1. F#
2. Erlang
3. Python

I’ve started tinkering in F# in Linqpad, I’ve got to grips with the interactive console for Erlang and have written a few Python classes in in pyCharm.

I think those three will broaden my repertoire extensively. I’ve read Tomas Petricek & Jon Skeet’s book and it’s improved my C# no end. Functional C#, Monads, Currying and CPS have all been added to my repertoire of C# thanks to F#. I’ve also got to grips with ExpandoObject, DynamicObject and Type Dynamic thanks to IronPython. Erlang on the other hand is just plain interesting.

All of the above are interesting and I want to use them to make something interesting. There are a few extra things I got to grips with last year, such as the Cinch Framework for MVVM and Razor. One thing I have realised is that I have to revisit JavaScript because the DLR and Python have made me realise just how useful dynamic languages are.

Thing was that my mate wanted to do a lot of business rule and business validation work but is various orders and set up discrete collections.

void Main()
{
string spacer = string.Format(“{0}——————–{0}”,Environment.NewLine);
theWorkers = new Dictionary<ClassStructure,Func<string,string>>() {
{ClassStructure.Bottom,w1},
{ClassStructure.Low,w2},
{ClassStructure.Middle,w3},
{ClassStructure.Criminal,w4}
};

theWorkers[ClassStructure.Bottom](“Faizil”).Dump();
theWorkers[ClassStructure.Bottom](“Yakov”).Dump();
theWorkers[ClassStructure.Bottom](“Said”).Dump();
theWorkers[ClassStructure.Middle](“stevo”).Dump();
spacer.Dump();
List<ClassStructure> workList = new List<ClassStructure>(){
ClassStructure.Criminal,
ClassStructure.Bottom,
ClassStructure.Low,
ClassStructure.Bottom,
ClassStructure.Low,
ClassStructure.Low,
ClassStructure.Low,
ClassStructure.Low};

var working = (from w in theWorkers
join wl in workList on w.Key equals wl
select w.Value);

foreach (var work1 in working)
{
work1(“A Worker”).Dump();
}
spacer.Dump();
SortedList<int,ClassStructure> workQueue = new SortedList<int,ClassStructure>(){
{0,ClassStructure.Criminal},
{1,ClassStructure.Bottom},
{2,ClassStructure.Low},
{3,ClassStructure.Bottom},
{4,ClassStructure.Low},
{5,ClassStructure.Low},
{6,ClassStructure.Low},
{7,ClassStructure.Low}};

var workingQueue = (from w in theWorkers
join wq in workQueue on w.Key equals wq.Value
orderby wq.Key
select w.Value);

foreach (var work2 in workingQueue)
{
work2(“A Worker”).Dump();
}
spacer.Dump();
var workDone = (from w in theWorkers
join wq in workQueue on w.Key equals wq.Value
orderby wq.Key
select w.Value(“Again”));
foreach (var x in workDone)
{
x.Dump();
}
spacer.Dump();
Queue<Func<string,string>> workQueue2 = new Queue<Func<string,string>>();
workQueue2.Enqueue(w4);
workQueue2.Enqueue(w2);
workQueue2.Enqueue(w3);
workQueue2.Enqueue(w1);
workQueue2.Enqueue(w3);
workQueue2.Enqueue(w2);
workQueue2.Enqueue(w1);
workQueue2.Enqueue(w3);

foreach (var element in workQueue2)
{
element(“A worker”).Dump();
}

}

public Func<string,string> w1 = new Peasant().Worker;
public Func<string,string> w2 = new Serf().Worker;
public Func<string,string> w3 = new Supervisor().Worker;
public Func<string,string> w4= new Overlord().Worker;
public Dictionary<ClassStructure,Func<string,string>> theWorkers;
// Define other methods and classes here
public interface IDoWork
{
string Worker(string name);
}

public class Peasant : IDoWork
{
public string Worker(string name)
{
return string.Format(“Peasant {0} does some work”,name);
}
}

public class Serf : IDoWork
{
public string Worker(string name)
{
return string.Format(“Serf {0} does some work”,name);
}
}

public class Supervisor : IDoWork
{
public string Worker(string name)
{
return string.Format(“Supervisor {0} does some work”,name);
}
}

public class Overlord : IDoWork
{
public string Worker(string name)
{
return string.Format(“Overlord {0} does some work”,name);
}
}

public enum ClassStructure
{
Bottom,Low,Middle,Criminal
}

I think the above helped him somewhat

It’s down to idiot DBA’s who think that just cos they’ve tinkered with access it makes them the guardian of Sql Server. Just as well they’ve never met an Oracle DBA, he’d skin them alive.

It’s not just that it’s security as a whole. Insecure networks, websites without basic authentication, logging switched on. How the hell do these fuckwits think they can get away with it. Unencrypted card numbers in poorly secured databases.

