ALT.NET

Go with High End Solutions

Ayende Rahien — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:00:54 GMT

About a year and a half ago, I start an exciting new project (there is a demo of the actual project here). The actual application is fairly complex, and has some it gave me the chance to explore some very interesting ideas. Rhino Security is a generalization of the security scheme used in this project, and it is pretty much the driving force for Rhino Igloo. But that is not what I want to talk about.

What I do want to talk about is the infrastructure that we used for the project. We used IoC, OR/M, AoP, MVC and many other buzz worthy TLD. It was the first time that I had the chance in implementing real high end complexity reduction techniques. I left the team 10 months ago. In the meantime, the application was under active development, got a few new team members and had two major releases.

I am really proud of that system.

A few weeks ago I got a phone call from the current team lead, asking me about the windsor.boo file that is sitting there. The last time anyone touched it was shortly after I left, after which, it just... existed. I had the chance to do a code review on the new stuff that the team developed, about three months ago. I couldn't find any real difference between the code develop before and after I left.

Anyway, I had to spend 15 minutes on the phone, explaining the process that was going on there. Before I left (and during the time I was the team lead), I made sure that I passed on all the knowledge that I had about the system, the design decisions and the overall picture. However, there was a period of nearly three months in which I forgot that we even had this infrastructure, because we hadn't have to deal with it for that time period. After I left...

9 months.
2 major releases.
Zero issues with the infrastructure.

I asked the team lead what she thinks about that. Since it is her project now, and if she thinks that it was the right decision to make. She love the infrastructure, and wouldn't hear about using a lower end solution. Most of what we did was actually going over the file and explaining historical decisions, for that matter.

As an additional data point, I was able to look at a piece of code I have last seen over a year ago and figure out not only what it does, but the how and why of it with no ramp up time.

I consider this a success.

Funding Open Source Projects

Ayende Rahien — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:52:22 GMT

That was the topic under discussion in the first ALT.Net talks today. There weren't that many people at the talk, but it was very focused and useful.

In general, there aren't that many ways of funding OSS projects. Note that I am talking here from the perspective of the developers who does the actual work, and how they get compensated for their time and effort. This exclude reasons such as scratching an itch, or as a hobby.

The OSS work is useful for the day-to-day work of the developer. This is by far the more common model in the .Net world. Most OSS developers tend to do so because supporting the project supports whatever they actually trying to do.
Reputation building - being part of OSS project usually means that you get a good reputation as a result. This can be useful in getting a job, as an example.
Contracting / training / support. This seems to be a very common model in the Java world. There are only a few projects in .Net that are working in this approach.
Donations - nice in theory, doesn't work in practice.
Grants - someone who needs a feature pays for it being included. I had several leads in the past, but nothing that ever got to actual money exchanging hands.
Work for hire - Some entity that hire a developer to work on an OSS project. SvnBridge is a good example of that. The difference between this and the previous entry is that this is not necessarily something that the dev was initially involved at.

The session was focused on two subjects, how we can increase awareness, and how we can fund OSS projects. I think that the ALT.Net community is doing a lot best practices, approaches and techniques and the tools that can be used to support those. We recently had several articles in mainstream media about from members in the ALT.Net community, as a simple example. We can do more, like reaching out to the user groups, talking more about it, doing entry level tutorials, etc. But that is more related to adoption of OSS tools, not to funding them, which was the major topic for the session.

When we are talking about funding OSS projects, we have to make a distinction in what we are talking about. We can fund the OSS project itself, and we can fund OSS developers. I feel that a large part of the session was spent making this distinction.

The major difference is in what you are trying to achieve. I use OSS projects to help me do my work, I don't need them as a source of income. They are a tool. Getting paid to work on them is fun and would be lovely, but tat is not actually something that I spend a lot of time thinking about. A lot of the suggestions that we had at the talk all involved OSS developers making considerable investment in time, money & risk for the goal of furthering OSS development.

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. At least not for me. I am getting paid to write code. Incidentally, at this point in time I am actually getting paid to write OSS code, which I consider as a really nice perk, but not something that is in any way required.

When we are talking about funding OSS projects, I am actually thinking on the other side. Funding the project itself. however, is something that I would like to focus on. The best way I know of actually getting things done is to actually pay for it to be done. Working for free works if and only if the task is fun. If it isn't, it isn't going to happen. If you want something from an OSS project, put your money where your demands are.

You want more documentation for doing X, pay for it. You want feature Y, likewise. And by paying for it, I mean anything from offering money to submitting a patch to adding to the documentation.

It is a very simple concept. And the best one I can think of.

Summing the ALT.Net conf

Ayende Rahien — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:41:23 GMT

I was a blast, I had a lot of fun, some incredibly interesting conversations, and got to meet a lot of the members of the community that I have only knew by email alias before.

We had some really good discussions today, and I got to clarify some thoughts that have been luring in the back of my mind for a while now. After the ALT.Net conf officially ended, we started hanging around, swapping stories. Somehow it got to 8 PM, I am not sure how. Roy took a bunch of us that remained to dinner at a nice place. I haven't had a drop of alcohol today (unlike the entire last week), but I am feeling more drunk than on any other day.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank TypeMock for sponsoring the dinner. It was wonderful, although I have trouble walking and / or thinking.

Doing MVP Summit and ALT.Net, back to back, is a real tiring experience.

That said, got a lot of stuff to think of, and will probably generate quite a few blog posts.

Thanks for all those who attended, for creating such a rich discussion.

