The last 2 days I had a lovely time upgrading a major project we work on at BrightMix over to Visual Studio 2008. Actually, the code upgrade was totally automated by VS2008 so that was easy. The hard part was getting VS2008 Team Foundation Build Client to play nice with our Team Foundation 2005 Build Server (abbreviated as TFBS from now on).

Oh, the Trials And Tribulations...

The first thing you find out is TFBS can't figure out how to build 2008 solutions. You'll see something like this in your build log file:

Build FAILED.
C:\Builds\TFSNow\TfsNow-PublicWebsite-Continuous\Sources\PublicWebsite.sln(2): Solution file error MSB5014: File format version is not recognized.  MSBuild can only read solution files between versions 7.0 and 9.0, inclusive.

Fortunately, Mitch Denny has a great post detailing out how to fix this issue. Following Mitch's post, I upgraded the build server from .NET 2.0 to 3.5 and replaced the .NET 2.0's MSBuild.exe with a dumby MSBuild.exe that redirects to .NET 3.5's MSbuild.exe. Fun times. For your convience, here's the dumby .NET 3.5 MSBuild executable that I used (note: mine is hardcoded to redirect to C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\MSBuild.exe - you'll have to compile your own if you need it to go someplace else).

Next Problem: Deploying Web Applications

After I got the dumby MSBuild.exe in place, I fired off a test build and another error showed up in the log:

error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0 \WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

The problem is with an <import> declaration in the Web Application Project's .csproj file. Basically, the "Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" file doesn't exist on the build server because it only has TFS 2005 installed.

I ran across a couple of helpful blog posts for this problem: Steve Harmen demonstrates a fix to the Web Application Project's .csproj file that involves adding another <import> declaration and some conditional logic. So, I added that in and, sure enough, the test build was now successful.

Surprise! Another Problem!

However, I quickly discovered that the Web Application Project's files (.aspx, .html, binaries, etc.) were not getting deployed to the test server's drop location. Some further digging revealed that some other people have had this problem, but no one had come up with a solution.

My Final Solution

What I ended up doing to get this working was leaving the <import> declaration in my Web Application Project's .csproj to point at the VS2008 directory (the one with "v9.0" in it). Then, I simply created that directory on the build server, since it didn't exist, and I copied the v8.0 "Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" file into the newly created "v9.0" directory. This probably isn't the best solution for this problem, but it seems to work.

If anyone has feedback on this, please leave a comment!

This is part 3, the last post in my Rails VS ASP.NET series. Please see Post #1 and Post #2 if you missed them.

In my previous post, I mentioned that I have a glimmer of hope for ASP.NET. This post is about the current state of ASP.NET, what it's doing right and, moreover, what direction I want to see it go.

The Alt.Net Movement

A community, dubbed Alt.Net, formed around providing solutions to a number of programming concepts that the .NET framework lacks. Particularly pressing is the lack of an MVC framework for ASP.NET. Fortunately, some smart developers out there cranked out a solution to the MVC problem: Monorail, a replacement for ASP.NET's out-of-the-box Webform architecture. Monorails gained a lot of popularity, but , as a 3rd party product, its adoption has been limited. I mean, most ASP.NET devs out there that I've talked to have never heard of it.

As a side note, I think it's worth pointing out here that if a ASP.NET has disgruntled enough programmers out there to the point where they've band together and created their own framework to fix/extend the current architecture, it seems like a good indicator that something is horribly, terribly wrong.

Most recently, Scott Gu announced Microsoft's solution to ASP.NET's MVC conundrum: the aptly named ASP.NET MVC, which is being bundled into the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions library.

Yoink! We got MVC Now!

How does this play into Rails? Well, one could claim that Microsoft's implementation of the MVC pattern and associated URL routing structures are freakishly similar to that of Rails. Like really, really similar. It doesn't really bother me that Microsoft is making ASP.NET MVC mimic Rails. In fact, it's a great indicator that Rails is on the right track (pardon the pun). I just wish they'd go a bit further and implement the concept of Rails Partials and also extend the Microsoft Ajax Javascript Extension library to be more like Prototype.

Hmmm... Why Use ASP.NET?

If you've done much Rails development, you'll quickly discover that the majority of Rails developers out there use a Mac as their development platform and TextMate as their preferred IDE. I recently joined this bandwagon, and I will admit that it's a pretty sweet set up. Damn you, Apple, for making your MacBook Pro's so attractive!

Anyway, so one thing that sucks about Rails development, especially if you're just learning, is you don't have access to the all-knowing Intellisense to help you along. The latest versions of Visual Studio, and by that I mean 2005 and up, have some very kick ass, easy-to-use Intellisense that helps out not only with .NET code but with CSS and Javascript. Of course, TextMate has the concept of Bundles, which are very powerful, but basically require memorization of Hotkeys to be useful. There's also the NetBeans IDE for Rails, which has some decent Intellisense, but nothing on par with Visual Studio's.

