Phillip Trelford's Array

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Walkie Scorchie

From the window at the office I’ve seen a series of futuristic buildings erected, first the Gherkin, then the Shard and now the Walkie Talkie:

London skyline 

The last one being recently been re-dubbed the Walkie Scorchie as it produces a supercharged solar ‘death ray’ that has burned holes in carpets, melted furniture and even the interior of a Jaguar parked nearby.

It feels almost reminiscent of the dystopian future portrayed in the cult film Idiocracy:

Idiocracy skyline

Though our current society is probably closer to the surveillance society of 1984 with the omnipresent Big Brother watching over you:

Big brother is watching you

The everyday software we work with is no less broken, or so Scott Hanselman concludes in everything's broken and nobody's upset.

Software is increasingly a world of broken windows where developers are more accustomed to working around issues than giving feedback, let alone tackling the root causes.

waiting for background operation to complete modal dialog 

Anyone else struggling with the cognitive dissonance of a modal dialog waiting for a background operation to complete?

XAML

I’ve been using XAML in it’s various guises off an on for over 5 years now. Over that time I’ve used WPF, Silverlight and Metro. It feels like little has changed in that time. It’s still probably the best thing out there for desktop app development but surely we could do better.

XML

I’m still stuck editing views in XML, the poor man’s DSL. I, like the developers I know rarely use the designer view. When we do it frequently hangs and we’re left manually killing XDescProc.exe from task manager.

Data Binding

Data binding is central to XAML. With it you can easily bind a collection to a data grid and get sorting and filtering for free. But binding comes with a high performance cost and it’s stringly typed nature means you’re left finding binding errors in the output window at runtime.

Dynamically binding a view to a model would make more sense to me if I could edit the view at runtime, but you can’t, it’s compiled in.

Value Converters

If I want to transform a model value bound to the view to a different form I have to create a class that implements the IValueConverter interface then reference it as a static resource in the resources section. It has all the elegance of C++ header files. Achieving the same thing in ASP.Net is much simpler, you can just write inline some code in the view or call a function.

INotifyPropertyChanged

There’s a plethora of libraries and frameworks dedicated to working around this design decision, from the MVVM frameworks with LINQ expressions to PostSharp and attributes. The C# 5 compiler’s CallerMemberName attribute has finally brought some sanity to the situation. But I know many developers, including myself, have wasted countless hours dealing with it and trying to think of ways of subverting it.

Just about every view model class ends up inheriting from some ViewModelBase or ObservableObject class so that it can implement INotifyPropertyChanged.

Inheritance

It is often said that object-oriented programming is well suited to graphical user interfaces. Perhaps, but I start to have doubts when I see WPF’s Button class with 9 layers of inheritance and over 160 members.

Visual Studio 2010 introduced improved intellisense with substring search on members to partially work around this, but honestly I’d prefer to see buttons be closer to having content and a clicked event than their current diaspora of responsibilities.

Null Reference Exceptions

By far the most common error I see in C# applications is Null Reference Exceptions. Hardly a day goes by where yet another null check is added to the codebase. This needs to be fixed at the language level, functional-first languages like Scala and F# show it’s possible.

HTML5 & JavaScript

HTML 5 and JavaScript are now being pushed as an alternate environment for desktop development. JavaScript has come a long way performance and libraries wise and I like the HTML 5 Canvas model. However I’m not yet convinced how well this scales to multi-window applications that need to interact between processes.

Windows 8

I get that Metro style interfaces are good for tablets and touch, but for multi-window desktop applications it feels like a non-starter.

 

I’ve seen traders use 9 displays simultaneously, running a multitude of different apps from execution platforms and news services to Excel, Outlook and instant messengers.

To me Windows 8 appears to be consumer orientated release. I’m hoping the next version will bring something for the larger customer base of business users.

Vendors

One person’s problem is another’s opportunity. Third party vendors like JetBrains are grasping the opportunity with both hands by patching flaws in Visual Studio and C# with tools like Resharper. They’re now starting to provide elastoplasts over XAML editing too. Jetbrains are not the only ones, Telerik and others are making hay selling themes and datagrids.

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To temporarily workaround performance issues caused by the cost of the mouse handler events in one these products we were forced to throttle the number of system mouse events bubbling through the system.

Duct tape is a good short term solution, but surely at some point we should consider building a stronger foundation.

Simplicity

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

XAML is huge and bloated, WPF 4.5 Unleashed is 864 pages long, yet XAML’s focus on data binding makes it feel like a one-trick pony.

I think a modern desktop UI environment needs to cover a diverse range of product scenarios. There should be a low-level core that can be easily accessed with code for high performance features all the way up to a designer view for tacking databases on to views, and it should all interoperate seamlessly.

Sections of the development community are striving to bring simplicity to our environments. Language designers like Rich Hickey (Clojure) and Don Syme (F#) are bringing us simplicity at the language level. I’d love to see these thought processes applied to UI environments too.

