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Category Archives: Education

ASP.NET MVC

Teaching myself a little ASP.NET over the weekend.  Surprisingly vanilla ASP.NET seems to lack a lot of modern features found in other web frameworks.  I ended up running into the ASP.NET MVC preview and installed that.  So far I’m liking it.  There are a few rough edges I need to sort out.  I think I’m missing something because there has to be easier way to link up LINQ and web forms for CRUD operations.  I really like the LINQ syntax, it’s so damn intuitive.  Funny because it vaguely reminds me a lot of a quick Python framework I built around DBSlayer for my senior project.  Of course I still had to write SQL to get that working.

I’m well on my way with a Hello World 2.0 (Blog).  I feel lame writing a blog to learn the language, but it’s a well defined application and lets me focus on the code. :)   While I’m finding the MVC framework to be a major bonus, there’s still a lot of auto-generated .NET boiler plate all over the place.  Definitely not as lean as some other modern frameworks, but hey it’s ASP.

I think MVC Preview 2 was just released so there’s not a ton of information out there.  Scott Hanselman has some really helpful screencasts.  There’s also a helpful tutorial that got me started at ASPAlliance.

Nearly A Month… Really? (Random Update Post)

So it’s been pretty close to a month since I updated.  Pretty poor effort on my part I suppose.  I haven’t been playing much Gears of War… which as my wife will tell you, is a pretty clear indicator as to how much free time I have.  There’s a lot of random stuff I want to say so I’ll just bullet point it all.

    • Went to NY
      • The Central Park Zoo is pretty cool
      • Polar bears are awesome, this one was doing laps and scratching his back on the wall
      • The Waldorf=Astoria is nice, but not nice enough to justify the price.. there was a big model competition while I was there.  I’ve never seen so much luggage in all my life.  I now wish I had taken a picture, it was unreal.
      • A lot of walking around town, which was fun
    • Finished semester last week
    • Got a 3.9! Whee!
    • Thoughts on the semester….
      • Operating Systems course was weak.  The professor had a distributed systems background, but was pretty light on OS knowledge.  However, the book was great.. reminder to self.. read the book in free time
      • Interactive Graphics was a lot of fun and a great learning experience..  The projects were very time consuming, it can be difficult to debug 3D programs.  Teacher provided most of the notes, which I like.. lets me focus on the lecture.
      • Comparative Programming Languages .. everyone was lost!  We got hung up on the implementation details of ML for a few weeks.  The course isn’t in depth enough that I could write my own compiler.. it’s also too in depth to be useful day to day.  The university should probably just ditch this and offer a course that provides a simple overview of language features along with an optional course in compilers.
      • Functional Programming was a really enlightening course.  It felt great to think about programs in a different way.  Everything recursive ends up being so elegant in a functional language.  Definitely going to keep my feet in the functional pool.
      • Statistics 2 .. it was statistics.. :)
    • Taking the summer off of school
    • Landed an internship
      • Only been there a week, but definitely having fun
      • So far, writing some simple JavaScript

Speaking of JavaScript, there’s a fantastic series of videos on Yahoo Video with Douglas Crockford.  It takes a lot of time to watch them, but you will definitely learn something.

This ended up being really long, I should probably avoid bullet points from now on.

Learning JavaScript

I spent most of Sunday picking up the basics of JavaScript.  Overall it went pretty well, I even started writing a little Ajax application.  Syntax is very C-like, but the overall philosophy of the language reminds me a lot of Perl (a million ways to do one thing).  I found the following sites extremely helpful.

Starting JavaScript

The information is a little old on the site, but for picking up the basics it’s fine.  A quick read through and you’ll be well versed enough to start writing some simple things.

JavaScript Toolbox

This one was recommended to me.  I really liked the site, particularly the best practices portion.  As I said, JavaScript seems to have a million ways to do everything, so what’s the best way?  The site goes into detail on common JavaScript gotchas and programming for compatibility and maintainability.  The code samples are also very helpful.

As for ajax, there are some really good tutorials you can find at the bottom of wikipedia’s ajax page.  I’ll have to do some brainstorming in my free time and come up with an app to post.

Book Reviews

Database Modeling Made Simple

I read this book as a primer to some more in depth titles. I was looking for a quick overview of the entity relationship model and this book served that purpose. I wanted something I could read and comprehend quickly over a weekend. The book is 144 pages and includes some simple exercises. I do wish the author had gone a little more into denormalization.

