Stop what you’re doing & watch this. It’s only 23 minutes long (the rest is Q&A) & explains EVERYTHING.

There is also a wonderful summary post of Sabrina’s talk, written by attendee Máirín Duffy.

Words just can’t describe how much this video resonated with me. Thank you, Sabrina for sharing your story.

It works, but feels dirty. If you have a cleaner reco, PLEASE let me know.

Handler:

(My apologies for screenshots. Git Gists were not keeping the formatting when I selected c#)

Extension Method:

HEADS UP

This happens due to Excel settings that can be changed if desired on the client, but opens fine:

TL;DR

REASON I DID THIS:

I wrote a Lync method that pulls the latest, active permissions per user email. Because of this, each email address row could have x permissions columns, thus becoming a collection of type dynamic (IEnumerable<dynamic>). New perms can always be added, so options are dynamic (and this db has no lookup table for them).

Don’t judge :-) But if you can constructively advise, I’d love to hear it (if there is a cleaner way or if this isn’t as dirty as it made me feel).

Thanks! Posting in hopes it helps someone. Or if this doesn’t help, maybe a comment will ;-)

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 12,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 20 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

As the eve of this major birthday approaches, I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately

I’ve been having a hard time pinpointing what is bothering me so much about it. Yes, everyone knows how disturbing it is in our society for a woman to turn 40. Fortunately I was never the cheerleader, or the beauty queen, or an extrovert, so the tendency to avoid cameras (especially video) isn’t anything new to me… so why the ridiculous feelings?

This morning, I had a break-through.

As I’m watching many around me hit the same birthday this year, the ones having real struggles are those who have either lost, abandoned, or never truly found their passion for [something]. Some are trying to get it back by starting a band; Others might buy a car, or whatever cliché things we all hear happen during big birthdays, but an all-too-common thing to do, starting right around this birthday, seems to be trading passion for a pastime, and it’s something I want no part of.

It was in my last decade that I discovered my passion. I became a programmer late in life, after another career.

I feel a child-like wonder & appreciation for the joy I feel solving programming problems.

During the first 7 years of my 30s, while becoming a mommy (twice), I was a new programmer.

If you’ve had kiddos, you know it really affects the time you have for other people. I always thought my own mother was so uncool when I’d ask her for her old 70s clothes for costumes & she’d tell me she didn’t do all that – she was having babies (but she had a closet full of muumuus caftans* – what!?!?).

I get it now.

I was 30 when my first was born, and 34 for the 2nd one. I literally left society in a way I could not have comprehended prior. My life was about being at work or taking care of babies (or getting the baby weight off), and a surprising thing happened.

When I tried to reenter society as a person (differentiating from mommy), I could no longer talk to most people in society about what interested me.

Unless I wanted to talk about poopie, cleaning, or gardening, I had very few people who didn’t shut me down. I wanted to talk about tech. I wanted to talk about programming. Have you ever tried to talk to someone at a PTA meeting about anonymous delegates vs lambda syntax? Yeah, I don’t recommend it. I didn’t stop talking to people because I’m a loner. I stopped talking to people because I “knew” they wouldn’t want to talk about what I wanted to talk about. Sure, I could & can fake it, but it takes a lot of energy for me to do that; energy I’d rather spend solving my next programming challenge.

The Gift My Unique Viewpoint Gave Me

I feel like I was given this amazing gift of appreciation for the tech Community that would be easy to take for granted (you don’t know what you have until you don’t have it).

I see others who get caught up in the grind of living up to expectations & keeping up with technology, unable to see that we’re the luckiest introverts to have ever lived. Twitter allows us to spew 140 chars of esoteric programming “nonsense” & get coherent responses. Twitter allows us to connect with people like us. We’re not “normal.” Programmers are delightfully “not normal” in wonderful & inspiring ways.

For YEARS I thought I didn’t really like [most people in general] because they didn’t have any interest in talking about what lit a fire under me. The all-too-common “oh you’re talking tech – I can barely turn on my computer” shut-me-down reaction created a HUGE and powerful fear that made me start to be afraid to even TRY to meet new people. I’m grateful I was able to capture some of these feelings in my first post about community, especially since I feel so very different now.

Entering the community as an older, married person also made many of the gender issues something I don’t encounter. What I see instead is the wonderful, protective community looking out for each other & making sure that anyone who makes another one of us feel like an outsider due to a specific incident doesn’t do it again.

