Technology

Google Wave For Agile

Nick McKenna — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:00:54 GMT

Now that my Google Wave beta account has been activated I am starting to explore the possibilities! The first thing that came into my head was that Wave could be a great collaboration tool for exploring requirements / User Stories. You can have an ongoing conversation about the requirements that is documented. You can also have people join and leave the conversation as often as you need. You can upload video, photos etc that show details of a bug or a required feature. It is also ready to run and does not need any customisation work.

I think that Wave would be pretty awful for recording the final spec (maybe Google Docs for that), but for the ongoing exploration of requirements, I think it is good. Obviously, there is not substitute for a face-to-face conversation, but where that is not possible, this could be the answer!

Any thoughts?

Microsoft Sync Framework v2

Nick McKenna — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:59:30 GMT

Our work with the MS Sync Framework is going very well and the v2 release could not have been better timed! We are syncing data from a web-based application (which runs under SQL Server 2008) to a local SQL Server Compact Edition (3.5 sp1) cache. It has taken us a couple of weeks to get up to speed with everything. There are a lot of steps involved in our scenario:

Create a Sync Framework project
Get the sync working between databases on a local machine
Switch to using a WCF web service call for the sync
Hack away at the original db schema until it works (primary key issues, clustered indexes etc)
Choose the right security mode for the WCF call (nightmare)
Create a new web service on the test server for the WCF call
Create a Windows app to Sync to
etc etc etc

One of the biggest challenges is retrofitting the Sync Framework on to an existing database schema. My general advice (having been through the pain) would be:

USE GUIDS FOR ALL YOUR PRIMARY KEYS!

We did not do this in our production database (we didn't know about the need to Sync way back then) and it adds some interesting technical issues! We use Integers with Identity set for primary keys. I should also mention that are attempting bi-directional synchronisation... The main problem is that after the initial sync, the seeds of identity fields are all set to 1. This means that all of the clients and the server will insert records using the same primary key values! The Sync framework cannot handle this, so we need to make a manual intervention.

The solution is to seed the server at a high value and the clients at lower values. We are using 32 bit integers for PKs, so we simply allocate a client id to each client (we actually allocate a low number and shift it left 24 bits to give the new seed). We tries some other schemes such as having the server start at 1, but we had problems with syncing.

The other problem is that the documentation for the Sync Framework is not great at the moment. We spent a lot of time working some basic stuff out for ourselves. If I ever get some free time I will do a tutorial based on our product going from nothing to have a complete and working Sync Framework application... It might happen...

Overall, working with the Sync framework is good, but you need to be prepared to get technical and work through problems yourself as the documentation is still a little light!

Agile Training Course Funded By Train To Gain

Nick McKenna — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:10:36 GMT

From November, I am teaching a new Agile software development course for NTI (NTI is part of Leeds Metropolitan University’s Innovation North faculty). If your employer is in Yorkshire or Humber, then you will qualify for the Train To Gain funding which reduces the cost of the course from £290 to only £120.

The course is great for people who are new to Agile (thinking about adopting or in the process of adopting). Attendees include:

Developers
Testers
Product Owners
Business Analysts
Project Managers
Executives

Topics covered include:

Problems With Waterfall
What Is Agile?
Who Is Who?
Agile Teams
Agile Artefacts
Agile Process
Agile Tools
Scaling Up Agile
Agile Client Relationships

If you are interested in finding out more, please visit:

Yorkshire And Humber NTI Agile Course Description

asp:menu And Internet Explorer 8

Nick McKenna — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:07:48 GMT

Now that IE8 has become an important download from Microsoft, I expect to see the asp:menu bug raising its head more frequently. Mostly the asp.Net controls seem to work well in IE8. Unfortunately there is a bug in the menu control that is highlighted when using a standards compliant browser (like IE8, but interestingly Firefox does not comply with this particular standard).

