XML from the Coffee Shop

The 'not-so-very' Recoverable Interchange in BizTalk 2006 explained

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:17:04 GMT

Richard (Blewett) and I have talked about this subject often. Richard has finally found the time to write down what's wrong with the current implementation of 'Recoverable Interchange'. No, it's not the pipeline, messaging engine or adapter at fault. It's the XMLDisassembler!!!

Accessing Context Properties from within a map in BizTalk

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:00:36 GMT

It's been a while, but i hope this will make up for being quiet again. I've run across the question many times, but never found the time to really dive into it. Now that time was found. And attached is the result. It is not a 100% clean construct because BizTalk really tries to do its best to disallow access to internal classes and runtime. However, utilitzing some thread local storage and (what i think is) a reasonable assumption, this functoid is actually able to retrieve any of the message context properties in a receive port (no orchestrations required) ContextAccessor.zip (255.35 KB)

Ehhh, .Net 3.0 RC1 release for .Net 2.0 :S (i.o.w WinFX RC1 for .Net 2.0 is here!!)

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 17:23:20 GMT

Ohhhhh... RC1... Sooo close we can almost taste it... or not?

Anyways, time to head to Microsoft's site and grab that WinFX - .Net 3.0 RC1, however you want to call it, and dive into WPF (Avelon), WCF (Indigo), WF (Almost WWF but really Windows Workflow Foundation) and White.. ehh... Hail.. ehhh.. Pass.. ehh.. CardSpace :)

We're entering a new dawning of development on the net, yet.. will the sky be bright or filled with dark clouds?

Bravely we enter into this new world.

Inactive? Naahh... just not visible

Tue, 29 Aug 2006 15:32:25 GMT

I can't even tell you what i've been doing, or i'd have to kill you... but.. just to get back into the atmosphere.....

WinFX => .Net 3.0

Sure, we're changing the runtime and core .... so, this must be a new version. ;p

Can't wait untill the real .Net 3.0 core is released. Just imagine: "So, you are running .Net 3.0 on the .Net 2.0 core or .Net 3.0 core?".

Now, What should you answer to that?

BizTalk Server 2006 RTM

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:26:44 GMT

The wait has been long and difficult, but it is here.... right now!

BizTalk Server 2006 has gone RTM.

For universal subscribers

Now... the waiting for 2008 starts ;)

ClickOnce , ClickTwice, harddisk empty???

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 11:30:31 GMT

Dominick Baier has been working hard in the area of ClickOnce. He posted an excellent article on his blog that goes into 'the defaults' of the 2.0 RTM ClickOnce technology.

A must read before use!

The end of a 10 year chapter.

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 09:46:23 GMT

I've seen it more and more on the net. Is it that we dare to speak out more? or is there really a change in balance occuring?

(Mis-?)Management being addressed and tech-leads are heard or leave!

Looking at mini-Microsoft, a posts on Joel's blog and finally my own situation (and I'm sure many more out there). It is time for us to get this information into the open and expose the behavior that is currently being promoted in too many (not all) companies. Especially mid and larger companies have this tendency and should therefore take more action to prevent these situation from occuring. Why? Because it will make your stocks worth even more! (Did this work for management types?) ohh, and as side-effect you have motivated people.

This is my story:

It was 1996 and a group of highly intelligent and fun-to-be-with friends asked me to join their newly founded company. Being focussed on the web, SGML and publishing I found it to be the best offer in a long time and happily accepted!

As the years passed, the company merged with another small group and formed a 'internet powerhouse'. Combining technical expertise and business savvy into one company (Ayy! the beginning of the end). More years passed and, next to the many projects, the original product was still very much alive and growing. Abbandoning the project market and forming yet another company, the product was recognized for what is was and became the flagship of the new entity.

Here's where the sadness enters the story. As the product grew and a larger customerbase was realised (which included governmental departments & institution, world-wide renowned banks, etc) so did the need to have more management and middle management (We seemed to have a pretty stable development team for years). In rappid sucsession the CEO's, COO's, CFO's, etc. where hired and then dismissed again. In the mean time spending lots of revenue, earned by the core product, where wasted on 'brilliant management ideas' (read; stupid moneywasting CEO's wet-dreams).

I just have to mention the CEO that thought that 'him ab-sailing from one of the world's known football centers infront of the company personel' would boost morale or be fun somehow! Mr. DxxxHead, if you ever read this; "I still say its a stupid idea and think you're an overrated 2nd hand car salesman".

While the flagship product still reached the upper regions of reports like "Forrester" and "CMWatch" (It's even been labeled 'Best of breed' by Forrester for Europe in WCM twice in 2005), management became more and more lost in the game of politics.

This is the period in which the company culture switched from 'motivated by pride & result' into 'a 9-5 place to stay so I get money'.

Having gone through a number of re-shuffles the company finally reached a state where 'the people that made it happen' where moved into obscurity, left or where ignored.

