After learning about the MbUnit plugin for ReSharper from JP at the Nothin But .NET bootcamp, I was really happy to see that James Kovacs has come up with a VsTsUnit plugin for Resharper. If you are forced by your client to use the MSTest for your testing this is something you should install to make your life easier.

This is very cool, on March 14th the Edmonton Agile Methods User Group will be holding its first meeting.  The group is language agnostic so as long as you are interested in learning about Agile methods you are welcome to attend. If you are interested in attending, please RSVP on this thread to give the organizers a better idea of how many people will be attending.

Here are the details:

EAMUG FIrst Meeting!
=================

First off, I would like to thank Rod for obtaining a room for us to hold EAMUG's first meeting! I will do an introductory presentation about agile methods that will last about an hour and a half. I expect we'll probably have another half hour of discussion afterward. I will try to cover the following topics during the presentation:

• Why agile methods? Here I will talk briefly about the origins of  agile methods and the problems they are meant to resolve. 
• Scrum - I will outline the basic techniques of the Scrum project management methodology. 
• XP - I will outline the basic values and practices of XP. Many agile projects combine Scrum as a generic project management methodology with XP for the aspects of the project that are specific to software development. 
• Finally I will discuss some caveats - dangers and pitfalls faced by agile projects. Also I may bring up some of the impediments to adoption of agile practices and how those may be overcome.

LOCATION AND DATE:
=================
115 in IBM's Innovation Centre (10044 108 St. main floor) for Wednesday March 14 at 6PM onwards.  It holds maximum 54 people and comes with a projector to use.To get into the centre, just enter through the main doors of the building on 108 St. just behind the IBM sign (the building is actually  called 44 Capital Boulevard).  The centre is located behind the big glass doors. We will make sure the building and centre doors are open between 5:50 and 6:10.  If you arrive after 6:10 and the doors are locked, please ask the security desk if he can let you into the Innovation Centre to attend the EAMUG meeting in room 115.  I'll make sure the security desk has the heads up for you.

Below is the text of an actual email I received from Microsoft events notifying me of the Unify 2007 Tour. The correct information can be found here if you are interested in attending.

The  Unify 2007 Tour is almost here

You registered for the Unify 2007 Tour in <city name>. This is just a reminder to let you know it’s happening just 10 days from now, on <Month 00, 2007>.

Please bring the Admission Ticket you received at the time of registration to present at the door to gain admittance to the event.
Although the event doesn’t start until 9 A.M., registration starts at 8 A.M.

We recommend you arrive early to get breakfast and to ensure a seat, as those individuals on our wait list will be allowed admittance five minutes before the event begins. Once again, thank you for your interest in the Unify 2007 Tour. We look forward to seeing you there!

Your confirmation details:
Name:  <CONTACT FULL NAME>
Confirmation Number: <CONFIRMATION NUMBER>
Event Code: <EVENT ID>
Event name: <EVENT NAME>
Location:
Room: <VENUE SITE ROOM>
City: <VENUE CITY>
Event date: <EVENT START DATE>
Start time: <EVENT START TIME>
End time: <EVENT END TIME>

Finally the truth comes out! Between Donald, Justce and me, I clearly rock the most:

http://www.sucks-rocks.com/rate/donald/justice/steven

Today Microsoft released Team System Powertoys. The best thing about the powertoys release is that Microsoft added a Build Test Tools Task that allows you to run unit tests by specifying test DLLs instead of having to create a test list. Thank God!

It has been over a week since I arrived back in Edmonton from Maui. I meant to post pictures as soon as I got back but the reason for not doing so is not because I am lazy, it is because the weather has been terrible here and posting pictures of the amazing Maui weather would get me lynched. If you are interested you can check out the rest of the pictures in my Maui Flickr photoset

Palm Tree Sunset.

Our Condo where we stayed while in Maui.

Surfer dude.

Catherine and I watching the SuperBowl.

I guess one thing that I didn't include about me in my 5 things post is that I get obsessed with watching all the nominated Oscars movies.

It all started a couple of years ago when my uncle who is a local actor here in Edmonton had an Oscars pool, ever since then I try and see all of the movies and predict the winners. So here are my picks for this year along with some movie recommendations:

Recommendations

If you are only going to see 5 of the movies that are nominated this year see these 5:

1. Pan's Labyrinth
2. Children of Men
3. The Last King of Scotland
4. Little Miss Sunshine
5. Half Nelson

Oscar Picks

ACTOR -- LEADING
Leonardo DiCaprio – BLOOD DIAMOND
Ryan Gosling – HALF NELSON
Peter O’Toole – VENUS
Will Smith – THE PURSUIT
OF HAPPYNESS
Forest Whitaker – THE LAST KING
OF SCOTLAND

Hands down this is going to Forest Whitaker. He is great playing Idi Amin. My dark horse pick is Ryan Gosling, his performance in the underrated movie Half Nelson is awesome.

