Search results for 'app:weblogs' matching tags 'Misc Technology' and '.NET Basics'

Looking for some .NET Developers

William — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:00:00 GMT

A client of mine located in the Aiken/Columbia South Carolina Area has asked me if I had any friends who are .NET Developers and looking for a job. They are looking for at least one Junior Developer, on Mid-Level Developer and several Senior developers. I know these folks quite well and I can vouch for the following:

They pay extremely well
Generous benefits package
There's plenty of cool people on their staff
They are growing at an explosive rate so there's plenty of room for upward mobility. There's also a very strong focus on learning/teaching and career development.
They are an Agile/SCRUM shop
Currently developing with the following technologies:

Visual Studio Team System 2008 / .NET 3.5 Framework
Windows Communication Foundation
Windows Presentation Foundation
ASP.NET
LINQ
Silverlight
Windows Mobile 5/ Windows Mobile 6/ .NET Compact Framework
Sql Server 2005 / Sql Server 2008
Windows Installer for XML
Sandcastle

If you're in the area and looking for a job... if you know someone who looking for a job.... or if you're willing to move, please drop me a line using the Contact option on my blog or emailing me directly at WilliamRyan@gmail.com and I'll put you in contact with them. They are looking to hire folks immediately so I can probably get you an interview within a few days.

Junior Developer:

Ideal candidate will be a recent college graduate with a Computer Science of MIS degree. No experience is necessary for this position. The main soft-skill qualifications for this position are:

A true love for development
Strong desire to learn
A desire to stand out among one's peers

The hard-skill qualifications include a good theoretical understanding of at least two of the following:

Object Oriented Design and Analysis
Relational Database theory
Design Patterns
Familiarity with at least two of the following: C, C++, Java, C#, VB.NET

This is essentially a dream job for recent college grads b/c the job is being offered "no experience required". Since they are a SCRUM/Agile shop, you'll get to work extensively with their Senior and Mid level devs via Pair Programming. You'll be able to pick an area to specialize in which you will decide on for yourself. Additionally, you'll be using some of the most sought after Microsoft technologies available. Go to Monster.com or Dice.com and see for yourself how much demand there is for the above technologies and how much those jobs pay. You'll get to work with these on day 1 and essentially carve out a path for yourself using whichever technologies you like the best. If you want to be a "UI" expert, that's where you'll be put. If you want to be a Web Services dev, again, that's what you can focus on. If you want to be an expert buildmaster who specializes in installers, that's what you'll get to do. The company is looking for some excellent candidates and willing to offer a really fun and great paying job with plenty of training and career development available.

Mid-Level Developer:

The ideal candidate will have a computer science or MIS degree and 1-3 years of development experience. The ideal candidate will have two or more the following abilities:

Solid command of OOP/OOD using C++, C#, Java or VB.NET
Test Driven Design
Service Oriented Architecture
Familiarity with MySql, Sql Server (T-SQL), Oracle (PL/SQL)
Basic understanding of both Winforms and ASP.NET
Basic familiarity with Web Services, MSMQ, Enterprise Services/COM+, .NET Remoting, DCOM, J2EE, Java Beans

Just like the Junior development positions, these ones will provide a great deal of flexibility to learn and specialize the area of your choice. These are considered 'fast track' positions to move into the Senior Developer or Architect roles

Senior Developer:

The ideal candidate will be someone with at least 4 years experience. This person will love challenges and love coming up with solutions to problems that other people run from. They will be people that love figuring out how to do things that everyone else said can't be done. They will be the stereotypical Alpha-Geek, Someone that spends their spare time answering quiz questions like these:

All of the requirements for the Mid-Level Developer as well as several of the following skills:

Proficiency with T-Sql or PL/SQL. You should be able to write a 5 table join on your own. You should have written several stored procedures that were > 100 lines long.
Strong command of query tuning and ability to easily spot design flaws
Ability to design 'real' objects.

