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An Interesting List of Development Stuff (May 2014)

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In this month’s installment of the Interesting List of Development Stuff, we will take a look at all of the exciting announcements from Microsoft’s TechEd 2014 event as well as the usual collection of all sorts of other development-related news. Exciting things are ahead!

How Scott Hanselman Changed My Life

If you are a software developer working under the Microsoft umbrella, you are probably familiar with Scott Hanselman (and if you aren’t, you should be). This blog post from Noah Addy discusses how Scott inspired him to pursuit his dreams in the realm of technology. It’s a great read and it’s extremely inspiring story about how our heroes (even our development heroes) can help shape and improve our lives.

Meet vNext.

While I could probably spend an entire series introducing vNext, I’ll give you the gist of it.

Probably one of the largest development announcements from Microsoft was the introduction of ASP.NET vNext. vNext is a complete revamp of the ASP.NET stack with a focus on being “leaner” and providing a better foundation for building both web-applications and those designed for Azure and the cloud. vNext flips the script and completely merges all of Web Pages, MVC and Web API into a single housing (MVC) and takes a very George R. R. Martin-equse approach to System.Web.

Actually – here are some of the release notes about it :

  • MVC, Web API, and Web Pages will be merged into one framework, called MVC 6. MVC 6 has no dependency on System.Web.
  • ASP.NET vNext includes new cloud-optimized versions of MVC 6, SignalR 3, and Entity Framework 7.
  • ASP.NET vNext will support true side-by-side deployment for all dependencies, including .NET for cloud. Nothing will be in the GAC.
  • ASP.NET vNext is host agnostic. You can host your app in IIS, or self-host in a custom process.
  • Dependency injection is built into the framework.
  • Web Forms, MVC 5, Web API 2, Web Pages 3, SignalR 2, EF 6 will be fully supported on ASP.NET vNext
  • .NET vNext (Cloud Optimized) will be a subset of the .NET vNext Framework, optimized for cloud and server workloads.
  • MVC 6, SignalR 3, EF 7 will have some breaking changes:
    • New project system
    • New configuration system
    • MVC / Web API / Web Pages merge, using a common set of abstractions for HTTP, routing, action selection, filters, model binding, and so on
    • No System.Web, new lightweight HttpContext

If you want to learn more about vNext, you can visit the vNext area of ASP.NET or you can check out Jon Galloway’s incredible collection of vNext resources here.

It’s Codin’ Season and I’m Huntin’ Code

Last year, I wrote up a post discussing Microsoft Research and the work that they have done with Pex. Pex, if you are unfamiliar with it, is a tool designed to help with white-box and unit-testing however it’s a bit more playful than that. The folks at MS Research elaborated on it a bit more and decided to make a game out of it called CodeHunt.

CodeHunt is essentially a puzzle-based game that helps introduce people to coding through solving different challenges and progressing onto more difficult stages. It’s an interesting concept and I am sure that it could use a bit of work – but it is a step in a good direction to get people interested in coding (in a fun way).

A SQL Join Cheat Sheet

“You put your left-join in, you take your left-join out, you put your left-join in and you shake it all about.”

With the abundance of different kinds of SQL Joins out there, it can often get confusing when using them (if you don’t do so regularly). This cheat sheet filled with Venn diagrams might be worth printing out and laminating for the DBA in your life.

A Primer on Machine Learning : Differentiating between Magic and Machine!

If you have an interest in Machine Learning or frankly don’t know anything about it. Adam Geitgey provides a fairly concise and accessible introduction to the topic in this blog post. He details the different types of learning that a machine can do and even provides a few examples to demonstrate it as well. It’s not only an excellent primer on the topic, but if you find yourself interested he provides several links to continue your learning on the subject.

Change your Mind-set : Transitioning from jQuery to Angular

I stumbled across this excellent discussion on Stack Overflow which is worth reading for anyone working with Javascript frameworks. The question itself is from a developer that has a significant amount of experience with jQuery and is planning on making the transition to AngularJS. The discussion details some of the changes in mind-set and different hurdles that can be expected for anyone doing the same.

11 Across, I hate myself Down.

I’ve always been a fan of puzzles, but this is certainly not for everyone. Maria Pedersen and Ole Michelson created Regex Crossword, another puzzle site that torments its visitors by solving crossword puzzles through Regular Expressions (and they get crazy). It’s a nice switch from something like Suduku and you might find yourself learning a bit more about Regular Expressions in the process.

It sadly will not teach you when and when not to use them however.

If Shakespeare was in a rap battle…

If you remember that scene in Office Space where Michael Bolton (played by David Herman) is rapping, then this might be for you.

It’s an extremely entertaining read and it will only further reinforce the mantra : “Wu Tang Clan ain’t nothing to f_***_ with.”

I know as a software developer and a fellow fan of rap music that I have often thought about analyzing all of the words within the rap genre to truly find which artist has the most diverse vocabulary. Thankfully I didn’t have to, as Matt Daniels decided to do just that. In one of his many analyses of hip-hop music, he culled through all of the data and compared today’s MCs against OG William Shakespeare to see how they compared.

Putting the ‘S’ in Solid : Swiss Army Knife Syndrome

In this short rant, Allan MacGregor discusses “Swiss Army Knife Syndrome” which results when the ‘S’ for single-responsibility in SOLID design principles turns to … well another four-letter ‘S’ word. It’s something that everyone needs to be reminded of now and then and what better way to do it then through a blog post filled with knives.