Software Engineering

July WI .NET Users Group Meeting

Chad Albrecht — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:00:00 GMT

I will be presenting at the July WI .NET Users Group Meeting. The topic will be an “Introduction to Grid Computing.” The meeting is at 7:00 on July 11th at the Medical College Building. Here is the summary from the UG page:

Have a power hungry application on a machine that just can’t handle it? Don’t buy a faster machine, steal the cycles you need! In his presentation, Chad Albrecht will discuss the basics of grid computing using .NET technologies. Grid computing provides an interesting means of distributing applications across any number of machines. Learn the fundamentals of grid computing, data grids, basic SQL Server scaling out and a few other tricks. Those in attendance will be able to use their laptops as active grid nodes, so make sure to bring it along!

Hope to see everyone there!

Truth? We don't need no stinking truth!

Chad Albrecht — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:56:00 GMT

In a recent article by an ex-windows project manager, there is a segment which I found particularly funny:

Every once in a while, Truth still pipes up in meetings. When this happens, more often than not, Truth is simply bent over an authoritative knee and soundly spanked into silence.

I found this funny because it is the epitome of most larger projects I work on. These are the projects (i.e. companies) that still use waterfall model and still fully expect to estimate a million line project within 5%. Change is still the exception.

I was reading somewhere recently that 75% of software projects go over budget and over schedule. Why is this acceptable? It's obvious that we have outgrown the use of traditional estimation tools. Why are so many companies reluctant to change and try something new? Why are we ignoring the truth?

Alchemi

Chad Albrecht — Mon, 15 May 2006 09:36:00 GMT

The Alchemi team mentor, Dr. Rajkumar Buyya, emailed me to let me know that there is a defeciency with my article. He wanted to let me know that Alchemi is now a team effort. Per Dr. Buyya:

Alchemi was designed, developed, and implemented by a team of researchers, primarily Akshay Luther, Krishna Nadiminti, Rajkumar Buyya, from the Melbourne Grid Computing and Distributed Systems (GRIDS) Laboratory over the past four years.

More information here.

F# on a Virtual Super Computer

Chad Albrecht — Mon, 08 May 2006 09:56:00 GMT

For those of you interested in F# or grid computing, check out my article in the May issue of .NET Developers Journal. The article, starting on page 18, describes the process of grid enabling an application written in F#, a new meta programming language developed by Microsoft Research. Using an example of Pi calculation to the nth digit, the article demonstrates the parallel processing of an algorithm discovered by Fabrice Bellard. Alchemi, an open-source.NET framework, is used as the grid computing platform. Also discussed in the article are some of the differences between F# and C# as well as their corresponding reasons.

Hub-a-Hub-a

Chad Albrecht — Tue, 02 May 2006 12:24:00 GMT

Interested in F#? NO! Not the same as G flat! F# is a pragmatically-oriented variant of ML that shares a core language with OCaml. F# programs run on top of the .NET Framework. Unlike other scripting languages it executes at or near the speed of C# and C++, making use of the performance that comes through strong typing. Unlike many statically-typed languages it also supports many dynamic language techniques, such as property discovery and reflection where needed. F# includes extensions for working across languages and for object-oriented programming, and it works seamlessly with other .NET programming languages and tools.

Now are you interested? Head on over to “the Hub” - THE place for F#! Founded by optionsScalper, the Hub is a great place for F# Articles, blogs, forums, code, galleries, etc.

WIX Installer Toolset

Chad Albrecht — Mon, 01 May 2006 11:21:00 GMT

This is more of a note for myself, but I thought I'd share it with everyone. I just watched the Channel9 interview with the WIX team and it looks VERY interesting. I've been looking for a better way to build installs since I HATE INSTALLSHIELD! I've used the setup and deployment projects in VisualStudio for some simpler projects but found it to lack extensibility. WIX, according to the team, is used by virually all the Microsoft products. I will have to check it out when I have time.

Deeper in .NET 2006

Chad Albrecht — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 14:08:00 GMT

I've been putting off blogging about this because there is SOOO much to say! What an awesome event! (although it 6:00AM came pretty quick after all that fun on Friday night) I found myself back at the Milwaukee Hyatt at 6:50AM on Saturday morning wearing my new User Group shirt. These shirts were embroidered by the local sewing hermit, Travis Feirtag. Seriously, Travis, a member of the UG Executive Commitee, did a great job on these shirts! But is it User Group or Users Group...hmmmm. ;) For starters Scott and Doug Rhoten gave some of our $80K worth of prizes away...always a good way to start a day! Coffee in hand I joined some friends and watched the first speaker of the day, Michèle Leroux Bustamante, give a great presentation on WCF. Michèle did a great job keeping her composure even with the start of the day issue with the projector. Michèle was followed by Scott, "the comic," Hanselman and his presentation on dasBlog and open source. Scott's presentation was very polished and funny! Scott's use of tools and his Colossal Cave/Transylvania joke was the high point of the presentation. I should also mention that he has me taking another look at dasBlog. The lunch Q&A session was held while attendees feasted on the free pizza. I have to admit I missed most of it due to conversations with sponsors and attendees. Julie Lerman's discussion of ADO.NET and SQL Server 2005 followed lunch. Having met Julie the night before, I found her presentation very well done! Bill Hatfield was next with a great presentation on AJAX and Atlas followed by Jason Beres and his "world changing" ;) WPF presentation.

For me the day ended with a beer with Val and Avonelle followed by dinner with the UG Executive Committee. A fantastic day filled with so many wonderful things!

A Fun Filled Evening

Chad Albrecht — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:54:00 GMT

The weekend started for me at about 4:30 Friday night. Made my way over to the Milwaukee Hyatt Regency where the Wisconsin .NET Users Group was hosting an invite only dinner. I am on the board and got there early to help with the preparations. I should have known that Scott Issacs, our President, had everything under control. This dinner was a precursor to our big Deeper in .NET 2006 event on Saturday and most of the event speakers were already there. This gave me a chance to talk to Scott Hanselman, Julie Lerman and MichÃle Leroux Bustamante, all of which are incredibly intelligent, well spoken individuals. With people arriving in droves it was hard to talk to everyone, but I did manage to talk to some of our sponsors and numerous friends and colleagues. In addition I had the pleasure of meeting Avonelle and Val the C# Gal, both of whom were charming and fun. I found myself at the dinner table with Avonelle, Val, Doug Rhoten, Scott Spradlin, optionsScalper, and casey chesnut. What could be better than sampling a "Welcome to Wisconsin" dinner buffet with people like this? A band you say? Scott had actually lined up two great bands! I have to thank Scott (and his wife Kelly) for putting so much hard work into this event. It turned out AWESOME!

Deeper in .NET 2006

Chad Albrecht — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 18:43:00 GMT

For those of you in the Midwest, checkout WI .NET Users Group Deeper in .NET 2006. It's happening on April 22, 2006 at the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee. It's a FREE all day event featuring talks by Jason Beres, Scott Hanselman, Bill Hatfield, Julie Lerman, and Michèle Leroux Bustamante. Space is limited, so sign up now!!!!!

Design Guidelines for .NET

Chad Albrecht — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 14:41:00 GMT

Thanks to Eric Wise for pointing me to this great article on .NET Design. I just ordered the book from Amazon!