Someone who pays meticulous attention to the scope modifiers of their classes/functions/properties
Someone who understands the problems associated with coupling and strives to avoid it.
Someone who can write and use events in their classes without thinking twice about it.
Someone with a solid understanding of thread safety and thread synchronization
Someone who is comfortable using several different design patterns
Someone who is comfortable implementing several different interfaces in one object, using combinations of interface implementation and inheritance and someone who can use inheritance responsibly

Keeps up with technology, reads computer books regularly, has favorite blogs in multiple disciplines and/or blogs themselves, attends or speaks at user's groups, is active in one or more online forum or newsgroup
Someone who answers "Which is better, C# or VB.NET?" with "Either can be better depending on the circumstances but I'm comfortable writing in either of them" and then "But I've been learning F# lately and it's really been growing on me"
Experience with .NET Remoting, Web Services & Web Services Enhancements, MSMQ, Enterprise Services and/or WCF
Ability to create syntactically correct UML diagrams (meaning they can do more than write the letters "UML" on their resume) and if not, they are willing to learn to do this.
Understands data structures solidly and could easily implement their own HashTable or LinkedList
Someone who's always looking to come up with a newer, cooler, faster, and more secure way to do implement something
Experienced with either Biztalk server or Sharepoint
Takes pride in their code without falling in love with it or getting all defensive about it. Ability to acknowledge the fact that everyone makes mistakes and can talk about their mistakes/bugs without getting defensive.
Someone who is the first to raise their hand whenever the boss says "I need someone to learn ____________, do I have any volunteers"

Basically, if you love development, love creating new cutting edge solutions all the while making a lot of money and having a lot of fun you definitely should talk to these folks. If you're interested...... Please drop me a line using the Contact option on my blog or emailing me directly at WilliamRyan@gmail.com and I'll put you in contact with them.

Free Silverlight Training

William — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 05:00:00 GMT

My friend Brian Madsen who owns CSharpZealot has teamed up with InnerWorkings to extend a really slick offer for Free Silverlight Training for CSharpZealot members.

In addition, Shawn Wildermuth has been way ahead of the crowd when it comes to Silverlight and has just created two more Silverlight Videos. His ADO Guy site has an entire Section dedicated to Silverlight and well, Shawn is gifted in many areas but when it comes to teaching, no one does it better.

On a similar note, my company recently sponsored an internal Silverlight contest where our different offices are competing to build the best game written in Silverlight. They put there money where their mouth is so the first place prize is pretty impressive. I've had my nose in the keyboard for the past few weeks trying to help my team win. If you're interested in learning Silverlight, one great place to get started is Here. Microsoft really did the right thing with Orcas (VS 2008) and even provides ready to run (almost anyway) VPC images.

Hopefully when I get some time I can start doing some more in depth Silverlight blogging but let me make a few recommendations.

Use the VPC images for Orcas. The reasons are the same for any other alpha or beta product you'd want to install but outside of isolation and reducing risk, the time factor is huge. Using the VPC images, you can be up and running in under 5 minutes once you have them downloaded. Benefits like this are really hard to quantify but I can tell you personally that at times, getting my environment set up without VPC images was frustrating to say the least.
Although it's often prudent to learn to code things without all the crutches that a powerful IDE provide, creating Silverlight with Intellisense and a designer is probably not a very effective way to start things. Unless you are really familiar with WPF already, the syntax takes a little getting used to and there's a lot of room to mess things up with typos.
In addition to Orcas, make sure you pull down Expression Blend and Design. Blend allows you to create Graphics with XAML. I've already had a few Paint.NET and Photoshop fanatics get all over me for plugging Blend, but I think they are off base. I'm not advocating replacing Photoshop or Paint.NET with Blend. Blend however, allows one to create images with XAML. You in turn can look at the XAML that is generated and use it to help understand and learn XAML. If you did much Office automation, you more than likely 'cheated' in the sense that you just ran a macro and saw the code that was generated and used this as a mechanism to learn VBA and get past sticking points. Blend allows you to do the same thing. Sure, hardcore 'real' developers do everything in Notepad but if you want to get up to speed, using a tool to help you draw the effects you want and then being able to disassemble the XAML that was generated will get you where you want to be a LOT faster.
Pull down each of the items in the Gallery and work through the QuickStarts. These encompass many common kick a55 effects and you can reverse engineer them to see learn how to do quite a bit.
I have some pretty strong opinions on the books out there but even if a book doesn't address Silverlight specifically (most of them however have updated versions which do include Silverlight), you can still learn quite a bit because you are ultimately going to need to really understand WPF and XAML. I really want to gather my thoughts a little better before making any more book recommendations because although all of the WPF books out there are pretty good, some are a lot more helpful than others when it comes to learning Silverlight
Read Shawn Wildermuth's Silverlight posts.