Back to the Topic

What’s bothering me the most about this birthday is really the fear that I’ll be expected to lose my childlike wonder & stop asking the questions I’m currently not afraid to ask… the questions that are so important to ask to have a breakthrough that enables me to move on to the next learning challenge.

What’s bothering me about this birthday is the fear that someone’s perception might change from “oh let me help & mentor this n00b” to “she’s old – she should know that.”

What’s bothering me about this birthday is I’m older than Scott Hanselman & Scott Guthrie (Hanselman, my friend, you simply MUST stop talking about how old you are – you’re giving us complexes out here. View it instead as, you’ve done an incredible amount in the first 2/5th of your life… Anyone, any age, with kids is allowed to say, ‘get off my lawn,” though, because it’s so funny).
Ok I lost it a little with that tangent, forgive me =)

What’s bothering me about this birthday will hopefully prove to be looked back on the same way I can now see my at-the-time feelings I captured in that first blog post: powerful, real & irrational.

Let’s Rock This Thing

My 30s have been amazing. I’m going to honor them & welcome in the next decade with open arms…right after my mid-life crisis is over =P

The fact that The .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip will be in Dallas, doing a 4-hour show (with a 2-hour after-party following) ON MY ACTUAL BIRTHDAY (which also falls on a Saturday – what are the odds) just really rocks. It’s crazy how much I’m now looking forward to this Saturday. I get to celebrate without being the center of attention while surrounded by my own “I have found my people” crowd. Let’s DO this!

*My mom was HIGHLY offended when I called her “caftans” muumuus. I was just trying to give her a complement =D haha whoopsie

All I was trying to say was, I now realize I’m GLAD I wasn’t a “love child.” Here’s proof that she WAS stylish; she just wasn’t a hippie –>

:-D

UPDATE 11-18-2012

Wow.

Just wow.

Yesterday was… wow!

After waking up to breakfast with my family (coffee, oatmeal, eggs & Oreo ice cream cake), I helped my girls get dressed for a wedding they went to with my husband while I got to attend the .Net Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip Dallas show (Supportive spouses rock).

My kiddos at the wedding with @solarcurve
while I attended the #dnrRoadTrip / #dnrRoadShow

The .Net Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip Dallas show

Seeing the RV parked in front of Microsoft was exciting.

Carl Franklin gave a great talk on building apps on the Windows 8 platform, where he did cool demos of things like adding a video, implementing a video slider, displaying time elapsed (formatted using a ValueConverter) for the video, etc. Helpful resources he recommended include:
http://design.windows.com 
http://devwindows.com
Interesting side note: His demo app has code examples in both c# and vb (but don’t try to open the solution unless you’re running Windows 8).

Richard Campbell then gave a fascinating talk on DevOps, where he gave a lot of great food for thought on how we, as developers, can (work with IT to) better monitor & analyze our applications, using runtime intelligence. I highly recommend watching this clip from their Columbus stop if you weren’t able to catch them in your city.

Miguel Castro, who flew in for the Dallas show from New Jersey, then gave a fun, clever top 10 list, made especially for Texas, before he did an episode of The Tablet Show. Miguel was a delight. He was positive, encouraging & a really nice guy (not to mention HILARIOUS). To get a feel for what a great speaker Miguel is, check out his 2011 TechEd talk on Programming with MVVM.

Watching the recording process for The Tablet Show was fascinating. The chemistry between & professionalism of Carl & Richard is a rare & special combination that’s inspiring to witness in person.

Image (tweeted) by Ryan Lowdermilk

Following the event, we all headed to the after party, where we got to continue dialogs triggered or started at the event earlier.

Although I had seen/briefly met Carl & Richard at events I’ve attended, I hadn’t had the opportunity to actually speak with them in depth before. Our community never ceases to amaze me with how down-to-earth & kind people can be. It’s mind-blowing that anyone that busy can be so friendly & accessible (in addition to blogging, coding, learning, tweeting, presenting, running their companies, maintaining their websites & attending conferences, they produce FIVE podcasts EVERY WEEK, including RunAs Radio, dnrTV, Hanselminutes & 2 .NET Rocks episodes). What great people. Talking to them was so comfortable and just fun.

Read more of Richard Campbell’s bio here (and I highly recommend watching that interview while you’re there – it’s less than 8 minutes).

