Copyright 2010 Michael Knopf's Bloggeneral topics concerning programming in a general senseA frank and easy to understand overview, in straight forward language, of the latest buzz word MVVM: what it is, how to use it, and if we should even care about at all.http://www.mknopf.com/articles/whats-this-mvvm-thing-and-why-should-i-care.htmlFri, 26 Mar 2010 18:10:11 GMT2010-03-26T18:10:11Developers spend significant time reading and navigating code fragments spread across multiple locations. The file-based nature of contemporary IDEs makes it prohibitively difficult to create and maintain a simultaneous view of such fragments. We propose a novel user interface metaphor for code understanding and maintanence based on collections of lightweight, editable fragments called bubbles, which form concurrently visible working sets.http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/acb/codebubbles_site.htmThu, 11 Mar 2010 09:18:01 GMT2010-03-11T09:18:01Rethinking the User Interface Paradigm of Integrated Development EnvironmentsIn this fascinating talk given by Ed Catmull, a founding member of PIXAR, he provides critical insight into the success and failures of teams of people and companies as a whole. You should really watch the entire talk, it is well worth your timehttp://www.mknopf.com/articles/its-all-about-the-development-team.htmlFri, 12 Feb 2010 12:18:55 GMT2010-02-12T12:18:55Developers (good and bad) can grow stronger by stretching themselves and learning new ideas and approaches. Even if they ultimately don’t use something new directly, the act of learning it can sharpen them in positive ways.http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/01/24/about-technical-debates-both-in-general-and-regarding-asp-net-web-forms-and-asp-net-mvc-in-particular.aspxMon, 25 Jan 2010 11:14:44 GMT2010-01-25T11:14:44About Technical DebatesThere is never only “one right way” to develop something. As an opening interview question I sometimes ask people to sort an array of numbers in the most efficient way they can. Most people don’t do well with it. This is usually not because they don’t know sort algorithms, but rather because they never think to ask the scenarios and requirements behind it – which is critical to understanding the most efficient way to do ithttp://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/01/24/about-technical-debates-both-in-general-and-regarding-asp-net-web-forms-and-asp-net-mvc-in-particular.aspxMon, 25 Jan 2010 11:04:57 GMT2010-01-25T11:04:57About Technical DebatesIf you design applications that anyone in the world, other then yourself, will use then you really need to be thinking about usability during the entire development process. Some of you (hopefully) have heard of Steve Krug, the author of Don't Make Me Think. This is a great video of a talk Steve gave that covers The Least We Can Do to create usuable software.http://www.mknopf.com/articles/the-least-i-can-do-designing-applications-people-can-actually-use.htmlWed, 06 Jan 2010 17:04:09 GMT2010-01-06T17:04:09Bing has release a Maps SDK for use in your Silverlight projects. In this white paper we will cover how to use the SDK to display weather conditions for cities across the United States. The real-time weather data will be retrieved using the WeatherBug API and shown on the map. We will animate the weather conditions (a glowing sun for Sunny conditions, a raining cloud for Rain, etc...) and cover some core concepts along the way, specifically use of a Controller mechanism in your Silverlight projects, parsing XML into your own data model that can be returned from a Web Service, and of course getting up to speed with the Bing Maps SDK for Silverlight.http://www.mknopf.com/articles/creating-a-weather-map-using-the-bing-silverlight-map-sdk-and-weatherbug.htmlWed, 23 Dec 2009 19:55:08 GMT2009-12-23T19:55:08Have you ever been at the gym, running on a treadmill, while the guy next to you (who is in much better shape I might add) is not only running faster than you but appears to be doing it with ease. You adjust your speed trying keep up, it works for awhile and you feel good about it, but eventually fatigue sets in and you find it increasingly more difficult to stay on pace. Eventually you have to slow down to something thats "sustainable", something you can keep up for your entire workout. Learning (and working) can, and often is, just like this.http://www.mknopf.com/articles/learning-fatigue-sustainable-pace-and-a-programmers-death-march.htmlSat, 23 May 2009 16:28:39 GMT2009-05-23T16:28:39http://www.mknopf.com/topics/programming.htmlSat, 23 May 2009 16:28:33 GMTen-us