This is the city, St Louis. I work here. My name is Rob. I write code. I carry a badge.
Back at my second real IT job, we did not have what some would call today “true” agile practices. I say that because we did a great deal of up-front design work, requirements gathering, and signoffs. Those are all things that most “agile” shops I’ve worked with avoid like the plague. Somehow though, at that job, we seemed … Read more
Most days I leave all the programming stuff at work, where (for me), work belongs. I make it a point to not focus on work at home. Since I work for an employer, that effort I perform for them is to build someone else’s dreams. So I leave work at work, striving, never to let … Read more
Recently I needed to roll my own phone number formatting for a problem at work. The basic requirement was as follows: All the user to only enter numbers, no other characters were allowed The user could only enter 10 numbers After all the numbers were entered, the value would auto-format to (xxx)-xxx-xxxx The user could … Read more
I recently discovered this glorious option so I’m posting here both for my own memory and just to help anybody out that might need it. If you, like me, are tired of taking your Visual Studio dark settings and meticulously making SQL Management Studio match, then this is a much quicker way to get there. … Read more
Authoring code? What kinda title is that Mr. Horton? Yep, all of us who write code … we’re all authors. But perhaps that’s another post entirely. Today I wanted to jot down why I do this crazy little thing called code as well as how I got my start. Well, first this man and woman … Read more
You are a writer. You read me correctly. A writer. Check it out. See? Told ya. As developers, we write code (text) for others to enjoy, either through the usage of the output it creates or … wait there is another thing to consider here? … yeah .. or for others to read and learn … Read more
This week I started delving into Xamarin which promises “Deliver native iOS, Android, and Windows apps using existing skills, teams, and code”. As part of Burgundy’s impending release, I wanted to see how Xamarin worked because the promise of “code reuse” across the various MMOS .. Multiple Mobile Operating Systems … is very intriguing to me. … Read more
The Announcement In my last post, I mentioned it was near-time to announce a project on which I’m working. Time to drop the excuses, time to stop putting things off until they are ‘perfect’, time to stop being afraid that “someone on the internet won’t like your idea”. Well today is that day. I don’t … Read more
If you’re a developer reading this blog, you likely have an idea (or a dozen) for something you can create, using your skills, that could be an extra source of income for you. Maybe you even dream of replacing or exceeding your current income entirely. Now as soon as you read that, if you’re like I … Read more
Ah finally! After a year of anticipation … Saint Louis Days of .NET is finally here! Sessions! Recruiters! Conference swag! Food and friends! Let the fun begin! I’m really jazzed up about STLDODN. Regardless of the name, it’s not only about .NET technology. There is Business Process Improvement, Agile talks, tons of javascript sessions and … Read more