previous posts (of course, all in my case is less than a hundred, so it’s nothing for most), pushing them into the new categories.Which incidentally will not neccessarily stay the way they are. Experimental is the word.

Anyway. As I perused through the posts, which aren’t that old, I found myself thinking, Why did I write that?, and What a dingus. As short as my blogging career has been, have I really moved far enough forward to see previous lameness?

I don’t think so. I’m still going to write as I did, although hopefully with a little more skill each day.

I guess I’m wanting to know if people read their previous posts and get a little embarassed. And what, if anything, you do about it.

I want to become a better blogger, or whatever the new term will become. I think blogger is okay. It’s like saying your a journalist without being a journalist. Although I’m sure actual journalists would go bezurk over that. But it is … when I tell family members that I have a blog, there is still a sense of mystery. Or authority might be the better word. Maybe.

It might just be that I’m very tired and lacking in any usual facilities that will stop me blabbing on.

Thanks for your time.

Here is a handy hint for those of you who have arcade machines. Depending upon yor game board and your monitor orientation you might find the game is displayed upside down.

One solution is to locate the meaning of all those DIP switches on the board and hope one will flip the picture back up the right way.

Unfortunately, many of the earlier (read classic) arcade game boards don’t have a DIP switch to do this. So you are left to pull out these clumsy hunks of a monitor and frame and rotate them… which honestly is a real pain… and can subtract from your 8-bit enjoyment.

However, I found this handy hint…

Warning – arcade monitors carry lethal (yes it can kill you) voltages. So before you do any of this remember to turn the damn thing off!

There is a 4 wire connector that goes from the picture tube to the main circuit board. Its highlighted in the picture. Now this is for real, i can confirm it, because i just did it. Cut the connector itself with pliers or sidecutters between the 2nd and 3rd pins. This will give you two separate connectors. Swap the first pair around so that wire 2 goes on pin 1 and wire 1 goes on pin. Do the same with the second pair so that wire 4 goes on pin 3 and wire 3 goes on pin 4.

Turn everything back on and she’ll be up the right way.

So. With my excitable nature, and after getting a general consencus (spl?) from across many blogs, i’m starting to take photos. With a digital camera no less. It’s pretty cool.

Anyway. Here’s the first.

It’s my workplace. Where I delve into the dark, dank, dangerous dungeons of development.

That’s a lot of D’s.

Be sure to note the many work enhancers.

1. There’s a Bundaberg Diet Ginger Beer bottle. That’s refreshment.
2. Then there’s the Diet Coke bottle behind the lcd screen. That’s for addiction … i mean, concentration.
3. Simpsons figurines are bluetacked to the edge of the table. This was a (failed?) attempt to maintain some version control. Although John’s Shoebox idea is cool.
4. The Dell Inspiron 9100 (which doesn’t have an easily findable webpage … probably cause it’s a couple of years old) is a beast. Still. Even though it weighs half a metric tonne (I’ve got big brawny shoulders for hard labour), and even though the power supply can give you third-degree burns on contact (or proximity), and EVEN though it occasionally gives me grief on startup … it’s the bomb.

   I can fire up a bunch of stuff all at once. And I push it. It runs a bunch of apps at once, with servers running, and lots of browser testing, app testing, guis … etc, and I even tested it by running World of Warcraft with stuff open … still works fine. This thing is beautiful.

   Of course, it’s getting the absolute snot thrashed out of it. Considering all things, it allows me to get done the work i need to, with the power baby, power.

5. Last, and most assuredly not least, are the little boxes in the background. I mean … those machines that gave us joy as kids. Well … not so much me … I had to get my joy from watching other kids play, as we didn’t get pocket money growing up ( … I don’t have any issues … whatchoo talkin bout?).

Anyway … we’ve got a pretty sweet setup down here … it’s very conducive to development. Which enables us to do what we do.

There are a lot of little changes going on. So many that I’m having trouble keeping up.

Although anyone reading won’t be able to see it, we’re now using the excellent Wp Tiger Administration plugin by Steve Smith. Awesome stuff. Changes the entire administration process, very easy on the eye. It’s funny, cause it’s Mac/Apple, and I’ve almost exclusively never used the other side to the force. I mean … Brett, don’t get angry … It was a joke … hey, put down that bat! …

But anyway, kudos to all the peeps that are giving out their work into the webnet. It’s an exchange of information/ideas that makes this a very exciting time to be in development.

Dev Dawn has had a massive visual overhaul.

Big shouts out to the following:

Paul Stamatiou really opened my eyes to just what can be done in the world of the interweb, blogs, and ‘net stuff. Plus, it’s his mod on the K2 theme that i’m using. Deviance.

The K2 Theme rocks. Simple. It’s very cool. Thankyou to the Binary Bonsai boys.