To tackle the root causes of problems some times you need to stop continuously patching over the cracks, step back and take time to look at the big picture. To create Clojure Rich Hickey practised Hammock driven development. I’d love to see more of this kind of thoughtful design and less Mortgage driven development.

Tackling the root causes of complexity and defects in our software is not an easy choice, it requires investment and changes to the way we do things. But not changing is a choice too.

They live out their lives in this virtual reality as they would have around the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. The time period was chosen because it is supposedly the pinnacle of human civilization. – Agent Smith

Must Java like languages and XML be considered the pinnacle of software development for time immemorial?

Try 10 Programming Languages in 10 minutes

There are a lot of interesting programming languages out there, but downloading and setting up the environment can be very time consuming when you just want to try one out. The good news is that you can try out many languages in your browser straight away, often with tutorials which guide you through the basics.

Following the pattern of 7 languages in 7 weeks book, here’s a somewhat abridged version.

Dynamic Languages

Fed up of long compile times, want a lightweight environment for scripting? Dynamic languages could be your new friend.

Try Lua

Lua is a lightweight dynamic language with excellent coroutine support and a simple C API making it hugely popular in video gaming for scripting. Have fun with game engines like LÖVE and Marmalade Quick.

Try Clojure

Clojure is the brainchild of the hugely charismatic speaker Rich Hickey, it is a descendant of one of the earliest programming languages LISP. There’s a really rich community around Clojure, one of my favourite projects is Sam Aaron’s Overtone live coding audio environment.

Try R (quick registration required)

R is a free environment for statistical computing and graphics, with a huge range of user-submitted packages. Ever wondered how to draw an egg?

Functional Languages

Aspects of functional programming have permeated most mainstream languages from C++ to VB. However to really appreciate the expressiveness of the functional approach a functional-first language is required.

Try Erlang

Erlang is a really interesting language for building fault tolerant concurrent systems. It also has great pattern matching capabilities. It has many industrial applications and tools including the RabbitMQ messaging system and the distribute database Riak.

Try Haskell

Haskell is heavily based on the Miranda programming language which was taught in British universities in the 80s and 90s. Haskell added Monads and Type Classes, and is still taught in a few universities, it is also still quite popular in academic research.

Try OCaml

OCaml like Miranda is based on the ML programming language adding object-oriented constructs. F# is based on OCaml, there is even a compatibility mode. OCaml still has industrial application, for example at Jane Street Capital and XenSource.

Web Languages

There’s a plethora of languages that compile to JavaScript languages out there. Also worth a look are the new features in JavaScript itself, see Brendan Eich’s talk at Strangeloop last year on the The State of JavaScript. Here’s 3 *Script languages I find particularly interesting:

LiveScript

LiveScript is an indirect descendant of CoffeeScript with features to assist functional programming like pattern matching and function composition. Check out 10 LiveScript one liners to impress your friends.

Try Elm

Elm is a functional reactive language for creating highly interactive programs, including games. Reactive programming is an interesting direction and I think languages designed specifically for this are worth investigating.

PogoScript

Unfortunately there’s currently no online editor for this one, but there is a command line REPL. PogoScript is DSL friendly allowing white space in function names.

Esoteric Languages

Esoteric languages tend to be write-only, a bit like Perl but just for fun.

Try Brainfuck

Brainfuck is the Rubik’s cube of programming languages. I built the site last year with the interpreter written in plain old JavaScript, check out the fib sample.

Browser IDEs

With so many programming language experimentation environments available online, the next logical step is to host the IDE there. Imagine not having to wait 4 hours for Visual Studio to install.

Cloud 9 is an online environment for creating Node.js apps, pulling together sets of relevant packages. Tools like Sploder let you build games online.

The Try F# site offers arguably the most extensive online learning features of any language. Cloud Tsunami IDE also offers a rich online development experience for F#. In the near future CloudSharper will offer an online IDE experience for developing web applications with F# using WebSharper,

Scaling up

Once you’ve completed some basic tasks in a new language you’ll want to move on to slightly larger tasks. I like to use exercises from the coding Kata Catalogue like FizzBuzz, the Game of Life and Minesweeper.

Some people enjoy going through the Project Euler problems, others have their own hello world applications. For Martin Trojer it’s a Scheme interpreter and Luke Hoban often writes a Ray Tracer.

I’d also recommend joining a local meetup group. The London Scala meetup have a coding dojo every month and the F#unctional Londoners meetup have hands on session in the middle the month, the next one is on Machine Learning.

Programming language books that include questions at the end of sections are a good way to practice what you’ve learned but are few and far between. The recent Functional Programming with F# book is an excellent example of what can be done with questions at the end of each chapter.

While the basics of a language can be picked up in a few hours, expect it to take a few weeks before you’re productive and at least a few months before you start to gain mastery.

