My Latest Published Article

Pretty exciting having your name all over the web... (as long as its for good reasons)

here is the article

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happy developing.

Here's to you, Penelope Garcia

David Lightman, Neo, The Lone Gunmen, Dave Bowman, Stanly Jobson,  you boys have always had programmers, hackers and computer engineers on TV and in movies to look up to growing up. Well, though we’re in the minority I’ve been inspired by some awesome women on the big and little screen over the years, and it’s time to honor them.

 

When I was 12 I was a very different girl. My first love was a 386 and on it I would play text based RPGs, and tie up my mother’s phone line being the co-sysop of a BBS. That’s why Erica Dansby was someone that changed my life. Ghostwriter was my favorite show, Alex Fernandez was my mega crush. She came on the show as a young hacker that was there to save the day and get the team out of serious trouble with the police. Someone was hacking into the school systems and getting one of their friends in trouble. It took Erica(played by a young Julia Styles) mere minutes to access the problem, there was a hacker and his name was Max Mouse. She wowed the team with her attitude and her knowledge of systems. She bagged the bad guy by outsmarting him with her prowess. Her lingo and look were hot, and Alex definitely took notice. I thought it was awesome that a smart and rebellious girl could get the guy (especially after seeing him all season with that do goody skank Tina).

 

Kate Libby was also a girl who’s attitude and confidence were larger than life. She wowed all the men around her with her knowledge, tools, and sexy style. When she went to a party the whole place stopped and looked, the guys with desire, the girls with envy. As a girl who never got invited to parties or garnered much attention she was the ideal. Smart, and respected, when she whipped out phrases like “God gave men brains larger than dogs' so they wouldn't hump women's legs at cocktail parties” she showed me that nerd girls really have it going on.

 

Quiet Angela Bennet was someone I could really identify with. She was an introvert and didn’t really talk to many people. Her only friend was her mom, but she loved that computer. She was such a good programmer that she worked from her home receiving instructions by way of emails and disks in the mail (hmm, that’s kind of my life now). When she broke some secrets on a disk she received she was in big trouble. She had everything taken away from her, but that didn’t stop her. She went on the run and escaped multiple law enforcement agencies. She never gave up and she got her life back, she was a little emotional on the way but that allowed me to really relate to her. In the end she used her brains, she was brave and she won.

 

I firmly believe that every self respecting  nerd once had a crush on Mulder or Scully. Mulder was a dream bucket, he was clever and funny and nerdy and broody and all that was right with the world. When Esther Nairn fell in his life she was like a sexy tornado destroying everything in its way. She was a hot young programmer who was on the crew that finally developed AI (yeah, a GIRL). She was on the run from the program who was monitoring phone lines and web correspondence trying to find her. Her wisdom and quick thinking are the only things that keep the gang out of trouble when the AI starts targeting Mulder and Scully after figuing out they were out to destroy it. In the end of the episode she actually bonds her consciousness with the AI and lives the rest of her days in cyber space. Rock on.

 

So I’m a grown up now, and can’t really mold my life in the direction of fictional characters, but there is one more girl that I just have to mention. I don’t know if any of you watch the show Criminal Minds on CBS but I freakin love it, Crominal Profiling, the FBI, serial killers, all the things that are mmorbidly interesting. Well there is this kick ass chick on the show named Penelope Garcia. Panelope dropped out of CalTech when she lost her parents in a car crash. She then got herself to the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted Hackers list. They thought she was so awesome that they wanted her on their team, so they recruited her. She has an AWESOME lab and whenever a member of the BAU team needs ANYTHING they call her. Any system there is she can get into, not some guy HER. That’s who I want to be, so me and Penelope spend Tuesday nights together me in my living room and her representing on the little screen.

Dev Diary 05/25

So, it's Saturday night and it's a weekend and I'm home. I was going to go out tonight but my best friend was hung over so we are going out tomorrow. So, for fun I am dealing with "External Component has thrown an Exception" (While watching Black Snake Moan)

So there are these user controls that are set up to make a template that can be edited per section. You can add images to sections and delete them. Most of the templates have 7 or 8 sections. I need to add one that has nine. The names of the sections (or numbers, rather) are stored in the database. So, when the page is loaded the control is populated according to how it is stored. I have set up this control just like the others, yet I'm getting the above error. I threw on profiler and it's not even gettting to the query, so it has something to do with the control coming up on the page. I suspect it may not like the fact that there is an extra section, so I am commenting out section nine and seeing if it loads then.

