Matt and I arrived in Prague today, after flying through Milan and catching an Alitalia flight.  Just flying into Milan, over the Alps and seeing the Italian countryside, hanging in the airport listening to the italians talk, just makes me want to visit Italy even more.  There's something about the language thats just so enticing.

But on to Prague.  The city is very old, settled by the Celts in 300 BC.  The streets of the old part of the city are winding narrow cobblestone, and originally meant for horse/carriage.  Now cars navigate and park and squeeze thru, and somehow don't hit anyone.  It's very cool to walk these streets knowing Mozart once walked them.

Matt and I ate at a place called Pivnice Skorepka, and had chicken curry.  It was fantastic.  The beer wasn't bad either.  Most everyone in the city speaks English so it's not as difficult to communicate as I thought, though most people seem to routinely speak Czech, which is fine by me.  Who wants to hear English chatter?

After dinner Matt and I had planned to see an organ concert of Bach and Mozart music, but we had been up for 36 hours, and decided to crash.  I went out and took some pictures before bed.  Tomorrow, we're planning on getting up at 10 and doing a walking tour.  More then...

Pictures are here-->  Prague and Vienna

Springsteen is about to release a record of covers; songs originally written or made famous by Pete Seeger.  For those that don't know who Pete Seeger is, and until recently I didn't, he's an old folk singer dude - one of many targeted in the mockumentary A Mighy Wind.  There is no middle ground here for Bruce.  This is either going to completely suck or be great, and to me the proof will be in how these songs come across live.  When I heard about this I wanted to hear the originals.  I've combed the net and managed to compile most of the songs that will appear on the record, as they were done by Seeger, and posted them on my site.

ftp.extremeconsulting.net/extremecons/bruce/

userid=brucemusic
pw=brucemusic

Just about everyone has had to write logic in asp or asp.net to show a page/graphic giving a user something to look at while a webserver is processing some long running task (not unlike reading this sentence).  Daniel Fisher shows how to build a control that does just that.  The client side implementation of this control is sweet... drag it from the toolbox, set a property for the image location and hook up your event;  that's it.  He takes you step by step through the process, including implementing design time support.  Check it out, very cool.

In Daniel's sample the delegate is hooked in the aspx declaration for the control.  You may want to programatically hook it.  The code for programatically hooking events got me thinking about the changes for delegates in 2.0... I modified the code for 2.0 - taking advantage of anonymous delegates and the shortened syntax for delegate assignment.

From the client you can hook the delegate like this in 2.0

   this.WaitScreen1.Process += WaitScreen1_Process;    

where in 1.x you had to do:

   this.WaitScreen1.Process +=newEventHandler(WaitScreen1_Process);

In the control it gets easier also.   In Daniel's code he simply fires the delegate (and for good reason, his sample was a demonstration of control building, not delegate best practice).  The usual pattern for firing a delegate is to check for null beforehand.  Also, there are race conditions to consider because in between checking the delegate for null and firing it, the delegate could become null.  So if you want to optionally hook the delegate in the sample you'll need to add the null check to the code for the control.  Or not!  Enter anonymous delegates.  In 2.0 you can get away with the following.  Notice the use of an anonymous delegate (which does nothing) as a default assignment to the event.

public eventEventHandler Process = delegate { };

publicvirtualvoid OnProcess() {
   P rocess( this , null );
}

So, Process will never be null;  worst case scenario you've got an empty method executing.  I did some quick Stopwatch performance analysis on this method vs. null checking and locking - the difference was almost nil.  25 ticks vs. 22 ticks on average (fractions of a millisecond).

I said earlier "you can get away with" the above code... best practice guidelines say your event declaration should be private with a public event handler.  Also, it's a good idea for the method which does the firing to get the InvocationList and iterate through each in a try-catch block.   You are executing untrusted code afterall, in the sense that the target method may throw an exception and the rest of the delegate instances will not execute.  One of my .Net heroes, Juval Lowy, covers this in his outstanding book Programming .Net Components. 

private eventEventHandler _process = delegate { };

public event EventHandler Process {
   add {
      _process += value ;
   }
    remove {
      _process -= value;
   }
}

Been spending a little more time than I'd like with XSLT.  I recently needed a split function that would recursively create elements based on a delimited string.  Well, although XSLT 2.0 appears to have support for split, 1.0 does not.  So here goes for anyone who might need it.

<xsl:template match="some_delimited_string">
   <xsl:if test="normalize-space(.)">
      <xsl:call-template name="split">
         <xsl:with-param name="text" select="."/>
         <xsl:with-param name="element">YourElementName</xsl:with-param>
         <xsl:with-param name="delim">/</xsl:with-param>
      </xsl:call-template>
   </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="split">
   <xsl:param name="text" select=""/>
   <xsl:param name="element" select=""/>
   <xsl:param name="delim" select=""/>
   <xsl:choose>
      <xsl:when test="contains($text, $delim)">
         <xsl:element name="{$element}">
            <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($text, $delim)"/>
         </xsl:element>
         <xsl:call-template name="split">
            <xsl:with-param name="text" select="substring-after($text, $delim)"/>
            <xsl:with-param name="element" select="$element"/>
            <xsl:with-param name="delim" select="$delim"/>
         </xsl:call-template>
      </xsl:when>
   <xsl:otherwise>
      <xsl:element name="{$element}">
         <xsl:value-of select="$text"/>
      </xsl:element>
   </xsl:otherwise>
   </xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

however - if you like to solve complex Enterprise Integration problems you'll love the design of this product.