Obviously, there is a lot less hacking going on than the world thinks, otherwise more bank accounts would be emptied.

I’m gonna get  CISSP – Certified Information System Security Professional and be even more stroppy about piss poor IT.

Not only that, I’m network security paranoid, a firewall at the adsl modem (whose ports are locked down to email and HTTP) a DMZ with bastion and proxy server, another firewall in front of my internal network. All of my physical and virtual machines have up-to-date virus and rootkit scanners.

I use a VPN network (not Tor as I don’t trust the exit servers) for general surfing purposes. So as far as I’m concerned my network is tighter than a gnats chuff.

But of course, business reckon that contractors from home are not as secure as they are. Come on lads, I’ve seen the systems/network admins of medium sized business and they are chuckle heads at the best of times.

Then there is the sharing aspect, doh! That’s what your sys admins are supposed to do and plan for. It amazes me that sys admins don’t monitor or analyse profile types of employees and recommend security privileges and access rights – “He’ll be doing the same a X so lets have a look at X’s properties and configure a role”

Next equipment, any self respecting software developer will have the best kit that he can afford and will have customised it for performance. I’m sitting here in front of four screen on two PC’s using either synergy or maxivista for big screen real estate.

I’ve got Visual Studio and Eclipse as IDE’s for software development. I use Subversion. I’ve got Sql Server and Oracle running on a data server as well as MySql, PostgresSql and a few others. My software development toolkit is more comprehensive than most. Fair enough I don’t use Resharper, but then VS2010 (and a brain) gives me the abilities anyway.

I run AD on my network to manage users, security and logins, Plus I have a number of Linux VM’s for LDAP. So, yes I have a homogeneous mixed enterprise scale lab setup and network at home. So whatever a business has for its IT topography I can mimic.

So I hear the business whine, but your not in the office to work with the team. There is plenty of collaboration software out there, my favourite is SharedVew from Microsoft, I can share Visual Studio with another developer and we can pair remotely,  because of webcams and voip we can see and talk to one another.

Its about trust, business do not trust employees and they certainly don’t trust contractors. We won’t know how many hours you’ve actually worked. Well, I’ve had a few jobs where I’ve sat at a desk all day long and done no work what so ever, because of poor management and task allocation.

So here I am sitting in my home office, the nanny has taken my kids out and the house is quiet. It’s a potentially productive time.

So if anyone want to freelance some work to me at home now’s the time.

(Estuarine English, Double Negative)

Recently, I have been reading a book about development methodologies. It’s name is immaterial as it echo’s a statement that I’ve come across numerous times about standards for code writing.

As you may have spotted, I’ve stolen and paraphrased Water’s lyric. Why? The song itself (part 2, that is) is an anthem against the rigidity of education (not the case anymore, I might add). Back in the day, you were ordered by your teachers and learnt by rote. This stifled innovative learning and self discovery.

That’s not the case now. In essence kicking against coding standards was kicking against micro-management or authoritarian management, that imposed a set of rigid standards and the accompanying policies and procedures, that stifled creative (as in problem solving) development.

The purpose of standards are to set a space in which you work, you have something, by which, you can refer back to and a space in which your peers work as well. The premise, is that you all have a common area in which to communicate – to each other and outwards to others who have a vested interest in what you are doing. It also serves a secondary purpose for code reviewing, again a common framework in which to adjust and review code accordingly.

I understand why developers can be anti about code standards. I’ve sat in meeting about setting standards which devolved in to brace wars over indent styling.

There has to be standards and style guides, but not so enforced that team members complain about them. Standards require flexibility in interpretation and the management role is there to adjudicate accordingly and adjust appropriately.

It took me 75 seconds to redo a dofactory pattern to run in linqpad to explain the finer points of a builder pattern.

Why would I want to do that when they’re already there in vs2010. Well it makes it easier to chop the code out of the vs proj run it in linqpad and discuss the finer points of what’s going on with out all the vs overhead.

Something to remember

public string removeDups(string str)
{

string tmp = string.Empty;
string result = string.Empty;
foreach (char value in str)
{
// See if character is in the table.
if (tmp.IndexOf(value) == -1)
{
// Append to the table and the result.
tmp += value;
result += value;
}
}
return result;
}

What you do to fix it. First check your references. if the System.Web.Mvc is v2.0.50727 and the System.Web is v4.0.30319 add a reference to System.Web.Routing.

Why, because mcv2 was built against 3.5 and the System.Web.Mvc.IControllerFactory contains explicit references to System.Web.Routing. Mvc3 sorts out this problem

string reverse(string str)
{
    char[] cArray = str.ToCharArray();
    string reverse = String.Empty;
    for (int i = cArray.Length – 1; i > -1; i–)
    {
        reverse += cArray[i];
    }
    return reverse;
}

Not the best is you want to reverse a string with a lot of text.

Simple and straight forward ‘though.