It is time again next Thursday (May 7) for the Alt.Net meeting here in Brisbane. For all of the details please head to the EventBrite registration page - http://altnetbrisbane.eventbrite.com/.
This month we are looking to have a CodingDojo, which will be a great opportunity to put some of the theory into practice. It should be interesting.
Remember that the meeting is held on the first Thursday every month. Tell your friends.
When using TeamCity as my CI server, my personal preference is to use the Command Line runner. I feel that this gives me the ultimate flexibility, as it is easy to pass parameters to a batch file, and the batch file can in turn be invoked to run a Nant script. It also ensures that my local build experience is as close as possible to what is happening on the build server.
What can I say? I am a control freak when it comes to this stuff.
Recently I was setting up a new build configuration and was having trouble passing in TeamCity environment variables. I tries a stack of variations on the theme but couldn’t seem to crack the right syntax. So here preserved in all its glory is the correct way to pass the environment variables to the command line.
1. Select ‘Add New Variable’ under Environment Variables in your build configuration
2. Define your variable name and value
When saved the variable will be renamed slightly and will appear like…
3. Add the syntactically correct reference to your command line parameters
The trick is to include the '%' symbol markers and also the 'env.' prefix on the name that you defined.
Enjoy!
This Thursday is the second meeting for Brisbane Alt.Net. Heinrich has created an EventBrite registration form so that we can better handle RSVP’s and it would be great if everyone coming could take the time to quickly supply your details.
Go to http://brisbanealtnet.eventbrite.com/ to view the event details and register your RSVP.
I hope to see everyone there again, and hopefully some new faces as well.
I was hanging out at InfoQ.com watching some videos about software development. You know – honing my craft. If you want to call it that. Anyway, a highly recommended way to spend your weekends :)
Something struck me as inspired, particularly in relation to a discussion we touched on at the Brisbane Alt.Net meeting around ensuring software quality. It is somewhat loosely related and it relies on analogy, but below is a response by Greg Young to a question regarding his strategy for training junior developers.
I have always believed that the only way to bring up junior developers in any technology - it doesn't matter what it is - is an apprenticeship program. You bring them up from apprentices and they move on, they pair a lot, they get code reviewed a lot, they are put on fake work, just like a real apprentice.
You want to learn how to make tables? Well, you are going to make a lot of tables. Not all of them are going to end up being sold. Sometimes you'll make a leg of a table just for the sake of making a leg on a table. Over time, they will build up the skills and the main way of how to build a lot of skills is by being in other people's code, who did know what they were doing and they will start seeing the good habits of those around them. The place where it fails and it fails all the way back to the pre-industrial age era is when you don't actually have somebody who is a master of their crafts, teaching apprentices.
I thought it was brilliant (as was a lot of stuff in the interview).
And while you are at InfoQ, be sure to check out Damien Katz’s talk about the personal inspirations and challenges about going it alone on his solo project CouchDB. It is a very honest and revealing presentation.
I have been following the Alt.Net mailing list since before it was even called that (remember 'cli_dev' anyone?). It has been of undoubted assitance to my career and in the interests of 'sharing the love', a movement has been made towards building a local meetup group.
Heinrich (a former colleague of mine at Hyro) has done most of the work and now dates have been set and venues booked. Below are the details for the inaugural Brisbane Alt.Net meeting:
Date : Thursday, February 5
Time : 5:30pm for 6:00pm start
Address : Hyro offices - Level 1, 500 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley (it is upstairs in the Timber Queensland building)
Some food and drinks provided
An RSVP would be appreciated so we know that the room and catering are sufficient. It is enough to leave a comment here as an RSVP and I can pass it on in an official capacity. I hope to see all you locals there.
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For those playing along at home I have built a 0.0.2 release for RPXLib. The only change is a small (but significant) bugfix around a misspelt property name.
Thanks to Willie Tilton for noticing the problem. The release can be found here.
Don't forget to check out the project home page at google code.