Add dancing bears.

I'll keep this one simple and cloud free... this is cool!

Rory, if they run with this, and they feature MSDN presenters...

Man, you guys are trying a lot of experiments with these kind of videos but someone at MS decided to shutdown VBTV which was, in my oppinion, a pretty good show.

Why is that? Do all these experiments have to go through censorship (er.. filtering) of some kind?

Try adding:

"Gelatin. Lots and lots of gelatin. And hamsters. Lots and lots of hamsters."

Rory,

I completed the survey and suggested that one of the more charismatic presenters, such as yourself, give it a shot.

Maybe in an "Apprentice-esque" approach - Get Bill G. involved to participate in the demonstration of the completed applications with him awarding a prize or a dreaded "blue screen" based upon his assessment of the milestones.

I think this is complete bollocks.
I hope it dies very quickly. It is a trivialisation of the work done by software developers everywhere, it prepetrates the myth of the programmer as uncommunicative geek wit.

You want me to code you an ecommerce site in an afternoon, with a bunch other wierdoes specialy chosen for their incompatibility, oh and I have to sit in a dark concrete room and eat pitza and coke.
Sorry! - go take a walk, that is not what developers do. Perhpas thats what the media would like to portray us as, I mean, I don't drink coke ok!

Great show, I hope they continue to run with this. I would love to sign up for this :)

What channel is this show showing on?

You can check out the channels here -
http://www.thecoderoom.com/about.aspx

Just a handful of stations for the pilot.

Usually I'm a fan of your ideas Rory, but this show is terrible. I totally agree with Peter's comments above. The show portrayed development as a lot of guesswork and stumbling through wizards. ("How did you do that? I don't know I just right-clicked and it worked") Great for portraying Whidbey as an anyone can program with it development environment, but we all know that no matter how many wizards are made and provided, if you don't understand at a what is going on in your code, your programs are only going to be mediocre at best . I think the show should have taken the time to point out what the programmers were doing wrong (and well) as far as working as a team, managing the project and coding. The fact of the matter is, everyone CAN'T program and your knowledge of programming DOES make a difference in the final product. So good luck all you wizard users, I and the other do it the hard way developers will be along later to clean up your slipshod products that you slapped together one afternoon in a basement pizza and coke coding session. I'm just not sure that you can save that show Rory. How could you convince Microsoft to stop tooting its own horn about how easy they've made it to program? It would be nice if Microsoft would instead show the world how professional you must be in a great number of areas in order to be a good developer (people skills, project management skills, logic and problem solving). Am I (and Peter) alone in thinking like this? More comments from other developers please!

Horrible. I cant even think of any other way to describe it. Pretty much what George and Peter said.

I agree with both George and Peter, this movie was complete crap. If the message from Microsoft is "any idiot with a keyboard (and wizard) can code", then the movie gets an A+. I however tend to believe that to be a good developer one must possess at least some marginal skill and aptitude for the science/art of development.

it looks like 3/4 of the 4 guys from viewpoint (4th coming?) really, really don't like it.

the logic was pretty simple - there are thousands of webcasts, articles, and books that show code and deep technical content. hopefully it was obvious we weren't even remotely trying to do that here.

as a developer i've seen very little that shows the social and teaming aspects of programming. i agree (completely) the challenge could have been better, we could have better equipped the contestants, and we could have steered them down a path that required more coding.

if we did all that (which is good feedback, i agree) would you find any interest? a pilot is intended to be a rough concept, a brainstorm. different presenter? different contestants? different language? or is it doomed in your eyes beyond all repair?

are you're objections about wizards reducing the amount of code you write or if they're about a 30 minute show that isn't 90% coding?

as a side note, we've received 375 responses from pro devs to the survey - 91% of which have come back positive. its a mixture of C#, VB.NET, Java, and PHP responses mostly thus far.

not saying i disagree with your feedback, but so far it's not representative of most viewers and i'd love to know what, if anything, we could do to make it more appealing to you.

