Starting off, what is a Bezier Curve? It is a curve defined by 2 or more control points which determine how the curve looks. The first and last control points are, by definition, passed directly through while other control points (in the general cases) are simply moved towards and not directly through. This can all sounds little difficult to understand at first, so I will give you an interactive demo on what Bezier Curves look like and how they work. In the demo, the blue squares are the “hard” control points and the red circles are the “soft” control points. As you drag the control points around the screen you will see the curve change accordingly.

This isn't exactly a "tutorial" but is a part of this 'WPF for the WinForms coder' transitional series. We all know that Visual Studio is extensible, meaning people write extensions for it to give it new or better features. There are a few of these I'd like to point out because I would't want to do without them if I didn't have to. They can be obtained through the Microsoft Extension Library on line. If you've never done this, its quite easy. From your Tools menu select Updates and Extensions. Then Online. Then Visual Studio Gallary The first extension gives us our familiar #region directive from C#, within XAML. XAML gets long and can become confusing because of how so many controls get nested inside other controls. Use regions to lable and compact your XAML lets you find what you want and focus on just what you are working on.

Amazon EC2 AMI Copy Feature - Performance, Tips and How To

I’ve started work on some new videos and this time it’s all about Agile Estimating, Planning and Contracts. This is the obvious next step having completed Scrum101, and I’m apply some of the lesson that I learned.

Large-scale software and systems development involves a complex mix of people, teams, technologies, skills, architectures, and organizational structures that must all interact for projects to reach their goals. However, many organizations struggle to scale up agile approaches for their various programs, products, and services.

The combination of Play 2, Scala, Squeryl, JSON, CoffeeScript, jQuery, and ScalaTest provides a very efficient way to build and test modern web applications. You can follow along to build a simple database-driven web application, test the application, and deploy it on the cloud.

I thought I’d draw some of the things that people often ask me about or that would help people learn Emacs (and enjoy it). You can click on the image for a larger version that you can scroll through or download. It should print all right on 8.5×11″ paper (landscape) if you want to keep it around as a reminder. Might even work at 11×17″. =)

The idea of a VC having its own news aggregator was a bit outlandish in 2007. But Y Combinator was in an unusual position in those days anyway. Startup incubators had been a highly visible part of the dot-com crash, and Silicon Valley was still skeptical of the concept nearly a decade later. So YC set out to be something different — a community of hackers building companies on their own terms.

Back in January, Sandi Metz introduced her rules for developers in a Ruby Rogues podcast episode episode. Around the time Sandi’s rules were published, the team I am on was starting a new project. This post details the experience of that team applying Sandi’s rules to the new application.

Why there are very few good Java Architects? Well, most people will say to me, that this isn’t true, they have Java Architects in their team. I believe, but most of them are Senior Programming Developers with some experience, but not real Architects! Sorry.

This got me interested in how a program like Shazam works… And more importantly, how hard is it to program something similar in Java?

It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career.

The Internet is full of articles on why you should not use Git submodules. I mostly agree, although I am not so harsh in my evaluation. As I explained in a previous post, submodules are useful for a few use cases but have several drawbacks.