ASP.Net Frustration

It's very hard to articulate "why" I am frustrated with ASP.Net. Recently, I found a post that, while not articulating the "why", does articulate the feeling:

I think what annoys me the most is that I really like C#. It’s a great language, and the .Net framework is awfully well put-together. I really enjoy spending time with C#, but then along comes ASP.Net like the loud, overbearing, half-drunk uncle at a family reunion, tips over our picnic basket, and ruins everything. - Deane

I've tried exploring this subject on many occasions and come to the conclusion that it is a subject best discussed over a pitcher of beer! Before I go on I must give thanks to the guys (and gals?) at the castle project and their incredible Rails Framework Monorail.

So, ASP.Net is frustrating. To be fair to many who have bought into ASP.Net, ASP.Net sells itself very well. As a technology it is very heavily driven by marketing needs. The MS sales force wanted a technology that "sells"...and they got it. Viewstate, seemless event handling, Components, a response and request pipeline that can be "easily" hooked, and many more features make it a must have technology!

Wow, why the frustration? I think until you've tried something better (see rails above) you just accept the frustration. Heck, it's still better than the procedural approach of ASP or PHP...right?

The easy answer is "developers should know more about the http process and ASP.Net hide too much." That's always sounded a little like a cop-out to me. Don't get me wrong...I agree with the basic premise but I don't think it's the framework's problem. I see a real usability problem with ASP.Net.

ASP.Net wants to hide the ugly details of maintaining the viewstate between the web browser and the server code. The idea is great but in practice it seems to be heavily dependent on the IDE. Webforms seems to give us great options for seperating the UI from the logic. In practice though it gets a little hairy.

Where I work, we often put together "Scafolding" views that are meant to be thrown away or refactored once we've got everything working on the back-end. The Webforms designer in VS.Net allows you to create "Scafolding" very quickly....but when it's time to refactor, the code is difficult to un-hitch from the IDE.

Another problem with the Webforms approach is how verbose the ASPX code becomes! Unless you do everything in the Designer (which isn't much) you often need to drop into the code. Looking behind an ASP.Net page or into the hidden regions is like opening a pandora's box of problems!

Finally, why does the page event pipeline need to be SOOOO complicated! When we were using WebForms I would often override the whole thing just to get a little control back! The Framework should make it easier to munge with the request/response pipelines but in many ways Webforms makes it harder.

OK...you've wasted another perfectly good 10 minutes reading my rant. As usual I welcome the wisdom of others in all matters about which I write.

Castle Project and Monorail

I just wanted to give a quick nod to the guys at the Castle Project! We've started converting one of our major applications to their Monorail framework.

For those of you unfamiliar with Castle or Monorail, Monorail is an MVC framework for .Net web applications. It completely replaces the webforms framework with a much simpler (and more powerful) rails style implementation. The project includes an OR Mapper (ActiveRecord) that uses NHibernate as it's back-end. Their ActiveRecord implementation greatly reduces the time it takes to map objects to the database. They support several view engines based on Nvelocity, Boo (brail), string template, and some others. They also have a basic generator for scaffolding and a basic migrations framework is being developed.

If you are in a .Net shop and looking to take advantage of Rails/MVC or if you are just fed up with the overengineered webforms model then check out Monorail!

Here is a link to my Castle bookmarks: http://del.icio.us/rss/dpupek/castleproject

Agile Team Evaluations

If you didn't know then I'll tell you now...... I am a huge proponent of XP. I don't much care for Scrum.....it just doesn't work for me, deal with it. I recently read an article "Should a ScrumMaster Give Performance Appraisals?" For those of you who are unfamiliar, a scrummaster is the same as the XP coach.

My first thought was, "who else is really qualified?" My second thought was, "yeah, who else is qualified?!" Now, I'm not a big "Performance Appraisals" kinda guy. Just seeing the words makes me feel kinda sick. I've rarely written a performance appraisal that I didn't wish I could change later. Even when I was in the Army (yes I was in the Army for 12 years) we prepared many "Performance Appraisals" called Evaluation Reports. If it was a good soldier we scowered the last years calendar for good stuff he had done. If it was a bad soldier we scowered their folder for negative things to say. All said, it wasn't very constructive.

Now, to be fair, we did prepare many accurate appraisals. In the Army it's easy. You have a set number training events each year with a very specific set of tasks to be evaluated. You perform these same tasks year after year, event after event. They change sometimes but not often enough to really be noticed. You do well on the tasks.....you get a good appraisal.

Software, generally, is different. Every "new" feature is....well...NEW. In other words an unknown. In most cases, new features involve designing something that has never been designed. So, assuming that the unknown is hard to evaluate, appraising the performance of those working on the unknown must be hard as well...right?

Now that I have argued against "Performance Appraisals" I guess this post is finished...right? Wrong. The author, of said article, IMHO, missed the point. First, a "Performance Appraisal" is very difficult to administer, especially for someone not working closely with the appraisee (is that a word?). Second, software development, especially on agile teams, calls for a completely different approach to appraisals.

We need to accept that an agile team really works as a self organizing organism. No one person can be blamed for the success or failure of a team. That suggests that we really can't evaluate a single person based on the team's performance. So, do we just dispense with "Performance Appraisals"?

