DevBlog

Rick says I should just turn on Blogger comments and let them flow in as it has comment moderation.

Yes, that is an option, but I won't do it for the same reason I don't host my blog on BlogSpot. I want to control the stuff, not some one else. And, if I decide to move my blog to a different engine, I want to be able to take everything with me. When I get some time, I'll work up some authentication mechanism on my site, but don't expect it until after Whilfest.

And what about not detecting the feed? Sorry, Rick...I really, really hate FireFox. Tabbed browsing does not work for me. FeedDemon? I briefly tried it, but ended up going back to NewsGator. I really like having RSS feeds right in Outlook. If NewsGator can scan a blog and find it's feed, I don't know know about it. I am using the current release.

And, in keeping with Doug's post, "The User is Always Right", I'm right, Rick...there should be a link to the feed.

Kudos to Doug for adding the link quickly. I'm now subscribed.

Doug's recent post, The User is Always Right, got me thinking about software complexity and what Microsoft calls the User Experience (Ux). For some time, I've had the habit of printing out interesting articles and hanging them outside my cube. When I find something new, I rotate the old one out and the new one in. For the past few weeks, I've had three things that tie directly back to Doug's blog entry.

The first is an article from Computer World titled, "Scientist: Complexity causes 50% of product returns". How many of us develop software that is just too hard to use? While I don't have specific statistics on this, I'll bet it's higher than most of us think it is.

The second article, "Why Features Don't Matter Any More" is from eWeek. It lists 10 rules for technology based on user experience:
1) More features isn't better, it's worse.
2) You can't make things easier by adding to them.
3) Confusion is the ultimate deal-breaker.
4) Style matters.
5) Only features that provide a good user experience will be used.
6) Any feature that requires learning will only be adopted by a small fraction of users.
7) Unused features are not only useless, thay can slow you down and diminish ease of use.
8) Users do not want to think about technology: What really counts is what it does for them.
9) Forget about the killer feature.
10) Less is difficult; that's why less is more.

So, how does this apply to what we're doing in our software? I think of Office 2007. If you haven't seen it yet, you're in for a shock. The UI has been completely overhauled. In fact, menus have been completely removed. Why did Microsoft take this drastic step? Simple. Office is too complex and has too many features. The Office team claims that 80% of enhancement requests were for things that are already in the product. So, they took a drastic step and did a major UI overhaul to make things more discoverable. Are we willing to take those same steps to make our software easier to use and improve the Ux?

The final article is a blog entry, "User Experience Matters", from Soma Somasegar, Microsoft Corporate VP, Developer Tools. Soma talks about how software used to be developed based on functionality and business logic, but now things are turning more toward the Ux.

The application can meet all the functionality needs and have all the business logic to get the job done, but if the user hates using it or it is difficult to use, there are areas for improvement. So, Doug was right. It's all based on the customer and their experience with the software.

I've been hoping for some time that Doug Hennig would start to blog. Now he has and you can find it here. Doug, welcome to the blogosphere. However, I can't subscribe to your RSS feed as there no link. Doug, you may want to look at FeedBurner to handle syndication.

Update, 3:00pm -- I now see the RSS link on Doug's blog. Did I miss it before or was it just added?

Quick! Name all the .Net languages. You probably have VB, C#, J#, and C++. But what about Eiffel, boo, Lua, or Mondrian? Brad Abrams points to a list of .Net languages.

Go Daddy has announced that they will move all their parked domains from Linux to Microsoft servers. I used to use Go Daddy as my web hosting service, but they were continually making changes without announcing them...and they were changes that rendered my web site unusable. Each time, it would take them several days to fix the problem. Having my site down for several days was unacceptable. I don't accept comments from Go Daddy President Warren Adelman, "Our business is based on providing the best possible service at the lowest possible price." My experience has been there is no service at Go Daddy. Wait, I take that back...there is service there...bad. Note that I moved my hosting service to Brinkster almost two years ago. In that time I've been down twice. The first was when they moved their servers to a new facility. They gave ample notice and the downtime was less than expected. The other was something that was my problem, by Brinkster Customer Support helped me fixed it and my site was up and running in a short time.

Exactly a month ago, I blogged about bad customer service is at Advisor. I have decided not to renew my subscription because of it. Contrast that experience to what I got today from Eli Research, the new owners of Pinnacle Publishing and FoxTalk 2.0.

Eli Research sent me a renewal notice that gave a $30.00 discount if I renew within 30 days. I called to find out exactly when my subscription expires, but was told the customer service people don't have that information yet. They should have it sometime in mid-April. When I asked about the discount, the customer service rep said, "Ignore the renewal letter for now. The discount will still be available. Don't worry about it." That's the way customer service should be. I will be renewing my subscription to FoxTalk 2.0.

Harry Pierson, in his DevHawk blog, points to a post by Brian Beckman on building indexes to do LINQ queries. Brian says

"In the terminology of relational databases, a “join” is, semantically, like a nested loop over a pair of lists (or tables) of records, saving only those where some certain fields match. Unless we do something smart, this could be very expensive. Imagine searching a database of a million DNA profiles for the closest match to a sample that has 10,000 DNA features (I have no idea whether those are real numbers: I just made them up, but they sound ballpark to me). A dumb join would search all 1 million profiles for each of the 10,000 features, resulting in 10 billion match tests, almost all of which will fail – by design, of course. That’s going to hurt.

The “something smart” is to build an index and search through that. Your database doesn’t have to be large at all for this to pay off. In fact, even with just a few records, it’s cheaper to build an index, use it, and throw it away than it is to do a nested loop."

This has been the way Visual FoxPro has functioned for many years. When you submit a query, the query optimizer first checks if there is an index that can be used. If not, it tries to determine if building one on the fly will optimize the query. If it is determined that an index would help, the index is created, the query run, then the index deleted. Is it any surprise that members of the VFP team have been instrumental on getting LINQ developed?

We've heard for years that when you're in a competition, you should play to your strengths. Why not do it all the time? Most corporations have some type of employee evaluation every year that encourages you to identify your weaknesses and fix them, rather than playing to your strengths. In Now Discover Your Strengths, the authors put forth a good case for managing your weaknesses, rather than fixing them, and for working to your strengths. Working at part of the Gallup organization, they have done research with several hundred thousand people to identify key talents that can lead to your strengths. When you purchase the book, you get access to the web site to take a test that identifies your top five talents (strengths). Mine are Maximizer, Relator, Adaptability, Focus, and Futuristic. The book also has hints for managers on how to help employees more fully develop their strengths and use them to maximize the business.

If you've never been to GLGDW (aka Whilfest), you're missing a real treat. This is one of the best conferences you can find...and in a great city, Milwaukee. Easy to get to, inexpensive, and lots of wonderful restaurants. This year, GLGDW is back and will be April 21-23...that's Friday evening to mid-day Monday, so you only need to be away from the office for a couple of days. Last weekend I got an invitation to speak. My topic will be "Best Practices for the Middle-Tier". Make plans now to be in Milwaukee this spring!

I'm about 45 minutes away from going to the airport to catch a flight to Dallas to present at the Dallas-Fort Worth Fox User Group tonight. Topics are Integrating Crystal Reports with Visual FoxPro and Coder to Developer, which should be of interest to all developers, especially in a small shop. Hope to see you there.