Remaining Valuable to Employers
Billy: Developers these days, I think, one of the most value things they can do is get a feel for the parts of their job that are not really what they necessarily like to do but what adds more value and gives them more visibility within their organizations. They need to talk to users more. They need to have more empathy with their users and with the business leaders and try to see things from their point of view. I think that’s something that developers aren’t very good at, and if they improve those skills, then they make themselves valuable in ways that, for example, can’t be outsourced. You can’t outsource empathy to
India. That simply doesn’t work. I’ve been reading a lot of books about design and such, and it’s kind of affected my thinking in terms of developers needing to engage the right-side of their brain more because there’s value to be added there. So unless somebody is just a superstar coder on the pure “let’s produce technology” side, then I think that they’re probably going to make themselves more valuable and more important in their organization to work on some of those more right-brain skills that are not in the skillset of the typical developer.
Bruce: To make yourself attractive to employers right now, I think probably the biggest thing is to be practical about it. You need to be working on things that are adding value to the employer. Ultimately the things that are new, while they’re cool and while developers love them, they have the potential to add risk to what an employer does and risk is not what employers are looking for right now. So you need to be working on pragmatic skills, skills that can be easily applied to revenue-producing things, to productivity-producing things for a particular employer.
Scott: The first thing for developers to think about is really to understand that in technology there is a value chain in the same way that there is in manufacturing.
If you’re at the end of that value chain, if you’re the last piece in the wheel, you’re the easiest one to let go when demand is falling. So the first thing is to recognize that there is a value chain and to find ways to work up that value chain, whether that’s increasing your design skills, helping out in the sales cycle, learning some new tools or technologies, analyzing the market, whatever it is. But if you’re the last spoke in the value chain, you’re going to be the easiest one to replace. Two other things I’d mention: the first one is to specialize. The world of the generalist developer, I think, is coming to an end. So it’s really important to figure out in the whole technology domain where your specialty is and to be passionate about it - that’s the last point I’ll make. Don’t just pick a specialism because you think there’s a market there. Pick a specialism because you actually like it. When you’re talking to your employer about it, be passionate. Let your passion flow through.
Adam: If I was a developer, I would try to make sure that the first thing I get right is communication. You can be a great coder, but you are not rounded until you are a great communicator. A great communicator goes and talks to users.
Doesn’t just talk to users, takes notes so they can action it. Confirms it in an email in case they still got it wrong. And then goes and actions it. And it’s no good just being a great communicator and just talking and doing more talking and no action - you’ve got to have some action. And then you’ve got to be visible. So my main points would be: talk to users, find out their pain. Talk to the boss, find out his pain. Simple questions like “What’s important to you?” Try to find out what it is, repeat it back, see if you’ve got it right, go away and see what you can do.
And become visible in other ways as well. A blog is very important. Get people’s thoughts. Speak to mentors - get a mentor! And then go ahead and action some things and get a clear understanding so you can add more value.
Jonathan: I would say that the number one key to making yourself attractive to potential employers is being able to demonstrate that you have a client focus rather than a technology focus. All too often developers are focused on the newest / greatest technology, being bleeding edge in terms of the things they are trying to implement. But if you’re able to demonstrate to an employer that what you understand are the client’s needs coming first and that delivering value for those clients is going to be your number one priority, you’re going to be the most attractive prospect for any employer.
SQL Basics in ADO.NET
When you interact with a data source through ADO.NET, you use SQL to retrieve, modify, and update information. In some cases, ADO.NET will hide some of the details for you or even generate required SQL statements automatically. However, to design an efficient database application with a minimal amount of frustration, you need to understand the basic concepts of SQL.
SQL (Structured Query Language) is a standard data access language used to interact with relational databases. Different databases differ in their support of SQL or add other features, but the core commands used to select, add, and modify data are common. In a database product such as SQL Server, it’s possible to use SQL to create fairly sophisticated SQL scripts for stored procedures and triggers (although they have little of the power of a full object-oriented programming language). When working with ADO.NET, however, you’ll probably use only the following standard types of SQL statements:
• A Select statement retrieves records.
• An Update statement modifies existing records.
• An Insert statement adds a new record.
• A Delete statement deletes existing records.
If you already have a good understanding of SQL, you can skip the next few sections.
Otherwise, read on for a quick tour of SQL fundamentals. nTip To learn more about SQL, use one of the SQL tutorials available on the Internet, such as the one at http://www.w3schools.com/sql. If you’re working with SQL Server, you can use its thorough Books
Online help to become a database guru.