Carl Franklin talks about his background in this interview, which is only 5 minutes & so interesting. 

My husband, who arrived at the same time as the rest of us (the wedding he attended was over & he had taken our kids to his mom’s house to spend the night), felt right at home, discussing everything from SCOM (which he uses) with Richard to how wonderful Telerik is & how happy he’s been using Sitefinity for his TechnologySpa web site.

One of my favorite pictures was of Teresa & her daughter. I LOVE how sweet this picture is!

There was truly nowhere I would have rather been, and nothing I’d rather have done than spend the day & evening with fellow techies. As far as I was concerned, this was my perfect birthday.

And then, I got a big surprise…

I was left speechless when they not only brought out two big cakes (one chocolate, one white) in honor of my birthday, but had everyone SING to me!

I couldn’t believe they did that for me. How very nice and incredibly thoughtful!

…and then I got another surprise.

Toi Wright presented me with a gift from the Dallas ASP.NET group… An AWESOME gift!

.
Looking into the gift bag

Showing what the laptop bag says to everyone (You can see the excitement on my face in the side view  =D)

Check this out!

Anyone who knows me knows how excited I was when I saw this. I couldn’t believe it! This is the coolest laptop bag that has ever existed. I was blown away & SO excited.

…and then I got ANOTHER surprise!

Carl Franklin said, “Richard & I thought you should have something to put into that bag,” as he presented me with a gift bag.

My “shock & awe” moment, captured by my husband’s WP7

MIND.BLOWN.

They got me a 64(!) GB Microsoft Surface with a Surface Type Cover for my 40th birthday! Even after typing that sentence, it still seems impossible to believe.Thank you is not enough, and all other words fail me.

a truly surreal moment

I am so overwhelmed with emotion & gratitude & joy that I’m unable to conjure up words to even begin to do the feelings justice.

Carl, Richard, Toi, Teresa, Robert, Shawn, Paul, Shane, Miguel, Michael, Harold, James, and everyone who was involved (especially in the planning), THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart, for making my 1st day in this new decade one that I will never forget.

Here’s to many, many more wonderful moments surrounded by inspiring, amazing, friends from the developer community. 

Around minute 26, she briefly mentioned it’s tricky because the dll that gets installed via NuGet is determined by the Target Framework the project is set to at the time you install EF via NuGet.

I ran across an easy way to tell today & wanted to share, while elaborating on what she said with pretty pictures =D.

NuGet writes a packages.config file in the root directory of every project a NuGet package has been installed in. Open it and you can quickly tell which version was targeted.

For example, my current .NET Framework 4.5 project, shows this:

When I create a .NET Framework 4.0 project & install EF5, I get this:

Here’s the Gotcha:

When I changed the Target Framework of my 4.0 project to 4.5, THIS DID NOT CHANGE.

Another important part that DID NOT CHANGE when I changed the target Framework was the section config:

The top one shows the App.config for the project I installed EF into that was set to target 4.5 when I installed the NuGet package.

The bottom one shows the App.config for the project I installed EF into that was set to target 4.0 when I installed the NuGet package AFTER I changed the Target framework to 4.5.

If you look at the EntityFramework Reference properties, you’ll see it actually installs different versions:

…;and not to beat a dead horse, but if you then look at the downloaded NuGet package in your solution root\packages\EntityFramework.5.0.0\lib, you’ll see there are completely separate dlls that get installed, depending on your Target Framework at the time of installation,

My Recommendation

Sure, there is probably some “change this and this and this and copy this and change this” manual way of modifying the settings & EF dll if you upgrade your framework, but do yourself a favor:

1. Check everything into your Git branch
2. “Manage NuGet Packages..” –> Uninstall EntityFramework
   (or Uninstall-Package EntityFramework in the Package Manager Console) &
3. Reinstall EntityFramework
   (or Install-Package EntityFramework in the Package Manager Console)

You will thank yourself in the morning :-)

As you can see from this Tweet, I was pretty excited to see Razor Chart Helpers built into MVC.It started off great – this documentation looks AWESOME…. then I tried to customize how they look. Oye.

Images like these make it look incredibly customizable:

Unless I missed something HUGE, they’re very difficult to style. In fact, I couldn’t even find a property that enabled me to modify where the visibility of the labels on my pie chart, so it looked clustered like this:

Don’t get me wrong; There *are* options other than the default you see above, but they’re blanket themes, compiled into the dll. To see what I mean, see “Styling a Chart.”