Paul, I'd love to give you as much feedback as you want. Although I’m not sure if Rory wants us to hijack his blog with this discussion (although he did instigate it and run off…), you could e-mail me directly at clingermangw@hotmail.com if you want to take this off Rory's blog. You said that as a developer you see very little about the social and teaming aspects of programming and after watching this program I would argue that we still have seen very little about the social and teaming aspects of programming. If one of the purposes of the program was to showcase interactions between programmers, I just wasn't seeing it in this episode. Plus, with the little interactions we where shown it was never discussed how that interaction had a positive or negative impact on the project. None of the decisions made by the team member was discussed. Was Scott's decision (that got vetoed) to switch to a language he was more comfortable with a good one or a bad one. Maybe some more serious follow up interviews with the developers afterwards where they could voice some complaints about the other developers on what they did well, what they had difficulty working with, etc. I think it would be important to hear from successful project managers as well who could monitor the performance of the developers and critique what project management techniques should have been used or improved upon. Also, I recognize that the format is short, but for crying out loud at least reprimand the programmers for not putting A LITTLE effort into turning out a good product. I don’t like a program put on by Microsoft, no matter what it’s original purpose is, that doesn’t preach good programming practices. I don't care how much time you have you should at least make an EFFORT to create the best you can even if you don't know how to design an interface. So...like I said, if it's cool with Rory we can keep discussing this here or we can e-mail back and forth Paul. Personally, I would like to hear some of the opinions of the people who did like the show as to the specific things that they liked and what they enjoyed. Maybe the 4 guys are just missing something.

George -

"...if it's cool with Rory we can keep discussing this here..."

Of *course* it's cool :) I would never want you to feel apprehensive about commenting here.

I see that you've taken it to your blog, though, but just wanted to make sure that you (and everbody else) knew just how totally OK it is to say whatever in the hell you want here.

I had a few more thoughts, after my somewhat ott reaction. For me, it is not clear what the point of 'the code room' is.
If it is to educate developers, then I think this is a bad way. They just went to a conference, they have msdn, they need a few quite moments without stress to try out some of those features. If you are trying to educate me, well, I have loads of stuff, books, web, co-workers, whatever and looking at this is a slow way to learn to use a wizard.

If it is to entertain, then, dress them up in clown suits and make the portable explode. Oh and I think the project manager was a good idea, let the project manager estimate the project completion time, and then tie him up and get the big razor sharp wheel spinning and moving up closer and closer as time runs out.

You see, in its present format, it does neither of these things.
peter

I don't really care what language is used in the show, but I am concerned about the image of developers presented in the show. Any and all languages probably could and should be used in the Code Room. The language doesn't indicate the quality of development; it's the developer who does that.

My concern with wizards isn't about the amount of code it reduces or the time it reduces. I enjoy using tools and utilities that let me be more efficient. My concern was the haphazard approach demonstrated on the show in using the wizards. If you are going to use a wizard great, but you better understand what it does and what it did. Blindly using wizards to develop creates security breaches and mystery code in projects.

Also, wizards and languages aside, my biggest problem with the show in general was the lack of professionalism and presentation in the product created and the developers. Again, I don't want to see a show promote the type of developer that I no longer want to work with. I want a developer that takes the time to put in comments, formats their code, thinks about the layout of the forms, reads the specs and cares about the specs, attempts to use coding best practices in all that they do. I'm tired of working with and being associated with the sloppy, basement coders and I have problem with a show that showcases them as their stars.

Paul,

" it looks like 3/4 of the 4 guys from viewpoint (4th coming?) really, really don't like it. "

:) sorry, there are only 3 guys from Viewpoint now, but we didn’t want to change the URL....

"are you're objections about wizards reducing the amount of code you write or if they're about a 30 minute show that isn't 90% coding?"

Most of the objection that I have personally is that the people are using wizards, and then the dialog goes "Hey, what did you do?", "I don’t know, I just clicked through this wizard, I don’t know what I am doing here."

Wizards are great to save you time if you already understand the concepts of what is actually going on behind the scenes, but you can't simply rely on wizards to code for you, or you get crappy code. The Code Room seems to imply that you can simply code by wizard, and come up with a decent end product that works. You may be able to meet the 4 minimalistic goals (barely), but you are not going to be able to put together a usable application, and certainly not something you are going to want to maintain.

"we've received 375 responses from pro devs to the survey - 91% of which have come back positive."


Yeah, I will admit, the show has some fun to it. This will appeal to most people, and a lot of people really dont care about promoting "Best Practices". Many people are fine with the "whatever works" approach, but I think that you get a better end result if you question what you are doing and try to do it better.



"different presenter? different contestants? different language? or is it doomed in your eyes beyond all repair?"

Well, of course you should have Rory on there presenting... I don’t think that the show is beyond repair by any means, I think you just need to come up with a challenge that will make those involved think a bit about what they are doing. The complete lack of code that they had to write kind of dumbs down what a developer is. I’m sure they had to write SOME code, but it certainly wasn’t alluded to in the show. No one wants to sit and watch someone type code for 30 minutes, but the fact that it made it look like the project was wholly completed with wizards was what brought the show down for me.