Learning Windows PowerShell Names
Learning names of commands and command parameters is a significant time investment with most command-line interfaces. The issue is that there are very few patterns, so the only way to learn is by memorizing each command and each parameter that you need to use on a regular basis.
When you work with a new command or parameter, you cannot generally use what you already know; you have to find and learn a new name. If you look at how interfaces grow from a small set of tools with incremental additions to functionality, it is easy to see why the structure is nonstandard. With command names in particular, this may sound logical since each command is a separate tool, but there is a better way to handle command names.
Most commands are built to manage elements of the operating system or applications, such as services or processes. The commands have a variety of names that may or may not fit into a family. For example, on Windows systems, you can use the net start and net stop commands to start and stop a service. There is another more generalized service control tool for Windows that has a completely different name, sc, that does not fit into the naming pattern for the net service commands. For process management, Windows has the tasklist command to list processes and the taskkill command to kill processes.
Commands that take parameters have irregular parameter specifications. You cannot use the net start command to start a service on a remote computer. The sc command will start a service on a remote computer, but to specify the remote computer, you must prefix its name with a double backslash. For example, to start the spooler service on a remote computer named DC01, you would type sc \\DC01 start spooler. To list tasks running on DC01, you need to use the /S (for "system") parameter and supply the name DC01 without backslashes, like this: tasklist /S DC01.
Although there are important technical distinctions between a service and a process, they are both examples of manageable elements on a computer that have a well-defined life cycle. You may want to start or stop a service or process, or get a list of all currently running services or processes. In other words, although a service and a process are different things, the actions we perform on a service or a process are often conceptually the same. Furthermore, choices we may make to customize an action by specifying parameters may be conceptually similar as well.
Windows PowerShell exploits these similarities to reduce the number of distinct names you need to know to understand and use cmdlets.
Cmdlets Use Verb-Noun Names to Reduce Command Memorization
Windows PowerShell uses a "verb-noun" naming system, where each cmdlet name consists of a standard verb hyphenated with a specific noun. Windows PowerShell verbs are not always English verbs, but they express specific actions in Windows PowerShell. Nouns are very much like nouns in any language, they describe specific types of objects that are important in system administration. It is easy to demonstrate how these two-part names reduce learning effort by looking at a few examples of verbs and nouns.
Nouns are less restricted, but they should always describe what a command acts upon. Windows PowerShell has commands such as Get-Process, Stop-Process, Get-Service, and Stop-Service.
In the case of two nouns and two verbs, consistency does not simplify learning that much. However, if you look at a standard set of 10 verbs and 10 nouns, you then have only 20 words to understand, but those words can be used to form 100 distinct command names.
Frequently, you can recognize what a command does by reading its name, and it is usually apparent what name should be used for a new command. For example, a computer shutdown command might be Stop-Computer. A command that lists all computers on a network might be Get-Computer. The command that gets the system date is Get-Date.
You can list all commands that include a particular verb with the -Verb parameter for Get-Command (We will discuss Get-Command in detail in the next section). For example, to see all cmdlets that use the verb Get, type:
PS> Get-Command -Verb Get
CommandType Name Definition
----------- ---- ----------
Cmdlet Get-Acl Get-Acl [[-Path] <String[]>]...
Cmdlet Get-Alias Get-Alias [[-Name] <String[]...
Cmdlet Get-AuthenticodeSignature Get-AuthenticodeSignature [-...
Cmdlet Get-ChildItem Get-ChildItem [[-Path] <Stri...
...
The -Noun parameter is even more useful because it allows you to see a family of commands that affect the same type of object. For example, if you want to see which commands are available for managing services, type following command:
PS> Get-Command -Noun Service
CommandType Name Definition
----------- ---- ----------
Cmdlet Get-Service Get-Service [[-Name] <String...
Cmdlet New-Service New-Service [-Name] <String>...
Cmdlet Restart-Service Restart-Service [-Name] <Str...
Cmdlet Resume-Service Resume-Service [-Name] <Stri...
Cmdlet Set-Service Set-Service [-Name] <String>...
Cmdlet Start-Service Start-Service [-Name] <Strin...
Cmdlet Stop-Service Stop-Service [-Name] <String...
Cmdlet Suspend-Service Suspend-Service [-Name] <Str...
...
A command is not necessarily a cmdlet, just because it has a verb-noun naming scheme. One example of a native Windows PowerShell command that is not a cmdlet but has a verb-noun name, is the command for clearing a console window, Clear-Host. The Clear-Host command is actually an internal function, as you can see if you run Get-Command against it:
PS> Get-Command -Name Clear-Host
CommandType Name Definition
----------- ---- ----------
Function Clear-Host $spaceType = [System.Managem...