Another thing .NET has going for it is its immediate availability of "Enterprisey" level things, such as message queuing and transaction scopes. It's also great for working with old Com Objects and the like (*shudder*) This comparison post has more details on the subject.

Another situation in which Rails would be a weak choice: say you need to create a new web app that talks to an old legacy database. The Rails ORM, ActiveRecord, is built around the assumption that your database will be created in parallel with the Rails application and follow a strict set of naming conventions. You're going to run into some major setbacks if you try to use Rails for this scenario. However, with ASP.NET, you can easily use ADO.NET to handle this problem much more quickly and efficiently.

I certainly won't claim to know every situation in which one framework might is better suited than the other. Leave a comment if you can point one out!

Rails Vs. ASP.NET Wrap Up!

I could keep going on this subject, but I'm going to stop myself here. I've talked a lot about the problems I've experienced with ASP.NET and a number of the reasons why I believe Rails is currently a far superior web framework. If I had to slim it down to 3 reasons why Rails is better, they would be:

• Integrated ORM
• Convention over Configuration
• Integrated Javascript Library

If you're currently a hardcore ASP.NET dev, like I used to be, I greatly encourage you to take a look at Rails and play around with it a bit - I guarantee it will be an eye-opening experience. Actually, you might not want to; once you get a taste of Rails, you'll likely not want to go back!

In a day of hardcore deliberating and conjugating, we at BrightMix decided to lease a very cool, very sweet, very retro-awesome office space! You can read more about it on the here.

Interestingly, we originally saw this office space by stumbling across this site, which showcases renovations done by the dudes of the DivvyCollective. These guys put in some serious blood, sweat, and tears to tear up this building's old asbestos-laden tile floor, tear down its crappy drop ceiling, cover up some gross 1970's-doctor's-office paint job, and a bunch of other improvements.

It turns out, despite all that work, that they've decided to split up and go their separate ways. Fortunately for us, we've been in business just long enough to be able to afford to start leasing a space.

Stay tuned to this blog (or the BrightMix blog) for pictures of our move-in and an online tour, of sorts.

If you missed it, check out Part 1 of my Rails VS ASP.NET series.

At first, I didn't understand what that phrase meant. Convention over Configuration? I guess I'm a little dense sometimes. At some point, it finally clicked. Suffice to say, ASP.NET has a whole lot of configuration, but not a lot of convention.

Before I go any further, here are the components I see as being integral to Web 2.0 development.

• An ORM tool
• Unit testing framework
• Ajax library/Interface
• Javascript Extension Framework

Rails has all of the above components integrated into its framework. Each component is very well constructed and integrate seamlessly with each other, making for a very slick, easy, and, most importantly, productive developer experience.

ASP.NET, on the other hand, currently only bolsters the ajax and javascript components. which I have issue with. It's not bundled with an ORM or unit testing framework.

Side Note:
Far too many of the ASP.NET developers I've run into don't know what an ORM tool is or what a unit testing framework does. If you're one of these developers, please, please, please!, For the good of your fellow programmers and your profession, educate yourself on ORM's and Unit Testing technologies, ASAP. No one will laugh at you, I promise. We all used to be "that guy."

Yo, What Does This Have to Do With Convention?

Patience, I'm getting there! So, there are plenty of 3rd party frameworks out there to overcome the ORM/Unit Testing deficits in ASP.NET. For unit testing, we have MBunit, NUnit/NUnitAsp, et al. and for ORM's we have LLBLGEN pro, Castle ActiveRecord, NHibernate, et al. The list goes on and on. The result of all this diversity is a very separated and divided developer community. Some developers like to use LLBLGEN, others prefer Nhibernate, and more often than not, the Nhibernate guys hate the LLBLGEN guys (I don't get it!). While all of this diversification is neat because it gives us developers a lot of options, it sucks bad because it introduces a huge amount of configuration complexities.

A Confession...

We're entirely guilty of this at BrightMix. Example: for our ASP.NET projects, we typically use LLBLGEN for our ORM, MBunit as our Unit testing framework, a mix of 3rd party controls (fckeditor, obout controls, nvelocity, et. al.), and an MVC-esque framework that we rolled ourselves.

This setup is cool because:

• it's highly configured for us
• we can crap out a new ASP.NET web application pretty damn quickly.

This set up is crappy because:

• 3rd party stuff usually costs money, at least most good 3rd party stuff
• configuration and integration of 3rd party stuff requires a lot of time and understanding
• pretty much no convention

I wonder... of all the ASP.NET developers out there, what percent of them are using a configured set up similar to ours? My guess is probably not very many.