Lastly, I’m using a few new plugins. They are:

Brian’s Latest Comments
Feedburner Plugin
Gravatar
WP-ContactForm Ha ha, this was already plugged in. Silly me.

Thankyou very much. Everyone.

Especially Wordpress. Without it, I’d still be beating my head against a wall trying to get Joomla to act like a simple blog. Heh.

‘Nuff Said.

For the nostalgic i’ll share an article i’ve just read. Now, to my friends it will come as no surprise that the magazine is called ProgramNOW…. Hmmm…. silence…. oh, so you don’t have a subscription to that one? Well i’m reading an article in the December 1990 issue, so chances are i’m probably the only one left on the planet with it!

To those of you who know the heritage of SoftVelocity… err… i mean… TopSpeed…. Clarion Software Corporation… or was that Barrington Systems. Well all of them actually! The article is about Niels Jensen. Niels founded Borland (with Philippe Kahn – who appears to race boats for a living now… life is good for some!)

The article talks about early programs such as Sidekick and Turbo Pascal, both of which i used extensively in my youth (thus the nostalga).

Here we have some timeless quotes:

“Programming languages are becoming more and more complex, for example, C++ is a disaster on a larger scale than even C…”

Here is an extract of Niels talking about the recent object oriented extensions that were being added to languages (remember we are in 1990 here).

Niels on C & C++:

“It’s very complicated, it’s very difficult to learn and when you look at C programmers today, they actually write without prototypes, just doing all sorts of nasty things because they think its smart to do it that way.

They’re going to find it difficult to understand the intentions of C++; the high abstraction level that you’re supposed to take. It’s not a language for hackers [read newbies] but it’s going to be used by C programmers mainly, because people who’ve written software in Pascal and Modula-2 will not touch C++”

Niels gets this analysis spot on. I worked on a number of large C++ projects in the mid 90’s and most programmers had moved from C to C++ without understanding abstraction… Lets get this understood, OOP is just abstraction… nothing more! If you think otherwise you have not yet felt the touch of enlightenment, and alas i have probably already lost you.

Another gem to bank on:

“…it’s only a matter of time now before people start to realise how expensive it actually is to program in C or C++”

Niels identifies both the skill issues with programming in C/C++ and the business aspects of cost. As Niels suggests things would change, but often with large scale corrections the pendulum swung a little too far the other way… into the VB camp. Now we have a simplistic language that shares with C/C++ many of the failing of a loosely typed language, and arguably software development didn’t get much cheaper!

Many of us are now watching with utter astonishment the debacle that is .NET.

A little comparison might enlighten those whom find themselves trudging the path of conformity. I have been developing a rather large system in Clarion. Due to a rather strange twist of circumstances I am also acting as an external consultant to a company that has a software house developing a competing system. So i am getting a side by side comparison of .NET v’s Clarion.

Now, I understand that this may not necessarily be a fair test, there are many circumstances that could affect the situation. But, what I do offer is a simple opportunity to see what I have been able to witness and you can draw your own conclusions.

Lets try and get the Apples and Oranges clarified.

Them
1. They are coding in .NET
2. They have been requested to add additional functionality to an existing .NET application
3. The additional functionality was specified professionally, formally and in writing
4. They have 4 programmers working on it
5. They have 9 years of experience in this field.

Me
1. Coding in Clarion 6
2. New program totally from scratch
3. Just me coding, between my consultancy jobs
4. I have 11 years of experience in this field

We both started at roughly the same time. I think it would also be fair to say my target was for approximatly 50% more functionality (for example mine includes a comprehensive Australia and New Zealand payroll system). For clarity, they are going from 50% to 100% and I am going from 0% to 150%

Ironically, where my system installs happily onto all systems purchased within roughly the last 5 or so years. They spent approximately two weeks getting theirs to run on Windows Server 2000, even though its built with Microsoft tools. [SOAPBOX] These types of compatability issues are just a complete waste of time and money. Software development doesn’t need to be like this. [/SOAPBOX] Further they are exposed to the fragility of differing .NET runtimes, but also, any incompatibilities introduced by microsoft. Taking this further, mine installs with a CD and an untrained operator. They need to install their system themselves.

My system requires considerably less powerful computers, which means…. I can sell more programs. Why, because customers often don’t need to upgrade their machines, which leaves more money for our software. The investment of new software is cheaper, therefore easier.

In another business twist of events I was able to sit in on their presentation. In a nutshell the thing was totally unreliable, it crashed constantly (40+ times), one of the programmers was called over to remain for the duration of the demonstration, where he was often required to modify stored procedures to get things working again. In my 3.5 hour demonstration the program worked without fault.

My system is now released – they are still in alpha in one office. We have already won a contract for as many sites as this other company has managed to accumulate in the last 9 years of their business. We only released less than two weeks ago!