3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development

This semester I had a course in interactive computer graphics. Prior to the course I wanted to brush up on some of my trig and linear algebra skills. I read this book during the course of a vacation and was overall pretty happy with it. The author starts out with a good sense of humor, but the book loses that humor pretty quickly. Still, the content was pretty good and the provided exercises were extremely helpful.

Mathematics for 3D Game Programing & Computer Graphics

As per my usual approach, the previous book was meant to provide an overview. I bought this book with the intention of getting a little deeper into the math. Unfortunately I didn’t make it very far. The book has absolutely no personality. I felt like the entire book was just a set of bullet points with equations. I guess it just didn’t suit my learning style.

*NOTE: Neither of the graphics books had any content in direct relation to games outside of the math… I wonder how many extra copies get sold if you put “Game Development” in the title.

Operating Systems

This book is big, typical for a Deitel book. Weighing in at 1209 pages, I avoided taking it to class. However it has one major difference from the majority of Deitel books… It’s actually enjoyable to read! The material is presented really well and the code samples are crystal clear. There are a lot of neat little tidbits that help break up the material as well.

I have a number of books on deck at the moment, but not sure which I’m going to dig into next. Probably another book on databases to supplement Database Modeling Made Simple.

Career, Interviews, School

Been a busy couple of weeks. I attended a career fair at my school. I was able to scout the participants early on and narrowed my focus to just one company. Most of the companies there were looking for helpdesk or software support staff. Been there, done that. Anything other than an internship in software engineering/development would be a waste of time.

From the career fair I landed an interview, which I think went well. I did suffer a slight brain freeze on parts of the technical interview, but overall I thought it was positive. There’s nothing more frustrating than realizing an answer to a question on your way out or long after it’s been asked (ie 6/10 = 3/5, 6/15 = 2/5, 2/5+3/5 = 5/5)… I also got the normal questions that interview guides tell you to avoid answering at all costs (pay, current offers, etc). I had trouble stonewalling the interviewer on those questions, it’s just not in my personality. Hopefully they see my honesty and forthrightness as an asset. I should know in the next week or so if they feel I’m right for the job. (fingers crossed)

My career services department has sent my resume to a few places as well. Only one of which looked interesting. I’ll know in a few days whether I’ve been pre-selected for an interview.

In the mean time I’m continuing to seek out opportunities. One thing I’ve learned from this experience… don’t just look at Monster, Dice, etc. When I first began looking I got pretty worried as there wasn’t a lot in the area. Directly visiting an employer’s website produced a lot more results.

All in all, internship or no internship.. it’s been an enlightening experience. Interviewing reminded me of just how far I’ve come in the past few years. I can still remember my first real interview, what a disaster that was. I had no idea what I was doing!

Mad Dash to read as much as I can before I graduate

I enjoy school in a lot of regards, it has been and continues to be a life altering experience. However, I feel like the academic world just doesn’t understand what businesses are looking for these days. Last spring I read Code Complete and How To Win Friends & Influence People. Where are the courses on software development best practices? Where are the courses on creating lasting business relationships? In my Computer Science 2 class I had a really good professor. He was constantly dropping tidbits of hard earned knowledge. Universities need to make a push for more of that.

There are so many books I currently want to sink my teeth into in order to better myself as a programmer. In particular I want to read Rapid Development and Writing Secure Code. As of late I’ve been tasked with writing a small application as part of an internship contest. Since this project will be read by other people, I feel I have a duty to provide clear documentation. Any recommendations on books for writing software specs/documentation?

Google Tech Talks

Google hosts all sorts of presentations, ranging from wilderness survival to nuclear power proposals. Fortunately they record and post the videos on Google Video. The presenters are for the most part really good. Even if the topic isn’t particularly interesting to me, the presentation techniques usually are.

One thing I’ve learned is that humor is essential to keeping the attention of an audience. The presentation doesn’t need to be punch line after punch line, but a joke or comical graphic tends to perk up the listeners. Sounds a little gimmicky, but when proportioned with information correctly it doesn’t come off as a ploy.

This goes back to my Professional Communications course, know your audience. If your audience is Google you can take a few comical liberties. :)

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