Tomorrow I think I am going to the beach, so I ought to get in some sleep soon. However, I want to test this one last thing. This all needs to be good to go by Tuesday so I'd rather fix it now then later, there are other things that need fixing as well.

Have a happy holiday.

Five good reasons to stay away from third party applications (even open source ones)

So, I’ve been wrestling with this third party app  that’s been acting up for a few days now. It has been really frustrating. Enough for me to ask several times why it didn’t get completely developed in-house.  Looking at it there is no reason for it not to have been done by one developer. It is some linkbuttons and some pretty colors and borders that are dynamically created by metadata. Its been really annoying blindly trying to get past some of these bugs. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me when using payware OR freeware. In the future, I plan on staying as far away as possible. Here are the reasons why.I think you should too:

 

You didn’t make it – Duh. I mean, you think its not that big of a deal, that code is code (or apps are apps) but think of how you feel when you’re sitting in front of a brand new application. The learning curve that is behind debugging something you didn’t build with your own fingers is a chore. When you understand an application you may not know exactly what’s causing the bug, but you know generally where to look and have a much better idea why it may be happening.

Email support packages – Nothing is worse than an email support package (except for maybe a smoke signal support package) ESPECIALLY when you are dead in the water either in production or development. Waiting that “1-3 business days” between questions and answers is torture. Especially when they don’t get your question the first time, or when their answer isn’t the solution…. It can go on for weeks and its extremely tedious. Phone support packages can be dreadfully expensive, upwards of $1000. It’s a tough call to make not knowing just how much you will be using this package. Of course as developers (personally, I like “web-hero”) we say things like “no, don’t buy the package. Its too much to pay, this is open source so if it blows up I can fix it.”

Sales people – Listen, I don’t hate sales people. Some of my best friends are in sales (seriously, if you need a Pitbull Tire Lock let me know. They are great security for your vehicle, and the bonus is they have the hottest sales girl…..pretty much ever). That in mind, we all know they make LOTS of promises. Can your application be used with 1.1? Sure! Can I integrate this while keeping my high security model? Definitely! Will your program make my code infallible? Of course! I have been mislead several times only to get an email support message that says something like “Oh, we apologize for the confusion, that’s not supported in this version. However, it is in development and will be made available with our next release.”

We don’t support that application anymore – You want to think that your application is so cutting edge that it would only incorporate the latest and greatest but you have to admit these little companies that produce integratable applications are popping up in alarming rates. Just as scary, they are disappearing just as fast. Do you want to pay $3000 for a feature that breaks in a year and there is no one to email about it? (You can email me, but I will only say “Told you.”)

Ugly Code – I was taught to take pride in things I create, to make sure everything matches and has similar structure. To pay attention to patterns and conventions in order to make a smooth and agile application. To produce a product in which any decent developer can sit down and say “Wow, this is very self explanatory.” Now you’re taking someone else’s stuff and just slapping it in there. Not only that but a lot of times companies don’t care what the code looks like, just that it works. Today I got to edit things like “LinkButton8” and “Label29”. If Project Awesome was something I created myself it would make me physically ill to see these things polluting up my legacy. Like putting dirty clothes on your children, it may make them look better than nothing, but it’s still pretty bad.  

There are some really awesome products out there that can make your web app shiny and flashy, and believe me I like these things. You have to think, though, if someone else did it, so can you. I think 90% of the time it's a better investment of your time to do-it-yourself, you just may learn something. Sometimes, like in the case of PA (Project Awesome) there may be one developer working alone and it’s just not realistic time wise to do all these things on your own. I guess my only advice (if you must) is to thoroughly research each tool before you buy it  utilize free trials, and speak to the developers before giving them company money. After all, it’s only your code and schedule that will suffer if you choose unwisely.

