As a software developer, there are certain projects you want to avoid. For me, that is usually the project where the end-users design the entire application -- you know the type I am talking about.

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It seems like it is that time of year again... the days are getting longer, the weather is getting a bit warmer and the top-tier software vendors are on a buying spree. Will you get lost in the shuffle? Why not support your local software developer!

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It seems like that the latest marketing technique for software vendors is to sling a little FUD and see if it sticks. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt make for some attention-grabbing headlines and are great for scaring potential customers away from a competitors offering.

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It's that time of year again, with Code Camp Oz (http://www.codecampoz.com/) just around the corner 31 March - 1 April, 2007. Code Camp Oz is annual community event for software developers held at the Charles Sturt University campus in Wagga Wagga.

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Most developers knew this day would come-- a new version of Internet Explorer comes around and suddenly, the web application you have spent months crafting falls into a heap. No wonder people call it "Internet Exploder".

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I ran across a "Developer Manifesto" while trolling through a vendor Web site and thought I would share it with you.

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As a .NET developer, there are a few “best practices” that you should always consider. And one of the biggest is that every application you write should include error trapping to trap critical and non-critical errors that may occur. And the .NET framework makes it easy to use “Try… Catch” statements to intercept any errors that occur and allow you to handle the exception.

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Today the birds are singing, the sun is shining and I am just putting the wraps on a .NET application I have been working on for the past 4 months.

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For years, the IT community has accused Microsoft of spreading “FUD” (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) about their competitor’s solutions. But it looks like that the FUD has been flying back the other way, with some industry analysts hypothesising that the new IP features in Windows Vista will bring the Internet to it's knees with an overload of traffic.

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In my job as a developer, I get to talk to all sorts of people. And one of the conversations I seem to have a lot lately is "build vs buy", especially when it comes to custom applications. When developing a new application, I try not to reinvent the wheel, for example, if the application requires extensive charting capabilities, I will look for a third-party charting component to buy and integrate. If the application requires a more polished user-interface, I will buy a set of icons or a UI component to deliver the required user interface.

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Rapid Application Development is all the hype lately, with claims of being able to churn out functional applications in under two weeks. One popular technique is to lock end-users and developers in a conference room for 10 days and build the application on the fly.

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There some mornings I don’t want to get out of bed...

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I have recently spend a considerable amount of time on a project replacing an old mainframe system with a new web-based application.

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New DB2 tools enhance the developer experience.

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Microsoft has just released the eagerly anticipated Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals (TEDB) which allows developers to build database applications in a team environment.

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