Goals / Background of ProgramGood.Net

Dave Mateer — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:38:51 GMT

Why ProgramGood.Net?

To have fun!
Explore the world of programming
To inspire, educate and entertain

On the way to Machu Picchu, Peru

What inspired you to start this?

Google searching - "How to Become a Great Programmer"
Great Article - 10 Years norvig.com/21-days.html
http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/practicing-programming
http://graysmatter.codivation.com/HowIAmBecomingABetterDeveloperPart1OfInfinity.aspx

Highlights were:

Read a chapter a week from a programming book
Code the examples
Listen to Podcasts and Screencasts
Learn a new language every year!
Learn about the business of software development
Teach / Present topics
Have a mentor and be a mentor

What Topics Do You Want To Cover?

C# Language - am working through Head First C# 3.5

OOP Concepts
Types and References
Encapsulation
Inheritance
Interfaces
Collections
Files
Exceptions
Events and Delegates
LINQ

Recursion
Anonymous Types
Delegates

DataAdapters etc..Datasets (are they evil?)

PHP - A useful language!

Web Services
Design Patterns
Unit Testing
ORM
Libraries
IDE's / Tools JSON/XML

Reporting Services 2000 / 2005 / 2008 - Everyone likes reports! Good programmers have good tools.
How to produce good reports

How To Develop Software
XP Approach vs classic Waterfall Approach
StackOverflow example of how to develop software

Test Driven Development - TDD

Testing
nUnit
nUnitASP
waitr
TestDriven.Net
NCover
cruisecontrol.net
dbunit

SourceControl
TortoiseSVN and Subversion

Bug Tracking
Excel!

CodeGenerators / ORM / Helper
Entity framework - EntityDataSource and GridViews/DetailsViews/FormViews
Dynamic Data web projects - create all standard list/details/edit/delete pages
LINQ to SQL - don't use?

CodeSmithnHibernate
Subsonic
openaccess?
TypeMock / RhinoMocks
NHibernate
Lightspeed
CSLA

Tools
Visual Studio
Tips on how to use Visual Studio...
Resharper
reflector

App Types

Console
WinForm
WebForm
Webservice
WPF
Silverlight

Patterns - What are they.. families
MS Patterns and Practises group
Enterprise Library
MVC Framework
MVP
IoC

Web ASP.NET

Framworks and how to do stuff quickly
Membership
MasterPages

Open Source Projects - understand others code

ProjectRun
dasBlog
examples from www.asp.net
codeplex
BackgroundMotion
DineOut
StockTrader
Vertigo

Fun Challenges

Project Run
Project September
Charity Project
Coding Challenge (code breaker)
Perl/Python fun ones
Mapping - Jamie
Project Infotainmnet
Music Project - KitInABox
Code Monkeys (how long to create Shakespeare)
Treasure Sprint - treasuresprint.blogspot.com

Coding Competitions

Programmers / Developers I Admire and why

Scott Hanselman
JP Boodhoo
Ron Jacobs
Carl Franklin
Scott Gu
Scott Stanfield
Adam Cogan
Vertigo
Peter Jonesie
Bill Gates
James Kovacs
Mario Szpuszta
Matthew Macdonald
Ken Schwaber - scrum
Rocky Lhotka - csla

Traits of a great Programmer

Curiosity
Humble
Learn about successful projects and read source code
Play with others code
Have readable code

Great Books and Why

Mythical Man Month
Head First C# Programming 3.5
Joel Spolskys books
The Pragmatic Programmer
Software Craftsmanship
Coder to Developer
** - how quiet conditions are super important... 2 person office.. close doors.
Great Blogs and why
stackoverflow
Joel Spolsky
Thinking in Code

Languages - where they came from.. strengths and weaknesses

OOP / Procedural / Functional
C#
VB
Java
Python
Ruby / RoR
PHP
SQL
F#
oCaml
Prolog
C / C++
Lisp
Fortran
Cobol

Fun Geek Language

YAGNI - You Aint Gunna Need It
This smells - something doesn't feel right

Where did The Domain Name Come From?

Came from iWantToProgramGood... Written English has never been my strong point, and I never seem to wrote in sentences... only statements... followed by dots....and when I went to look at domain names, register.com suggested ProgramGood.Net.. How appropriate!

Lets start the journey!

Venezuela, sunset. About 4500m.

ProgramGood.Net - Goals of Blog