Joshua Arnold

I recently retweeted a comment from Brad Wilson about how much damage WebForms has done to the typical developer’s knowledge of the web. I thought he had summarized it quite while and I wasn’t going to offer my thoughts on the matter but it’s been on my mind for quite a while and I feel like it’s time for me to weigh-in on this situation. It turns out that I have quite a bit to say.

Before I begin, I will note that I have been working with WebForms since the early days and have truly appreciated the rapid rate in which the platform allows you to develop certain applications (or pieces of applications).

The individual adoption of ASP.NET MVC is no easy thing, so it should come as no surprise that an organizational adoption of ASP.NET MVC is not a walk in the park. The WebForms platform does a great job at providing a set of Rapid Application Development tools to get your job done quickly and somewhat easily…depending on the task and the team you’re working with. When you begin running into rendering problems or third-party integration problems, a deeper understanding of the toolset is required and unfortunately most entry and junior-level developers just don’t have it.

Individual Adoption

The transition probably isn’t the same from one person to the next, but I can make some generalizations based on my personal experiences introducing the change and helping through various online communities. These generalizations have been mostly made by helping people transition as they tackle more real-life applications using MVC. As with any new technology, I strongly recommend the “Hello, World!” approach but not everybody agrees with me.

I wanna go fast!

The initial introduction to the concepts seems to go over quite well. You’re not sure if they understand it or just want to get their hands dirty by playing with it. They’re not sure if they understand it either…but it’s a new technology and they’re excited to get their hands dirty.

Where’d my magic go?

The first question is asked: “How do I access my <some control ID> control? It’s not showing up in intellisense.” Be careful here, you’re about to tell them everything they know about the web is a lie!  You carefully deliver the bad news and show them some examples of posting information.

So…I have to reinvent the wheel?

This is a question that I get a lot and it’s taken me a while to understand how to respond to it. Now, it may be different with every person but I’ve found that this question gets asked for a few reasons that all seem to boil down to this: the purpose of the ASP.NET MVC framework has not been properly explained and a proper comparison between MVC and WebForms has not been made. It should be clear that MVC is an alternative to WebForms (not a replacement) and that the entire development approach is different.

“But I could do this in like 5 minutes in WebForms!”

Sure, that might be true. In fact, your organization might not be suited for MVC development and this might be the right time for you to realize that. However, if you’re like me then you know that while the ramp up time might be a little rocky, it’s going to benefit you in the long run. So you explain the differences one more time and kindly ask them to just “give it a shot.”

Where’d my magic go? (Again)

“OK, so then how would I access my <some control ID> control?”

Even though you’ve explained it quite a few times by now, you’re bound to be asked again. In fact, don’t be too surprised if this continues to happen for quite some time.

As with the adoption of anything, you need a roadmap. You need clear goals and a vision to follow. The road is rocky at first and you’re going to need that vision to keep you moving.

Organizational Adoption

The damage has moved far past just affecting developers. I think an interesting shift in management’s understanding of .NET has happened in the past year or two. As management gets more technically savvy and buzzwords come and go, it’s more important than ever that management understands the goals of the roadmap you’ve set out. If you’re about to pitch using a new development approach that requires intense training and ramp up time then you’d be better be prepared for battle.

Sounds simple…right?

Let’s take a look at an application that is ideal for WebForms development. We need an application for internal-use only that will take in some input through a couple of data entry screens, run some basic calculations, and display the data in some sort of table. Sounds simple, right? It sure is. It’s so simple that I can write the steps out as follows:

1. Figure out what data needs to be entered and throw together a database
2. Create some pages and drag over some textboxes
3. Wire up the code and give it a test run
4. Drag over a grid view and wire it up

That’s all there is to it. There was no real need for design, no complex requirements, or any real thought needed to make this work. You’re happy because it took you about an hour and management is happy is also because it took you about an hour. There’s no need to discuss the details on what’s actually happening under the hood because it gets the job done and does it quite well.

Can’t you just drag and drop something?

We can create simple applications very quickly and effectively. This is where we have been for a long time and management has caught on to that. They’ve undoubtedly heard the term “control” get thrown around on more than one occasion and probably understood it to mean something quite different than what it really is. You see, WebForms does such a damn good job at simplifying things that you can’t blame them for thinking that a control is more powerful than it really is. Just think about the wide variety of controls that we have at our finger tips:

1. Simple textboxes
2. Login controls
3. Grid controls
4. Reporting controls
5. etc.

What’s my point?