 

 

 

 

TAH-DAH

So, after 8 hours of desk buiilding (thanks, dad). Countless minutes of procrastination, 90249823 cardboard boxes mailed to my house (if I wasn't blond and blue you best believe I would be on the hot list), and about 2 hours of my own backbreaking labor and I'm done! I think my pseudo-office rules. The only thing I am missing is my speakers which I am getting in the next week or so. Here are some pictures:

from the left:

 

close up

chillin out maxin'

from above:

another angle:

in action using the "kissy face" development methodology:

So yay team! Right now I am plowing away bug fixing and simultaneously rocking out to Akinyele on XM65 the Rhyme. Happy developing!

Dev Diary 5/20

So, I finally got over a hump in the application today with some help from a friend. I was going nuts because I'm used to many projects under one application easily communicating within and without with a few references and that's it. Well this app has a few projects and two separate web sites. I wasn't able to reference the user controls that existed in the same website, something I am not used to. There were circular references from control to control, and it was really frustrating to not be able to just reference them anywhere I wanted. Ended up having to extract the class that was being referenced to the App_Code folder.

 The structure that is being used right now is indigenous to the first release of VS 2005. Apparently, the way it is compiled it is put into multiple assemblies, so even though its one project, it can't refrence itself easily. Really frustrating, I hope to reconstruct the app into a more normail (something I am used to) construction, if for only the reason that it will be a faster way to get things done. Hopefully after a bunch of bug fixes I will have time to make changes like this.

 In other news, my dev office is done! I will post pictures later tonight. It's looking awesome.

In even other news this website is posessed by the devil, it keeps eating my posts. This was much more interesting before, take my word for it.

I'm going to be a rock superstar....

Or, maybe just a bigger nerd.

In the "cool news" category, I sent my last post to the author of the original peice I read here. I got this in return:

 Sara,

Thanks for the well written response to Mike Elgan's column about women in IT. You make some good points.

One of our bloggers, Chris Nerney, will be blogging about your post later today, and will be linking to your blog. You'll see his blog here:

http://blog.datamation.com/blog/

Two questions for you:

1) We'd be interested in reprinting your "Open Letter" article on our site, but only with your permission.

2) A fairly large chunk of our readers are software developers. Would you be interested in writing about life as a software developer? I ask because you have such an upbeat, energetic style, I think your articles would be popular. The pay would be ***edit*** for an article.

regards,

James Maguire

 

Never expected that! Very cool. Here is the blog response. My peice was published here., It was dugg? Then reddited? Then ... well, whatever you get it. Anyway, got a bunch of feedback. My favorite one was "Well, whatever she's still a bitch" my least favorite one was the guy who said I looked like an "average girl". 

Also, this girl, put me on her blog. I don't know what a Smithian is, but I agree, I sound a lot like one. (assuming they are awesome).

So, stay tuned! I would really appreciate some ideas on what to write about! So much pressure to be funny...  Also, I wonder if I'm going to be able to publish articles in two places, or if my GD posts will have to be separate?

In desking news my desk is done!! Hurrah! It took my dad 8 hours. He is a hero in anyone's book. I will be posting pictures as well as dev updates later today.

rock on!

An open letter for girls considering I.T.

I was reading this article the other day and here is the quote that really got to me:

“Rather than telling girls that IT is trendy and fashionable, we should be telling both girls and boys what we really believe to be true: that focusing on being trendy and fashionable is hollow and irrelevant, and that a career in IT is interesting and challenging. The kids who dismiss that argument aren't cut out for IT and shouldn’t be persuaded to devote their careers to it.”

 

 I love being trendy and fashionable. Fashion after being a developer is one of my biggest passions. I am not hollow or irrelevant, I make being a developer kick butt. I put on my BCBGs in the morning and I sit down and program for the rest of the day and both of those things are very fulfilling.

So girls, here are some reasons I think it’s awesome to be a developer and I think you will too:

 

Smart is Sexy- There is nothing like being out with your girls on the weekend and having some hot guy talking to you and the whole “What to you do” question comes up, whether I ask or they just feel like sharing it always goes the same. There is a pause, they look me in the face like they are wondering if I understand big words and say something like “I’m an Architect” or “I’m a Business Analyst”. “Oh” I usually say, “That’s really cool.” Then we will talk about that for a minute then usually they throw the question at me. So, I look them in the eye, and while maintainting contact I say “I’m a software engineer.” Then, when their jaw goes slack a choir of angels in my head sing “BOYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.” Usually I can whip out something relevant to their career like “I guess you must use AutoCAD?”, or if they are in IT as well we usually have great conversations about different systems and concepts. It never fails, I always get, “Wow, I can’t believe I’m talking about this with a girl!”

