Geeky Plate

Wiki's link more for distributed teams

2011-11-24T06:26:00.000-08:00

I don't believe the agile teams, which are situated in same building, and same room should help out one another by sending Wiki's link. Agile is all about communication and face to face communication is the best way if you can do. I did notice quite a lot people like this trend to share wikis and ask to read through and come back with questions. Communication is a one of most important key for Agile team to understand and help each other to progress well towards sprint goal.

Agile Manifesto about communications:

"The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development

team is face-to-face conversation."

PMBOK about communications:

“Face to face meetings are the most effective means for communicating and resolving issues with stakeholders”

Scrum values

2011-11-23T02:41:00.000-08:00

I was reading book in train this morning The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility and found these scrum values which are so well explained. Agile team should understand these values and dedicate to these rules.

We believe in openness; therefore we will share project status as visible as possible
We believe in respect; there we will treat everyone with courtesy and fairness and will not waste time in finger pointing
We believe in courage; therefore we will not stand back in difficult conversation and say 'no' when we must
We believe in focus; therefore we will organise our work in sprint and give priority
We believe in commitment; therefore we will committed to our promise and will assume the accountability and authority we need to get it done and deliver

Get start with WP7 development

2010-12-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

Just some steps to make sure before starts Windows Phone 7 development.

Step 1: First thing you need to make sure if you using Windows Vista you must have service pack 2 installed in your PC.

Step 2: Now if you have Visual Studio 2010 already installed in your PC still you can’t start WP7 development you need to install Windows Phone Developer Tools which includes:

Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone

Windows Phone Emulator Resources

Silverlight 4 Tools For Visual Studio

XNA Game Studio 4.0

Microsoft Expression Blend for Windows Phone

Step 3: There is an update available of Windows Phone Developer Tool. Which you can install after completing Step 2.

Step 4: Now everything is set up open Visual Studio 2010 or Express which installed after Step 2. Browse project if project not available than you can selected from Online Template:

You are ready to start Windows Phone 7 Development.

Blog Engine .Net using Web Matrix 1:

2010-09-04T16:58:00.001-07:00

First task here how to change spanner icon from Blog.

To find the place to change it expands the themes/standard folder and then open site.master file.

Here is the code where we need to make this change

head>

Change the url of shortcut icon:

head>

Now run the website and you will notice the icon is changed to:

asp:RegularExpressionValidator for Time Validation

2010-08-17T05:55:00.000-07:00

asp:RegularExpressionValidator for time validation where minutes can be only 00 or 30

Examples:

09:30, 9:30, 23:00 (Pass)

09:31, 9:31, 23:05 (Fail)

<asp:RegularExpressionValidator id="FromTimeValidator" runat="server" ErrorMessage="* Please enter in correct format for Time." Display="Dynamic" ControlToValidate="FromTimeTb" ValidationExpression="^(([0-9])|([0-1][0-9])|([2][0-3])):(([0,3])|([0,3][0]))$" ValidationGroup="tcc">asp:RegularExpressionValidator>

HTML 5 Game

2010-08-17T00:07:00.000-07:00

I was browsing some stuff for HTML 5 and came through to this game page it's awsome here is a link.

Objects in C# by reference

2010-07-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

I had a really nice discussion with my colleague last week and I made a very simple to prove the code. This actually proves that the objects in C# are copied by reference. So for example if I have an object defined with new keyword and set to other object of same type by changing first I am changing others as well.

Let take this example here:

I defined a class of Animal:

public class Animal

{

public int Id { get; set; }

public string Description { get; set; }

public Animal(int id,

string description)

{

this.Id = id;

this.Description = description;

}

This class I just added in Console application to observe the output and wrote the following code in Program.cs

static void Main(string[] args)

{

Animal Dog = new Animal(1,"Dog");

Animal Cat = Dog;

Animal Bird = Dog;

Console.WriteLine("Dog: " + Dog.Description);

Console.WriteLine("Cat: " + Cat.Description);

Console.WriteLine("Bird: " + Bird.Description);

// Now change Cat description to Cat

Cat.Description = "Cat";

// Print Again

Console.WriteLine("Changed Cat.Description to Cat");

Console.WriteLine("Dog: " + Dog.Description);

Console.WriteLine("Cat: " + Cat.Description);

Console.WriteLine("Bird: " + Bird.Description);

// Now change Bird description to Bird

Bird.Description = "Bird";

//Print again

Console.WriteLine("Changed Bird.Description to Bird");

Console.WriteLine("Cat: " + Cat.Description);

Console.WriteLine("Bird: " + Bird.Description);

Console.WriteLine("Dog: " + Dog.Description);

Console.ReadKey();

}

Now if we look into the code I defined the object Code of type Animal with new keyword and set Object Bird and Cat same as Dog. Now changed the Cat object and then Bird object and the result was:

So by changing any object here as far as none of the object defined as new keyword they all are actually referring to each other which proves that Object in C# copied by reference.

Visual Studio 2010 Feature Part 1

2010-07-09T01:50:00.001-07:00

Finally I started using Visual Studio 2010 and exploring. I found one interesting short cut to change the property SizeToContent of Window by just simply clicking to icon it changed from Fixed to Auto.

Auto Size:

Fixed Size:

Kanban

2010-07-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

This is the system to achieve JIT (Just in time) production. Last month we introduced this in our company as well and so far it’s working really great it gives some motivation to the team and actually to see physically something happening. Every morning in the meeting each team member explains what they finished yesterday and then moves their cards. We implement Kanban on white board and Kanban Cards are actually Post-In notes which are:

Divided in two Sections:

Specification:

Specification Backlog: Specification in backlog

Specifications: Specifications done.

Development:

Backlog: The projects and features in Backlog

Development: The projects and features are in development phase.

Testing: The projects and features are in testing phase.

Completed: The projects and features deployed successfully.

Note: So until we deploy the feature or project we keep them in Testing.

Benefits:

· Personal responsibilities

· Better Tracking

· Less overhead on Management

· Physical appearance of work

· Organising work yourself

· Team feel proud in their achievements

We basically keep track of our daily weekly work in this Kanban board and decided to have two different types of post in notes large one for projects and Features and small one for important fixes and it going well we changed the board layout after a week to have two backlogs.

From

Toyota also uses the Kanban system their philosophy is

"Just-in-Time" means making only "what is needed, when it is needed, and in the amount needed."

If you like read more can read this blog.