Micosoft Action Pack

Just received this querters action pack. It is quite a list of software for SMB markets.
I hope to check this out soon. I think I received about 80 DVD. Enough for holidays.
More on this later

SQL Server 2005 Express for Developers

I just Received The book-

1.0 Sql Server 2005 Express for Developers- Apress -ISBN-1-590059-720-6
I will comment about the content, However quite a lot of the stuff is still in MSDN and Code Project.


2.0 Also Picked up the Lion's Commentary on Unix- The classic Text- I always wanted to buy this one but was out of print.

And thirdly

1.0 Execution- The Discipline of Getting Things Done- NYT Best Seller-ISBN- 0-609-61057-0
I definitely need this book. To keep me focused on getting some thing done every hour.( This is true)

Enterprise Architecture

I am just going over the Book
A practical Guide to Enterprise Architecture- ISBN 0-13-141275-2
I am trying out some of the ideas with Ea-7.0 of Sparkworks.
Details on this wll be posted soon.
A side note, some of these books may be avilable in google library, please look into that.

I have the objective to keep this blog FAT-Free. Please let me know if you would like to publish and participate in postings.

Building Large Systems at Google

This is a must see Web cast- building Large systems at Google.

1.0 Building Large Systems at Google
2.0 Making Great Decisions
3.0 Developing Applications with Ajax( Next Generation Asp.net)


I would like to have your feedbacks on these webcasts.

Google Maps: Is the Earth a Sphere or Ellipsoid?

Google Maps sees the Earth as a Spheroid, not an Ellipsoid. This came up through a discussion on the PROJ mailing list and I thought it was interesting to point out how Open Source can even handle projected lat/long systems (such as Google Maps) using a very familiar tool called cs2cs.

Christoper Schmidt wrote about it on his blog and also on his blog he points out the EPSG code to use. The magical number for the Google Mercator Projection (of a lat/long grid based on a sphere) is: 900913

Now onto the fun, showing how we can use Open Source to have our data show within a KML project and Google Maps.

Quoting from Frank's FAQ, he provides an excellent example, we see the following the use of cs2cs:

"cs2cs +proj=latlong +datum=WGS84
+to +proj=merc +a=6378137 +b=6378137 +lat_ts=0.0 +lon_0=0.0
+x_0=0.0 +y_0=0 +k=1.0 +units=m +no_defs"

Notice the sphere is being used? a=b

Because we are dealing with a sphere, the Y values will be greatly different from those on an ellipsoid (30 to 100 metres or more).

Quoting Frank again:

"In this case, and many other cases using spherical projections, the desired approach is to actually treat the lat/long locations on the sphere as if they were on WGS84 without any adjustments when using them for converting to other coordinate systems. The solution is to "trick" PROJ.4 into applying no change to the lat/long values when going to (and through) WGS84. This can be accomplished by asking PROJ to use a null grid shift file for switching from your spherical lat/long coordinates to WGS84.

cs2cs +proj=latlong +datum=WGS84
+to +proj=merc +a=6378137 +b=6378137 +lat_ts=0.0 +lon_0=0.0
+x_0=0.0 +y_0=0 +k=1.0 +units=m +nadgrids=@null +no_defs

Note the strategic addition of +nadgrids=@null to the spherical projection definition"

As you can see the value of Open Source and the mailing list and Open Source software is that people are sharing knowledge - whether it be via blogs, lists, or some other means of communication. There is a community out there that supports each other. These are actual users facing everyday problems and looking for solutions. The answers do exist, just the question has to be asked, and the community comes together to help.

Why not share experiences?

Hi blog members,
Our count is reached to 31, thats why sharing our day to day experiences in any field of Software Engineering would be very beneficial to all of us and to other blog readers.

I shall soon start writing my experiences over here, hope you too will do the same.

Regards.

Software Metrics: function points and lines of code

I have read a lot of papers and books that try to relate funtion points and lines of code.
The final step is always a big table with the lines of code for function point in every language.

Then the thesys is that is possible to derive the "effort" in man/month, given the fp count and the derived program dimension.

I think that there is a big mistake. In my experience to deliver 1M of lines of code I have to develop 1.5M of lines, and as my program get older, I still deliver 1M of LOCS, continuing to produce new lines that replace the old one.

A stronger example: as I develop new lines to correct errors, the User Manual (and the user interface) is always the same!

The real effort is related to LoC that I write, that are more then LoC that I deliver.

Agile Testing Video on You Tube

I think these are interesting videos on agile/model/scrum based testing.
1.0 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3054974855576235846
2.0 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5521890509476590796
3.0 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7230144396191025011&q=scrum&total=936&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0


I am working on a larger topic of testing and agile-testing in particular. Any technical contribution and direction will be appreciated.

Open Source Managed Services

Is there any open source Managed Services Software to maintain software at client computer, or deliver tutorial at customer's site. Any pointers will be appreciated.

I have tried VNC and Tight VNC, they are great but requires firewall changes, anything that will not involve touching fire wall will be great.

Membership to This Blog

Send me Email if you want to join this Blog. My email is keensoftware@gmail.com.
I would also like your views on management and posting.
I personally would like a balance between academic world and Implementation world.

Linkedin Software Engineering Blog

What are the most important topics tht we should discuss in Linkedin Software Engineering Topics.
Should we have different format/blogsite for this.
We need to discuss these in details

Agile Developmt- XP and Scrum

Agile Developmet is the defacto way of developing software for small business in my view. Heavy duty modeling and CMMI compliance is good but may not be practical for small development teams.

There are couple of things to consider if you are working on an agile development, if some of your team are out-sourced to India and Romania. How do you keep the communication open and yet get development done a reasonable pace.
The answer to this is to adopt SCRUM methodology and use a tool such as JIRI and Ontract Software Development tools.

More on this later.

Ecommerce and ASP.NET 2.0

I just picked up a a couple of books from apress and looking through the MSDN webcasts of the ASP.NET related stuff.

Couple of them that I like are:
http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/Default.aspx

http://www.cristiandarie.ro/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/beginner/learningpath/

I still have issues related ASP.NET 1.1 and ASP.NET 2.0 working on the same machine. Actually I am looking at some of the solutions in www.codeproject.com


Incidentally summer is here and today it is 19 degree centigrade.

Macromedia Studio 8 Suite of tools

We just installed amcromedia 8 suite of tools.
and right after that, I upgraded the IE6 to I& and macromedia contribute stopped working.
Luckily , adobe had a work around.

Also I am not too happy to see that Freehand has been droped from MX to version 8.
more on this later.

Design Patterns

I am please to find that design patterns are geting accepted in the embeded design industry like EDA giant Mentor Graphics. Also I am very please to note that design patterns are part of the original release of the Enterprise Architect of SparxSystems.

However in the .net community Hummel and others are trying to promote this in MSDN architecture webcat. I am not sure about the local .net activity in this area.

Archived Webcast for Visual Studio

I have always found the materials for Jim Hummel useful when it comes to VS.net programming.
Here is the Link
http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/modernsoftdev.mspx

I will request you to post other sources as well for VS.Net resources.