Nerds are funny-So, remember the guy that sat behind you in High School that made you laugh till you cried all day? Well, he’s a programmer now and he’s still hilarious. Oh yeah, and he’s grown into his nose, got some confidence, and diversified his investments. Think about it.

It’s an art – There is more than one right way to do things usually when designing systems and writing applications. You have to develop your own style and make it unique. Take pride in what you are doing and make it your own. That’s satisfying, you can really express yourself.

Nerds are nice- Listen, these guys actually care about you and your wellbeing more then their killer calves and great tan. When you say something in passing like “I freaking love kobe sliders” they will  make sure there is one left for you when you come out. When you are sick they will bring you Kleenex, lozengers, AND clean your apartment. They wont take advantage if you’re sad and just want to talk. They sincerely want you to be happy.

You’re worth it- It’s an accomplishment when you type a bunch of lines, compile, and it does something awesome. It makes you feel like you’ve made something great, especially when it’s something you’ve never done before.  It makes you feel better about yourself when you’ve made a career out of your knowledge and passion. When you have great developers surrounding you passing on their skill you know they think you can do it too.

 

So girls, I still have a long way to go and a lot of things to learn. I am not on the top of this mountain yet, but I have come really far. Looking back I wouldn’t trade it for the world and doing this was the best decision I have ever made. Girl developers don’t always wear baggy pants and Birkenstocks. They are you, whatever you enjoy, whatever you like. You don’t have to change yourself to be a developer. You get in there and make being a good developer being like you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Google Developers are People Too

First of all, before anything else, am I the only one that's noticed that gmail is still in beta? Man those guys are thorough. I can't wait for RC1 I hear it's going to be really awesome.

So, tonight I was on the intar looking for some blogspiration (yeah, ok you can use that, but you gotta give me the credit) and I happened upon this blog: Gmail Blog I don't know about you, but when I picture the team of people that work for google I see something like this:

I was pleasantly surprised to read the  article that I posted. It was definitely a refresher in basic troubleshooting for slow loading pages. I think this stuff is invaluable for good developers, everyone needs to be reminded sometimes, it's so logical. Caching, monitoring HTTP transactions, and using tools like fiddler is something I would do in my trusty office. To think that Google developers think of the same things I do when trying to make their app speedy makes me like them a lot more. Maybe that's the plan?

This is sad:, there has GOT to be a way to make this profitable and scalable! Even if big companies with bad raps sponser it, like Microsoft or IBM. How much different is it than ball parks sponsered by Citibank and Cisco? Someone do this, please.

Today while working, I realized how dumb it is that you can't insert multiple rows with one insert statement (without a subselect). Then I came upon this article on reddit and saw this will be fixed in 2008. Good going Microsoft, why do so many people hate those guys? Anyway, some educational comparisons in there as well.

Anyway, thanks for all the great feedback, everyone, I really appreciate of your help.

DD Kinda cool...

So, I am still running with my little bug/dev items list. Learning about the application. Basically it takes a dataset with paths to different images and puts them on a PDF by coordinates and a program called SwiftView. The SwiftView program then takes the files and converts them into .pcl files to be printed.

I can imagine that being a difficult engine to write. Also, the comments in the code are very helpful, however there are some things that seem well intentioned but don't make sense. Like the fact that each class has an interface (that only refrences that class) in the same assembly. Maybe one of you can tell me what design method that is, but I can't think of a rational reason to do that. This is in a web service,  that only gets referenced by a local application. Some of it is designed in this manner to be scalable. Some of it because the requirements kept changing. However, some things I just don't get.

There is a balance between bug fixes and dev items. I have often seen this in larger IT departments. I will find this balance for myself. I have also seen it stress out managers.

Still truckin! Project Desk is coming along well too.

Good birthday weekend this weekend. Tell me I don't have some beautiful friends, no???

Dang Dev Diary

So, I have hit the point of real frustration with this project. I always say that “life isn’t about how you act when times are good, it’s about what you accomplish when times are bad.” Does the same apply to programming? Ok, so this isn’t the worst application ever. It CAN do what needs to be done (kind of). However, I have come to realize it’s only half finished, and never was completely functional. It’s a little unnerving because I was excited about making a great application greater, it looks like I have to make a sub par application… par? I have to say this isn’t a knock to the original developer. I know he tried and get done what needed to be done in the time allotted to him.

