Anouncement

Journey to Fluent NHibernate - Speaking to North Dallas .NET User Group

Mahendra Mavani — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:03:25 GMT

Karthik was kind enough to invite me as speaker to present a session on Fluent NHibernate. If you are around the area, I would love to meet you there.

Here is the detail from NDDNUG site.

Topic: Journey to Fluent NHibernate

NHibernate has always been preferred ORM tool for DDD community in .NET land. However one area of NHibernate where people struggled most is its xml base configuration. This is where Fluent NHibernate was born giving Fluent, XML-less, compile safe, automated, convention-based mappings for NHibernate. Rather than writing XML documents, you write mappings in strongly typed C# code. This allows for easy refactoring, improved readability and more concise code.

In this session of "Journey to Fluent NHibernate", we will take deep dive into real life usage of fluent NHibernate. Starting from where to find it, session will proceed with covering topic like how to configure NHibernate, where and how to define mapping and how to make sure our mapping is correct by mean of mapping test.

Speaker:		Mahendra Mavani
Date:		Wednesday August 4th, 2010
Time:		6:00 - 8:30
Location:		Intuit Headquarters, 5601 Headquarters Dr Plano TX 75024

See you there

Virtual Learning Series next session - Deep dive into OOP - Beyond basic Concepts

Mahendra Mavani — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:42:35 GMT

Moving on with our series of virtual learning, here I present next one.

Schedule Time: April/1/2010 10:30 PM (Central Daylight Time) [April/2/2010 9:00 AM IST]

Session Name: Deep dive into OOP - Beyond basic concepts

Abstract: In our college days, We have already learned core Object-Oriented Programming concept like Abstraction, Encapsulation, Inheritance, and Polymorphism. However since then, lot has been written and spoken about it. While you feel confident about OOP after mastering those core part, soon you realize those cool folks are talking about Single Responsibility Principle", "Open/Closed Principle", "Dependency Inversion Principle", as well as Inversion of Control containers. This session is to demonstrate nuts and bolts of those buzz word and put you in situation where you can start using them right away.

Why bother attending:

If you are excited about unit testing but it's not fitting well for your project
If you are worried about crazy and psycho guy who is going to take over your code
If you think craftsmanship has nothing to do with software production
Then this session has answer to your concerns

How to Attend:
Meeting will be held on gotomeeting. Make sure you understand how it works so you can be ready for it. Here is the technical detail about it: http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/online_meeting
Here is the meeting detail:

1. Join my meeting at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/join/503418171

2. Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) - a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone.

Dial 215-383-1006
Access Code: 503-418-171
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting
Meeting ID: 503-418-171

Diwali or Deepavali – The grand festival of India

Mahendra Mavani — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:49:56 GMT

As the month of October proceed, 1 billion people from all around the world are busy preparing for their grand festival; The Diwali. It’s bit of misfortune for some of my friends here in America, that they have no idea about what 1 in every 6 person on the earth, is busy celebrating with. Why not to take this as opportunity to tell them about social as well as spiritual significance behind the festival? There is my 2 cents :)

Diwali, which is also known as Deepavali, is a festival of lights. These light signifies enlightenment, joy of victory of Dharma(implies as truth or good) over Adharma (implies as darkness, bad or evil). The day of festival also mark end of year as per Vikram Samvat Calendar, one of the oldest calendar in the history of man kind.(The Vikram Samvat was founded by the emperor Vikramaditya of Ujjain^[1] following his victory over the Sakas in 56 BC. More accurately, this calendar is 56.7 years ahead (in count) of the solar calendar).

Deepavali is Sanskrit word which means “row of light” (Deep means light and Avali means row). It teach us to drive way darkness by spreading light of knowledge. Spiritually, it is the day when Lord Ram returned to Ayodhya after completing His 14 year of exile (referred as Vanvas in Indian literature) and His victory over Ravana. Full of joy, people of Ayodhya welcomed their king by lighting rows(avali) of lamps(deep) and hence the name Deepavali. Just as we celebrate birth of oneself, Deepavali is for celebration of inner light which outshines all darkness or ignorance and awakening us to know our true nature; far far away from just physical existence.

To celebrate the occasion, people light oil lamps in and around their house and set off firecrackers. People paint and clean their homes, buy new clothes and distribute sweets to their relatives and friends. By spreading light in every corner of our premises, we try to destroy the reign of darkness, on the night of Diwali. People decorate their premises with diyas, electric bulbs and other decorative electric lighting fixtures, to make their surroundings filled with colorful light and to make it bright and beautiful. Many interesting rituals and traditions have been attached to the celebrations of Diwali. Fire crackers are burst and people enjoy wearing new clothes, on the auspicious day.

Diwali is a five-day long festival, which is celebrated with fun and fervor.

The first day of Diwali is known as 'Dhanteras' which is the thirteenth lunar day of Krishna Paksha, of the Hindu month of Kartik. Lord Dhanwantari came out of the ocean with Ayurvedic on this day for the welfare of the mankind. People renovate, decorate their houses on this day and make traditional 'Rangoli' on the entrance, to welcome Goddess Lakshmi. Lamps and candles are lit throughout the night. It is considered auspicious to buy gold and silver on this day. Many people opt for buying new utensils on this day.