Here’s what I get from those, in “Blue, Green, Vanilla, Vanilla3d, Yellow” theme order:

I have NO IDEA how they got this example I was lured in with, but I’m pretty sure it was *not* done with one of the 6 available themes:

So, what did I do about it? I searched for the open source & came up empty, so I decompiled the System.Web.Helpers dll & discovered this:

Manually-formatted, long, kludge strings nearly impossible to change… and where did they come from!!?!?

So after a little while longer being nosy in my decompiler, I found references sending me over to the http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.datavisualization.charting.chart.aspx class.

Aha! That’s where those came from but isn’t there a better way to create custom themes than hacking through these classes with esoteric, error-prone xml strings? There had to be, so I set out to find one.

Since that class was only returning (constant) strings, I built a method that took in a theme enum name & built the strongly-typed objects out, then serializes it out to xml (escaped & all).

I used the first one as an example test to see if this hair-brained desire was even possible.

This is what I started with (I had already been trying to tweak it manually with little luck & much frustration):

        // Summary:
        //     A theme for 2D charting that features a visual container with a blue gradient,
        //     rounded edges, drop-shadowing, and high-contrast gridlines.
  public const string Blude3d =
@”<Chart BackColor=”"#D3DFF0″” BackGradientStyle=”"TopBottom”" BackSecondaryColor=”"White”" BorderColor=”"26, 59, 105″” BorderlineDashStyle=”"Solid”" BorderWidth=”"2″” Palette=”"None”" PaletteCustomColors=”"97,142,206; 209,98,96; 168,203,104; 142,116,178; 93,186,215; 255,155,83; 148,172,215; 217,148,147; 189,213,151; 173,158,196; 145,201,221; 255,180,138″”>
    <ChartAreas> <ChartArea Name=”"Default”" _Template_=”"All”" BackColor=”"64, 165, 191, 228″” BackGradientStyle=”"TopBottom”" BackSecondaryColor=”"White”" BorderColor=”"64, 64, 64, 64″” BorderDashStyle=”"Solid”" ShadowColor=”"Transparent”">
            <Area3DStyle LightStyle=”"Simplistic”" Enable3D=”"True”" Inclination=”"5″” IsClustered=”"True”" IsRightAngleAxes=”"True”" Perspective=”"5″” Rotation=”"0″” WallWidth=”"0″” />
        </ChartArea></ChartAreas><Legends> <Legend  _Template_=”"All”" BackColor=”"Transparent”" Font=”"Trebuchet MS, 8.25pt, style=Bold”" IsTextAutoFit=”"False”" />   </Legends>  <BorderSkin SkinStyle=”"Emboss”" /> </Chart>”;

This is what I wrote to (re)create that WITH Intellisense this time = hooray Intellisense

public static string GetTheme(IntelliboothTheme intelliboothTheme)
{
    ChartArea ca = new System.Web.UI.DataVisualization.Charting.ChartArea("Default");
    var chart = new System.Web.UI.DataVisualization.Charting.Chart();
    chart.BackColor = Color.Azure;
    chart.BackGradientStyle = GradientStyle.TopBottom;
    chart.BackSecondaryColor = Color.White;
    chart.BorderColor = Color.FromArgb(26, 59, 105);
    chart.BorderlineDashStyle = ChartDashStyle.Solid;
    chart.BorderWidth = 2;
    chart.Palette = ChartColorPalette.None;
    chart.PaletteCustomColors = new Color[] { Color.Lime, Color.Red, 
    Color.Orange, Color.Yellow, Color.Green, Color.Blue, Color.Purple,
     Color.Black };
    chart.ChartAreas.Add(new ChartArea("Default")
    {
        BackColor = Color.FromArgb(64, 165, 191, 228),
        BackGradientStyle = GradientStyle.TopBottom,
        BackSecondaryColor = Color.White,
        BorderColor = Color.FromArgb(64, 64, 64, 64),
        BorderDashStyle = ChartDashStyle.Solid,
        ShadowColor = Color.Transparent,
        Area3DStyle = new ChartArea3DStyle()
        {
            LightStyle = LightStyle.Simplistic,
            Enable3D = true,
            Inclination = 5,
            IsClustered = true,
            IsRightAngleAxes = true,
            Perspective = 5,
            Rotation = 0,
            WallWidth = 0
        }
    });
    chart.Legends.Add(new Legend("All")
        {
            BackColor = Color.Transparent,
            Font = new Font("Trebuchet MS", 8.25f, FontStyle.Bold, 
            GraphicsUnit.Point),
            IsTextAutoFit = false
        }
        );
    chart.BorderSkin.SkinStyle = BorderSkinStyle.Emboss;
    var cs = chart.Serializer;
    cs.IsTemplateMode = true;
    //cs.Content = SerializationContents.Appearance;
    cs.Format = SerializationFormat.Xml;
    var sb = new StringBuilder();
    using (XmlWriter xw = XmlWriter.Create(sb))
    {
        cs.Save(xw);
    }
    string theme = sb.ToString().Replace("<?xml version=\"1.0\" 
    encoding=\"utf-16\"?>", "");
    return theme
}