We’ve created it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. We’ve built application after application and have done our best to incorporate testing as part of our daily routine but it hasn’t been easy. We’ve developed frameworks to help us test faster, but our budgets haven’t been fond of creating and/or maintaining those tests. ASP.NET MVC provides a brand new way of approaching development. We can finally incorporate Test Driven Development at the presentation-logic level and begin giving a higher level of transparency into the stability of our applications. It’s pretty clear why a lot of us are excited about this.

The pushback that we will be experiencing will come from two levels: developers and management. You will be dealing with real issues when developers pushback if they’re responding the way that I’ve mentioned here. MVC is so different than the world that WebForms created so it’s important to understand the sociological aspect of this situation. Management might not want to invest in testing, but I think it’s pretty easy to combat that one. It’s just important to think about it before making your pitch.

Technorati Tags: asp.net, asp.net mvc, career, change management, technology

At some point, you realize that you’re not going to launch with something that meets all of your expectations. So you compromise, prioritize, and make sure that the features you do launch with at least meet your expectations. If you’re lucky, you’ll have the time to exceed those expectations and really be proud of something. Incidentally, I’ve launched my site and I was lucky enough to exceed a few of my expectations.

If you’re reading this from your RSS reader, please drop on by my new site and do a little bit of exploring. Whether you’re a new reader or a loyal addict of my ramblings, you’re going to find new content all across the board.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to hear from you.

Technorati Tags: announcement, career

From well-formed metaphors to a variety of clever one-liners, we characterize our lives in words that people often find to be more than its cracked up to be. There seems to be this innate tendency of cynicism we fallback on when it comes to being content with our lives, is there not? There are ways around this, I’m sure, but why is it that we have to try so hard?

I’m a sucker for Ben Gibbard, vanilla soy lattes and a room full of strangers. It’s not about the companionship (otherwise I’d be far more motivated to join them in conversation), it’s the reminder of the diversity that exists around me. As I listen to Such Great Heights and tap my feet along to the beat, a couple casually sits down on the couch to my left and relaxes. They cuddle up in front of the freshly lit candle and begin to exchange stories that invoke laughter and comfort.

I suppose it’s safe to say that I tend to find others lives far more interesting than my own. Given the small number of people in this room with me, I wonder how many of them have a similar point of view. How about religion? Music? I think we take our common interests for granted more often than not.

The holidays are around the corner, again, and I’m not the man I used to be. I remember the thoughts, emotions, and actions of the person I was one year ago today and it’s amazing to think about how far I’ve come. I wonder what it would be like to share a cup of coffee with you, old friend. Would we still get along with as much as we’ve all changed?

It was my year for adventures, growth, and accomplishments and believe me: I’ve had plenty of all three. God has blessed me with a unique position in the company that I am working for, I’ve learned from my past experiences and grown from each of them, and thanks to a dear friend of mine I’m pushing through various struggles in my faith.

I hope all is well with each of you and I hope to see you soon.

Love to All,
Josh

Technorati Tags: austin, career, december, discoveries, holidays, holidays 2008, reflections

I’ve gone a while without truly sitting down to reflect. I’m a large supporter of the value found in introspection and I’ll be the first to advocate its importance – yet, somehow I still let myself go for long periods of time without doing it. I’m up nice and early on a Saturday and now I don’t really have an excuse not to take the time.

A lot has changed for me in the past couple of months or so. Two months ago I sat down and drafted a few goals that I promised myself I would make happen:

• Begin to truly define my career path
• Get into shape
• Strengthen my faith
• Strengthen my leadership skills

The past two months have been a journey of doing exactly that.

Defining my Career Path

I’m an avid supporter of Neumont (the university from which I graduated) and I began advocating to strengthen the relationship between my company and the school when I first started here. That’s not the only thing I’m constantly advocating for. Let me digress a little bit…

It’s funny. A lot of people know that I work with computers but not too many people actually know what it is that I do, ha ha. I specialize in software architecture, requirements gathering and analysis, information modeling, and software project management; just in case you were wondering .

Anyway, starting in August I began using the methodologies that I’ve seen work in all of my previous projects. I began shaping my career path and getting a good feel for where I stood within the company. I’ll tell you this much, I’ve been loving every minute of it since then.