I recently switched jobs and one of the first things I'm doing in my new position is learning BizTalk.  I had no prior experience with it but always had a desire to dig in - I've always heard how it was Microsofts best kept secret.  So last week I was at the Microsoft Technology Center in Waltham for a few days and met with some excellent people who know Biztalk very well.  Their enthusiasm won me over and for the last 3 days I've been reading and watching every whitepaper and webcast I can get my hands on.  I've installed BT2006 on a VPC and run through a couple tutorials and done some virtual labs.  I'm starting to get a handle on where BizTalk fits into solution architecture. 

So, if you love to code and you love Visual Studio you may not like what you see.  Bottom line,  BizTalk does not give the developer a decent environment in which to consume/integrate and debug processing logic.  It's great at forcing an SOA mindset;  creating explicit boundaries, exchanging messages/contracts and not type, etc. (we've all seen the 4 Tenets of SOA slide).  It is great for data transformation tasks and is designed for connecting disparate systems.  But if you need to do more than push and transform data - if you have reams of business rules you need to implement and business users who are not able or willing to maintain them - then you may not be happy with BizTalk's integration with Visual Studio.  The fact that you have to leave Visual Studio to debug an orchestration is not cool.  I really believe that this shortcoming is preventing BizTalk from exploding;  it's still a niche product and it amazes me that Visual Studio support was not a focus for the 2006 release.

The fact is that in most shops developers run the show as far as toolset and implementation... users want quick turnaround and Microsoft has provided the tool of the century to faciliate that.  So until BizTalk joins the RAD party it will always be a struggle for architect types in any shop to get BizTalk adopted.  I've been reading for years that SOA will not take off until toolsets are available to support it.  So Microsoft will soon be shipping WCF and WWF and codehounds will be off to the races.  It's a shame that BizTalk, a product built to faciliate SOA, is not keeping up with the Joneses... whoops I mean Boxes.

I'm sure I'll be posting some more as I continue to learn, it's only been 3 days!, and it may be that I'm missing something... we'll see.

Finally there's a user group in west central NJ and the first speaker, Miguel Castro, knows his stuff.  Hopefully we can sustain this group... apparently there are some good people involved (Scott Watermasysk being one of them).  The first meeting is next Thursday February 9th... the topic is ASP.Net 2.0 features - a good place to start.

As an aside I'll mention there's another group that I was involved in, NJEVBUG, that has changed its name to NJDNADUG and has moved its attention toward architecture.  Kent Brown has taken the reigns and has great vision for the group.  Their next meeting is Monday February 13th with the topic being Generics.  Now, I'm not sure if there's an architectural slant to this discussion but I do know Kent is actively polling current members for topic ideas - Enterprise Integration, best practice discussions, patterns, etc... so if you're interested hit the web site and send him some ideas.  NJDNADUG is also an INETA member, meaning they'll get primo speakers a few times a year and free stuff!

And one more....  along the lines of NJDNADUG there is now something called the NYC Connected Systems User Group.  Kent and some other .Net rock stars (Andrew Brust, Stephen Forte, and Bill Zack) got together and formed this group.  Their mission statement says "uniting individuals in the greater NYC area interested in design, implementation, deployment, and support of Enterprise Integration solutions using the Microsoft Connected Systems product stack".  The inaugural meeting for this group is Thursday Feb. 23rd at the NYC Microsoft offices.

Note to wife - will be home late Feb 9th, Feb 13th and Feb 23rd.  Add the NYC Code Camp to that list and February is a busy month!

Not since the Babe have the Red Sox lost a player of this caliber to the Yankees.  Granted it was a trade in Ruth's case but it's close to the same thing.  The Sox KNEW the Yankees would sign Damon... they could have ponied up the extra 12 million to keep him.   No other team but the Yankees was going to wind up with the guy so in my mind Damon was traded to the Yankees for 12 million.  So the Sox are 12 million richer.  They also will not win another World Series until I am dust.  Now all this does not mean I am happy about the TRADE either.  Damon drove a dagger through my heart in the ALCS in 2004.  I hated the guy... still do.   He's taking the place of one of my favorite all time Yankees and is going to have to do something drastic to get on my good side... like return the favor this October and help knock the Sox out.  That would work.  But first the mfer has to shave.  Man I love that.  At least if he uses a Norelco shaver to cut his beard he'll make some dough for a charity.

Finally we can use VS2005 to play with Indigo (WCF).  Get the bits here.