Yes, I’m sure there’s some serializer setting I can set to prevent my manual stripping hack there at the end, but it wasn’t worth it to me, on little sleep, tonight.

I was just THRILLED to find a strongly-typed way to populate those styles

p.s. In case you’re wondering how I called my theme

@model Dictionary<string, float>

@{
    var xArray = new List<string>();
    var yArray = new List<float>();
    foreach (KeyValuePair<string, float> kvp in ViewData.Model)
    {
        xArray.Add(kvp.Key);
        yArray.Add(kvp.Value);
    }
    var myChart = new Chart(width: 500, height: 280, theme: System.Web.Helpers.IBChartTheme.GetTheme(IBTheme.Default)) // IBChartTheme.Blue3d)
        .AddTitle(“Registrations by Country”)
        .AddSeries(
        chartType: “pie”,
            xValue: xArray.ToArray(),
            yValues: yArray.ToArray())
            .AddLegend(“Countries”)
        .Write(“png”);
}

Summary

I have much more to explore & tweak to make my charts look like their examples, rather than my strongly-typed test that proved it worked, but I feel much more confident I’ll be *able* to get these to a better visible state.:

For any property you don’t want exposed, make the Getter: Internal & Setter: Public.

Doing this on the navigation properties that reference the parent that reference it will prevent the “circular reference” error:

Doing this on standard (field) properties will prevent those fields from being serialized & exposed (for example, in the ASP.NET Web Api).

1. This means there is no need to add Newtonsoft.Json.PreserveReferencesHandling settings to your Global.asax Application_Start which results in REALLY ANNOYING $ref & $id properties being added to your serialized results).

2. This also means there is no need to create partial classes with MetadataType attributes for every class that define [JsonIgnore] or [XmlIgnore] attributes on specific properties to prevent this

   Note: This is still a GREAT way to add things like data validation attributes to properties generated using db-first EF. They’re just not necessary to prevent the circular ref exception.

I hope this helps save someone some of the time I spent this week attempting to work around it.

Big thanks to @DavidBitton for the ongoing Twitter dialog that led to this easier-to-implement-than-other-findings solution.

*{“Message”:”An error has occurred.”,”ExceptionMessage”:”The ‘ObjectContent`1′ type failed to serialize the response body for content type ‘application/json; charset=utf-8′.”,”ExceptionType”:”System.InvalidOperationException”,”StackTrace”:null,”InnerException”:{“Message”:”An error has occurred.”,”ExceptionMessage”:”Self referencing loop detected for property ‘Customer’ with type ‘Namespace.Customer. Path ‘CustomerOrders[0]‘.”,”ExceptionType”:”Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializationException”,”StackTrace”:”   at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.CheckForCircularReference(JsonWriter writer, Object value, JsonProperty property, JsonContract contract, JsonContainerContract containerContract, JsonProperty containerProperty)\r\n   at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.CalculatePropertyValues(JsonWriter writer, Object value, JsonContainerContract contract, JsonProperty member, JsonProperty property, JsonContract& memberContract, Object& memberValue)\r\n   at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.SerializeObject(JsonWriter writer, Object value, JsonObjectContract contract, JsonProperty member, JsonContainerContract collectionContract, JsonProperty containerProperty)\r\n   at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.SerializeValue(JsonWriter writer, Object value, JsonContract valueContract, JsonProperty member, JsonContainerContract containerContract, JsonProperty containerProperty)\r\n   at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.SerializeList(JsonWriter writer, IWrappedCollection values, JsonArrayContract contract, JsonProperty member, JsonContainerContract collectionContract, JsonProperty containerProperty)\r\n   at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.SerializeValue(JsonWriter writer, Object value, JsonContract valueContract, JsonProperty member, JsonContainerContract containerContract, JsonProperty containerProperty)\r\n   at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.SerializeObject(JsonWriter writer, Object value, JsonObjectContract contract, JsonProperty member, JsonContainerContract collectionContract, JsonProperty containerProperty)\r\n   at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.SerializeValue(JsonWriter writer, Object value, JsonContract valueContract, JsonProperty member, JsonContainerContract containerContract, JsonProperty containerProperty)\r\n   at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.Serialize(JsonWriter jsonWriter, Object value)\r\n   at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializer.SerializeInternal(JsonWriter jsonWriter, Object value)\r\n   at System.Net.Http.Formatting.JsonMediaTypeFormatter.<>c__DisplayClassd.<WriteToStreamAsync>b__c()\r\n   at System.Threading.Tasks.TaskHelpers.RunSynchronously(Action action, CancellationToken token)”}}