Politics became the main game. I even saw we needed 'receive notification' turned on as managers started to say "I didn't get that mail from you". Yuck! Those where the kids we'de beat up during school-breaks for lying to the group! They still didn't get the message!

So, where does it leave me? I started looking around as a realist for the first time (always have been an optimist) and saw the shape the company is in, and decided to leave.

"It is a sad day for me, for the core system is my baby. I, together with a limited nr of others, have envisioned - designed - implemented - tested this systen since the 1.0 version (it's now at 5.1 at the time of this writing).

I like to compare it with being a father;

The Core system is my child and I will always love it, however badly it behaves
My child has come home with a group of friends i dispise, and her boyfriend i hate!
My child is an adult now, and has to make her own choices,
time for me to step out (and make another child?)....

Visual Studio 2005 Prof & SQL Server 2005 Dev & .... are now available for MSDN subscribers

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 21:47:06 GMT

I know, I know... i haven't posted much lately and promise to better my ways as of 1st of Nov.

For now, the good news is that a number of RTM's have arrived in the subscribers section of MSDN.

Visual Studio 2005 Professional & SQL Server 2005 Developers edition.

Ohhhh, the joy...

Default == The Fault?

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 19:01:27 GMT

I've used this construct in many of my talks. Usually i refer to the "Default namespace" within an XML instance document and XPath queries problem. I am more and more convinced this is a general, and very underestimated, problem.

So, what's the issue? you might ask. Defaults are there for productivity and help with 'the initial learning curve'. But I'm starting to believe most 'defaults' are causing more harm than good.

The main reason of this more 'harm than good' is the tendency within these 'defaults providing applications or toolkits' to hide to much. By providing defaults in configuration settings, users of that system do no longer 'feel the need' to configure. They'll just use "the default".

Here is where we can make a separation between "probably bad" and "probably good". Noticed the use of "system" and "toolkit" in the previous paragraph? That’s one of our hints for, how we get to determine where a default could be good or bad.

Let me put forth this statement and try to elleborate:

Defaults are only good if used for non critical variables, they do more harm than good in any critical variable!

The main reason for providing defaults is productivity. Instead of having to go through specific instructions, configuration storages (file, registry, environment variables) and 'experience through time', defaults are intended to remove these learning curves and allow the system to operate according to accepted parameters.

The problem today is; What are the accepted parameters?

By having the vendor of the system 'choose for you' what these parameters are, we are totally at the mercy of this vendor’s insight. Recognizing this thread, most systems now come with multiple defaults. This brings back some of the 'choice power' to you, but its still not enough.

In most cases the defaults cover 'everything', but never 'your thing'. You will have to tweak the configuration defaults and learn how to do that. Skipping this 'learn how to' is usualy even forced from outside factors like 'time to market' and 'strategic board decisions'. Wizards have been created to help ‘skip learning this’ and press “next, next, next, finish”.

Some examples of defaults causing issues:

(allmost all) WebServices toolkits defaults promote the RPC approach
Although the toolkits provide message based approaches, it is hidden by all defaults.
Default namespace usage in XML is still the cause of many issues
This might be considered an XML-XSD-XPath specification/implementation issue, a 'non-experienced' user issue, but the fact remains that the default namespace is causing much confusion.
Default logfile locations cause security issues or break a system.
Having a logfile point to "C:\Temp\MyLogFile.log" today is dangerous. The "Temp" directory might not exist, or have access rights protection.

All of the above mentioned 'defaults' where critical to the core functionality of the system.

Some examples of defaults being useful:

End user input.
Users hate to 'repeat steps'. The less repetition, the better. Having defaults filled in and modifying a few is easier than filling them all in.
Editor assisted functionalities.
Editors are for creation and manipulation of content, not for the system maintaining the content. Content that is not considered critical from a system point of view.

All of the above mentioned 'default' where non-critical to the core functionality of the system.

One remark often made against this reasoning is; "But the user should have known better!". To a certain extend i agree, but lets not hide this fact from them then! Lets force them to 'do this configuration & maintenance stuff' instead of hiding behind 'these same defaults that the users should have known about'.

So, what’s my default behavior? It’s pretty straight forwards and I like to call it the ‘common sense’ approach;

Reevaluate the weight of the variable for which the default is intended. If there’s any way this default could cause serious issues, side-effect or even break the system: Do not use a default! Document it clearly and force it as step of the configuration process. Make defaults them self configurable!

P.s. Of course I’m all for the creation of great configuration tools! With defaults to the max! But those are the defaults for the configuration editing tool, not the system for which the configuration is being edited. (did that make sense?)

Guerrilla Biztalk 2006 planned in London too!

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 13:45:04 GMT

I already notified you of the upcomming Biztalk 2006 @ Microsoft. I'm happy to announce the European version is now also planned and availalbe for registration.

Schedule date is November 2005 in London!

Hope to see you all there.