October 4th, 2008 by brent

After many years in school and working lowly, but rewarding, jobs in IT, I truly feel learning is one of the best attributes that I possess.  It is an attribute that everyone should strive for and keep close to them no matter what.

As I have stated many times before… I am an avid listener of podcasts and video podcasts.  I love them because they help me stay up-to-date in this frequently changing world of IT.  I would have to say my newest vidcast that I have been enjoying lately has been HAK5.  They are just a bunch of real down to earth people talking about technology!  They are a bit goofy but that’s okay with me.  I believe they were recently added to revision3, and I’m quite glad they were.

I really enjoyed the piece by Chris Gerling on reverse engineering on .NET applications (and more).  This is a very handy skill to have especially since I work with .NET.  As I watched the podcast I didn’t think much about it.  I found it to be very cool and engrossing; tres geek.  I like how they broke the segment down onto multiple episodes (inside of being deluged).

Come a few weeks later (now), a couple of the network guys came to my cube and asked me if I could help them with an application a previous developer wrote.  I politely said “Sure! Not a problem”, which they responded with “Great one catch though, all we have is the EXEcutable and we need it ASAP”.  I think that was actually two catches, but anyhow.

I said calm and coolly, “all we need to do is decompile the application get the source code and we’ll be ready to go”.  I suspect it was not the answer they were expecting.  I was calm and cool because I just watched the great hak5 episodes that involved reverse engineering!  Hot dog.  I earned major cred points for my attitude and how quickly I was able to reproduce the code for the problem.

After inspecting the code we found the problem to be a configuration code; not a development bug.  This was such a critical step the problem solving process.  This also proves that learning is a lifelong process that needs to continue beyond school and become apart of your life.

July 23rd, 2008 by brent

I attended the Maryland and Pennsylvania Microsoft Developers User Group on July 22, 2008. It was at Stevenson University (formerly Villa Julie). It’s a beautiful campus located in the woods off of I-695! It was my first time going to a user group like that. It was okay probably going to try the Harrisburg Developers User Group and see how that goes. I’m more interested in talking about software development and programming techniques.

There was a speaker, Advanced IT student, who gave a rousing speak on Project Management Software. It was an okay intro to that Software, but seemed to miss a lot of what’s happening right now. He gave some examples, but none with software development. I think software development is a totally different ballpark then for example winery. I think Agile Development is really changing what software we use and how we use it. Mingle is probably the “best” for Agile Development. I’ve used Agile Track to have management on an Agile project.

There was a web seminar on some new features of Visual Studio 2008. I’m quite excited about some of the cool new features. The one feature I am most excited about is Javascript Debugging! Debugging Javascript is so annoying… to be able to step through Javascript will save so much time. The split screen mode in 2008 also looks very promising.

I also won the main door prize! I got a wireless keyboard and some software (Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008). Visual Studio and SQL Server are both developers version while Windows Server is a year free trial. I’m going to try them out and see what they are all about.

July 16th, 2008 by brent

I started programming in what most programmers do.  BASIC, it is the beginning, the building blocks, the genesis, etc etc.  After learning about the wonderful nuances of BASIC I was quickly thrown into the hard cold world of Turbo Pascal.  I don’t remember much of Turbo Pascal, but I remember it was not kind.  After using many printfs and so forth I moved to C and C++.  C and C++ were not too bad.  Pointers were kind of interesting at an early age, but I could not see myself working with them forever.

So I went to college to pursue the wonderful career of System Administrator.  This was pre 9/11, end of web 1.0, and the landscape was kind of shakey.  The web always interested me and I wanted to do some projects in the web space.  I started with PHP 3/4 and made my own CMS.  It wasn’t anything fancy… basically it was a web interface to edit txt files, which was basically a pseudo database.  I found myself dedicating a lot of time to programming and really enjoyed it.

I got my degree in System Administration, but had a great desire to continue programming.  Thus I went to Penn State to continue my education and learn how to become a Software Developer.  I learned a lot at Penn State.  About hard work, listening, understanding concepts… I learned that being a Software Developer isn’t so much about coding, but understanding the needs of people.  Coding is very important, but that is the easy stuff, the fun stuff!  To interpret the wants and demands of people that really have no idea what a database is.  It is a challenge, but it is something Penn State has prepared me for.

It has been a long challenging road, but it has all been worth it in the end.  The ends do justify the means in this case I dare say.  This was a quick narrative of my rise to Software Developerdum.  To say I have an affinity for programming is an under statement.  It is apart of me.  It is at the core of what I do.  I don’t really have a job or career, because I enjoy every single second of it.  It is a challenge that I love.

July 14th, 2008 by brent

No doubtedly I think everyone is going to have to integrate new code with “old code”.  Unless you are working for a start-up with no coding baggage; I digress.  I think this goes beyond development into other areas.  Where one will have to infuse their style with an older order.  This discussion will only be software development related.

More times than not you are going to have to dig through old crappy code with no documentation.  In the realm of .NET there will be times when you have to integrate classic ASP, .NET 1.1, and .NET 2.0.  What a fun time!  PHP will have to be migrated with PHP 3/4 and PHP 5.  Oh our functions are now reserved words.  Good times.  The trick to doing this is to use the code and see how it works.  Whatever the previous coder thought does not matter; it is about code execution.  It’s the ones and zeros that you need to care about.

I feel integration is the most overlooked part of any job; be it Network Admin or Developer.  It’s fairly easy to troubleshoot and develop something brand new.  You have a clean slate, which gives you a lot of flexibility to make changes on the fly.  With “old code” it is supporting unknown features or bugs that could cause potential downtime or corruption.  To integrate with something of the past and to enhance is like a work of art.  It is breathing life back into an application or hardware.  I’m not trying to make this sound like some kind of miracle, but integrating new code with “old code” is very overlooked.

I am referring to old code as “old code”, it is not a derogatory statement, but a loose hand reference.  Just because code is aged does not mean it is of no value or doesn’t work that well.  Some of the best code is “old code” do you think COBOL is dead?  It is an old language, but the applications work like a beast.

Some of the newer languages make things easier and obsolete older more lengthy code blocks, but it doesn’t make it run better (okay sometimes).  It may be a bit sexier, but such is life.  The code will still achieve core functionality just not all the bells and whistles.  toot toot.

June 17th, 2008 by brent

Change is hard, sometimes it’s swift, and most of the time it is a slow bleed.

I really feel MSM is currently experiencing a slow painful death. I don’t think it will go away, but it needs to change and it will change (radio hasn’t died, yet). This post is really inspired by the death of Tim Russert. He was alright to watch on Sundays and his death was unfortunate for everyone; it was a great loss.

For those who are not familiar with MSM, it stands for Main Stream Media. I had to look it up, because I was quite confused; it happens.

I found out about Russert’s death via leo laporte on twitter; I think that alone is somewhat significant. There is a big problem in MSM right now. All the fear mongering, bias garbage, that they pass off as the news misses the mark of what’s happening in the world. There was a time when reporting was liberating and really made a difference in this country (USA) and the world. Blogging has really stepped up around the world to have a voice for people and to spread the truth (most of the time). A report out of Arstechnica shows that arrests of bloggers are up significantly. I think this is also somewhat significant and related. Blogging or just new media should be comparable to the printing press. It is revolutionary.

Welcome to the revolution.