Backstory

I have been really enjoying my latest project using Asp.NET Web API & EF5. Although I’ve had a bit of a (mostly EF) learning curve, it’s gone swimmingly, and I’ve been blown away at the parsing magic performed by the Web API (The last one I built used the WCF Rest Starter kit. The differences in ease of implementation & sheer intuitiveness are mind blowing).

Long story short: This HAD been working earlier that afternoon. After I accidentally closed Fiddler & manually rebuilt my post, my Web API call was no longer “magically” parsing my (strongly typed) object from the body of my post. The object wasn’t parsing at all. It was JUST NULL.

Thankfully, Glenn Block was nice enough to look at my Fiddler Request (via Skype from a bus in Shanghai, even. We live in amazing times) & saw I had left the Content-Type: application/json header out of my post.

My Misunderstanding:

Because I no longer have to explicitly set the Accept: application/json header to receive json (“Json.NET is the default JSON serializer used by ASP.NET Web API” ), I also interpreted that as no longer needing to SEND the Content-Type: application/json for json-formatted body content [POSTs, PUTs].

That was a BAD, BAD, TIME-CONSUMING MISTAKE, but it *does* make sense, and this is why.

Section 7.2.1 of the HTTP/1.1 RFC 2616 spec says this about Entity Body Type:

7.2.1 Type

When an entity-body is included with a message, the data type of that body is determined via the header fields Content-Type and Content- Encoding. These define a two-layer, ordered encoding model:

entity-body := Content-Encoding( Content-Type( data ) )

Content-Type specifies the media type of the underlying data. Content-Encoding may be used to indicate any additional content codings applied to the data, usually for the purpose of data compression, that are a property of the requested resource. There is no default encoding.

Any HTTP/1.1 message containing an entity-body SHOULD include a Content-Type header field defining the media type of that body. If and only if the media type is not given by a Content-Type field, the recipient MAY attempt to guess the media type via inspection of its content and/or the name extension(s) of the URI used to identify the resource. If the media type remains unknown, the recipient SHOULD treat it as type “application/octet-stream”.

What Could Have Helped Me Troubleshoot My Post Mistake?

The Web Api did exactly what it was supposed to do. The fault here was my ignorance, but I have to wonder, if I made that assumption, what’s to prevent those consuming my api who’ve never heard of http put or delete from missing that header (other than using a library that covers it automatically)?

The way QT addresses it is by returning an error message that says, “content-type missing in HTTP POST, defaulting to application/octet-stream.” It would have been quite helpful if the Web Api issued a message similar to that.

I just wrote a simple extension method I’m calling when my expected object isn’t parsed:

Conditional:

if (registrant == null)
{
    return request.CheckContentTypeHeader();
}

Extension Method (returns verb-specific message for POST or PUT)

public static HttpResponseMessage CheckContentTypeHeader(this 
    HttpRequestMessage request)
{
    var postedContentType = request.Content.Headers.ContentType;
    long? contentLength = request.Content.Headers.ContentLength;
    string httpVerb = request.Method.Method;
 
    var responseMessage = request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest);
    if (postedContentType == null && contentLength.HasValue && contentLength > 0)
    {
        responseMessage.ReasonPhrase = string.Format("Unable to parse {0} because Content-
        Type is missing in HTTP {0}, which defaults content to application/octet-stream; 
        Add Content-Type: application/json to your {0} header.", httpVerb);
    }
    else
    {
        responseMessage.ReasonPhrase = "Unable to parse " + httpVerb + ". Please check format.";
    }
    return responseMessage;
}

Great advice –> Glenn suggested making a message handler (“since it’s low level & applies to http”) that detects a body length greater than zero & throws an exception if missing the Content-Type Header if an alternate more global, catch-all solution is preferred.