Personally, since I'm not a designer and very challenged when it comes to graphics, I had a pretty rough time at the beginning of my learning curve. Little by little though, I'm getting through it and hopefully I'll have some blogworthy material to post soon. As always, if you have any specific questions, please let me know and I'll be glad to answer what I can.

Do you have any ideas about preparation for 70-529?

William — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 05:00:00 GMT

As you may know, I'm coauthoring http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-529.asp. In particular, I'm covering the following objectives:

Create and configure an XML Web service method.

Create a public method.
Attach the WebMethodAttribute attribute.
Create a OneWay Web method.
Configure a Web service method.

Call Web methods asynchronously.

Call a Web method.
Poll for the completion of a Web method.
Get Web method results.
Implement callback.
Call a OneWay Web method.

Call remoting methods asynchronously.

Implement one-way methods by using the OneWay attribute.
Call a remote method asynchronously.
Implement callback.

Implement events in remoting applications.

Create and fire events.
Implement event handler for the events of a remote object.

Enable WSE in client and server applications.

Add references to WSE assemblies in client applications.
Edit the Web service proxy class to derive from the WebServicesClientProtocol class.
Add a <soapExtensionTypes> element under the <webServices> element in a configuration file.
Add a <configSections> element to add the <microsoft.web.services3> section to a configuration file.

Add a digital signature to a SOAP message and verify an existing SOAP message signature.

Sign a SOAP message digitally.
Verify a signed SOAP message.

Encrypt and decrypt a SOAP message.

Encrypt a SOAP message.
Decrypt an encrypted SOAP message.

Implement a policy for a Web service application.

Create a policy file manually.
Declare the set of policies in a policy file.
Map policies to SOAP endpoints.
Configure a policy file in a configuration file.
Create and enforce a custom policy.
Create a policy file by using the WseConfigEditor3 tool.
Set a policy in a client application and in a client computer.

Implement filters in a Web service application.

Add a filter.
Remove a filter.
Shuffle the order of the filters.
Enable the Trace filter.
Create custom input and output filters.

After getting the original drafts done, I've received some excellent feedback from my technical reviewers. I've been interested in how best to coverage a few things and would really like your feedback. If you're interested in taking this exam, here's your opportunity to have some influence about how certain issues are covered. Moreoever, I welcome general feedback about any of the above items and will take any and all feedback into consideration. I've already written the chapters but in between now and the time the final is ready, I have an opportunity to make changes and am very interested in getting reader feedback. As such, even if you have feedback unrelated to my specific questions below, please feel free to write me about any comments or questions you have and to the best of my ability, I'll respond accordingly (However, if you're looking for specific questions in an effort to cheat on the exam, don't bother, seriously don't waste my time or yours. I have no interest in helping anyone cheat and to be honest, I never dreamed anyone would even ask me to help them cheat. So let me save you some time if you want me to recommend the best brain-dump or want me to give you questions [or sell them] <explitive> <explitive> <explitive>).

These questions go from the least important to the most - some of them are just about readability and setup.

1- The Web Services and Remoting projects all have a client and server component at a minimum. Some of them have middle-tier components as well. My current way of creating them was to create a blank solution and add projects to it. This was largely done as habit from the old days when web services/asp.net projects were treated essentially the same as other projects. Since that's changed now in many respects and code files are supposed to go in the app_code folder, does creating a blank solution and adding client/middle-tier/server to it still make sense? I'm thinking it does mainly b/c the solution and projects will be clearly delineated with different names. I've heard a good number of questions about how to 'properly' structure web sites and services based on the new structure and I don't want anyone to get confused. At the same time, if you're looking to get certified, you've probably already noted the new behavior of VS.NET so I'm not sure it matters.

2- If you've used anything by MS Learning a la Microsoft Official Cirriculum, you get a setup project and it installs all the files and folders for you. There's typically an HTML file that serves as the navigation mechanism for the contents. This style is used throughout all of the MOC's that I've used but most other books typically just have the code broken out by chapter. How important is it to have a clean navigation mechanism that matches the chapter outlines and specifically, does having an online version of the review questions and answers available at the end matter? With many of the cert exam guides I've used, I've used old school notebooks to write out my answers and then go through and drill on them - but having an online version, particularly with a Tablet PC, I'd probably prefer having a HTML mechanism. What do you think? What's the most effective format for associated code that you've come across? What do you think makes for the most effective way of drilling questions?