Before we answer that we must understand why we have "Performance Appraisals." For most the answer would be, "'cause HR told us to." The ideal answer is "to make the team better", the reality is "to determine who should get a raise" and in the real world both are probably correct. I guess we need "Performance Appraisals"? We'll assume so....

So, how do we design an appraisal that meets both needs (for betterment and promotions)? First, frame it around those competencies that are most valuable to the team. This is where I love XP....values and practices! I'm not going to list them here (it's late) but most intelligent humans could write a set of simple competencies based on the XP practices or the practices of their flavor of agility.

Second, with your handy set of competencies, have each member of your team evaluate themselves and each other member of the team (yes, I know the many reasons this is unpopular). Given the belief that the appraisor should work as close to the appraisee as possible then what bettermethod to use.

Third, sit down with each of them and discuss (yes face to face like human beings) how they did.
Be creative here, each team, depending on it's age and experience will require varying levels of "discussion". For example you may want to talk to them sitting side-by-side rather than "review board" style. Also, use good judgment. Don't just add up the numbers and say "tom" is 5 points better than "john". The whole point is to help the team be more productive. Basically, try to weed out the pettiness and let the person being appraised drive the discussion.

Finally, write an appraisal on each person, as the coach. Each organization will have some different way of recording them. In most cases you'll have little control over this. Either way, the point is to make the appraisal "meaningful" and give the person real insight. Most of all be fair and if you must write anything negative always recommend ways of improving.

Well, that's my rant today. Remember that this (and most of my diatribe) is only an opinion and likely one that could be changed. So, please, no flaming. But, intelligent arguments are not only accepted but encouraged!

5 Levels of Planning

I just read an interesting article that breaks down the Agile planning process into 5 levels:
(This is slightly modified)

1. The Vision
2. The Roadmap
3. The Next Release
4. The Next Iteration
5. The Next Day

Essentially, each agile planning session occurs in one of these levels. With each level dependent on it's predecessor. Ideally, you need a vision before you have a road map, road map before you plan the next release...you get the idea.

This really made sense to me. For years now I've used a somewhat complicated model to describe what it is we do. This model, oddly enough, can be easily distilled into this 5 level process.

In the table below I have identified each level of planning with WHAT being the expected artifact and the WHO generally describing the participants:

Level	What?	Who?
The Vision	A Vision Statement	Chickens
The Roadmap	Roadmap (duh)	Chickens
The Next Release	Release Plan/Stories/	Chickens/Pigs
The Next Iteration	Iteration Plan	Pigs
The Next Day	Engineering Tasks	Pigs

In the first level, The Vision, your goal is to provide a vision statement. Each shop will decide it's own requirement but I general recommend a condensed vision statement that can be easily hung on the wall as an "Information Radiator" (Remember...big visible charts). The Vision should be agreed upon by all stakeholders (chickens) and written without concern for technology. It should also convey some sense of purpose, since it is intended to drive the development process.

Once you have a Vision your team of chickens is ready to start working on The Roadmap. The Roadmap should also be brief enough to work well as a Big Visible Chart. Ideally your developers will keep the roadmap hung up in the shop. As items on the Roadmap are completed they can be checked off. The Roadmap will list, in order of importance, the vision for future releases. I recommend a bulleted list with each release defined by no more than 2 or 3 sentences (1 is better). As with the vision the roadmap should have a sense of purpose and as each item on the roadmap is completed you'll likely want to revisit the vision (it may have changed).

With your Roadmap written you'll want to start planning your Next Release. Planning a release is no simple task. You'll want the input of all your chickens and pigs. I'd recommend, first, relooking/revamping the vision for the next release; something may have changed. During release planning the chickens should be presenting stories to the pigs. These stories fall into 3 categories; enhancements, new features, bugs. Chickens should only consider enhancements and new features that fit into the vision for this release. Any stories considered a bug may be considered, regardless of the vision. Beware what you call a bug....just because you "don't like the way something works", does not make it a bug.

During Release Planning you should play the planning game. Chickens write a story, pigs estimate, chickens rewrite.... The final result should be a set of estimated stories with user values and generally well described acceptance tests. This may take several days. Pigs should feel free to throw back any story that can't be estimated. Chickens should make sure to stay within the vision for this release (or revise it).

Once you've hammered out your Release Plan, you're ready to begin working on the Next Iteration. Your original estimates of a story should not change unless the story is changed. Tracking progress should be done via your velocity (that is outside the scope of this article). At the beginning of each Iteration you'll select a set of stories to complete. This should be a sort of "do or die trying" commitment on the part of the Pigs. If you've tracked your velocity properly then making a commitment should be easy. Put story cards somewhere visible or use a large chart to track progress. No story should be started without an acceptance test and no story is complete until the test passes.

As each iteration progresses you'll constantly be planning The Next Day's work. Each day engineers/developers should pair up and select a story to work on. Pigs will sometimes hold design sessions with CRCs or write engineering tasks to remind themselves what needs to be done next. A coach should be available to cheer them on as the stories slowly disappear and the new builds start to appear. Always make big visible charts and information radiators to track progress of tests, builds and stories.

As you get into a rhythm your team should start to move through these stages naturally. For many companies distractions are a way of life. Try your hardest to insulate developers from these distractions and you'll see your vision realized much faster. If distractions are unavoidable them just realize that your velocity will suffer. As long as distractions are common your velocity should adequately adjust for them.