ACTOR -- SUPPORTING
Alan Arkin – LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Jackie Earle Haley – LITTLE CHILDREN
Djimon Hounsou – BLOOD DIAMOND
Eddie Murphy – DREAMGIRLS
Mark Wahlberg – THE DEPARTED

I would like to see this go to Djimon Hounsou but I think Blood Diamond was a weak movie, his performance was the only reason it was watchable.

ACTRESS -- LEADING
Penélope Cruz – VOLVER
Judi Dench – NOTES ON A SCANDAL
Helen Mirren – THE QUEEN
Meryl Streep – THE DEVIL WEARS
PRADA
Kate Winslet – LITTLE CHILDREN

Not sure why this category has turned into the who can play the bitchiest woman category over the years. Helen Miren will win for playing a really convincing portrayal of the Queen but Penelope Cruz in Volver is worth seeing.

ACTRESS -- SUPPORTING
Adriana Barraza – BABEL
Cate Blanchett – NOTES ON A SCANDAL
Abigail Breslin – LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Jennifer Hudson – DREAMGIRLS
Rinko Kikuchi – BABEL

If you look at all of the awards shows leading up to the Oscars Jennifer Hudson will win but Rinko Kikuchi's performance as a deaf girl trying to be normal in Babel was really powerful.  

ANIMATED FEATURE
CARS
HAPPY FEET
MONSTER HOUSE

Monster House had better win over Cars!

CINEMATOGRAPHY
THE BLACK DAHLIA
CHILDREN OF MEN
THE ILLUSIONIST
PAN’S LABYRINTH
THE PRESTIGE

I have a soft spot for Pan's Labyrinth but the cinematography in Children of Men was the best of the year. There is an excellent scene in Children of Men where the camera follows Clive Owen through a war zone that looks like it is straight out of a first person shooter.

DIRECTING
BABEL
THE DEPARTED
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
THE QUEEN
UNITED 93

This year either Scorsese finally wins the Oscar or the Academy/Clint Eastwood lovefest continues.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
AFTER THE WEDDING
DAYS OF GLORY (INDIGÈNES)
THE LIVES OF OTHERS
PAN’S LABYRINTH
WATER

Pan's Labyrinth deserves to be in the best picture category and should win this award. If it doesn't I hope Deepa Mehta wins for Water.

MAKEUP
APOCALYPTO
CLICK
PAN’S LABYRINTH

The pale man is one scary dude.

ORIGINAL SCORE
BABEL
THE GOOD GERMAN
NOTES ON A SCANDAL
PAN’S LABYRINTH
THE QUEEN

The nursery rhyme from the score plays such an important role in the film that it will be in your head after the film is over.

ORIGINAL SONG
“I Need to Wake Up”
– AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
“Listen” – DREAMGIRLS
“Love You I Do” – DREAMGIRLS
“Our Town” – CARS
“Patience” – DREAMGIRLS

This song was the best part of the film and the reason that Jennifer Hudson will win best supporting actress.

BEST PICTURE
BABEL
THE DEPARTED
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
THE QUEEN

This is going to be the surprise of the Oscars, all of the actors in this film gave their  best  performances.

VISUAL EFFECTS
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:
DEAD MAN’S CHEST
POSEIDON
SUPERMAN RETURNS

The visual effects were the only good thing about Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest the rest of the movie seemed like a 2 hour long version of the Benny Hill show. 

SCREENPLAY -- ADAPTED
BORAT CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF
AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT
GLORIOUS NATION OF
KAZAKHSTAN
CHILDREN OF MEN
THE DEPARTED
LITTLE CHILDREN
NOTES ON A SCANDAL

SCREENPLAY -- ORIGINAL
BABEL
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
PAN’S LABYRINTH
THE QUEEN

Tonight I am coming back to Edmonton from Maui. Besides coming in during a big storm, the weather here has been nothing but good to us. Check out what it was like when we got here: http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/10516.aspx

I'll post more later but I wanted to link to Rick's post now so I don't forget.

Call me crazy right now before you even start reading this post just to get it out of the way.

I think it would be great if comments were removed from programming languages entirely. I think they do more harm then good and that if we removed the ability to use them a lot of us would have to be more disciplined when we code. Now, before you get all worked up hear me out. Here are my reasons for abolishing comments into programming language history.

1: If you couldn't use comments in a programming language you wouldn't get people admitting that they don't know what they are doing like this.

2: Comments are a code smell. If you couldn't use them you would have to explain what you are doing in a method name or with your code. 

3: TODOs are more often than not forgotten and rot inside the code. Maybe a TODO is better off as a story. Do people really need to know that you "hacked" something to make it work?

4: No one deletes commented out code, if you couldn't use them code would be a lot cleaner.

5: Comments are a way to temporarily get your code to compile but does it really need to compile or do you just need to write a test and some functionality that isn't there yet?

I would like to hear some arguments for keeping comments in programming languages. If not lets get rid of them! Viva Le Revolution!