First steps in Silverlight

Unless you are living (and working) under a rock, if you are a .NET developer, you must have come across the word Silverlight in the past few months. In a nutshell, “Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web”.

I have attended a few presentations about Silverlight recently, and was really impressed by the results. The thing is, demos ARE designed to look good – what they are not designed for is to show you the limitations of the technology. You will find that part on your own, when you start actually using it. I was pretty impressed by what Silverlight could do - I thought it was time for me to check out what Silvelight would actually do for me, on a real example. You can see the final result here.

An introduction to Test-Driven Development

Last week, I gave a short talk on Test-Driven Development, in C#, using NUnit, at the Silicon Valley Code Camp 2007. I was initially planning on posting the slides I presented, but it seemed to me that the dynamics of the process were getting lost, so I opted for a step-by-step tutorial, following essentially the code I wrote during the session.

I will follow-up shortly with another tutorial centered specifically on setting up and using NUnit, and then a few more on slightly more advanced questions. This first installement is aimed at C# developers who are not familiar with Test-Driven Development - and my objective is to provide you with the essential elements you need to get started, in an hour or so!

Silicon Valley Code Camp 2007

The schedule of Silicon Valley Code Camp 2007 is now official. Code Camp is a free conference by and for the developer community. Speakers volunteer their time and everyone attends for free. It's a place to learn, to network and to dig into some code. My session is scheduled on Saturday, October 27, at 5:15; I will be giving a talk on a subject dear to me, Test Driven Development, in C#, using NUnit. I will of course try to Test-Drive the session, which means writing some code live; this is always a perilous exercise - but that is also what is fun! I am also looking forward checking out the other sessions. The line-up this year is great; there are quite a few speakers I have seen and enjoyed through Bay.Net (Juwal Loewy, Chris Mullins, Deborah Kurata, Beth Massi… ), and some I have not seen yet, but with great session topics.

Officially open for business!

Clear Lines Consulting, LLC, is now officially open for business. The website is still under construction, but should be ready by end October.