I really need some serious time to get this project together. I am looking at something called Dev Track for bug tracking? I don’ t have a lot of free time for this stuff because I am quick and dirty hacking it up to get everything operational by the 20^th. So any improvements I’m making on the environment are slow and steady. I have been learning a lot, but it’s hard learning because once I figure one thing out something else is broken.

I’m trying to take a step back and just get whatever progress I can done right now. Once the deadline of the 20^th is past we are meeting to get a list of priorities as far as what comes first. The hard part is that not only are there bug fixes but a backlog of development items. I may need someone else on this besides myself. Debating talking to my boss about that, I know he has the assets and there is this developer that I’ve been working on with short term stuff that seems good at what he does. I have a feeling that with him and I together we can get this thing back on its feet.  

On a different note, Monday was my birthday. I spent a really nice night with a friend and it made me almost not hate getting a year older. Let’s just say I’m getting to the age that “So, are you planning on having kids?” Is a customary question.  As if it takes SKILL to birth children. Me and the ladies are going out tomorrow, I have a killer dress. I will post pictures on Monday.

Have a good weekend!!!

Dev Diary 5/06

Well, its been a few days since I have written anything. I have a lot on my plate the past few days, but thanks to a big break from the original developer being able to identify what was going on with a bug I have a little downtime. YAY TEAM.

I am setting up a rockin home office. I bought a desk and a 22” monitor and an awesome leather chair and speakers and wireless keyboard/mouse. Right now it looks like this:

 

why you ask? Well, I buy this desk from Staples and had it delivered. I don’t know why I expected them to deliver it all put together, but it would have been nice of them. So anyway, I get this big cardboard box delivered into my livingroom, I open it up and there are 2349873247890 pieces and all different types of screws/fasteners/glue/scotch tape/twine….  There was also a 26 page document (that not an exaggeration, there are literally 26 pages) detailing the steps you need to take in putting this together. So, since I don’t have my doctorate in Mechanical Desk Engineering I called my dad who is an architect, therefore more inclined to be good at these things. He came over tonight and spent two hours on it and got it MAYBE a third of the way done. So, hopefully sometime this century it will be finished.

In development news, I was given a list of development items that need to be done in the next week, the PM is very good at organizing these things which is good because of my object oriented cluttered thinking process. They are just small adjustments to the existing model that will allow me to better understand the application. The production and staging servers are still in the process of being created as we have to wait for technicalities and purchase orders to clear. We decided to go with a virtual server for staging. All our work is now being done on the VPCs so with no dev environment and no source control it’s an adventure in creativity keeping things together. This will be remedied soon, though.

As soon as staging gets up I’m throwing the RAM in this baby and making the Vista switch. VS 2008, maybe even SQL Server 2008 if I’m feeling courageous. I’m waiting for staging to be up just in case I’m without an environment for a while. I wonder how hard it is to bring an application from 2.0 to 3.5?

Actually, the biggest challenge I’ve run into has nothing to do with development at all. The biggest challenge for me is the big company tedium of documentation, and detailed emails, and status reports. I’m used to sending emails that say things like “Hey, douchebag, check in your project file” (startups - acctually I think it's more accurate that I may have received that email) . I come from wearing ponte pants, tee shirts, and sneakers to the office. MAYBE showering. Now there are collared shirts and PC humor and Dockers. I really can’t get my mind around how someone decided that your development skill can be determined by the type of pants you wear. However, I guess development skill isn’t what’s important here. “Corporate Image” is. Now, I’m not complaining. I work from home most of the time anyway, it’s a great gig. I was talking with a former co-worker the other day and we were discussing just this. He said that a stipulation he made before accepting his current job was to never have to document, or gussy up, or be forced to do any of these things. I am a bit jealous, I would actually rather just be a code monkey, but I suppose a little structure in my life wont kill me…. I don’t think.  Are these things important for a good career? I don't want to limit myself by not developing that part of my skill set. However, I also don't want to end up as a manager who fills out paperwork and never develops.  