3- When you add a Web Reference, Visual Studio .NET creates a proxy for you. I've come across quite a few people that were unaware that an actual class was created for you which is what you actually instantiate and work with. In case you're unaware of how this works, you can look at the Web References in the Solution Explorer. From there, you can expand the reference itself (typically named localhost). Inside that node is a Reference.map file. If you have the "Show all Files" option selected, you'll see a file typically named Reference.vb or Reference.cs which is the actual proxy class. You can interrrogate the code that's generate for you via this file and it helps you diagnose quite a few possible problems - or if you're like me and like digging around through stuff, it can defintely help you make sense of things. When I first learned .NET Web Services a few years ago, digging through these files helped me get my arms around the whole process. Anyway, this proxy is something that you may never need to look at and although it's a critical piece of using web services, it's not directly listed as an objective or sub-objective on the exam [NOTE: I'm not making any statement about whether or not this is on the exam]. So if I mention it, I probably need to discuss it in depth. On the other hand, since the generation of the proxy isn't an objective/sub-objective and this is an Exam Prep guide not a book on web services in general, I'm not sure how much I should discuss. I've got differing feedback ranging from "Don't waste readers time even discussing this other than saying it exists" to "If this is critical to understanding how WS works, then make sure it's explained in enough detail that people truly understand it." I can see both sides of this one and think both cases make a lot of sense. So what do you think? Would a page discussing this suffice? Or would you prefer seeing all the imporant nuances [Like an examples showing how to edit it and the effect editing has on client code] discussed? Since this is autogenerated, I lean toward the former, particularly considering that it's not an objective, but like many things, knowing how something works under the hood can be critical to learning how to think your way through problems. I just don't want to bore people with it and of more concern, I don't want to give the impression that the inner workings of code generation in VS .NET is critical.

4- One of the cooler features of WS 2.0 is the abilty to host the runtime outside of IIS. So if you weren't aware, you can host a web serivce inside of a winforms app or windows service. A few people have suggested that this is a major issue and while it's mentioned a lot, good, real world examples are in short supply. I've used MSN Search and found quite a few examples that seem real world to me but admittedly, it's a big feature. How important is having an example of using a Windows Service/Console App/Winforms app etc to host a web service?

5- WSE 3.0 - Virtually every example on WSE 3.0 that I've come across is based on the Stock Service example. Most of the examples are based on the same scenario (which was also used extensively in WSE 2.0). I like this example and having a consistent framework is helpful. On the flip side, there have been many times when I've been learning new stuff that seeing different variations has been what's made it click for me. What do you think? Is it best to stick with the well documented Stock service or would something like passing encrypted, digitally signed Excel documents [or some other file type] using MTOM be better?

6- Web Service Delegates - Built in delegates are a critical part of using Web Services. However in many ways, there's not much different between invoking a web service asynchronously versus any other method asynchronously. Other than just covering how to do it, how much focus needs to be placed on the delegates? (Remember, this is the Distributed Applicaitons exam so basic delegates are already assumed to be understood by the time you get here.

7-Remoting Events - Since Remoting changes the landscape quite a bit, particularly with respect to events, most of the conventional wisdom is "Don't use them in remoting unless you have a compelling reason to do so." In fact, with WCF, the whole focus is shifting toward messaging vs remote object creation. Creating events and raising them, wiring them up is so different that creating the projects to handle them is pretty involved. It's not necessarily 'hard' but it is involved. On a scale of 1-10, how much effort should be put into covering events?

Anyway, please feel free to let me know what you think about any/all of these. I'd prefer that you post publicly just so others can benefit from the discussion, but if you want to respond privately I'm ok with that. If you do respond privately, please let me know if you're ok with me mentioning any part of your response. I'll keep everything related to this post confidential unless you explicitly tell me otherwise. I'm really interested in getting feedback about these b/c unlike 536, a lot of this can get involved quickly and I don't want to end up adding confusion without adding value. If there's something you feel strongly about that's not in the list of questions here or in the above objectives/sub-objectives, I'd love to still hear your opinion. I'll gladly forward them on to my co-author(s) who's writing on the subject although I can't make any promises about whether or not it will get implemented. I'll definitely take all feedback into consideration though.