Another year, another milestone.  And I should have done this two years ago:  Finally, I wrote the certification exam for MOSS 2007 App Development.  Got a score of 840, easily over the passing mark of 700 but short of my goal for 900.

I did prep work and ran through practice exams and it still spanked my behind.  All I can say is that you really need to know your material, from theory to practice, to make the right decisions.  Sure, it’s multiple choice, but it’s challenging multiple choice.  The kind where you’re ready to jot down your answer in 0.02s, and then get that awful feeling that you may have goofed.  And the second-guessing begins.

No matter.  It’s done & dusted for me.  Glad to have it.

By now you’re probably well-acquainted with the “discovery” of so-called “god modes” or “superuser” features in Windows 7.  In actuality, these are nothing more than undocumented developer shortcuts to common control panel dialogs, apps and utils.  In fact, the wild-eyed brouhaha that’s erupted from this has caused some mirth down Redmond way, with Windows Division President, Steven Sinofsky even providing a C|NET reporter with a list of the shortcuts.

Here’s how you can quickly create your own “god mode” shortcut links to experiment with:

Step 1:  Copy the following code into your fave editor and save as a batch file – I called mine “godmodes.bat” (removing the line numbers).  Save this file in a folder on your desktop or other preferred location.

    1 mkdir "GodModeA.{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}"

    2 mkdir "GodModeB.{1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70}"

    3 mkdir "GodModeC.{15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4}"

    4 mkdir "GodModeD.{17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966}"

    5 rem mkdir "GodMode.{1D2680C9-0E2A-469d-B787-065558BC7D43}"

    6 mkdir "GodModeE.{1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87}"

    7 mkdir "GodModeF.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}"

    8 mkdir "GodModeG.{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}"

    9 mkdir "GodModeH.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}"

   10 mkdir "GodModeI.{241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B}"

   11 mkdir "GodModeJ.{4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423}"

   12 rem mkdir "GodMode.{62D8ED13-C9D0-4CE8-A914-47DD628FB1B0}"

   13 mkdir "GodModeK.{78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC}"

   14 mkdir "GodModeL.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"

Note:  The rem’ed entries were included in Sinofsky’s list, but didn’t work when I created them – I’ve included them here for completeness.

Step 2:  Open a command console using Run As Administrator from your Start Menu and execute the batch file created in Step 1 above.

Step 3:  Behold the “God Mode” links that have been created – double-click and explore away!  The most useful one by far is the last one, the “original” God Mode discovery that provides a consolidated list of shortcuts to just about every imaginable Windows 7 control panel feature, property manager or utility.

One more note:  The folder names don’t have to be prefixed with “GodMode” – in fact, any prefix will do.  As the batch file reveals, the trick is in naming the folder with a “.[GUID]” suffix.  I’ve added an alphabetical identifier to each of my entries to keep them in order.

Interesting piece in yesterday’s NYTimes Business section by Mary Tripsas on how 3M partners with its customers to drive innovation and new ideas, as opposed to driving their innovation into them with a blunt instrument:  Seeing Customers as Partners in Innovation.  While 3M should be immediately familiar to most folks, it’s even doubly-so for software development professionals who employ lean delivery techniques since one of the acknowledged thought-leaders in the space is Mary Poppendieck, a former 3M employee.

The article references a Harvard Business School professor, Ranjay Gulati, who has recently completed a book I need to pick up:  (Re)(Organize) for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business.  His approach is definitely in simpatico with the agile/iterative/lean philosophy:

“Being customer-driven doesn’t mean asking customers what they want and then giving it to them,” says Ranjay Gulati, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “It’s about building a deep awareness of how the customer uses your product.”

This stands in stark contrast to how many firms perceive their customers, developing a homogenous view of their base through their product lines and offerings.  In this environment, innovation becomes an ugly stepchild – something I’ve witnessed more and more in the industry.  Gulati has seen this as well, and shares my cynical perspective:

The terms “customer driven” and “solutions” seem to be in every manager’s lexicon. But as Professor Gulati notes, “it’s an execution problem.” Companies, he says, “aren’t generally structured to access, absorb or utilize customer insights since they are organized by product, not by customer.”

And so we have the defining challenge of our industry which I am flummoxed to explain:  Why we are retreating to view software development as the end-product of a manufacturing vs. creative process, especially in light of the failures the former view has wreaked.

Within MCS, I am seeing this increasingly coming to the fore with a shift toward fixed-bid projects that limit the ability of consultants to drive the kind of rich innovation Tripsas’ article describes or the deep partnerships that Gulati promotes.  When we view customers as fitting or shoe-horned in to categories, we begin to constrain our thinking around our products which shutters our view of more exciting opportunities that would otherwise come to the fore.

In my opinion, if we adopt an “Innovation Center” approach as Tripsas describes, we may in fact develop a defining competitive advantage and so break out of the constraints of being organized by product and not by customer.

