Dallas Tech Fest 2008

Next Saturday (May 3) I will be attending Dallas Tech Fest 2008. It is basically a day event where other developers such as myself will get together and learn about some exciting things others have been doing with various technologies. So I will be learning a lot and more importantly, I will be coming hope with some free goodies (hopefully).

If you are looking for a free chance to learn some new things then this will be the place to be. So far there are session tracks in .NET, Java, Ruby, Flex, and Emerging Technologies. You can attend an entire track or attend different sessions in any of the tracks (as I am).

It should be a good time and I hope to see you out there. I will be sure to give a nice update on Dallas Tech Fest 2008 once I have attended.

The Crazy Places Life Takes You...

Well folks... This past Tuesday I found myself somewhere I NEVER thought I would ever be. I attended a Microsoft Launch Event for their 2008 versions of Visual Studio, Windows Server, and SQL Server. I did not know what to expect when I was arriving because as many know, I just recently started using MS development products and that was because I was forced to do so at a new job. Microsoft has a tendency to "brainwash" developers to a degree so I was wary of going to what I thought would be an all day sales pitch, but... I was WRONG!!

Microsoft knows how to throw a good party and send the attendees home with some nice freebies. I got free standard versions of all the new products as well as a free version of Windows Vista Ultimate SP1. I haven't used any of it, but I plan to begin reviewing it all in the next few days. I'm not fully converted to being a MS developer and I never will be, but I'm starting to see that Microsoft isn't that bad. They just catch a bad wrap for all the money you have to spend on licensing, but if you look past that none of it is any different than any of the other companies pushing development products.

Awards!!!

I received my award for my thesis last night at the annual awards banquet for the engineering college. It was nice to be recognized for my achievements as I put a lot of work into the thesis research. It was hard, but I really enjoyed it all. The fact that I enjoyed it so much makes me really want to consider doing the PhD program. Mrs. Black Dilbert is considering getting her PhD as well so maybe we can be study buddies. Hmm... The Dr. Black Dilbert's doesn't sound too bad.

No Design Questions in Interviews???

I'm sitting in on a technical interview tomorrow and as I was skimming through the resume and coming up with questions I had an interesting thought...

Why do design techniques never come into play in technical interviews??

Now I know that some companies might possibly give someone an "oral examination" where they have them design a component on a white board, but in all my interviews I've never been given a test or had to answer real questions on OOAD. Now, I have been given programming tests out the wazoo. But honestly, who cares if you can program the world with C# delegates or perform pointer arithmetic (yuck!!) if you can't take a simple functional specification document and transform it into an end product that meets the end user expectations?

If software engineering is ever going to truly be considered an engineering discipline we need to move past the processes of simply testing knowledge of programming languages. Programming languages are nothing more than tools to a software engineer. We need to be hitting the software engineering concepts as the true gauge in hiring as I have met many a person who could ace a programming test and then turn in an application where all of the code existed in one long file...

Secret Revealed...

So I teased you a week or so ago with the promise of some upcoming news... Well the news is....

As you know I decided (at the last minute) to write a thesis to complete my Master's degree. It took a lot of work and a lot of sleepless nights, but I completed it. All the time I put into it has come back to me because I have won an award for my thesis! That's right, Black Dilbert can be considered an "Award-Winning Author" now. My thesis was named the "Outstanding Master's Thesis of 2007" for the Computer Science & Engineering department. I was very shocked when my supervising professor sent me an email with the news two weeks ago. It was very hard to not share it and tell the world as I am very happy about all of this.

The professors have been telling me that I need to come back for the PhD program and I think they might be right... Who am I to deny the future software engineers of the world the opportunity to learn from an "Award-Winning Author" haha!!

On another note, my supervising professor has just been offered tenure so the good fortune is all around these days.