ADO .NET Entity Framework Vote of No Confidence

I found this very long article/letter written by some people who don’t seem to like Microsoft’s Entity Framework very much. They have some very interesting concerns about where things are headed and how ORM mappers should really work and be used.

Req Docs are like Contraceptives…

…you don’t know you need one until it’s too late. And now you’re stuck with a project that no one wants and no one loves. You’re too young to have a project!
Okay, the analogy only goes so far.

WPF Tutorial: Dependency Properties

Hello all, I know I’ve been away for a bit but now I’m back with a sweet coding tutorial. I’ve been doing a lot of WPF lately for my current job at InterKnowlogy, so I decided to write up a quick overview of two new and very important UI features of .NET 3.5 called Dependency [...]

Viewing Context

When I was working on my most recent social networking project, we introduced an interest construct that we began referring to as the “Viewing Context”. Before explaining what this was used for, I’ll further explain the construct.

Distributed Observer Pattern

While I was on the train coming home from work an interesting idea hit me while I was trying to solve a very common problem. In general, the problem is that the web sucks. But, I think I found an interesting solution.

Spatial Databases

This morning I discovered the concept of Spatial Databases while researching a few things for my GPS tracking side project using a new Utah based service. I’m not sure how I missed this until now because it seems to be a hot topic among those involved with any sort of GIS (geographic information system) application.
Recently [...]

Web Form Trends: Sign Up Forms

This is a two part series on trends in the web world when it comes to sign up forms. You know, those forms where new users can register for a site. SmashingMagazine did a survey of 100 websites to review the way these forms are laid out and how they work. Along with just the [...]

ASP.Net MVC - One Step Back, Two Steps Forward

Do you love ASP.Net? Then you’re going to love the new MVC framework! I have been playing with this new framework for a few months now and I can safely say I will never go back to the traditional WebForms method of creating web applications. One thing that may surprise you is how familiar it [...]

No Need For an Architect?

It started with a simple post on the MSDN Forums titled “Call Yourself an Architect?“. The author asked simply:
“…if they say [they are an] architect you expect them to be able to…?”
The answers ended up being pretty surprising to me. Ranging from attempts to answer the questions to new questions of whether or not architects [...]

Factory Method Pattern

I took Design Patterns when I was in school but there were some that I still never really felt like I understood that well. One of those patterns was the Factory Method Pattern (and Abstract Factory Pattern). In my current role I’m doing more designing and have had opportunity to put this pattern in to [...]