428 karma · joined October 28, 2012
After a few years building/maintaining a similar library I've found the key is simplifying peoples lives but making sure they can still do 'everything'.
Does Nightwatch implement the entire WebDriver JsonWire protocol or just the bits needed for the provided actions?
Cool stuff
In short, if anyone is paying that much in taxes they are very much doing it wrong... and I kind of doubt people are.
I had prepared an example that showed you could actually pay less in FICA, while still being reasonable in the eyes of the IRS. Maybe not ideal to post it here though.
Balance is important here as the IRS watches these situations closely, but any decent accountant should help someone down this path.
Moreover its important that people who decide to contribute in this way (teachers, mentors, etc) feel like they are helping a group they care deeply about and/or can identify with.
Having said that I do wish we had more events targeting all kinds of youth with the goal of changing the mentality of future developers/engineers. If they learn in diverse groups (including some level of age diversity, preferably) I feel they'd have a better shot at creating a 'new normal' for the future.
It entirely depends on the image you're looking to present for yourself. If you are comfortable with being a smoker and people judging you and your company by that, then by all means continue.
There are some that will judge you poorly in any circle but a majority likely will not care.
My only advice is don't look to others/the culture to justify a behavior. In the end it has to be your decision and you have to own it. I think most people would be surprised by the number of their peers who have made this choice.
How creative do you expect you'll have to get in a space that size?
As problem spaces expand beyond our current hardwares ability, we start distributing it until a new wave of equipment becomes available and we start labeling our predecessors idiots for having ever built something so complex.
While the Windows/.NET stacks may not provide as many pre-built solutions to handle 'big data' (a term I'm growing to hate), I have worked with tons of competent developers who have been able to build solutions to answer exactly the kinds of questions you propose.
I've seen it done with SQL Server Reporting Services, Analysis Services and even straight custom C# code. I've seen it done with Hadoop + streaming API, StreamInsight (CEP rather than post processing) and custom Workflows in WF.
As for your other statements that are just built to jump on the 'hate Microsoft' bandwagon, just because a single large company doesn't iterate fast enough to keep up with the rest of the OSS landscape doesn't mean that .NET didn't have options available to it. Nancy provides great REST capabilities and has existed since 2010. Devs were building REST services with Microsoft's ASP.NET MVC during the same period. Others were using WCF REST (not great, but usable) at the same point as well. WCF Data Services was another option.
ORMs.. Theres the ever-expanding Entity Framework (which I don't love), NHibernate and many many others.
Lets not just jump in and bash MS because you've only worked with bad developers using their stuff.
Honestly, I've had a fear of being 'Colin' for years.. that if I were to be gone one day, all people I come in contact with, besides family and friends, would remember are the inconsequential things about me. Its an ego thing I'm sure -- that I feel I should be remembered.
I make an effort to have some real impact on as many people as I can. Something they would remember. I have no idea if I've been successful. All anyone really wants is to do something meaningful.
I hope that Colin had a great group of people outside work that could memorialize him properly.
For .NET users, FluentAutomation (http://fluent.stirno.com/) is a good option. Works in regular tests or with scriptcs .csx files. Can automate any of the Se supported browsers, including PhantomJS very easily with short, readable commands.
I've seen this directly in the food service industry (including at one company in that graphic) where companies don't share suppliers, shipping routes, real estate, etc. where they could be having significant cost savings and simplified logistics.
I wonder how much of this pops up in other groups.
On windows we have Chocolatey available to help with application-level package management, granted you need to install it first but I would argue thats not much different than needing to add a PPA or new apt source before apt can install the right app/version you're looking for..
@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Command "iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%systemdrive%\chocolatey\bin
ugly command, but it works.
Then:
cinst [x]
It isn't perfect but its getting better. No UIs launched, all done via console. Handles adding items to the path, handles portable executables, etc.
NuGet is great, apart from a few issues and has been in that state for quite some time. Not sure why we require things to be good for a decade before we're ready to talk kindly about them without the air quotes.