It’s stressful at times, I won’t lie about that. One of my greatest weaknesses is that I have the tendency to make my projects my life. When you’re that adamant about the success of something, you’re bound to be ripping your hair out at some point. I began realizing that I really need something else to do with myself besides going home and working…

Getting into Shape

A little over a month ago, my roommate and I decided that we were going to get into shape. This wasn’t one of those “let’s go to the gym every once in a while” type of decisions. We showed up at a gym the next day and purchased monthly memberships and training sessions with a personal trainer. He promised us great results and assured us that we could expect to lose 8-10 lbs and 3-4% body fat every month for the next 3-4 months. I thought he was full of crap but decided that anything was better than nothing at this point.

We started with the diet. This has NOT been an easy feat, by any means. It was not your average cut in food consumption. It’s been brutal! We try our best to stick to it. We may deviate every once in a while, but we’ve been pretty good about it so far. Then there’s the workout…We’re at the gym an average of an hour and a half each day…six days a week. I went from going to the gym about twice a week for about 30 minutes each visit to THIS.

Four weeks later and our trainer was right. We’ve dropped a very significant amount of weight, we’re looking and feeling healthy, and well on our way to hit our goals by the holiday season.

Strengthening my Faith

My original goal was to strengthen my leadership skills. While I was still set on doing that, I realized that this was something I couldn’t do without first strengthening my faith. You see, my faith plays a key role in every single thing that I do – even though I may forget this fact every once in a while.

I began doing a lot of reading, the result of which can be found in one of my previous entries. I’ve read the book Blue Like Jazz at least twice now and I just cannot get enough of it. As I promised in that previous entry, I will be continuing a series of entries that explains everything more in detail.

Strengthening my faith isn’t something that comes easily for me (for anyone, really). This book addressed so many of my problems, complaints, and questions but I have to truly internalize it all before I can expect to move forward. I have changed a great deal in the past two months but I know I could be a lot farther along.

Strengthening my Leadership Skills

Like all of my other goals, this is one that I will be perpetually seeking to perfect. I’ve spent countless hours buried in reading. From re-reading Leadership and Self-Deception to re-assimilating every project-management book that I can my hands on, this is something that’s been a big priority for me.

I’ve always been pretty confident in my ability to manage a group of people and get a job done. In fact, I’ve rarely ever doubted that I could do so. Lately, however, I’ve been focusing on the process more than I have the end result. I’ve been focusing more on ensuring that I’m “out of the box,” if you will.

I’ve been busy, there’s certainly no denying that, and I’d like to think that I’ve changed a lot in the past few months. I’ve grown both intellectually and spirituality and I think I’ve matured a lot as well. I hope all is well with each of you.

Love to All,
Josh

Technorati Tags: 2008 adventures, career, growth, reflections, resolutions, self-learning

It seems like the only time I update my blog lately is to tell everybody that I’m too busy to actually make a real update…nevertheless, I’m doing it again. After this week all of the projects should be in development mode so the deadlines will be a lot more manageable.

Anyway, I thought I would give an update and let people know that I’m still alive.

Technorati Tags: announcement, career

I’ve been obsessed with a few artists lately. The most recent one (for the past several hours) is Sam Beam of Iron and Wine. He’s an amazingly talented musician and he truly just blows me away. The others, to name just a few, are Leslie Feist (namely the album Open Season) and almost anything by Ben Gibbard (most notably the song Couches in Alleys by Styrofoam).

I began a new series of entries a couple of weeks ago and have yet to follow up on it, terribly sorry. I do intend to do so this weekend now that I’m adjusting to this new routine that my friend Drew and I have found ourselves in. If you haven’t heard, we’ve decided to make some major changes in our lifestyles to really get into shape. From an extreme switch in diet to a very intense workout schedule with our personal trainer, there have been some drastic changes around here.

It’s interesting to think about how life has changed over the past year for me. Some years can sneak by and you barely notice them. However, anytime you move across the country more than once in a single year, that year can’t just “sneak by” you, y’know? Moreover, the changes in job and lifestyle are just astounding. I’ve gone from hating my life (and complaining about it constantly) to loving everything about my job and well, life in general. It doesn’t stop there, either.

