Advance My Design Skills to the next level
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Hi Everyone, This is my first post on this board. I've been reading it for over a year now trying to soak up any information I can get. MY QUESTION: I need to learn better design skills, but I am a lone coder. Unfortunately, I work by myself so I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off or learn from. How can I take my design skills to the next level? What are your suggestions? MY BACKGROUND: Unfortunately, I have been programing for a career for over 10 years. I started with Basic on the Apple when I was a kid. I then began my career with VB, and have since moved onto VB.NET. I became MCSD certified in with Visual Studio 6. I have taken the MS classes on .NET, and have read a few books, but I don't feel like I've got the necessary knowledge to design good systems. I mean, my systems work, but I'm afraid if someone looked at them they'd say, "What the heck were you thinking?!?". I started to read a book on OO Design, that was based on the Martin Fowler book, but it used Bears, Zoo animals, and flowers as the examples. I didn't find the application of these to be to clear. Most of the time, it doesn't seem like my systems call for complex patterns, but without outside eyes how do I know? So is the answer reading the right book? Or is it seeking out skilled people to teach me? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Regards, Wauna
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Hi Everyone, This is my first post on this board. I've been reading it for over a year now trying to soak up any information I can get. MY QUESTION: I need to learn better design skills, but I am a lone coder. Unfortunately, I work by myself so I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off or learn from. How can I take my design skills to the next level? What are your suggestions? MY BACKGROUND: Unfortunately, I have been programing for a career for over 10 years. I started with Basic on the Apple when I was a kid. I then began my career with VB, and have since moved onto VB.NET. I became MCSD certified in with Visual Studio 6. I have taken the MS classes on .NET, and have read a few books, but I don't feel like I've got the necessary knowledge to design good systems. I mean, my systems work, but I'm afraid if someone looked at them they'd say, "What the heck were you thinking?!?". I started to read a book on OO Design, that was based on the Martin Fowler book, but it used Bears, Zoo animals, and flowers as the examples. I didn't find the application of these to be to clear. Most of the time, it doesn't seem like my systems call for complex patterns, but without outside eyes how do I know? So is the answer reading the right book? Or is it seeking out skilled people to teach me? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Regards, Wauna
As you are on your own, I would advise you to pick a reasonably complex problem that has a database, business logic and possibly multiple front-end options. Then, break down your code into the various areas, e.g. data access at the database end. At this point, you should have a reasonable idea about what you expect your system to be composed of, so you could use TDD (Test Driven Development) to take a crack at developing your system. Normally, I would expect you to do a lot more design up front, but as this is for your benefit only and as a way to experiment with what works for you, you can get to the coding a bit earlier than you would in a real project. Think about what patterns are present in your project, and how you can layer your code for best effect. Then - ask questions here on CP.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
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Hi Everyone, This is my first post on this board. I've been reading it for over a year now trying to soak up any information I can get. MY QUESTION: I need to learn better design skills, but I am a lone coder. Unfortunately, I work by myself so I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off or learn from. How can I take my design skills to the next level? What are your suggestions? MY BACKGROUND: Unfortunately, I have been programing for a career for over 10 years. I started with Basic on the Apple when I was a kid. I then began my career with VB, and have since moved onto VB.NET. I became MCSD certified in with Visual Studio 6. I have taken the MS classes on .NET, and have read a few books, but I don't feel like I've got the necessary knowledge to design good systems. I mean, my systems work, but I'm afraid if someone looked at them they'd say, "What the heck were you thinking?!?". I started to read a book on OO Design, that was based on the Martin Fowler book, but it used Bears, Zoo animals, and flowers as the examples. I didn't find the application of these to be to clear. Most of the time, it doesn't seem like my systems call for complex patterns, but without outside eyes how do I know? So is the answer reading the right book? Or is it seeking out skilled people to teach me? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Regards, Wauna
A good start is to read the HeadFirst Design Pattern & Head First Object-Oriented Analysis & Design.Check those out at http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books.php.Contact me any time at stzo_2@msn.com
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Hi Everyone, This is my first post on this board. I've been reading it for over a year now trying to soak up any information I can get. MY QUESTION: I need to learn better design skills, but I am a lone coder. Unfortunately, I work by myself so I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off or learn from. How can I take my design skills to the next level? What are your suggestions? MY BACKGROUND: Unfortunately, I have been programing for a career for over 10 years. I started with Basic on the Apple when I was a kid. I then began my career with VB, and have since moved onto VB.NET. I became MCSD certified in with Visual Studio 6. I have taken the MS classes on .NET, and have read a few books, but I don't feel like I've got the necessary knowledge to design good systems. I mean, my systems work, but I'm afraid if someone looked at them they'd say, "What the heck were you thinking?!?". I started to read a book on OO Design, that was based on the Martin Fowler book, but it used Bears, Zoo animals, and flowers as the examples. I didn't find the application of these to be to clear. Most of the time, it doesn't seem like my systems call for complex patterns, but without outside eyes how do I know? So is the answer reading the right book? Or is it seeking out skilled people to teach me? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Regards, Wauna
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These people have a number of resources you will find helpful. To access some of them, you will need to register with them. http://www.netobjectives.com/[^]
Another good book about patterns is http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/hfdesignpat/ and also Jimmy Nilsson book where he is beeing like a pair programmer to you http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2006/06/26/Applying-Domain\_2D00\_Driven-Design-and-Patterns-by-Jimmy-Nilsson.aspx
Magnus Sälgö Sälgö Consulting AB, Sweden
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Hi Everyone, This is my first post on this board. I've been reading it for over a year now trying to soak up any information I can get. MY QUESTION: I need to learn better design skills, but I am a lone coder. Unfortunately, I work by myself so I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off or learn from. How can I take my design skills to the next level? What are your suggestions? MY BACKGROUND: Unfortunately, I have been programing for a career for over 10 years. I started with Basic on the Apple when I was a kid. I then began my career with VB, and have since moved onto VB.NET. I became MCSD certified in with Visual Studio 6. I have taken the MS classes on .NET, and have read a few books, but I don't feel like I've got the necessary knowledge to design good systems. I mean, my systems work, but I'm afraid if someone looked at them they'd say, "What the heck were you thinking?!?". I started to read a book on OO Design, that was based on the Martin Fowler book, but it used Bears, Zoo animals, and flowers as the examples. I didn't find the application of these to be to clear. Most of the time, it doesn't seem like my systems call for complex patterns, but without outside eyes how do I know? So is the answer reading the right book? Or is it seeking out skilled people to teach me? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Regards, Wauna
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Hi Everyone, Thank you for all of your responses. It looks like there are lots of books and resources that would be good to review. I'm also going to try posting some of the basics here. Thanks again! Wauna
You want to look at some code of how design patterns etc are applied. MSDN has some really cool sample applications. These applications are full n-tier design and gets stuck right into new concepts like software factories as well as best practices Try the Microsoft .NET PetShop 4.0 http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa479070.aspx