Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a great tool for building client/server applications in the .Net environment. It is one of those technologies that can be challenging to dig into when services are just one of many tools needed to assemble a business application, as opposed to being an end in itself. With some of my co-workers in mind, here are some of the lessons I have learned in using WCF for internal, line-of-business, applications. These notes, which will be published in several parts, assume a basic understanding of WCF and contracts.

Climate change and air quality were the unifying concerns at this past week's Dallas Interfaith Power & Light (IPL) meeting, held at White Rock United Methodist Church in Dallas on January 9. Our guest speakers, from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), attracted an eclectic group of people from many organizations - attended by active members of IPL itself, the Sierra Club, Downwinders at Risk, Frac Dallas, and Americans for Nonsmokers's Rights. Each of us, from slightly different perspectives, are concerned about the damage we are doing to our selves and each other from continued pollution of substances such as mercury, CO, organic compounds, and CO₂.

Continue reading at dallasinterfaith.org (dead link removed; SF 2025)

I have set myself the goal of learning how to develop a Windows user interface with a moderately complex workflow, one that implies a Wizard-like set of screens to guide the user through a set of steps. The demonstration project's architecture will utilize the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern, with the help of Caliburn.Micro (CM). The solution will utilize the Application Controller pattern and CM's Conductors.

This is a technical blog, right? Why would I mention this virtue? In Management 3.0, Jurgen Appelo suggests in "Do-It-Yourself Team Values" that the various Agile, Lean, XP, etc. principles are, quite simply, virtues. Teams should pick a small number and focus on them. "Kindness" is not among the 50 virtues he suggests thinking about, but it should not come as a surprise that that my rationale for "kindness" will overlap that of many other virtues, such as "helpfulness," "mindfulness," "tactfulness," and "service." Each of these single words offers a slightly different window into an ineffable world of human goodness, and I choose "kindness" for this theory. First, a minor digression.

Urban gardening and agriculture in public spaces are becoming accepted as potent means for personal transformation, small-scale economic activity, and for larger-scale climate mitigation and adaptation. This week, Dallas Interfaith Power & Light will be touring the East Dallas Promise of Peace community garden at White Rock United Methodist Church — built, of all places, on top of an unused parking lot! Based on the early feedback, we expect this will be the first of many opportunities to tour community gardens in the ambit of sacred spaces. Likewise, this will be the first of several blog posts on the subject.

Problem​

how do you use Entity Framework, in database-first mode, when

following the dependency injection development patterns?

Answer: take advantage of partial classes and manually create the interface. The following notes are just a sketch without full details.

At a Bahá'í retreat on Conversations on the Way: Kindling Hope in a Time of Despair, the conversation following a presentation on the environmental crisis turned to the notion of hastening the collapse of the old world order. There is a thesis out there, amongst some Bahá'ís and in parts of the Christian community, that environmental destruction is a signpost on the way to a better world; it is seen as a crucial element of the retributive calamity that ushers in the promised day of God.

Then it follow, so some say, that we should not try to stem the tide of climate change, of ecosystem degradation, of the loss of biodiversity. Moreover, why should we not actively work to bring about that collapse by purposefully over consuming — so that the day of reckoning, when we must transcend our baser natures in order to survive (or achieve the rapture, in another theology), will arrive that much sooner?

Hypothesis: at the beginning of their careers (and perhaps well into them), most software developers think written/verbal language skills are of little importance to their field. To the contrary: as with most science and engineering fields, where language arts and communications classes are seen as secondary at best, the truth is that communication skills are critical to success. Being "coherent" means that one is able to express himself in clear terms, logically and consistently. This ability is essential in both code and "regular" language.

Like many, when I first encountered the term "agile software development," I thought it was an excuse for a cowboy culture: low planning, low documentation, run as fast as you can and assume that each person's brilliance will take care of everything. Since it came up in the context of a very large client asking us about our methodology ("what's a software development methodology?" I asked myself), I thought I should dig into a little more. Integrating Agile Development in the Real World, by Peter Schuh, quickly showed me it is not that simple. Agile development is, in fact, all about fostering a systematic, right-sized, just-in-time development process. For me, being "agile" means embracing change instead of being locked into preconceived notions (requirements). But don't throw everything out the window either.

Executable tests are the best form of requirements documentation. They improve quality through early discovery of bugs and by fostering a more detailed "what-if" analysis: what if we have this input X? What if the user does Y?