1. Physical distance. For several reasons, physical distance discourages communication. Developers don’t want to interrupt the product owner, and it is difficult to know if the product owner is currently in a meeting, or involved in other activities when the product owner is not visible.
2. Personal perception. Developers don’t want the product owner to think they are unable to make decisions themselves, and may be concerned the product owner will gain that impression if the developer is frequently asking for product owner input.
3. Unfriendly product owners. Developers quickly sense when product owners are getting annoyed with questions. Once a developer feels he has used his allowance of goodwill, he is more likely to just attempt to implement difficult solutions per the original spec rather than suggest an alternative.
4. Introverted developers. Some developers simply prefer to minimize interactions with people they are not extremely comfortable with. When faced with the choice of interacting with a person they aren’t comfortable with, or trying to make the software work as originally requested, they frequently choose the latter.

It does not matter whether you develop software using Lean (Kanban), Agile, or Waterfall. If you can increase communication between the product owners and developers, you can probably reduce or eliminate this source of waste.  Product owners pay the price of this waste, and they are also best positioned to reduce the problems I mentioned above.  Product owners, at least the people that make the detailed decisions about how the software should work, should strive to make themselves constantly accessible to software developers.  When a developer comes with a question, the product owner should treat the developer as a welcome interruption, not as an inconvenience.  Product owners can also improve the relationship with the developer by engaging with the developers on social, non-work, levels.  This fosters a growth in trust between product owners and developers and increases the odds that developers will come to the product owner when the potential exists to eliminate waste.

The type or namespace name 'DataVisualization' does not exist in the namespace 'System.Windows.Forms' (are you missing an assembly reference?)

We tried copying the DLL several places, even though we later discovered this was unnecessary. The DLL exists in the GAC and we only need to add the reference to the DLL in the nant .build file.

It turns out that the problem exists in the nant.exe.config file we use. This file notoriously has several errors and needs to be updated. I found a copy of nant.exe.config that we need at http://pastebin.com/YxxaKADS. I simply copied the 2 lines at 121 and 122 and pasted them into our nant.exe.config build file and the problem was solved.

121. <include name="System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Design.dll" / >
122. <include name="System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.dll" / >


SELECT ROUTINE_NAME, P.PARAMETER_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES R
INNER JOIN
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PARAMETERS P
ON P.SPECIFIC_NAME = R.ROUTINE_NAME
WHERE ( (LEN(OBJECT_DEFINITION(OBJECT_ID(R.ROUTINE_NAME)) ) - LEN(REPLACE(OBJECT_DEFINITION(OBJECT_ID(R.ROUTINE_NAME)) , P.PARAMETER_NAME, ''))) - LEN(P.PARAMETER_NAME) = 0)
ORDER BY 1,2

The clever piece of this query is that we use the Information_Schema.Parameters to get a list of all the parameters in each stored procedure, and then we replace all occurrences of the parameter name in the stored procedure with an empty length string. If the length of the stored procedure prior to our substitution and subtracting the length of the parameter name just once is equal to zero, then we know the parameter only occurs once, in the input, and that it is not used within the body of the stored procedure.

Note, you may want to include an additional clause in the where clause if you want to exclude some of the system stored procedures.

• In Binary Serialization, fields are serialized (in XML serialization they are not).
• Properties are serialized in both Binary and XML.
• In Binary Serialization, if you add a property for the field, the field and property are not both serialized (at least for simple properties).
• Static fields and properties are not serialized.
• Private fields ARE serialized in Binary Serialization.
• Properties without setters (ReadOnly properties) are not serialized.
• Make sure that you do not serialize events.  That is what caused my objects to grow 1,000 times larger.

Make sure to apply this attribute to any events you define:
[field: NonSerialized]
public new event System.ComponentModel.PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

We also wrote unit tests to make sure our objects did not experience unintended excessive growth in the future:

   1:  [Test]

   2:  public void TheSizeOfOneModuleShouldNotExceed25000bytes()

   3:  {

   4:  var module = ModuleList.GetByModuleID(3);

   5:  long lBuffer = 0;

   6:  using (MemoryStream buffer = new MemoryStream())

   7:  {

   8:   BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();

   9:   formatter.Serialize(buffer, module);

  10:   lBuffer += buffer.Length;

  11:  }

  12:  Assert.That(lBuffer, Is.LessThan(25000));

  13:  }

 1: buttonDelete_click()
 2: {
 3:     If myObject.HasChildren then
 4:         ShowMessage("You can't delete an object with children.")
 5:     End if
 6: }
 7:  
 8: buttonDelete_click()
 9: {
 10:     If myObject.AllowDelete = False then
 11:         ShowMessage(myObject.ReasonDeleteNotAllowedMessage)
 12:     End if
 13: }

The first code sample may be the first to come to mind, but the first solution that comes to mind is often not the best.  The second code sample is superior because it places the logic for AllowDelete inside the business object, and thus it makes that logic re-usable in other places.  Perhaps you have an import utility that could use the same logic, or perhaps you want to write unit tests.  In the second example, you can write unit tests to make sure that the AllowDelete property is being set correctly; but the first example would require UI testing to confirm this.

