This post is the 6th in a series that started with the 10 practices that every developer needs to start right now

The first time that someone taught me about Software Design Patterns it went something like this:

• Them: “… and so that is the pattern.”
• Me: “That’s it”
• Them: “Well, yeah.”
• Me: “But that’s how I’ve always done that.”
• Them: “Well, then you’ve always been following that pattern”

I find that is how a lot of people react when they first learn about patterns. “So a pattern is just giving a name to good software development” Well, yes and no. On the one hand – yes, a software pattern is recognizing common software challenges and the approaches that have worked in the past to over come those challenges – and naming it. On the other hand, don’t underestimate the power of giving something a name.

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Bring your A game, do your best, leave it all on the field. That’s how I roll… until last night. Last night I presented on MVVM in Silverlight at the North Dallas .NET Users Group. It was a great turn out with a lot of interaction and excellent questions. Huge thanks to the organizers for having me, and to every one that turned out for it!

OK, I learned two big lessons last night. First, don’t prep your demo’s with a source control system that you are not 100% comfortable with yet.. second, don’t keep your speaking engagements when you’ve been taking care of sick people all week.

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This is just a quick note that I’ll be presenting at two different events in the DFW area this month. Hope you can make it!

North Dallas .NET Users Group – March 3rd

First, Wednesday March 3rd, I’ll be at the North Dallas .NET Users Group talking about Model View View-Models (MVVM) for your Silverlight Applications. If you’ve ever seen my Dependency Injection for Silverlight talk, this is pretty much the follow up to that. (above is a snapshot from the last time that I spoke there.)

Technically Speaking DFW – March 27

Have you ever wanted to be a technical presenter, but you weren’t sure how to get started? Or do you want to take your technical presentation skills to the “next level”? This this is the event for you! I love the idea of events like this, and I was honored to be invited to participate. Maybe this will spark more interest in groups like Presenter Mentor?

Teresa Burger, awesome community member and talented developer over at Woot! is organizing this event. It’s $50 to attend, includes lunch, and is a full day of Dave Gunby, Microsoft’s Chris Koenig, MVP extraordinaire Tim Rayburn and also yours truly.

Register for both!

• Register for the North Dallas DNUG – Wednesday March 3rd (Free)
• Register for Technically Speaking DFW – Saturday March 27 ($50)

Yep, this is going to be a fun month! Hope to see you there!

Stephen was the first person that really got me to think about game theory as it relates to general application design. Then my friends at Improving Enterprises introduced me to Luke Hohmann and his Innovation Games approach to product management and games like “buy a feature”. I’m certain that their is much more work that needs to be done in this field. Think about it. Game theory flips “traditional” usability on it heels. Every application that I’ve ever worked on “easy to use” was one of the requirements. In games, “too easy” is a negative. Challenging, engaging, rewarding and FUN are the goals the rule the day. This talk by Jesse Schell really drove this point home for me.

Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Jesse Schell, dives into a world of game development which will emerge from the popular “Facebook Games” era.

- Enjoy!

Last week I had the privilege of attending Microsoft’s Global MVP Summit in Bellevue Washington. While I can’t talk about most of what was covered (NDA) I wanted to mention two projects that I learned about while there and mention some of my thoughts from the event.

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This post is the 5th in a series that started with the 10 practices that every developer needs to start right now

When writing software, we often don’t think about the security implications of our actions. Probably because we write software to do something, we’re not always aware of what it shouldn’t do. Their are a lot of guidelines for writing secure code, and designing secure systems. Rather than going in to all of the areas, let me just hit on some of the especially important topics that I’ve come across…

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I was talking to a friend of mine last month that had just had mid-year reviews at his company. I received his permission to relay some of our conversation and my response to him here.

“So I walk in to sit with my manager for my mid-year review… we’re ranked on 12 different categories on a scale of 1 to 5, there are 9 of us that report to him”

Sounds normal, makes sense.

“First thing my manager says in going over my review is, just so you know, and I’ve told everyone this: I don’t give 5’s”

Wait what?! Um, if that’s the case then why not just have a scale that goes from 1 to 4? Let’s think about that for a minute. No really, let that sink in. Why call it 1 to 5, if it’s really 1 to 4?

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This post is a part of a series that I started with “10 Practices that Every Developer Needs to Start Right Now“.

Update: This post was picked up by DZone, go vote it up!

Ok, before you dig in to the post, let’s get two things out of the way first.  1.Go read the authority on SOLID principles from the man himself, Uncle Bob Martin.  2nd.Go get the very cool Inspirational SOLID images from the guys over at Los Techies. They released them under a Creative Commons License which I think is pretty cool! Alright, got that out of the way? Good. Let’s get started.

Few things have come a long OO history that resonate so well with so many developers than the SOLID principle. One of the reasons they resonate with so many developers is because they communicate several practices that many developers have been doing all along. The beauty and power of the SOLID principals in in there ability to communicate, what I call code architecture, in such a memorable and practical way.

Like any good thing, however, taken to an extreme can become a hindrance on any project. So, I’m going to tackle these principals like I tackle everything in this series… give you my take on it. So here you go: SOLID according to Caleb.

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I’m in the market for a new computer… which one should I get?

Like a lot of people in the computer industry I get asked this question *a lot*. Friends, family, third cousins once removed all seem to hunt me down when they are in the market for a new computer. I don’t mind, but I’ve gotten used to giving the same answer. I’m posting my answer here as a reference to myself, them, and anyone else this might help…

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I received a message on Facebook last week from a friend of mine that asked this question:

I have recently decided that I would love to go to school to learn programming. I just wanted to know if you had any advice or suggestions that could help me out (I know it’s a very open ended question)? Also I wanted to know if you had any suggestions on books to read regarding Design Patterns (particularly related to web development).

Great question. Let’s tackle those starting with the second part…

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