The symptom is that the dynamic portion of an asp:menu is rendered entirely in white (i.e. unreadable) in IE8. There are several solutions:

View the site in compatibility mode
Download the hotfix from Microsoft
Use a CSS adapter for your controls
Add a z-order to the CSS for your dynamic menu
Add a meta tag to the web site

Personally, I went for the z-order solution as it was the quickest to implement (am I not Agile?). To implement this, change the CSS class of your Dynamic menu. I do this using the DynamicMenuStyle-CssClass attribute of the asp:menu control.

e.g.

<asp:Menu ID="Menu1" runat="server" DataSourceID="StdSiteMapDataSource" Orientation="Horizontal"
  StaticMenuStyle-CssClass="StaticMenu" StaticMenuItemStyle-CssClass="StaticMenuItem"
  DynamicMenuItemStyle-CssClass="DynamicMenuItem" DynamicMenuStyle-CssClass="DynamicMenu"
  StaticHoverStyle-CssClass="StaticMenuHover" StaticSelectedStyle-CssClass="StaticMenuSelected"
  OnMenuItemDataBound="Menu1_MenuItemDataBound" StaticEnableDefaultPopOutImage="False">
  <StaticMenuItemStyle ItemSpacing="0" />
</asp:Menu>

In my CSS file I have this:

.DynamicMenu
{
  background-color: #3e6fc8;
  margin-top: 1px;
  z-index: 100; /* IE 8 menu fix */
}

Check this blog entry out for some futher information about this.

64 Bit Update

Nick McKenna — Sun, 17 May 2009 14:50:32 GMT

After my debacle a couple of days ago removing my RAID array, I was thinking about how undramatic the shift to 64 bit has been for me.

I moved my server and principle development PC to 64 bit over the last few weeks. For the server I bought a completely new machine and installed 64 bit from scratch. My server and desktop are similar specs, both having quad core processors with 4Gb RAM (I'm thinking about upgrading the RAM further...)

In general, the move to 64 bit has been pretty simple. Almost everything I have installed works without problems. My desktop PC feels faster now and certainly gets to the Windows login screen much faster than it used to. It is tricky to specifically attribute that to the 64 bit move as I completely reinstalled Windows which always makes things move a bit faster! However, weeks (and several program installations) later, things are still moving along pretty quickly. I even installed Elder Scrolls Morrowind which runs without a hitch on a 64 bit platform!

My only real problem as been IIS 7 on a 64 bit platform. On the server I struggled to get Outlook Web Access working (and any other web site). I had to do a bit of Googling, but I eventually found out how to configure the server to permit 32 and 64 web sites to run side by side.

So overall, I would recommend looking at 64 computing for developers (and Morrowind fans).

Element Not Found 0x80070490 - Windows Complete PC Restore

Nick McKenna — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:22:00 GMT

I have been having some problems with my RAID 5 array on my desktop. Every couple of weeks I turn the PC on in the morning and it decides that it needs to rebuild itself. This takes 8 or 9 hours and leaves the PC all but unusable duiring this time. Since a RAID array is supposed to help me out rather than hinder me, I decided it was time for it to go.

I am running Vista Ultimate 64 bit (which is much faster than the 32 bit version). I decided to the the Complete PC Backup utility to back up the computer and then I would restore it. I had 4 160Gb disks in the RAID array and four drive letters striped across all four disks (c, d, e, f). I intended to create a backup image and then restore the drive letters to individual disks rather than use a RAID array.

Oh bugger. As it turns out, the Complete PC Restore utility will only let you restore to the same number of volumes that you backed up from (i.e. 1). Sigh... This was a problem because my data was larger than 160Gb. Luckily, I had a 1Tb disk lying around, so I swapped out one of the old 160Gb disks and put in the new 1Tb disk. Happy days! Nearly... This next bit will save you a sleepless night one day!!!!

As soon as the restore started I got an error message "Element Not Found 0x80070490". This is not the most helpful error message I have ever seen. I did some Googling (in a panic I must admit) and discovered a strange quirk of the restore utility. For it to work, you must do 2 things:

Ensure that the boot order in your BIOS is CD-ROM followed by the disk you are restoring to
Do not connect the USB hard disc you are restoring from until just before the restore utility scans the available disks for backups

Always check your boot order before a restore. You are likely to have changed hard discs if you are doing a restore which means the boot order in your BIOS is likely to have changed too.