Posted in: Others MS Windows| Tags: PowerShell Cmdlets Handle Windows PowerShell Names Parameter Irregular Verb-Noun Reduce MemorizationTake Advantage of the New Features in Internet Explorer 8
Introduction
Internet Explorer 8 is more standards compliant than any earlier version of Internet Explorer. This means that pages you have written to standards will work better with Internet Explorer 8. Cross-browser compatibility is much easier because you don't have to modify your pages as much to display on specific browsers.
Note Even browsers that are standards-compliant will interpret some part of standards slightly differently. The Internet Explorer team has published the test cases used for testing Internet Explorer CSS compliance. You can use these test cases as samples for determining differences in the various browsers' interpretations of standards. Those test cases are located HERE World Wide Web link.
Internet Explorer 8 also adds some new end-user features that you can take advantage of on your sites. The new features are Web Slices, Accelerators, and Search Suggestions for Search Providers. Big improvements have been made to AJAX, JScript, and Developer Tools.
This article assumes that your site works well with Internet Explorer 8 and that you have decided against using the META tag to force rendering to the Internet Explorer 7 engine. If this is a problem for you, please see How Do I Fix My Site Today?. You should also consider using the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT). If your site looks better in Internet Explorer 7 than in Internet Explorer 8, set the META tag and continue reading to see how you can take advantage of new and updated features of Internet Explorer 8.
For more information on all the new features for developers in Internet Explorer 8, see What's New in Internet Explorer 8.
CSS Support
Internet Explorer 8 fully supports CSS 2.1 and more of CSS 3. See CSS Overviews and Tutorials for a full history of CSS support in Internet Explorer, including Internet Explorer 8 support.
For more information, see CSS Improvements in Internet Explorer 8.
HTML and DOM Support
Internet Explorer 8 has improved support for HTML 4.01 and 5, also for DOM 2 and 3. Internet Explorer 8 also more strictly adheres to those standards. In terms of compatibility between Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8, this area will cause you the most problems. Some objects you used with Internet Explorer 7 have changed to work according the various standards specifications. In other words, some methods, properties, and so on that worked in a non-standard way in Internet Explorer 7 now comply with standards in Internet Explorer 8.
Test your site in Internet Explorer 8 to look for problems caused by non-standard usage. For more information, see HTML Enhancements in Internet Explorer 8 and Standards Compliance Updates in Internet Explorer 8.
Better AJAX Support
Internet Explorer 8 more easily supports backward navigation of page fragments. It provides better communication between pages, frames, sites, and domains. JScript also now provides native JSON support. See the following pages for more information:
* An Introduction to Cross-Document Messaging in Internet Explorer 8
* XMLHttpRequest Enhancements in Internet Explorer 8
* Connectivity Enhancements in Internet Explorer 8
* Introducing AJAX Navigations
* JSON Object
Developer Tools Built In
You may have used downloaded and used the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar. This add-on was released at nearly the same time that Internet Explorer 7 was released. The toolbar's functionality has been incorporated into the browser, so there's no need for an additional installation. The Developer Tools have been greatly improved to include a debugger, a profiler, and more. When using Internet Explorer 8, press F12 and try it out. For more information, see Developer Tools User Interface Reference.
Accelerators
You can make your Web services available to users as Accelerators. Users can add Accelerators to Internet Explorer 8 and use them anywhere they browse. The user selects some text (for example, an address on a page) and can select an Accelerator for a mapping Web service to see the location. Accelerators offer a preview of results so users don't have to navigate away from the page they are looking at and disrupt the flow of their work.
Setting up a Web service as an Accelerator is easy. It requires an XML file, similar to a manifest file, on your server. There are also scripting methods for adding the Accelerator to Internet Explorer. Microsoft has set up a Gallery (http://ieaddons.com/) where you can make your Accelerators available.
For more information about Accelerators, see OpenService Accelerators Developer Guide.
Web Slices
Like an RSS feed, you can set up portions of your Web pages that contain frequently updated information as Web Slices for your users. Users subscribe to a Web Slice and can monitor changes without having to navigate back to the original page unless they want to see more information. Microsoft has set up a Gallery (http://ieaddons.com/) where you can advertise your Web Slices.
For example, news feeds, auctions, social networking updates, and weather updates are all good scenarios for Web Slices, but there are many more.
For more information about setting up a Web Slice, see Subscribing to Content with Web Slices.
Posted in: Others| Tags: Introduction IE IE 8 New Advantage explorer version internet note cross-browser compliant compatibility