I was completely excited when I heard about it, so the idea is definitely good. It just wasn’t what I was expecting to see from “Three of the top developers”. If the purpose is to determine “The best programmers in the country”, I would expect to see more coding involved….. Hope you can keep the show going though. Id love to see it take off if it didn’t seem to emphasize how “easy” it is to code, even if you don’t know what you are doing.

Great points George, thanks!

And Peter - I agree, I love the clown suits idea.

You posted as I posted, so I didn't get to thank you, but that's awesome feedback Rick. Maybe the next show should feature the 3 guys from viewpoint as the developers!? :)

I enjoyed it http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/paul/archive/2004/12/14/36829.aspx

Maybe a little gratuitous sex and violence will get all the neopoleontons tuning in week after week...

Paul,

Being the antagonist for the 3 guys from Viewpoint, I have to warn you on what you are suggesting. If you actually brought these 3 on and had Rory play a part in the episode, you would double the entertainment value of the show. These 3 are hilarious to listen to because of the strong contrast in character that each possesses.

Also, to run 2 teams of 3 at the same time and then allow them to critique the others project might also boost the entertainment value as well as show the differences in style and how it is used with your development tools..

Cheer and Beers

Tbone

Paul,

"Maybe the next show should feature the 3 guys from viewpoint as the developers!?"

As the former 4th guy, I can tell you, that would be an entertaining show!

It is always fun watching and hearing information pertaining to coding and coders. I work at a place where "Developers" would rather be watching football and scratching their balls rather than developing, so getting to see and hear people being excited about developing is an up-lifter for me.

I agree with Rick that the content should change a little ("The magical use of wizards") but not to much to where you would be watching straight code for 30 mins.

At the end of the show I did not like how there was no criticism on the developers implementation, all I heard was "Great job, you met all the objectives"

I look forward to the next show.

I like it, but the concept needs some tweaking. To borrow an idea from the Daily WTF(http://www.thedailywtf.com) it would be great for a critique at the end. Maybe a panel to comment on what was good and what was bad. It doesn't have to be all coding. Architecture, team dynamics, database design, etc.. are all fair topics for something like this. Each show could focus on a specific concept.

How about taking something like the MCSD architecture exam scenarios/cases with some very concise questions to be answered or problems to be solved. Assign a group to solve them, then post mortem the solution in a reality TV format. This could be educational and entertaining.

I think you have to be careful about the impression that using something other than best practices is acceptible. It may be OK to cut corners or use a wizard, but only in limited situations. Linking a feedback forum to each episode could help provide "free" criticism of episodes, discovering concepts, errors or other points possibly overlooked by the "panel".

Rory,

I am constantly amazed at your ability to express yourself.

Keep it up !!

_ SM

Ok,

Here are my solicitied comments.

First, perhaps you need to get some developers that have a clue. Ok, perhaps that is harsh. But, here is what I observered.

1. The first thing you do when writting OO software is NOT a data model.

1a. Don't design for features that aren't requierments. All three said their 'crowning' moment was delivering software that didn't meet the provided requierements and not listening to management.

2. They seemed to totally forget everything they were taught. Whidbey's new membership and personallization features should allow them to meet 99% of the requierments they were given with almost zero code. (Wasn't this the point the show was trying to demonstrate?)

3. One of the developers, if I remember correctly was introduced as a TDD guru/activist... yet I say zero unit tests and didn't even hear the word test.

Perhaps I would perfer to see something a bit more 'rehursed' with a team that knows what they are doing and follows an agile life cycle. Bottom line, I don't think I learned anything from watching this. Wasn't that the main point?

Althought I do think it is an interesting concept to training rather than a single presenter webcast. Many people could learn from a senerio driven show like this. So, good concept, bad execution. Albeit entertaining!

BOb

Excellent comment Bob. You brought up a lot of things I forgot to mention but that really bugged me about the show. I totally agree with your "good concept, bad execution" thought as well. Thanks for saying it all so eloquently too, very well said.

P.S. On a side note, am I the only one who wishes Rory would switch to a new webcam picture? The current one is just really creeping me out!

George,

Thanks for the kind words. And also excuse me speeling :) errors. Why can't web page edit boxes support spell check?

BOb

4 Guys From Viewpoint » How to Improve The Code Room