There are a ton of tools for scripting .NET builds but the real trick is that most people don't need to do anything 'special'.
msbuild Solution.sln or msbuild Project.csproj
Your project files can include any number of pre/post build targets to handle any scenario you can imagine. Again, not perfect but manageable. If this isn't to your liking you can use all the build tools for other languages if you like.. Many people like Rake as a general purpose tool and others have done the work of providing msbuild integration there for you.
Your .csproj file is built for you by Visual Studio (or by hand if you wish) and from there you can add much of what you need for your builds. I have worked on several very very large codebases for enterprise projects and there has never been any serious amount of 'boilerplate' to setup for builds.
What about Continuous Integration and Deployment? Microsoft didn't build one for a while (not sure if they've built one and baked it into TFS) and y'all have to rely on CruiseControl or TeamCity or Bamboo or something else.
For CI, you can use TFS if you wish (really, really easy to do but somewhat limited in its ease of customization), or Jenkins, TeamCity, CC, Bamboo, whatever.. Its the same for any language. Pick a CI tool, install it, use it. Hardly a weakness of one platform over another.
As far as deployment, that depends on the type of application you're building. Could be as easy as a git push that deploys to Azure/AppHarbor or it could by a PowerShell script or possibly a ClickOnce deployment. Any one of these can be triggered from the VS IDE.
I recently interviewed a senior .NET developer who said to me that he deploy his ASP.NET project from VS.NET IDE (like y'know... hitting F5 or something) to the Production server!
Certainly this must be the norm then. Capability to deploy from the IDE is great for testing but the same things are available for scripting to put in a real deployment process.
Let's take it a little bit further: Docker and Vagrant are useful tools for automation testing. Docker doesn't exist in Windows. Preparing Vagrant for Windows require you to have licenses and probably you have to figure out how to script software installation (you could cheat a little bit by preparing a Windows OS + a base software installed). Compare that to Ubuntu on Vagrant: breezy.
Yes, containers are great. Windows doesn't have them in the sense that Linux does with LXC. Vagrant can and does work well on Windows. The licensing situation isn't as you think though for most .NET devs - they are likely working with MSDN provided software which provides licenses. As for scripting installs, again - chocolatey. Vagrant + chef is a win on any platform. I do wish it worked with Hyper-V client services properly though.
At the end of the day: you cannot automate the process of calling a Sales person in order to get the software, which, in the F/OSS world, such workflow doesn't exist.
At the end of the day: people believe what they want to believe. Windows as a platform is incredibly capable. Its not perfect and it can't compete on every level but it is getting better constantly.
I work with Windows daily - using .NET, Node.js, Ruby, Python and more. I also work with Linux daily doing the same things. The biggest issues I encounter have more to do with package developers using non-portable code than anything.
Great job by the author
Corporations act like using the word 'Agile' instantly brings the benefits of flexible planning and proper management to a team.
Most people never really interact with a proper agile process - its kind of a unicorn in the development world.
The failure is not necessarily the process but the managers not understanding that it isn't a silver bullet. It is often used as an excuse to delay requirements gathering or understanding of requested features from stakeholders. This leads to churn and failure.
A lack of understanding of how to do something on a very different OS != you can't do it.
I very much dislike PowerShell personally but its incredibly capable in modern versions of windows. We use it with Chef to automate our server configuration/setup.
It was trivial to implement the REPL functionality using scriptcs - Huge props to the team on that one.
Good interviews will be focused on things you've actually done with the tech along with common knowledge items that show you've used them.
Past that lots of places like to talk general programming questions for the technical bits, so be prepared for stuff that might be a bit outside your normal day to day work like data structures/algorithms you don't have to think about in lots of langs.
Personally for an interview I just prepare myself to think clearly under pressure. The best interviews involve actually doing something, whether it be whiteboarding your thought process through an algorithm or actually writing some code. Just relax and focus.
Edit: Looked closer at the library, if he just added dark-mid or light-mid styles when close, the user can implement the appropriate visual differentiator. Should be good.
As an aside, I've always wondered whether there are potential legal complications involved with these kinds of awards. A group I was involved in had to forego a monetary gift and instead we awarded tickets/transportation because of some fear mongering related to local laws within our board.
Not sure what the case would be here. IANAL, but would be very interested to hear opinions from one on this topic.
Again, its a great thing to do.