app development does indeed rock. so its a real shame that i dont get to do any of it isn't it?

i do nothing but constantly read books/blogs/codeplex code/msdn/etc. about application development, and i'm dying for the next chance i get to develop a real application. and by real applicaiton i mean something with a decent ui. something that i can really get stuck into again, something which i can attack with some domain driven design using test driven development and have a result at the end of it that i can take a screen grab of and send it back to my mum with a note saying that 'i made this!'

this is the first job i've had where i have not been able to do this, and i've been in this job for the last 18 months.

dont get me wrong i really do like my job, i've been able to do some amazing things since getting here like the introduction of versioning, test driven development, dedicated build environments, automated build scripts and continuous integration. and i've really enjoyed it.

but i need some development to do now thankyouverymuch. something to keep my mind active.

there is a project coming up that i'm involved in that has a 3 stage delivery plan. stage one is to take the prototype access database and replace the vba/manual data import part with an etl tool and sql database, which is the stage that is definitely going ahead. next stage is to develop a few administrative tools for the users to handle exceptions, and the final stage is the all singing, all dancing management interface to the underlying data, providng all sorts of awesome widgets and gizmos for them to play with their calculations and do all kinds of funny reporting and cool stuff.

i'm going to make a bet...stage one will go in and we'll get shot of the tables in the access database, and they will be replaced with linked sql tables, but we'll still have the vba code in there, then everone will forget about the next two stages and they will just live with what they have, never knowing the incredible, magical, totally most zawezome3000 bit of software in the whole entire world, if only they just let me do it.

so what happens to me during all this? i get to play around with an etl tool and a sql database, and put in a few linked tables in access. christ, what the hell happened to me? i want to slit my wrists! the only bit of the development that appeals to me are the second and third bits where there is a small chance that there might some real development to do, and i bet you they never happen, actually, even worse than that, they do go ahead, but they'll make me do the ui in an excel workbook that will sit on a file share somewhere on our network.

argh!

watch this space.

it's happening again. last time this happened was 2005, but this time it is even more complicated and i have to really think about what i do this time round.

the last time this happened it was an easy decision to make, nothing really to think about, i just focused on getting my mcp and learning everything i could about .net in general, but this time around, now that i've done what i set out to do those three years ago, i have to be more specific.

yep, it is crisis time again, and i've got to pick something else to get stuck right into.

the problem i've got this time round is the shear vastness of the things that i could do! i have an excellent .net base with which to do very well in a number of different fields i'm interested in at the moment, the issue is which one of these new technologies do i pick as my master for the next few years, until inevitably this same thing comes round again.

the way i see it at the moment i've got two rather broad directions in which i would like to go in. there are others, but these are the main two...

the first of which is my good old friend, the rich desktop application. i've been developing apps like these for years, until i got to my current place that is where i keep getting told about us not being a development shop blah blah blah...i love developing these 'proper' apps, a complete experience all self contained in a nice gift wrapped box. thing is, they are not really like that these days, and i'm in real need to brush up on the old development skillz. i know exactly what i need to be doing, and i have the books i need to read, i just need to get the time to read them. i've got an application that i've been dreaming up for years now, that will be a perfect vessel for me to sharpen my coding katana on. as i said, all i need to do is finish reading these books and get on with it. gone are the winform days, i've got to get into wpf, and gone is the traditional n-teir designs, i've got to get much more into domain driven design, and get my test driven development up to scratch too.

the second thing that i'm really thinking about is moving more into the soa and bpm space. i've just completed my first biztalk project at work, and although i was quite disappointed that it didn't really include any coding and was mainly all drag and drop, i really enjoyed the different way it made me think about the way in which i tackle problems. i did also have the opportunity to work with a very great man during this project that has made me think in a slightly different way about what i could be doing if i decided to go in this direction. and i'm really thinking about it. i've been watching loads of the pdc2008 sessions over the past week or so, and you can really see the move to services that they are pushing and its all very exciting stuff. wcf and wf could well be my next big thing. and, if that really is the direction i'll be going in, then all this will kick off when .net 4.0 lands. i'll be ready and waiting for it :)

so, what does this all mean? it means that over the next few months i really have to make some serious decisions on which direction is the one for me, as i'll be taking some time out to really brush up on the technologies that are involved in what ever direction it is that i choose to go in.

its all very exciting, but i'm still at this early stage quite unsure of what i really want. i love real development, getting stuck into a real application, one with a composite ui, with an extensible architecture, with loads of backend services exposing a reusable api...or is my future more about learning the new and very interesting wcf and wf?

i dunno just yet, i need to have a sit down with myself and have a good old chat with me.

hello everyone.

it's been a while since i've blogged, and i've got a few of my own reasons why i haven't, but i'm back now, and with a different approach to it this time.

i've been really getting into my work recently, reading an awful of books, and checking out the developer community on an almost daily basis online reading blogs and numerous articles, and generally getting fired up a fair bit about my work in general, and the work of the others who i follow electronically.

actually i've always been very much into my work, but recently i've met a few people that also feel very passionately about what they do, and this has got me rather excited.

i've been developing for quite a while now, i started back in 1997 whilst i was working for hewlett-packard in germany when i was a still a student at the university of surrey, england, and i've only really worked with one or two people in my field that i have really admired, and that might be stretching it.

it's a shame that i haven't met more people that feel as strongly as i do about their work, maybe that says a lot about the industry i'm in, but that is starting to change now, and the number of other good developers i know is growing, and its really firing me up about software development.

this blog is not going to be about my personal life, things are different these days.

this blog is going to be about development. the development i'm doing, and the development that i want to be doing. its going to be a record of my adventures in development, so that in years to come i can look back and laugh about it.