So, Why is Convention Good?

Imagine you're in charge of hiring some ASP.NET developers. Your team uses one of the many ORM and unit testing frameworks out there, a custom MVC framework, and some other miscellaneous add-ons. What you'll find is that most ASP.NET developers have never even heard of your 3rd party stuff, let alone used it. No, the reality is you will have to teach a newly hired ASP.NET developer the in's and out's of your configuration, which is probably going to take a long, long time. The more configuration, the longer it will take.

With RoR, this conundrum is practically eliminated. 99% of Rails developers will know how to use the standard issue ORM, unit testing, and javascript / ajax libraries with which rails is bundled. Talk about a time saver.

I just read through this post after writing it, and it appears as though I have a lot of bad things to say about ASP.NET, and I, inadvertently, have a lot of good things to say about Rails. Blarg! Maybe I'm just bitter after working with ASP.NET for so long and seeing (and writing) so much terrible, crappy code.

Well, my next post in this series will talk about the future of ASP.NET, which gives me a glimmer of hope for ol' Microsoft.

My Roots

My initial plunge into the world of web development started with classic ASP about 3 years ago. I'm sure most developers out there would agree that Classic ASP is not so awesome anymore. Imagine putting VBScript, HTML, and SQL code in a blender, hitting liquefy, and pouring the contents into a ".asp" file. That's, in a nutshell, how most of the classic ASP that I worked with looked. (Obviously, not all classic ASP is this terrible.)

Shortly after doing ASP work for a few months, I was introduced to ASP.NET. I quickly discovered that ASP.NET totally kicked classic ASP's ass; it provided all sorts of cool server-side controls and the power of the .NET framework. Couple that with some tight integration into Visual Studio, and here's what you have:

	AND
ASP.NET (BMW Z4)		Classic ASP (Rusted Junk Box)

A year later, Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0 came out and made things even sweeter. A number of outstanding issues in Visual Studio 2003 and ASP.NET 1.1 were addresses and plenty of cool new enhancements were added. How could things get any better? I had become a stanch ASP.NET supporter.

Along comes Rails

Chad Fowler suggests that we developers should try to learn at least one new programming language per year. Not because we may be using a new programming language at your day job, but because it will broaden our minds and give us new perspective and insight into solving problems.

This is exactly what happened to me. I used Ruby on Rails (RoR) to create a web-based IRC-like chatting app. After learning the in's and out's of RoR, I've since returned to writing ASP.NET, frequently finding myself working on a piece of code and thinking, "how would I do this in rails?" More often than not, I end up perturbed and unsatisfied, knowing that rails would allow for a simpler and cleaner solution. Blarg!

Without going into all of the technical details, I've concluded that RoR's is superior to ASP.NET in that it:

• has a true model/view/controller (MVC) implementation
• is way better at handling Ajax requests
• can cleanly handle URL rewriting
• has as a sweet ORM tool, ActiveRecord, baked right into the framework
• requires little-to-no initial configuration
• built-in testability
• makes it more difficult for the developer to write crappy, inelegant code (note: it does not eliminate the possibility.)

I'll talk be talking about the Convention over Configuration in my next post in this series

Standing in "the office"

Monday was my first day of self-employment for my business, BrightMix.

What can I say? It was pretty rad. I got up at around 10, showered, and put on some comfortable clothes. As you can see, this is the living room in my house, which is decked out in a sweet, new laminate floor not too long ago. The way the desks are setup, it looks kind of like the bridge of a ship in Star Trek. 

We left to go purchasing office-type supplies, but realized, after getting to Sam's Club, that we didn't really need anything other than a white board. Speaking of whiteboards, we decided to make our own, rather than spending $50 on a tiny, crappy white board from Office Max. As this guide indicates, Making your own isn't hard, plus it's considerably cheaper! I'll be posting pictures of the final product soon.

 
The BrightMix Lounge

Will my Lifestyle change considerably?

I'm curious to see how some of my day to day habits conform to this new style of work. Things like:

• sleeping
• eating
• napping
• working
• entertainment

Thus far, I've been sleeping longer, but also working more... I'll note any more observations as they appear.

Alright, this is just a little strange to me... nearly everyone I've talked to about my quitting my job has congratulated me. Ironically, the same people congratulated for accepting the job I'm about to quit.

But anyway, so what's the deal? Am I being congratulated for politeness' sake? For creating a company? For having the cajones to up and quit my cushy corporate job?

Some Intestinal Fortitude is Required

About six months ago, Dusty and I started throwing around the idea of quitting our jobs and making a go of it. It was a scary thought for me back then. But, as time progressed, I became less and less frightful. In fact, it started to make more and more sense.

