The Swedish ALT.NET will be hosting yet another “unconference” (a conference driven by its participants) Saturday the 7th of February in Stockholm, i.e. a few days from now. Last time was an absolute blast, so if you’re into the .NET platform then I strongly suggest you chum along. ALT.NET is all about constantly improving your software development skills and keeping an open mind about what the best solution to different development problems might be, and not blindly accepting a “one size fits all” solution from any specific vendor. Just head over to the Swedish ALT.NET site to register (for free of course).

In addition to the open spaces discussions that we hosted last time, we’ll also be listening to some interesting lighting talks (very short presentations) at the beginning of the event. I’ll be giving one about object databases, and others will be talking about iPhone development, code rot, mocking, OpenTK, BDD with MSpec and Continuous Integration.

Cool stuff, I like Wordle.

Last night I came back from Øredev, a developer conference which took place in Malmö, Sweden. And what a conference it was, so super crammed with nice and motivated people and interesting talks.

The first thing that struck me, months ahead, was the impressive line-up. No wonder I decided to go there instead of the more exotically located PDC2008. Big names such as Robert C. Martin, Eric Evans, Ayende Rahien, DHH, Kevlin Henney and Scott Bellware in combination with track topics that are really close to my heart, e.g. .NET, Agile Ways, Test, DDD, Cool Languages and ALT.NET made for a really interesting mixture.

In retrospect, the conference was an absolute blast. And I’m not the only one thinking so, in fact it seems to hold up really well in international comparison according to people who have been to more conferences than I have. Just read what Microsoft’s Glenn Block and Ayende Rahien wrote during their stay there.

I was more interested in the ALT.NET track (a full day) than the ordinary .NET track, because of the topics. Instead of some sort of corporate demoware sessions, which tend to bore me, I chose the alternative. After an excellent introduction by my collegue Joakim Sundén, interesting presentations were held by Scott Bellware, Ayende Rahien and Glenn Block followed by a panel debate featuring all of the above.

The best presentation was probably “Using Active Record to write less code” by Ayende Rahien, which was cocky and super motivating. Even though I have some experience using ActiveRecord, and pretty much knew about the features he brought up, I had the same “wow” reaction as everyone else did. If you can deliver an ad-hoc presentation which preaches to a converted and makes him want to re-convert, then you’re on to something.

I could go on and on about the conference, but suffice it to say that I’ll most definitely be going back year after year if they keep it up. Bravo!

The first swedish ALT.NET unconference is taking place in Stockholm this Saturday (13th of September). It’ll be a fun day filled with open space meetings on different topics aiming to increase awareness of more than just the Microsoft way of doing things on the .NET platform. We draw inspiration from the open source community, other developing platforms and even Microsoft themselves in the quest for determining the best option for solving different problems.

To find out more, go to the swedish ALT.NET site, where you also can register for free.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with the Pomodoro Technique to become more efficient at work. It’s basically a personal time management method according to which you work focused, without interruptions, for 25 minutes and then rest for 5. Repeat until it’s time to go home/drink beers/see a movie/all of the above.

Pomodoro means tomato in Italian

Sounds too simple? It is, the technique has a lot more to it and you should reward your curiosity by reading the original paper on it by creator Francesco Cirillo [pdf]. However, for n00bs I really recommend reading the blog post “Pomodoro Technique in 5 minutes” by Staffan Nöteberg first. It’s a good way to get started within minutes and later on when you’re hungry for more tomatoes, read the 44 page PDF by Cirillo.

Before encountering the Pomodoro Technique I was playing around with the 48 Minute method, which means that you should work for 48 minutes, rest 12 and repeat. It did do something for me, but the 48 minute period is too long, it’s much easier to get interrupted during that interval.

Pomodoro has been treating me good so far and it has made me analyze my life a bit. It’s kind of stupid thinking that all these hip methods and techniques like Pomodoro, TDD and Continuous Integration will make you a better developer automatically. I tend to overlook the most important stuff, and many with me. Contemplate Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and get your

• Eight hours of sleep.
• Regular exercise.
• Five meals a day.
• Fresh air
• etc

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Created by J. Finkelstein and released under the GFDL license.

Yes, these are the basics and everyone knows about them, yet most of us overlook these simple needs. Without fulfilling them you really shouldn’t expect to be a brilliant developer. They will help you staying sharp and being able to tackle all the problems that people and code throw at you. It’ll make you healthier and happier in general too.

Apart from that, what are you waiting for? Read the Pomodoro Technique in 5 minutes and see if it makes you more effective and efficient at work. Now quit yer procrastinating and get outta here!

I’m a long time fan of the concept of mind maps and now I’ve found a neat little tool for making them. It’s called bubbl.us and is free, online and quite web 2.0-ish. It’s only version 0.5.9 as of now, but seems to work great anyway. Yaweee…

Maybe it’s because it’s late o’clock, but this one took me a while to figure out:

I have a DataList which is databound to an ArrayList containing objects of type MyType. I tried using something like this to print out the property MyProperty:

<asp:Label
runat=”server”
ID=”MyLabel”
Text=’<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, MyProperty) %>‘/>

Which of course failed. All I needed to do was to change it to this:

<asp:Label
runat=”server”
ID=”MyLabel”
Text=’<%# ((MyType)Container.DataItem).MyProperty %>‘/>

Note to self: don’t ever do it again!

Sorry for the infrequent posts, but I’ve been away on holiday for some weeks and I’ve still got a week to go. That’s five in total, you gotta love Sweden!

While I was travelling I listened to the Hanselminutes podcast Be a better developer in six months and even though no one has tagged me with this I’m writing about it. Mainly because the podcast inspired me. So here are my personal goals:

1. Get my first Microsoft certification, namely the TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Application Development. Since there’s no proper learning-all-the-questions software available yet at test, it would really be cool to have one, since then people would know that I really have the knowledge. I’ve tried downloading the demo of one piece of software that is said to prepare you for the certification, but it didn’t work on my computer… just as well.
2. Setting up a small project of my own and completing it. I have a few ideas for a website that I never seem to have the time to even start with. I hardly ever code on my free time since I’m good at keeping busy outside of work hours. Well, no more!

Examples of stuff you can do to become a better developer according to Hanselminutes are:

• Talking to people, lunching with other developers from other companies etc.
• Teach other people what you know
• Read other people’s code, such as open source projects
• Get an intern

Too bad most of this has to be done on your free time, but if you want to become a good developer, that’s what it takes. I’ll write back in six months and tell you how I did.