About Nerdy Musings
NerdyMusings.com is dedicated to software developers. My goal in creating this site is to pass along information about how to solve common problems in developing business applications. Here you will find information on architecture, standards, coding patterns, tips, and specific examples of how to solve business problems.
This site is the result of my frustration with finding coherent, accessible, and useful information about how to solve technical problems. Most reference documentation, particularly Microsoft's, contains very little guidance on when and why you would apply the information you find. This makes sense because the possible applications of their technology are virtually limitless. The more specific they are about how to solve a particular domain problem, the less useful the information is for a developer coming from a different domain.
But when you are searching for help, you really want a working example of something that is at least similar to what you are trying to do. My goal is to provide examples that show how you assemble a solution out of the dizzying array of programming interfaces and their options. I'll also help you differentiate between essential and non-essential options.
I know that there are plenty of sites out there on the Internet that offer free advice and examples. They are a great resource, and I've used them myself extensively. However, I often find that I have to piece together many tidbits from all over cyberspace to build a concrete example, and the poor quality of the writing I run across frequently gets in the way of understanding what the author is trying to convey. One of my goals with this site is to help improve the quality of Web information that is available to software developers. I am a technical writer and editor myself, and my wife is and has been a technical writer and editor for several national publications.
My focus these days is on .NET development, but I'm still responsible for a few VB6 applications, so you'll see information here relating to both. Of course, the architecture and design information applies to just about any environment.
You'll notice that the tone of this site is personal. This site is not exactly a blog, but it has some characteristics of a blog. I won't pretend that the information here comes from some grand collaboration of programming geniuses. Nor do I think I'm the best programmer in the world.
What I will tell you is that I have over twenty years of experience in developing business software, and I've been valued, praised, and rewarded by every company for whom I've worked or with whom I've consulted. In all that time, I've figured out some stuff, and I continue to figure out new stuff every day. Nerdy Musings is my forum for sharing that information with anyone who might find it useful.
You will also notice that there is some shameless marketing going on here. I won't apologize for that. My concession to the open source movement is that I'll show you everything you need to create your own solution quickly, and I'll explain how things work.
However, in the process of building my own solutions, I try to maximize reusability at the component level, which means I end up with a component that can easily be plugged into other applications. If you want the convenience of using my ready-made component, you should be willing to pay something for it. I don't charge much; just enough to make maintaining this site worthwhile.
My time is worth something, and so is yours. It is up to you to decide whether or not the cost of a component is worth the time it would take to build it yourself.
I welcome articles from other developers who share my general development philosophies and would like to participate in this forum. As I said earlier, Nerdy Musings is a very personal effort on my part, so I only publish stuff that makes sense to me. This attitude is not a matter of ego or elitism, but more a desire for consistency.
If you are interested in participating, please click the Contact link and let me know. We can even make arrangements for you to sell your own components through this site.
At the suggestion of some of my readers, I put a PayPal donation button on Nerdy Musings for visitors who wish to show their support for free, high-quality, "how to" articles.
If you want more information about donating to NerdyMusings.com, please click the Donations link in the top menu.
If your organization need assistance with a development project, I can help. Visit my
Microsoft .NET Expertise for Hire page for more information about my consulting services.
I sincerely hope that you get something useful out of Nerdy Musings. If you do, please take the time to tell me about it. I'm open to suggestions for improving the site, and I'd love to hear your ideas about any topics you'd like to see covered.
If you don't like the site or think I'm full of something stinky, feel free to visit other locations in the cyber universe that appeal to you more.
If this is your first visit to Nerdy Musings, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the navigation. You are probably here because you are looking for specific information, but perhaps you just want to browse around and see what else is available.
The site accommodates both approaches. You can use the table of contents on the left to find articles by category and subcategory. You can also use the Search or Index pages to locate all articles on a specific topic regardless of how they are categorized.
This site also supports RSS, so if you have an RSS reader, you can be notified immediately when new content appears.
Browsing
The top navigation takes you to the major areas of the site. Certain areas also have a sub-menu, once you get to them. For example, articles have a sub-menu that lets you scroll through the issue one article at a time and gives you access to related articles and links.
On the left side you see links for listing articles by category/subcategory. Clicking on a subcategory link lists all the articles in that subcategory. Clicking on an article title in the list shows you that article.
Searching
To search, click on either the Search link or the Index link in the top menu. The search page lets you select articles by keyword, author, or subcategory. The topic index page lists article topics that you can click to see articles related to the selected topic.
When you are on a page that displays an article, you will often have a link at the top of the page for related articles. That link takes you to a list of articles related to the one you are reading, organized by topic. |