Some Preparations that Reduced Fear and Risk...

• I started saving money 6 months ago in preparation. I have enough saved that I could rough it for around 6 months without making a dime; it's a nice "oh shit" buffer.
• We formulated a few solid software "product" ideas. No formal documentation or anything, but they're ventures that we'd be able to immediately begin work on and probably see quick results.
• Running some actual numbers to determine how much cash flow we would need to maintain our current lifestyles.
• Finding clients, contacts, and even lining up some contract work prior to quitting.
• Last but not least, knowing that starting our own business would be exciting, adventurous, and (hopefully, at some point) lucrative!

What's your story?

As I talk to people who are clearly unhappy employees, I can't help but wonder how many of you are unhatched entrepreneurs. Granted, it's clearly not a profession for everyone. If you're on the fence, or even considering it, I ask you: do you really want to go through life without ever trying the entrepreneurial lifestyle? Worst case scenario, you fail and have to go back to being an employee - whoopty doo.

After a lot of deliberating, debating, planning, perusing, and pontificating, my buddy DustyD and I have decided to start software development company named BrightMix.

Dusty's last day working for Aureus will be this Friday, and I've informed my employer of my intent to sometime in the mid-August.

It's with a heavy heart that I plan to leave my friends and colleagues at Securities America. But, alas, my aching to get out on my own, plus a handful of hot, time-sensitive opportunities, has convinced me (and Dusty) to move forward. I'm making every effort I can to see that my departure from Securities America is as painless as possible--easier sad than done.

Words from the Wise

Pretty much everything I've read from the multitude of startup authors out there indicates that our venture will:

• Be more work than we are anticipating
• Provide us with a freakish amount of experience
• Make us feel alive!

Business Strategy

For our first 6-12 months, we will be primarily doing consulting/contract programming work. This will be an effort to stockpile cash. After that, we want to focus on developing a web-based product and/or service that will generate recurring income for us. Our plan here is to quickly implement a number of small projects, study how they do, and then focus on developing the projects that seem to have the best future.

We want to avoid the lure of Consulting

Contract/Consulting work can be highly lucrative with high dollar-per-hour rates, but we do not want to focus on this type of work; it just doesn't scale well. Plus, if the work dries up, you got no monies--Boo that! I think it's really easy to get sucked into the contract/consulting game because it really is easy money. However, will only go so far.

On the To-Do List:

• Talk with an accountant and/or lawyer to determine some of the inner financial workings and get the company officially declared.
• Update the company Web site and blog to actually contain some relevant stuff.
• Get a stellar logo.
• Set up an "office" (most likely candidate --> my sweet living room).
• Get some initial work contracts hammered out so we can begin working.
• Have a BrightMix Begins party.
• Give everyone at party high fives!

Exciting times, indeed!

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the whole concept of being an employee vs. being a freelancer/entrepreneur/dude who does what he wants. This mindset, perception, whatever you want to call it it, is new to me.

I mean, there are plenty of books out there on the subject of entrepreneurship, and I've read a few. But, I always felt this sneaking suspicion that the authors are just trying to make some phat ca$h. After I'd finish reading them, I'd be all, "man, I'm so pumped to go start my own business." But then I'd realize that I didn't even know where to begin!

The big thing with entrepreneurial blogs is...

Blog authors aren't selling their stuff. Their material is entirely out in the open, free for anyone to gaze upon. Maybe that's what makes them so powerful. In fact, it wasn't until I started browsing around the entrepreneurial blogosphere that I truly began to consider this as an option for my own career. 

Blogs like Steve Pavlina, Matt Inglot, Seth Godin, and the amazing Trizle.com have impacted me big time. I really admire these people. But, then again, how can I not? They're doing what they love to do (at least most of the time, I'm guessing), they're in control of their career, and they're probably making some good cash in the process. Although, I'm sure if you asked them if it was about the money, they would tell you no; it's just sweet side effect. Other obvious perks you have as your own "boss": setting your own schedules, deadlines, vacation time, etc.

Ah. Wouldn't that be sweet.

As for me, I don't know what to do right now. I enjoy my job for corporate America fairly well. My coworkers are fun and awesome, and most days I look forward to going to work. Which is definitely a step up from getting up the morning and absolutely dreading going to work (been there and done that). But, I have a yearning to be more than just a dude who works for Corporate America.

It's a classic story. It's hard to just be happy where you're at; as they say, the grass is always greener on the other side, or in another field, or however the saying goes. I feel the only way I'm going to progress quickly and be truly satisfied with my "job" is by starting up my own gig.

If you're a coworker of mine...

Do not freak out. I'm not planning to walk in and quit tomorrow or anything sudden!

I'll be making more posts along these lines in the near future...