The second day of Diwali is Narak Chaturdashi.Lord Krishna killed the demon Narakasur on this day to make the mankind free from his fear. It is a tradition to massage the body with oil and to bathe on this day. According to an interesting saying it is believed that those who do not bathe on this day go to the Narak (hell).

The third day is the main day of the Diwali festival.On this day, people wear new clothes and share gifts and sweets with their friends and relatives. Women prepare delicacies and whole house is illuminated with 'diyas' and candles. Fireworks and crackers are the kids' favorites on this day. This day signifies end of year.

The forth day is new year day (as per Vikram Samvat). Day starts very early for all devotees as they get ready in their new cloths, visit temple, chant to the GOD, and then wish each other “Sal Mubarak” (i.e. happy new year)

The fifth day of the diwali is Bhai Dooj, the time to honour the brother-sister relationship. On this day, sisters invite their brothers and their family to their homes and treat them with delicacies. In turn, brothers offer them with gifts and sweets. Legends have it that in the Vedic era, Lord Yamaraj (the God of death) visited his sister Yamuna on this day and blessed her with a boon that if brothers visit their sisters on this day then they will be liberated from all their sins. Since then it is a tradition that brothers visit their sisters on this day and the sisters sweeten their mouths with variety of sweets. The celebration of the Bhai Dooj marks the end of the five days long festivities of Diwali.

For the benefit of my American brothers and sisters:

US President Barack Obama has joined the this grand movement by participating in ceremonial Diwali lamp at white house. Although it was Bush era back in 2003 when Diwali celebration began at white house, Obama was the first American president who had fortunate opportunity to personally inaugurate the ceremony.

Finally, for the geeks in Austin, there is great opportunity to personally attend the celebration and thereby know more about the festival. Barsanadham temple is celebrating grand festival on this Saturday, Oct, 17th 2009 beginning at 5:00 PM. Here is the published schedule:

5:00 pm Dinner prasad
6:00 pm Temple tour (in prayer hall)
7:00 pm Temple tour (in prayer hall)
7:30 pm Temple program – State Representatives & community leaders lighting the dias ceremony, kirtan, pravachan, arti
9:00 pm Grand fireworks display
9:30 pm Ras Garba – Live garba singers: Sur Sangam of Hurst, TX

Address: Barsana Dham
(SW of Austin on FM 1826, 7 miles from Hwy 290)
400 Barsana Rd.
Austin, TX 78737
(512)288-7180

I am there along with my friends and family. Be there and be part of “The Light”.

Screencast of my workshop on Refactoring

Mahendra Mavani — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:06:20 GMT

Over this weekend, I facilitated workshop on Refactoring. My company was kind enough to host the screencast for me. Earlier I posted link for ppt and demo application download here.

If you rather prefer to watch it directly at screencast site, here is the direct link

http://www.screencast.com/t/gI7XXQMQ95S

Thanks to Jeffrey Palermo, for the big favor and editing and uploading the screencast.

Wondering how to unit test those mammoth legacy codebase?

Mahendra Mavani — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 02:52:45 GMT

Fascinated about terms like unit testing and TDD? Praying to work for green field project so that you, too, can do unit testing and TDD?

If these questions sounds familiar to you then let me tell you that you are not alone. While hype of automated testing, TDD, BDD is in air, not everyone is fortunate enough to work on green field project with cutting edge tools and techniques. For years, business has invested lot of money in developing and maintain those “Legacy” system, that everyone seems to hate today. Management is not ready to invest in building new system when current system is serving the purpose. After all for years, we have been hearing “If it ain't broke, don't fix it”.

Given this destiny, what we, the developers, can do to make our life easier? What would be win-win solution out of this situation? People like Martin Fowlers, has already answered these questions in his great book “Working effectively with legacy code”. If you are interested in getting some hands on experience with those trick and don’t mind handing around with like minded people, then come to ACC Campus next to highland mall on 09/19/09. I am facilitating workshop on the topic (Big thanks to AgileAustin for giving me this opportunity).

Here is link to event detail and registering for workshop. Hurry up before all the tickets are sold.

http://agileaustinrefactoring-rss.eventbrite.com/

C U there!!!!

Announcing my Official Blog

Mahendra Mavani — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:31:00 GMT

Thanks to the setup guidance I received from my buddy and Mentor, Eric Hexter, my blog is up and running here.

My earlier feed at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MahendraMavani has been redirected to point to this new blog. Alternatively you can also subscribe to direct feed at http://www.mahendramavani.com/blog/rss.aspx

Other part of the Website is still in planning phase so I don’t know when it would be ready but I am hoping for sooner than later.

With the site and blog running smoothly, now my personal goal is to beat Jimmy Bogard, very talented buddy of mine. (I am shooting for high, you see:) )

I am planning to record my learning experiences with exciting new tools and technology/methodology. Part of that should cover usage of productivity doubling tools like R#, OSS projects like nhibernate, tarrantino, AutoMapper, NAAK and in general topics on design pattern, object oriented programming, agile/scrum/XP methodology.

All in all, stay tuned…

-Favor Smart work over hard work