Entries from July 2007 ↓

This show is getting ridiculous! They allowed “Boy Shikira” and the person Mark feels is the next Napoleon Dynamite, but quite frankly they are no were near the talent of some of the people they kicked off!

America’s Got Talent? When it is talent to dance like fools, or a guy dressing like Shikira and no where near the looks or the dancing capabilities! Where is the talent in that BS.

Bah! I can’t watch this show any more.

I can’t say this often enough, SEPARATE YOUR DESIGN AND YOUR CODE! If you want easy maintenance, if you want to be able to change your design and not have to recode a LOT of things, SEPARATE THEM!

This evening Mark and I were having a bit of a debate, he was asking how to execute .NET code in the HTML designer, and I personally wanted to say “It’s not possible”, but went ahead and told him to use < % code here %>. Of course, I then proceeded to warn him of the danger that will present in the future and the fact that it is bad practice to do such.

So let me explain to everyone why it is necessary to separate code and design.

1. Reusability
   Let me present fact number one, by separating design and code, you are forced to write code in a more reusable manner. For example, with the separation you are likely to write a placeholder on your page, that you will use the CodeBehind page to write the output (or for PHP, in a class you call).

   Now the idea is to build an object for your data, something that can be reused by numerous applications. Yes, I know what you are thinking, this data will never need to be reused, why can’t I just write the code in the design? You say it can’t be reused now, but just give it a few months and when someone asks how to access your data, you will feel pitiful. ALWAYS write your code as if everyone would want to use it! Anyways, you have your object of data, and then it is up to each application to determine how they wish to display it. Thus, if you do not incorporate it directly into the design, it is entirely reusable in any fashion, form, design, etc. Thus point number 1.

2. Maintenance - Updating
   By placing your code in a separate file from your design, you can achieve easy maintenance and updating of the design without having to rewrite significant pieces of code. How site designs has your company been through? Are they looking into going into Web 2.0? Will they likely rebrand if bought? Will users complain about the complexity of the design and seek an alternate way of access their data? All these are things to consider at design time and at code time.

   How cool would it be if all you had to do was alter the CSS and the HTML to implement the new design, all of this is possible when you separate Code and Design. At work, our sites are made just like that, and I am damn proud about it too. The fact I can just a few lines in the stylesheet and show off an entirely new looking site just rocks! Unfortunately, very few know this and every so often write code that doesn’t quite flow with what I try to achieve.

3. It’s Easy!
   Why not separate design and code? If you are using Visual Studio for .NET, you are an IDIOT not to separate them. Visual Studio makes it easy! Binding objects, datasets, etc to just about every possible control you can think of, and you aren’t doing this. You think it is overkill? Well its’ not. It was designed this way intentionally to ensure the practice of separating design and code get utilized into your coding lifestyle. So if you feel it is overkill, GOOD. You are doing exactly what the developers of Visual Studio wanted you to do.

There are many more reasons, and everyone typically has a personal reason for separating code and design, what are yours? Why do you do it, or not do it?

It’s been a long while as I experimented with a new front-page, and hated it. Finally, I am back to WordPress with the goal to blog at least once a week. However, today, I need to catch up everyone for the past several weeks.

Time has been good to me. I have been writing several articles for Search-This, primarily focused on Object Oriented Programming, but I have had a few others here and there, and am always looking for suggestions for upcoming articles. On top of that, my wife and I bought a house in Lima, OH. We have been living it for a little over a month now (actually 41 days, but who’s counting?). Then if that weren’t exciting enough, we got a dog!

The dog’s name is Spunky. It’s primarily a name to describe his personality than anything else, as he is one spunky pup who feels he owns the house I just bought! But we love him. He is a Papillon (pronounced pap-i-on, the l’s are silent) and will get anywhere from 5 to 10 pounds (I’ll try to put pictures up at a later time).

Finally, work has been keeping me extremely busy as I rewrite one of our biggest applications to correct all of it’s XML flaws. See, as an insurance company we try to follow the ACORD standard, and this application was written as the first .NET project for the company. With that said, no one really knew what ACORD was, and we just try to mimic what we felt it was. This is now biting us in the end, and its my job to correct it and I am getting close to having a product ready for testing. I am just now getting the UI finished up and then it’s off to testing by me, then our “QA” department if you will call it that (other individual in tech asked to do specific sets of tests). Well this project has been consuming a LOT of hours from me, roughly 320 hours right now, and I projected about 450, so I am doing good.

In short, that is the time between my last post and today. Hopefully, I can keep my promise and I expect everyone to harass me when I miss a week.