Special thanks to the sponsors, Version One, ThoughtWorks, Microsoft P&P, DigiPen, DevTeach, InfoQ and CodeBetter!

The ALT.Net Conf

Ayende Rahien — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 14:53:40 GMT

I think that yesterday was absolutely wonderful. It did feel like I spent about 5 hours straight talking, however. The DSL talk was interesting, and gave me much to think of (and might actually kick start the book again!), great fun.

I think that my liver died at some point last night. MVP Summit + ALT.Net are not friendly to it. No time to recover.

Field Expedients, or why "I don't have the tools" is not an acceptable answer

Ayende Rahien — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:43:13 GMT

Recently I had a few conversations about tooling, lack thereof and the impact that this has on the overall system.

I don’t think that someone can argue that starting from scratch is a very good idea in most scenarios. This is especially true when you are talking about any significantly complicate system, which we all do.

There is still a place for quick & dirty solutions, but that is for throwaway utilities. Hell, even calc.exe isn’t simple (arbitrary precision numbers) anymore.

Therefore, I am constantly surprise by people that chose to go without. I could understand that if they chose that path out of ignorance, but all too often a conscious decision.

It is based on reasons such as: “It would take me too long to get approval to buy this tool”, or “I have to go through the Proper Channels to use that tool”.

I don’t like those reasons, but they are real, and I had encountered them several times.

By now you have probably understood that I have firm opinions about how to go about building successful software systems.

Those opinions are backed by the tools that I am using, but are not constrained to them (just check the commit logs when I am doing something new J ).

So, where is this headed?

Right now I am working on top of the Naked CLR, which means that I am mostly cannot use my usual stack. This is not fun, and I assure you that I bitch about this more than enough.

Nevertheless, the inaccessibility of my usual stack doesn’t mean that I can just ignore my experience so far. I have the aforementioned opinions for a reason.

IoC and AoP are two simple concepts that I have embraced whole heartedly. Auto registration and letting the application figure it out is paramount to the way I develop software.

I tried to do it otherwise, and I have myself constrained and annoyed.

How do I solve this issue? By using Field Expedients replacements.

What do I mean by that?

A container, auto registration, method interception and AoP are fairly easy to build. You can take a look at those implementations, to get some ideas.

I implore you, however, that you will not use those. They are replacements, hacks and temporary. They are there so I can work using familiar methods and practices, although not using my familiar tools.

If you’ll tell me the implementation is bad, I’ll agree. But it is there, and it can be used. As a scaffolding if nothing else, but it can be used.

This post is mostly to note that not having the tools is not a good enough reason. You can build the tools.

This post is written to make a point that most people seems to miss. You don’t need to get it perfect. You don’t need to drop down to assembly to get every erg of speed you need. You don’t need it to be functional for the general case, you don’t even need it to be pretty.

The so called container that I have created is a good candidate for the Daily WTF.

I think that it took about 4 hours overall to build everything that I needed. I didn’t build it all in one go, just as I needed it. You can actually take a look at the history and see how it went.

Don’t mistake what I am saying, however. I am calling those Field Expedients for a reason. They are crutches, and are not nearly as capable as the real things. But they are close enough, and I am told that I am good at mocking.

ALT.Net Logo

Ayende Rahien — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:54:14 GMT

A while ago I suggested a logo for ALT.Net, which I really liked, but had copyright issues. Since then, I had commissioned the creation of a new logo, using the same ideas, which can be used without copy right issues.

This is not the official logo, there isn't any to my knowledge, but it express the way I think about ALT.Net very well.

The logos are:

And:

You may use and modify the logos under the Creative Commons Non Commercial license.

I put all the raw images in this location, which can be used to adapt the images.

Have fun.

ALT.NET Open Spaces, Seattle - Registration Open

Ayende Rahien — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:07:31 GMT

This is a public service announcement, the registration for ALT.Net Seattle is now open.

There are 150 spots available: first come, first served.

ALT.Net quote of the week

Ayende Rahien — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:25:48 GMT

That had me in stitches, and no, it is not a typo:

I read Ayende's blog rabidly

Reasons for caring: Microsoft & OSS

Ayende Rahien — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 01:25:13 GMT

In the ALT.Net mailing list, we are having a discussion about the CAB and OB. Part of this discussion include this dialog between me and Brad Wilson.

Brad: If you're simply angry because we had the audacity to make our own object factory with DI, then I can't help you; the fact that P&P did ObjectBuilder does not invalidate any other object factory and/or DI container.

Ayende: No, it doesn't. But it is a waste of time and effort.

Brad: In all seriousness: why should you care if I waste my time?

That question prompt this post, because I have so many reasons to car.

If Brad was a private person, I wouldn't care.

But, when Bard is doing this for something that is going to be released with a "Microsoft" in its name, I care quite a bit.

I care because it means that people are going to get a product that is a duplication of work already done elsewhere, usually with less maturity and flexibility.
I care because people are choosing Microsoft blindly, and that puts MS in a position of considerable responsibility.
I care because I see this as continued rejection of the community efforts and hard work.
I care because it, frankly, shows contempt to anything except what is coming from Microsoft.
I care because it so often ends up causing me grief.
I care because it is doing disservice to the community.

ALT.Net Traffic

Ayende Rahien — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:47:08 GMT

I was looking at the traffic numbers for the ALT.Net, and I wasn't quite sure that I should believe them:

This has got to be the most active group that I have ever taken part at, and about 90% of the discussions there are interesting. The signal to noise ratio is simply amazing.

Of course, the mere quantity of information presents a problem: