thinking in geek tagline’s are so web2.0

ASP.NET == Usability disaster?

[This has been in the queue for a long time - over 12 months - codebetter just tipped me over the edge!]
Peter Van Dijck asks:
I’ve only worked twice with companies using .NET for web interfaces, and in both cases the UI was a disaster and the usability problems guaranteed lots of consulting hours.. Why is [...]

Crappystrano

Note: After I started this series Jeremy Miller has posted a very relevant article about source code hygiene issues.
(This is the third part in a series – you should probably read part one and two first.)
Today I’ll present a sanitised copy of my deployment script. I’ve based the design of deploy.cmd on Capistrano1 [...]

A deployment process

I know I said my next post would be my deployment script but after posting – I realised that I should do a 1000 foot overview of what I’m trying to achieve.
For me – a successful deployment has a number of components:

Build

Code successfully builds 
tests pass.

Versioning

I know exactly which revision was deployed from subversion.
I know what [...]

[ControllerAction] and sane defaults

[Ed: For anyone who's living under a bush Microsoft have released a CTP of the new ASP.NET MVC framework. ]
I’m reluctant to get involved in this – but I feel like there’s another side to this story which is worth considering.
Since it was first presented at altnetconf – the decision to require users1 to have [...]

Automated deployment == CI for Operations

Deployment is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I’m almost always the guy who gets to debug production problems, deployment problems and generally wears a developer + infrastructure hat.1
When it comes to web applications – most teams don’t bother automating their deployment processes. This is something that I think is in [...]

Enterprise plaforms – teaching new dogs old tricks

Oren is talking about building a substrate for an enterprise platform. This has been something I’ve wanted to do since I first got my hands on c# and the rest of the .net framework in 2001. I’ve never done it because it always seemed that a one size fits all solution would be unworkable.
At the [...]

Eric Evans on over-design and intrinsic complexity

Just watched a great presentation by Eric Evans (of Domain Driven Design fame) called: Strategic Domain-Driven Design – Effective Modelling for Larger Projects. I highly recommend it.
Here’s a couple of great quotes (It’s worth noting that he’s talking about large projects):
Not everything is going to be well designed.
You may have a part [of a system] [...]