Back to my story about Niels:

Now, for the Topspeed / Clarion fans out there… here is an extract of where Niels sees the future:

“Interviewer: So you could end up with a 4GL as part of the Topspeed system? [Remember Clarion was then the Clarion Software Corporation and TopSpeed were the compiler writers who all left Borland]
Niels: Yes, that’s conceivable. And the portability of our family of languages is quite good as well. ”

So there in 1990 Niels Jensen predicted the partnership with Clarion that bought an industry leading optomising compiler into the backend of a proven business language with fully integrated database connectivity, sweet.

Having recently had a two week holiday but unfortunately having to do some pretty involved support on occasion I can report on the state of affairs re: Internet cafes and IT Travel etc.

* If you are staying at a decent hotel you can arrange ADSL (for $$$) or perhaps you will get a wireless signal in the room or in a coffee house nearby. Of course you can’t always rely on getting either of these thing reliably – my advice here is more for someone on the move frequently who, like myself, was nowhere near a metropolitan hotel.

* Check out all the Internet Cafes near where you are staying. Try a few out. Chat with the Internet Cafe owner/admin as some will be quite flexible knowing you will be coming in to check your mail each day and do some work. Some will offer a 3 day pass etc.

* For involved work a fully setup laptop is the best bet – many cafes (but not all!) allow you to plug into their network. This has advantages in security too but involves lugging a laptop which can also be stolen. A small portable insured laptop is a plus. The only other possible security concern would be a dodgy cafe intercepting your network traffic etc so ensure XP and your NTFS drives have full security properly set up and avoid dodgy cafes (for many reasons!).

* A USB pen with software installed on it (as most cafes will not give you admin rights to install anything). I ran several applications off my USB pen successfully but this is dependent on the particular software of course. A USB pen to store your downloaded data which is better than using their public harddrives – however it did appear that Windows was temporarily storing downloaded files on its hard drive first and then transferring it to the USB pen.

* Web mail is a little inconvenient but is an acceptable solution for contact. Ensure your account has enough space to store emails over time as you will find it easier to leave your emails on the server and download them all when you get home. Remember to log out fully from the client and use secure passwords.

* Security is a major concern. Remember to hard delete (not recycle bin – press SHIFT DEL) your files from their drive but be aware Norton Unerase could still recover these files. Most cafes reimage their machines every time cycle but still who wants to rely on that. Add a password to your USB pen. Logout fully from web mail, delete the IE buffer and press the hard reset when done. This is the time when all those good security protocols that we usually ignore should *actually* be used!

* Organise your files as best you can to make re-integration when you return easier. The best advice I can give is to head to your local Internet cafe before you leave and try your travel solution out with some proper work – most issues will occur in the first couple of times.

Or better yet just refuse to do any work on holidays and leave your mobile phone at home!

- CodeMonkey Blog

Some 10 years ago I was working on my first multi dll application. There were 5+ programmers and we had no version control software. We had previously no need for any software to manage development – so we came up with our own solution.

How did it work??? The answer was suprisingly LOW TECH.

The application had about 15 to 20 modules EXEs and DLLs. Each module was assigned a Shoe Box with its name written on the lid.

Initially the idea was to also include a floppy disk with the code inside the Shoe Box – but that simply gave way the mantra “If you don’t have the Box – don’t touch Boxes code!”

Seems simple but was extremely effective.

Developers use to have two or three boxes stacked up outside their offices, that way everyone knew who had which module.

Also those developers who had too many modules or were having difficulty with some code in a module were easily identified as well. Too many boxes stacked at the door to their office.

Developers who needed a box that someone else had – were required to go to that developer’s office and demonstrate their need thus aiding in subtle internal team motivation.

This suprisingly low tech solution – saved money and time. We were able to meet an unreasonable deadline set by those pesky GENERATION Zers again.

Lateral thinking is the fore runner to inspired solutions to problems of all kinds.

For more articles checkout contributer http://www.johnmo.com a DevDawn sister site.

Once more into the forest …

Premise: When you are deep within a great forest, trying to get to the other side, it is very easy to get lost amongst the trees. The leafy canopy, the dark moss on the ground, the hairy spiders attacking you.

… Read on

Hey just a big Dev Shout to everyone out there who cuts code.

Every so often you need to enhance and revamp your code. This helps to prevent code rot and scope creep. In my opinion these are the enemies of maintenance programmers everywhere.

So PIMP up your code and keep it “TOP NOTCH”.

You never know who’s going to be maintaining it.

Remember those LOOP 1 TIMES you added or the over engineering you did.

These are symptoms of TIGHT DEAD LINES.

Spare a thought for the poor developers who follow in thine foot steps.

Code on dudes!