Living in the Tech Avalanche Generation

I’m reasonably sure that my experience so far with WPF and Silverlight is not unique in this respect. Most days (right now) are filled with open IDE’s galore and luckily having lots of memory is cheap. Typically a coding session will see that I have at least one instance of both Expression Blend and Visual Studio open at the same time and usually it’s more.

Behaviours Observed

Invariably I find myself doing nearly all the layout in Expression Blend as I find it’s design time environment far more satisfying for the following reasons:

• The ease in setting properties via the Properties Window
• Setting styles etc in the Resources Window
• The availability of the interaction Window
• Designer View in Expression Blend is far superior (and works)
  • Better Viewing Experience
  • Better Element Navigation Experience
• And setting animations in the Objects and Timeline Window

I have become proficient at flipping between IDE’s in an effort to take advantage of each of their strengths. At any given moment I can be doing some layout in Expression and then quickly flip over to VS.NET to take advantage of intellisense if I want speed in writing XAML by hand. If Expression had intellisense then I must admit that I would spend very little time in VS.NET other than to work on C# code directly.

Now that’s obvious you say! How else could you possibly manage? Well, some people are working exclusively in VS.NET with WPF and I just can’t comprehend how or perhaps it would be better stated that I can feel their pain. Perhaps they are die hard Windows Forms developers who just can’t bring themselves to leaving that IDE or maybe they just don’t have access to Expression Blend? Whatever the case it would prove both slower and far more frustrating to work without Expression Blend in my view. So if your a die hard? Let the VS.NET apron strings down and give Expression Blend a fair go, it’s not a perfect world but I believe it’s the best option for the time being.

I have heard a lot of people express the opinion that both these tools should be rolled into one (namely VS.NET). No prizes for guessing that that’s an opinion expressed by developers! I cant speak for devigners / designers but I am fairly sure they wouldn’t enjoy VS.NET at this stage as it’s really still quite unwieldy for XAML based applications. Personally I am quite happy to work in both IDE’s concurrently however my main wish at the moment is to give Expression Blend intellisense, then it’s safe to say that I will pretty much avoid VS.NET for everything other than C# code files. Version 3 of Blend does offer intellisense and code file editing however the lack of debugging will see us continuing to use both tools for a while yet. You can find a list of the new features here.

Occasionally people ask me if I miss being in the Music Industry and sometimes the answer surprises people. Software development and music production share many things in common, therefore I don’t miss the music job too much because Software development can be such a creative business and I find that side of my personality is being fulfilled.

What I do miss about music is the musicians (sometimes) and the whole bunker warfare of recording studio. Everyone huddled inside a dark space with LED lights flashing constantly and the constant musical debate.

Unsurprisingly many musicians (not sure on the percentage per`se, but lets call it ‘many’), find themselves career swapping into IT.  I tend to think that because music can be such a hard place to earn a reasonable living, that many artsy types opt for software development because it is creative and offers better remuneration prospects (comparatively speaking).

To back this assertion up, I remember being asked to attend a focus group of sorts (back when I was studying in a private institution) and answering some marketer questions about product choices with respect to training providers. I did note that one of the marketing group remarked that a high number of musicians are in the development business and that they (the marketers) target that group specifically in the advertising and marketing materials. I wonder how many of the good developers are the musos? Nah maybe not! How many good developers are now musos, maybe that would be a more interesting question?

As a software development manager and now CTO, I spend a fair amount of my time thinking about how to converge two very important ideas and blend them harmoniously. The ideas:

• create a great place for developers to work, one where they maintain a keen and genuine excitement about their profession and look forward to the daily challenges and comradery that great success stories in software delivery can produce.
• Build a vibrant software development consultancy that offers it’s clients great commercial options and results; and help drive great concepts into great business outcomes.

Can these ideas co-exist successfully? Absolutely they can and what’s more they are mutually enabling. Over the years I have held positions as a senior developer, Software Development Manager and CTO, and I always try to take the attitude of developing an environment that I would have liked to work in as a developer myself. Three main things I have found to make for great developer working environments are:

• A commitment to developer career growth through training.
  • This does not have to be via third party training providers. With the right investment of time and good technical leaders and teachers, it is very possible to implement valuable training programs internally.
  • ITR have just recently committed to a training program modelled around the ‘code camp’ style of training becoming so popular today.
• Team Development Projects.
  • Encouraging an environment where even the smallest projects are attended by more than a single developer. This isn’t always possible, however setting it as a goal can help under circumstances where your team is very small.
  • Developers (good ones IMHO) are attracted to the idea of working in teams and not silos.
• Expose your team to best practices, good design principles and tools & exciting new technologies.
  • Developers love to use new tech! Just make sure it doesn’t come to the detriment of your clients / projects.
  • Developers also love to know that they are using tools, methodologies and practices that have value in the community and that their career opportunities are improving with ever developing new found skills. Trying to trap developers into an environment where they become pigeon holed and get no opportunity to grow doesn’t help you retain good people; good environments retains and breeds good people.

All this can lead to happy developer employees who stay and grow with your business and afford you the ability to attract some talented people via recruitment into the bargain.