In my example, the code inside of the .AllowDelete property probably looks like this:

 1: Public bool AllowDelete()
 2: {
 3:     If (this.HasChildren == true)
 4:         Return false;
 5:     End if
 6: }

By placing this logic in the business object, it would be easy to expand it later and the additional logic would apply to all user interface and batch processing code that uses it.

Any time you can encapsulate some logic within an object, it is probably worth the smalladditional amount of time to do so.

But I think it is time to try to do more.  I think we can do a better job.  I think the goal is to increase the knowledge of technologists about all the things they are interested in; and I’ve noticed that some of the most popular meeting topics are about “other things”.  For example, training on Ruby at the .Net meeting produces a large crowd; and training on IIS at the Java meeting produces a large crowd.  Why is that?  I believe it is because most developers recognize the need to have at least some knowledge of the tools they don’t regularly use.  By raising our own awareness of other tools and techniques, we are open to more possible ways to solve problems.  More importantly, after we have learned the basics and some pros and cons of a new tool or language, we are less intimidated by that tool or language and more open to consider using it in future projects.

What does this all mean for user groups?  I believe that we should continue to have the “Special Interest Groups” to focus on the arcane and specific features of the group’s named technology.  But I believe we need a general interest group that presents tools and technologies at a high-level (introductory level) that can be marketed to the entire community of developers in the metro.

How do we go about this?

1. We need to find a venue to host these meetings.  My hope is that we can draw 50 to 200 people at each meeting.  Therefore, we would want a venue that can accommodate such a crowd.
2. We need to identify topics of presentations that can be presented as introductory material to this large audience.
3. We need to find good presenters that are enthusiastic about presenting and answering questions on these topics.  In addition, the      presents will probably, but not necessarily, need to create the presentation.
4.  We need to get the word out to all IT people in the KC Metro about the event.  And I want to jump on my soap box here and say that the goal is not to get as many bodies as possible at the event; the goal is to make everyone in the KC Metro that might be interested in this topic aware of the opportunity to learn.
5. We need coordinators to bring all these elements together at the same place and time.
6. Optionally, we could obtain sponsors to help pay venue costs if any, and to provide food, drinks and prizes; but I don’t believe that food, drinks, or prizes are necessary to draw the crowd.

1. Now I am not sure what venues can hold this many people.  I believe that JCCC could do it, and probably would be open to it; but their business needs usually come first.  Red Nova Labs and VML both seem to have large venues, but I don’t know if they are large enough.  Can you suggest other venues?
2. The list of potential topics is long.  I will start a list with these items: TDD, Agile, Kanban, Starting in Ruby, Perl, JavaScript, Jquery, HTML5, CSS3, SQL, Unit tests, Inversion of Control, Asp.Net, MVC, MVVM, SQL Injection and XSS, Starting in .Net, Starting in Java.
3. The list of good presenters is also long.  In fact, the current local user groups, those that I collectively refer to as Special Interest      Groups, could serve as the training grounds for finding presenters.  If you know someone that gave a great presentation at a local user group, then recommend that person and their presentation for the new general interest group.  Also we need to hear from presenters      about topics they would like to present.
4. We already know several ways to get the word out.  www.KansasCityUsergroups.com, and www.kcitp.com and linkedIn.  We would, of course, set up a simple web site with info about the upcoming event.  We could contact all the local groups and have them announce the meeting.  We might also spread the word by creating a meetup for the event.  We could start a twitter hash tag as well.
5. We need people to do these things.  I believe that if we can get 5 to 10 people behind this to do the work, it will be enough to make it happen and those 5 to 10 won’t get burned out.  Personally, I would like to be one of the marketers to spread the message about the upcoming meetings, and I hope Mike Gelphman would work with me.  I would leave it to others to find the venue, topic, and presenter.
6. If a vendor reads this blog and wants to step forward, then please do so.  Of if you want to contact potential sponsors, please do so.  They are certainly welcome, especially if we incur venue costs that the sponsor will pay for.  But this is primarily about increasing the skill levels of our technologies and those making technology decisions, not about selling products.

The OWASP group has a pretty good speaker agreement that I believe we could copy for this group as well.  Perhaps a similar agreement from venue host and sponsor would be helpful. https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Speaker_Agreement

Who wants to see this happen?  Who wants to be a driver to make this happen?  Let’s make the software developers in the Kansas City metro the best in the world!

I then went back and double-clicked on the trace file (.trc) that the client had sent to me and I received this error:

“Unrecognized command line argument.  All command line arguments will be ignored.  Please run ‘profiler.exe -?’ to see a list of valid command line arguments.” I have not resolved this error, and don’t plan to.  I was able to open the trace file by first opening SQL Server Profiler, then using File Open and selecting the .trc file.

• Turn your router’s UPnP off.

I previously thought that making sure all ports on the router were closed was sufficient to block attacks from the Internet, but it is not.  If your router supports UPnP, which most do now, you should disable this feature as recently reported by Daniel Garcia at H-Report.com:

http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/UPnP-enabled-routers-allow-attacks-on-LANs-1329727.html

If you can disable UPnP on the WAN side of the router, do so.  If this isn’t possible, disable UPnP completely on the router.  UPnP is rarely needed by most users, but online gamers may benefit from UPnP to more easily connect to online gaming networks.

This article shows how to turn off UPnP in common Linksys routers:

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=461084