It seems as though every day my responsibilities grow, I am challenged, and I get a chance to truly show what I can do. After years and years of hard work, I’m starting to get a preview of the benefits. As confident as I may be, this is something that I can never truly say that I deserve. I find myself incredibly blessed on a day-to-day basis and I only hope to be able to leverage my position to do something great. Let’s just hope I can actually pull it off .

Technorati Tags: 2008 adventures, career, iron and wine, music, ramblings, reflections

Life has been slightly unbalanced lately. Well, maybe “unbalanced” isn’t exactly the right word…perhaps consistent is the term I’m searching for. I’m desperately trying to force myself into more of a routine and I’m getting closer.

My work on the RiderRally project is becoming more intense lately as we ramp up for our next release in late October. I’m working very heavily with location-based information (hence the title of the entry) which has been pretty fun and challenging. I’ll be posting some of the specifics of this in my technical blog.

I’ve been working on several initiatives at works from Professional Development to Internal Framework Development. I’ve been pushing to incorporate training courses in a variety of technologies/skills,  more diverse standards in documentation, and reusable code-bases for the company. Somehow, in the middle of all of this, I’ve also been finding time to consult on other projects, conference calls, and to be the “go-to” guy for any technical interviews. Needless to say, it’s been a little crazy lately.

Despite the workload, my schedule tends to work itself out quite well and I have plenty of free time. I’ve been working in time to go to the gym and general down-time as well. I just need to get more of a structured routine so I can feel a little better about everything. I feel like I’m living in chaos if I don’t have at least SOME continuity in my day.

I had planned to write a little about my thoughts after reading Blue Like Jazz but I’ll save for that for my next entry. Time to watch Wicker Park and head to bed.

Love to All,
Josh

Technorati Tags: announcements, career, informative, reflection, self-learning, updates, work

Humidity is a pain in the ass. There’s really no way around that fact for me. I’ve come to find that I’m helpless against this anomaly. Water in the air? I grew up in a desert, come on. Obviously I knew about this before I chose to move here but, as most of you know, that’s not enough to stop me from complaining about it.

I’ve been on quite the Neutral Milk Hotel kick lately. From Holland, 1945 to Two Headed Boy, I’m quite infatuated with their lyrics. Granted, their vocal styles aren’t for everybody but the lyrics are incredible. I started off being obsessed with Jesse Lacey’s covers and now I’m enjoying the original tracks themselves. If you haven’t experienced them, I highly recommend:

• Holland, 1945 (the original as well as the cover by Canoe)
• Two Headed Boy Pt. 2 (the original as well as Jesse’s cover)
• Oh Comely (the original as well as Jesse’s cover)

I’ve also been spending most of my day listening to Steve Tannen’s latest album, Big Senorita. I highly recommend that one as well .

Work is still intense and it’s only going to become increasingly more stressful over the next few weeks. I knew what I was getting myself into starting this project so I can’t really complain about the situation right now; nor can I really wiggle myself out of it either. It’s the final stretch and there really is light at the end of the tunnel. Believe me, I’m looking forward to having a weekend off and being able to enjoy activities outside of work.

I’ve learned so much from this project. It’s pretty unbelievable when I think about what we’ve accomplished in the past two months. From architecture to management, I’ve really had to stretch my abilities and push the envelope for this project. It’s a complete 180 degree turn from my previous positions. There wasn’t enough to do in those positions to keep me busy for a day. Now I don’t have enough time in my day to do what I want/need!

It’s been a great project and I’m hoping that it becomes a success. I’ll be blogging more on what this success could mean for me (and what the project actually is) very soon. In the meantime, I’m going to get a little bit of sleep and get ready to finish up as much as I can tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: career, reflections, riderrally

I’m keeping this post pretty short (it’s not becoming a habit, I promise). The project that I’m currently working on is reaching a ramp-up point and will require a lot more of my attention this week specifically.

How about YOU leave ME updates as comments for once? I’d love to know what’s happening with everyone that keeps up with me.

Technorati Tags: announcement, career, workaholism

The long awaited announcement I’m sure: I’m becoming an active technical blogger. Don’t worry, I won’t be doing it here. I’ll effectively be doubling the amount of time I don’t have to devote to blogging. I’ll continue this one just as it is and will be talking about my other life here:

http://blogs.rev-net.com/jmarnold

For you geeks out there, please stop by! Meanwhile, check back tonight for an update on my personal life.

Technorati Tags: announcement, career, technical