What a crazy world we live in...

VisualSVN

Nick McKenna — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 07:47:40 GMT

Over the years I have used SourceSafe, CVS, Subversion and some Borland thing I can't remember the name of (I've bloack it out as a traumatic experience). This week I have been working with a new developer and I have been trying to share my Source code with them. Since I've been working on Solo Agile projects recently I have been using SourceSafe 2005. I have always find it to be fast and stable and I have never had any problems with it.

The challenge was then to get the SourceSafe 2005 database visible over the Internet. Out first attempt was to use SourceOffSite from SourceGear. We quickly excluded this option as the technical requirements show that it is not compatible with Windows Server 2008 64 bit edition.

We also tried to get a VPN working on Windows Server 2008 using SSTP, but failed. It may have to do with the mobile network we were using to try to connect. We struggled to get this to work and we could not get a sensible error message out of either server or client!

So we moved on to the SourceSafe 2005 HTTP extension. We spent a couple of hours trying to get this to work and ultimately failed. For no explicable reason we could not get the SourceSafe web service to work. By this point we were tearing our hair out!

So we turned to our third option which was migrating the source code to a different system. Jon suggested that we look at VisualSVN. I have avoided Subversion recently as I have primarily been an ASP.Net developer. The last time I used Subversion, it was not possible to connect the HTTP interface via IIS. However, VisualSVN contains client and server components which address this. The server portion contains an HTTP server which solves my problem.

It took about ten minutes to set up and install the server software and Visual Studio client software. It took another 10 minutes to clean up the SourceSafe source code repository and get it into Subversion. The whole thing worked over the Internet via SSL with no drama at all!

So, my recommendation for you guys out there in a similar situation is to take a good look at Visual SVN!

Test Doubles: An Introduction To Unit Test Patterns

Nick McKenna — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:24:05 GMT

Last night at the Agile Yorkshire group in Leeds, we were fortunate enough to enjoy a presentation from Apache contributor Robert Burrell Donkin on the topic of Test Doubles: An Introduction To Unit Test Patterns. Robert set a very high standard for other speakers this year with his presentation both in terms of his enthusiasm and his deep technical knowledge.

The calendar for the group is jam packed this year with a wide variety of technical speakers, so please make every effort to attend. You can find details of the club here.

Open Training

Nick McKenna — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:14:24 GMT

I had an idea a few days ago that I have been mulling over. I was talking to some colleagues today about it and I got some positive feedback. The idea is to provide free, open, technical training to anyone who wants it.

The inspirations for this idea are the Open Source community and BSAC scuba diving. It struck me that as techies we contribute time to open source projects that we believe in. BSAC provide free scuba diving training to anyone who wants it. I think it would be a good idea to put those two ideas together.

The plan would be to create an organisation that ran free technical training sessions with volunteer trainers. The mission statement would be something like "To ensure that the UK IT workforce becomes and remains the world's most skilled IT workforce".

The organisation would organise and manage all kinds of training events from short half day sessions to week-long marathons which were staffed by volunteers. Attendees on the courses would be expected to contribute by teaching at some point in the future. We could consider some sort of training credit scheme, but I would prefer to keep things less constrained to begin with. People completing courses successfully would get certified by the organisation. There are other ways in which people could contribute too. We would need to co-ordinate events and run a web site with a calendar on it, for example.

Ideally I would like trainers to make their training materials open for public use, but I don't think we would insist on it.

Any thoughts?

Community Credit And Subtext

Nick McKenna — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:34:09 GMT

Jeff Kwak (http://www.jeffkwak.com/blog/) has put me on to this lesser-known feature of Subtext. Subtext can automatically inform www.communitycredit.com when you make a post or write an article. All you have to do is follow these simple instructions: http://codeclimber.net.nz/archive/2007/02/06/How-to-earn-Community-Credits-points-using-SubText.aspx.

For information on Subtext see: http://subtextproject.com/

For information on Community Credit see: http://www.community-credit.com/

Thanks to Jeff for the hint!