no dogma podcast

Summary Grant Fritchey and I discuss database dev op and how it can anything to anyone. Details what he does; origin of scary DBA nickname; what is dev ops, day to day dev ops tasks; DBA and developer interactions, communications, DBA’s favorite word is “no”; dev ops and source control, putting a DB in source control, integration with dev, auditing; moving DB from production to source control, ssdt, red gate sql source control, DBA resistance to source control, changing methodologies and mindsets, teething pains; tooling; keeping DB source in same place as software source, merges; benefits of source control, auditing, legislative requirements, tight coupling with dev, versioning, commenting, labeling a version; shared dev DB server vs individual dev DB server; comparing production to source control; continuous integration and automated deployment, complete replace of DB vs incremental builds, breaking changes; maturity of tools for CI, automated testing, app code vs TSQL for testing, testing before check in; replication and automated deployment; Entity Framework Migrations, breaking changes, EF Migrations vs SSDT and Red Gate SQL Source Control, up and down migrations*; ORMs, dbas don’t like ORMs, performance, Glimpse to assess executed SQL; book choice – The Phoenix Projec, a parable on dev ops and making teams work together; Grant is presenting at the PASS summit full day seminar on query tuning, Grant’s book SQL Server Query Performance Tuning coming in Sept, wearing rainbow fuzzies for Argenis Without Borders.

Summary Designer Brian O'Neill tells me what it takes to make a well designed piece of software. Details who he is and what he does; role as a designer vs developer; how to find out what is needed, getting feedback, including engineers in feedback process; what is great design, invisible interface, task flow, google as an example of good design, good task flow example, db tables should not dictate the view; who is responsible for good design; bridging the gap between designers and developers, learning design; steps in making a good design from the perspective of a designer and an engineer, laddering, sketch on whiteboards rather than using fancy software, user testing; why not to start from the data model; flexibility vs usability; engineers should be involved in user testing, self reflection; agile, incrementing rather than iterating, lack of user representative is common, design runway – designers stay ahead of engineers by a sprint, validation loops, don’t worry about what people like about an interface only what they do; definitions of success from different perspectives; working as an insider rather than as an external contractor; conflicts between engineers and designers, justifying decision making and intuition, sum of design errors reflect on overall product, building respect between engineers and designers; just because the big boys do it doesn’t mean you should; Brian’s music; author recommendations, Edward Tufte, Stephen Few.

Summary Rebecca O'Dette of RunKeeper talks to me about their Agile development process. Details We cover Rebecca's role, company growth over the past few years, development structure, introduction of agile processes, moving from waterfall, choice of scrum over other agile options, first steps in agile, team size, current team structure, changes over past few years, scaling and syncing teams, scrum of scrums, QA and release processes, release bottlenecks, release cycles, missing Microsoft project, agile for marketing, support, business development and user experience, kanban, story points, planning poker, complexity and

Summary Part 2 of my discussion with Nicolas Dorier in which we discuss NBitcoin. Details what it is and why Nicolas wrote it, features of NBitcoin, how to contribute; other development work, bitcoin as a payment mechanism for consultants; colored coins as a way of replacing shares for funding companies, dividends and distribution of profit, dilution of investment; regulation, taxation, legal backlash, fiat money. Nicolas’ Codeproject contributions, .NET Micro Framework for use in a car, Gadgeteer project, Gadgeteer vs Netduino; 11 Useful Classes; Nicolas’ book choice.

Summary Part one of my two part conversation with Nicolas Dorier on bitcoin and NBitcoin. Details what a bitcoin is; why Nicolas became interested in bitcoin; decentralized currency; distributed ledger; escrow; mining, variance problem, computing power needed, mining pools, democracy, 51% problem, changing rules; mining as way of making money; commission on payments, loss of value of bitcoin; storage of bitcoins, MtGox, cold wallets; bitcoin for subscription services; scalability, transaction processing limitations and solutions, memory requirements of block chain and loss of decentralization; anonymity; more on the 51% problem, distributed decision making, voting, 51% attack – cancelling blocks of miners, code changes; hard limit on number of bitcoins, decreasing speed of mining; hoarding of bitcoins and deflationary currencies, Friedman vs Keynes.

Summary Gary Marcos tells about the differences between mobile app and website development. Details Why build a mobile app instead of a web site designed for mobile, usability, approaches to app development for teams with no experience in app development – near shore vs offshore, costs of app development, launching into a store, maintaining an app, crash analytics, post launch issues, redeploying your app, platform to build your first app on, supporting Android devices, Windows and Blackberry, promoting your app, app analytics, mobile retargeting, ratings and feedback.

Summary Bill Wilder, Microsoft Azure MVP tells me about the Azure plaform. Details Differences from traditional development, reliable queues, automation and devops, security, cloud computing vs alternatives, green data centres, scaling, test and deployment, costs and licensing, Azure over the past four years, active directory, SQL services, growth of services – mobile services, hadoop, caching, media services, BizTalk, DNS, virtual networks, Satya Nadella and Scott Guthrie, Bill and Azure, Global Windows Azure Bootcamp, commercial usage of Azure vs AWS, book choices.

Summary Wide ranging discussion with Bob Downey of Galen Healthcare about software development practices. Details Who his, what he does. Architecture, book theory vs practical considerations, refactoring in a business environment, how software grows, development and collaboration across multiple offices, promotion in development groups, decision making, technology choices, cloud platforms, keeping up with current frameworks, refactoring, reusability, testing, SpecFlow.

Summary Anthony van der Hoorn and Nik Molnar tell me about the amazing Glimpse project. Details We chat about the origins of Glimpse, what it does, how it works and where it is going.