Add another item to the list of "Damn, I wish I thought of that".  Joel Spolsky has created a documentary about a software development project.  He interviewed hundreds of interns and came up with 4, who were given 12 weeks to design, develop, test and ship a product.  This looks to me like a horror film, since after I watch it I'll realize these interns could probably kick my geek ass.  Hopefully I can put my ego aside;  I may just learn something.

Check out the trailer for Project Aardvark.  It looks GREAT.  Something tells me this might just make it to IFC and get some exposure;  it looks that good.

Copilot is the product they built - looks similiar to GotoMyPC.com

I am an infant.  I saw some of my coworkers showing off their versions of this 21st century briefcase and had to have one.  My data, code, music, VS2005 vpc images will now travel with me.  Thanks to Kevin and Don for pointing this out and Miguel for hints on the model to get.

Drive
Case
                   

So if you subscribe to my feed it seems that old posts are losing the blog author and email address information.  I looked at the DasBlog code, no luck, and compared the RSS which gets generated for old and new posts and they look identical.  This is an RSS 1.0 feed so that may be a problem.  Anyway, old posts come down in the feed but have bad author info.  Bummer.

----------------

For those unfamiliar (you know who you are), RSS is a standard format for specifying news that one would like published and consumed by interested parties using something called an RSS 'Reader'.  RSS is most commonly associated with blogs.  So let's say I have a blog and spew useless information.  Someone may actually be interested in said useless info.  So, instead of having to constantly hit my blog site seeing if there is new useless info, the interested party can use an RSS Reader, which will poll my site for new stuff and download it.  Using this reader one can subscribe to one or more RSS Feeds that they would like to keep up on.  Then, at a specified interval or at the touch of a button, the reader will check all subscriptions and deliver all the new stuff right to you.

I use an RSS Reader called NewsGator (costs $$).  I get updates to all my RSS feeds delivered to Outlook.  I basically don't have to surf anymore.  I subscribe to RSS feeds at all my favorite blog and web sites and get notified if there is new content.  They have a free? online version as well (which syncs with Outlook).  There are plenty of other free RSS Readers out there, like this one.

So up until today my blog was hidden behind my company firewall, the echo from my words clearly heard above the slamming of my co-workers keys.  Today I step out into the light where I fully expect nothing to change.  Yesterday I had a good excuse for my lack of readership; now what.

Finally a good quality version of this video!  Watch Gates get bitch-slapped!

http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=b1925a5f-e901-4b1b-8faf-1997dcff7444&f=copy

Check it out.  Weekend coding fun.  The NYC version was cancelled but I will not miss this!  Register NOW if you want to go as this will fill up fast.

http://www.njcodecamp.org/

Came across this blog entry by Martin Fowler (of Patterns fame).  In it he talks about the value of having a few great people vs. a lot of good ones.  I have always believed this is the best way to build a team and in my opinion it is what we're doing here at <%MyCompany%>.  It's the reason we interview so many people and do not settle.  We may drive HR crazy but there is a method to our madness.  Unfortunately in an environment like this we're going to lose good people occasionally because they are in such demand.   It's difficult to find good people and just as hard to keep them.  I brag about the people that I work with here at <%MyCompany%> all the time.  If we could move the office to Princeton I'd love it even more!

http://martinfowler.com/bliki/PeopleMatterMost.html

From a DEVX article:

Scott Guthrie, manager of Microsoft's Web Platform and Tools Team, described Atlas' planned features in his blog:

The Atlas Client Script Framework will work on all modern browsers, and with any web server. It also won’t require any client installation at all—to use it, you can simply include references to the right script files in your page.

The Atlas Client Script Framework will include the following components:

• An extensible core framework that adds features to JavaScript such as lifetime management, inheritance, multicast event handlers, and interfaces
• A base class library for common features such as rich string manipulation, timers, and running tasks
• A UI framework for attaching dynamic behaviors to HTML in a cross-browser way
• A network stack to simplify server connectivity and access to Web services
• A set of controls for rich UI, such as auto-complete textboxes, popup panels, animation, and drag and drop
• A browser compatibility layer to address scripting behavior differences between browsers.

Guthrie also says that Microsoft will provide new ASP.NET server controls that you'll be able to use to bind client-side controls to server-side code, and promises simple and direct access to ASMX pages and Indigo services directly through the Atlas Client Script Framework.

While AJAX won't ship with Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft plans to provide it as an add-on layer to ASP.NET and will offer a preview version to developers at the PDC conference in Los Angeles in September.

Cool utility that shows all sites configured on a machine and allows you to point to the correct version of the .Net Framework.  Useful if you have the 2.0 beta installed alongside 1.1.  No magic, just a wrapper around aspnet_regiis, but still sweet.

ASP.Net Version Switcher

Check out this list of C# Programming Tools on MSDN....  awesome list thought not necessarily C# specific.  Some of my favorites so far, because I've actually used them, are Reflector and the .Net Memory Profiler... and of course NUnit.