Want to write your own language? Pete Sestoft’s Programming Language Concepts book offers a good introduction to the subject.

Developer Conferences

Developer conferences are a great way to learn about new and existing technologies. Almost as important are the conversations in the corridors between talks and bars after to find out what your peers from other companies are up to. Without them your company may run the risk of becoming like a small island cut off from the mainland, perpetuating a monoculture.

fraggle-rock-movie

But there are a bewildering array of conferences to choose from, and for most of us only a limited time and budget to work with. Here’s a few tips.

Talks

The most common format is a few days of talks, usually spread across a number of themed tracks with each talk lasting somewhere between half an hour and an hour.

I try to get to a handful of conferences a year, which is in part made possible by speaking at some of the them. If you’re speaking typically the entrance fee is waived and if the conference is remote then often the organizer will contribute towards your travel and accommodation. Don’t expect too much though, unless you’re giving a keynote you shouldn’t expect to get paid, so for the most part speakers are giving their time freely.

A talk lets the speaker really emphasise what they think is important when introducing a subject, something that is much harder to portray in an article. I recommend choosing a few talks out of your normal area/comfort zone, often you’ll learn something new and interesting and sometimes even applicable. Don’t expect to become an expert after listening to a one hour talk, at best you might get two or three key concepts which you can build on in your own time.

Training

Many of the large conferences tag half day training sessions at the start of the conferences. This can be a good way to deep dive in to a particular topic and get some hands on experience with the help and support of an expert. Some conferences specialize in this kind of training like Skills Matter’s Progressive .Net Tutorials and Progressive F# Tutorials which are comprised almost entirely of half day hands on sessions.

Hackathons

One or two day hacking events are another popular event style. They are often free and typically run over the weekend so those no need to use up your precious holiday days. As an example the Data Science London meetup recently organized a Big Data Hackathon and next weekend Skills Matter are hosting the London GameCraft game jam.

Big Conferences

For me more interesting things happen at the edges between disciplines, so here I’m going to call out mostly multi-disciplinary conferences:

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Strangeloop, if I had to recommend one conference, this would be it, this year your can see the author of Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas Hoftadter speaking.

QCon/GOTO/Yow! conferences organized by Trifork, the team behind InfoQ, with events in San Francisco, New York, London, Aarhus, Amsterdam, Melbourne and Brisbane. I’ve attended in QCon London and a GOTO in Denmark, both were well organized with some great speakers

NDC Oslo attracted 1,600 developers this year. This conference is on my must see list, maybe next year. NDC London launches in December.

ØREDEV is based in Malmö Sweden, and attracts around 1,200 developers, this year the theme is the Arts and I’ll be giving not just one but two talks.

Build Stuff is organized by Greg Young, and based in Lithuania, it has a fantastic line-up.

MonkeySpace – there seems to be a real buzz around these conferences which focus on open source multi-platform development with .Net

If you can I’d recommend trying at least one new conference each year, this way you’ll be more likely to get exposure to new people and ideas.

Functional Conferences

Each programming language has their own conferences, for example Scala has Scala Days and the Scala eXchange (which I’ll be speaking at in December), Clojure has Euro Clojure and ClojureWest and F# has the Progressive F# Tutorials in London and New York (I’ll be there too).  There are also a number of cross-language events if you’re looking to broaden your horizons:

chicago

Lambda Jam ran in July in Chicago with a really strong line up organized by the team behind Strangeloop,

TechMesh, now CodeMesh, was a big hit in London last December, expect it to be even bigger this year.

FP Days is in its 3rd year, based in Cambridge (England), it’s a friendly intimate event.

FP eXchange is organized by Rob Pickering and brings together the London FP community.

flatMap is based in Oslo and has been running for 2 years now.

Other Conferences

Fancy trying something a little different:

indoor_water_park-image

That Conference is a conference and a summer camp.

CodeMash at the same location as that conference, for winter it boasts an indoor waterpark.

DDD – referencing Steve Balmer’s Developers Developers Developers chant, these free UK conferences are organized by the developer community.

Bacon is a conference on things developers love with sessions on topics including rocketry, Go, infinity, data visualisation, and continuous deployment.

GDC (Game Developers Conference) has tracks for design, production, programming and visual arts.

NIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems) you’ll learn about some really interesting machine learning projects, both research based and applied.

Conference Planner

four_seasons_by_nalmes

Spring Summer Autumn Winter
QCon London NDC Oslo Strangeloop Build Stuff
FP eXchange MonkeySpace ØREDEV NDC London
GOTO Copenhagen Lambda Jam QCon San Francisco CodeMesh
GDC GOTO Amsterdam GOTO Aarhus CodeMash
Bacon QCon New York FP Days NIPS
flatMap That Conference    

I’d love to hear your event ideas and suggestions too.

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