 Anyway, so that’s that. Cat update: his little jaw is healing well. LEETLE JAW. He is wired on the bottom, and the wires come out in 6 weeks. He is being a champ and we make daily trips to the vet for his antibiotic shot.

 

 

 

Silverlight 2.0

Ok, so I went to my first Dev Conference on Thursday night. I was invited by a guy named Paul and you can see his blog here. It was in the Microsoft office in Islin, NJ which is seriously like ½ mile from my office where I just so happened to be on Thursday (I usually work out of my home). So, anyway, I went there and got there early and felt a little weird so I pretended to be busy on my iPhone. A friend of mine told me that a lot of the girls that go to these things are recruiters. I tried to look as technical as possible and as uninterested in hiring people as I could. I can’t forget to mention there was free pizza.

 

So, anyway, let’s talk about Silverlight 2.0. Before the conference I heard it described as “Microsoft’s answer to Flash.” That made me wonder why so many developers were interested, but I got it after the “seminar?” It’s Microsoft Flash ++, ++++++. So, the guy (I think his name was Justin? If it wasn’t it is now), so Justin started talking about the History of JavaScript and web design trending (hmmm… where have we heard that before?). Showed us some old crap and made us chuckle. He then proceeded to start telling us about Silverlight 1.0.  Now 1.0 didn’t wow me. I mean it was pretty cool, introduced a super HTML called XAML… kind of like AJAX it just worked with some special easily manipulated async controls. It allowed any type of media to be embedded *yawn*. This was cool, but as I’m not too interested in streaming media (at least when it comes to development, when it comes to hogging bandwidth rock on, brother) it wasn’t super awesome. You have to remember that Silverlight is a little painful because like ActiveX or Java or Flash you have to download it the first time you use it. Yuck.

 

We worked a little in Expression Blend (which I downloaded and never played with)…. I do like the Expression Suite because of the marriage it makes btw developers and designers…. But that’s just about it. The greys and blacks make me want to seize….. that’s about as far as I hope to get with it. ANYWAY, I got to see a lot of things familiar to flash and the Macromedia suite. We made some videos dance. I mean, the fact that you can put videos in buttons, eeeeh, neat.

 

So, the real fun came when we started looking at Silverlight 2.0. Now, hold on, are you ready for this? I don't think you are, take a breath. There is a built in browser CLR compiler. I’m going to let that sink in for a second. You do know what that means, don’t you? CLIENT SIDE C# THAT’S WHAT THAT MEANS. How cool is that? Gone are the days when I am saying “damn it, how the heck am I going to do this is JS it would be so much easier to do it in C# (oh yeah, VB.NET too). Imagine all you can do with a little cached data? We’re talking postbacks are history…. Basically…. I mean, we just will be using them a lot less.

 

Also, imagine the functionality you can add to videos with this stuff. We got to see some sites like HSN.com where there was live streaming TV that you could manipulate and change like no other website (or tivo, for that matter) could.

 

So, all in all a great experience, I got to meet some other developers. I’m really excited about the Silverlight thing too. I hope I will have access to it during my redesign. My company gives me access to a lot of Microsoft Products. So, maybe it will be on the server by then.

 

Join us next week when we talk about “Computer Kharma: Fact or Fiction?” and my ongoing work as well as my coming Vista/VS 2008 switch.

What the heck is wrong with people?

So, my baby Steven the cat was outside, and didn't come home for a while. I was worried about him, then he finally came back at 3am with his mouth looking all jacked up. I thought he got into a fight or something but it looked really serious and he couldn't eat. I bought him some broth and gave him some milk and then brought him to the vet ASAP this morning.

The Vet was really nice, he said that he may have a fractured jaw and someone may have kicked him. Because if he was run over or something it would be worse and usually when a cat fights he doesn't fracture a jaw or anything.

Well I just talked to them and his jaw is fractured and they were wiring it shut.

What the fuck (sorry, but I'm really upset) is wrong with people? Who would EVER kick a cat? How the fuck did your parents raise you to think that is EVER ok? I know some people don't like animals, and that's fine. However, even the people I know that don't like animals would never hurt them like that.

I'm really upset, my poor little guy. I was going to blog about my first Dev Conference last night on Silverlight 2.0 but I have a lot of work to do and I'm really upset.