In my inbox today was a copy of Dr. Dobb’s Update Newsletter (Dec 10/09) with the Editor’s Note on the recent SEMAT Initiative that’s been launched by the likes of Ivar Jacobsen (UML and Rational Unified Process), Bertrand Meyer (Eiffel language and Design by Contract paradigm) and Richard Soley (Chair/CEO of Object Management Group – Standards around distributed OO systems, CORBA). 

SEMAT is an acronym for Software Engineering Method and Theory, and has been pitched as a community of professional, leading software industry researchers and computer scientists “united” with the aim of providing a unified theory to re-establish “software engineering as a rigorous discipline based on a solid theory, proven principles and best practices.”  Already, my eyes were rolling and my BS sensor was tingling.

However, in an attempt to woo folks to their island, they list some of their signatories, including folks like Scott Ambler, Barry Boehm, Alistair Cockburn, Larry Constantine, Erich Gamma, Capers Jones, Robert C. Martin, Ken Schwaber and the like.  Very impressive.  Also a dead giveaway that this effort will be largely symbolic and not bound to produce anything substantive.

What I find troublesome about SEMAT is its aims – I really do not subscribe to the notion that there is a single theory to describe software development and engineering because of the almost infinite variability of its primary inputs:  Human creativity and collaboration.  This is why I subscribe to agile/iterative/lean practices that emphasize incremental delivery with frequent inspect/adapt feedback loops.  It’s the best way to manage the chaos and drive value.

Not good enough for SEMAT – they see the need for a revolution:

Software engineering is gravely hampered today by immature practices. Specific problems include:

• The prevalence of fads more typical of fashion industry than of an engineering discipline.
• The lack of a sound, widely accepted theoretical basis.
• The huge number of methods and method variants, with differences little understood and artificially magnified.
• The lack of credible experimental evaluation and validation.
• The split between industry practice and academic research.

What a poor choice of words overall to build a case for a call to action to come up with some rigid specification and theory about how people come together on a complex endeavour to produce working software.  And of course, what we need is more research and theory rather than practical, readily-applicable strategies to build software.

They go on:

We support a process to refound software engineering based on a solid theory, proven principles and best practices that:

• Include a kernel of widely-agreed elements, extensible for specific uses
• Addresses both technology and people issues
• Are supported by industry, academia, researchers and users
• Support extension in the face of changing requirements and technology

And other mom & apple pie things. 

Lessons Learned from ALT.NET

While these a laudable goals, they’re impractical and not likely to be achieved, if for no other reason than the folks involved (personality clashes and the like).  However there’s another reason I think this will not go far, and it’s because I’ve seen it all before in the ALT.NET initiative.

ALT.NET was (is?) a loose confederacy of software development professionals, founded by NY developer Dave Laribee in early 2007.  The intent was to provide a community for “alternative” .NET professionals: Like-minded folks who used .NET technologies, but weren’t slavishly dedicated to a Microsoft-centric view.  The mantra of “the best tool for the job” was frequently repeated in the early days.

They scored some early wins with Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie announcing the release of ASP.NET Model-View-Controller (MVC) components at their premier open space meeting in October 2007, and there were lofty plans to help open chapters around the world.  A wiki was set up and the community (me included) began to help build a repository of best practice reference material.

Things went well until later that year and into 2008 when the community began to descend into infighting and a lot of rather harsh criticism that they were becoming to “cliquish” – some of the founding members ended up walking away and today, after taking the development world by storm and spawning dozens of podcasts, ALT.NET languishes in relative obscurity. 

The chief problem became the perception that ALT.NET was issuing decrees about what it was to be truly “ALT.NET”.  As a result, it became quasi-religious and so began to take on a spectrum of adherents with varying degrees of dogmatism.  You were either “with us” or “agin us”, a nary the twain shall meet.  Thus, I foresee the same problems hampering SEMAT:  It will collapse under its own weight as the signatories and signers-on get spun out in debates over whose methodologies or practices are better and what should be tested and what should not, and how and for how long.  In the end, it will winnow down to a small cadre of dogmatists who will have forced a good many people away.

And for what?  A fantastical “unified theory” of software development that doesn’t exist, nor will it ever.

Footnote:

For an excellent critical treatment of the out-of-the-gate problems with SEMAT, see Jorge Aranda’s Nov 29/09 blog post, Against SEMAT.  He raises some excellent points that I won’t bother to reiterate here.

Earlier this month (Dec 2/09) the Director/Product Manager for SharePoint, Arpan Shah, posted a wealth of resources on his blog to aid in ramping up on the new platform.  I encourage going over and taking a look – and add his feed to your aggregator.  Here are some of my favourites:

White Papers – The closest thing to “books” before the release next year:

SharePoint 2010 Overview Evaluation Guide 
SharePoint 2010 Professional Developers Evaluation Guide 
SharePoint Server 2010 Evaluation Guide for IT Professionals
SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 Scenarios

When to use ASP.NET vs. SharePoint:

SharePoint Server 2010 as an Application Development Platform 
SharePoint 2010 Developer Platform