In Fiddler, if you have content in the body & change the verb dropdown to PUT or DELETE, the entire window turns red. (p.s. Did you know you can upload files to post in Fiddler? Cool!) As mind-blowing as Fiddler is, I’m surprised it didn’t either tell me the Content-Type header was missing or explicitly populate it as application/octet in the Composer when I hit Execute (the way it does for Content-Length).

By the way, there’s now a Fiddler book (woo hoo!). It just came out in June (6/15/2012) & it’s only 10 bucks.  I just got it & am very excited to read it.

Summary / Conclusion

Unless you want your post / put to come through as application/octect, ALWAYS include Content-Type in your HTTP Requests.

I had to learn the hard way. Hopefully you won’t (of if you do, maybe this blog post will turn up in your search results )

Background

I work for a marketing firm with many clients. Developers bounce on & off projects as schedules allow. As such, we usually don’t know if doing a “full deploy” to our integration environment will break anything, which creates a lot of fear-driven, conservative pushes.

In other words, as a general rule we pull down from source control, have to keep track of exactly what files changed for each feature, and manually deploy (ONLY) those specific, affected files.

This is a very tedious, time-consuming and frustrating way to do things.

Enter Git

Because of the way Git stores content based on content (heh, imagine that) without regard for “file save date” shenanigans, I had the idea to try comparing our integration environment (before & after publishing via Visual Studio) using Git

I mapped the integration server to a local drive letter, then pathed to it & did:

• git init
• git add .
• git commit –m “state of integration server before local deployment”
• git checkout –b “20120824_1112am_FeatureId_FeatureName_ItgDep”

I then published from Visual Studio, using Publish method: “File System” with “Replace matching files with local copies” & ran:

• git diff –filename-only

From there, I am now investigating the files that changed & determining why they changed (fewer than I thought it would be in this case – hooray!!).

Once I get these discrepancies sorted out, I’ll be able to deploy directly, moving foreword, saving myself SO MUCH TIME in the future. That rocks!

The coolest thing is, I was able to do this without fear of messing up the integration environment, since either a git checkout master or a git reset –hard HEAD would revert any changes made by my Visual Studio deployment.

Extending this Discovery

1. A git diff after publishing from Visual Studio with the “Delete all existing files prior to publish” option selected would be a great way to see what files exist in our integration environment that aren’t being deployed from Visual Studio (discover .flv files without proper Build Action property, images coworkers might have pushed but forgotten to add in TFS, etc).
    
2. Given access to files in other environments (staging, production), an xcopy from one to the other after init could serve as a great way to do initial file content investigation between multiple environments as well.

As a working parent of two young children, it is not easy for me to attend conferences. Thankfully, I have an unbelievably supportive spouse, without which (as you know if you have kids & have voluntarily attended an OOT dev conf), the thought of attending a conference would not even be on the table.

I had attended these 5 “must-leave-the-kids-for-a-few-days” events prior to this:

1. CodeMash2010
2. Microsoft WebCampAustin 2010
3. Build2011
4. HTML5TX2011
5. CodeMash 2012

Although all 5 conferences were life-changing for me (I now consider many career idols whom I’ve met not only as “real people,” but as real friends; Best profession ever), my work does not pay for events.

My knee-jerk reaction was that ThatConference was more expensive for the ticket($350), and about twice as expensive for the Kalahari room as CodeMash ($169 per night in Wisconsin Dells vs $88 per night in Ohio). I could not find a female dev to room with, which essentially made the hotel about 4x more expensive for me (even more, once I decided to bring my 9yo daughter as my roommate & had to pay for her plane ticket).

In retrospect, I realize the location was in the middle of a tourist area during prime family travel season, and that the ticket was for 3 days of sessions, while the main CodeMash ticket was $195 for 2 days. Choosing to attend the optional Codemash precompiler (which I did) added an additional $90, which made the CodeMash $285, but I didn’t understand or think about that when trying to decide to go.

It would have been MUCH easier for me to make excuses why I couldn’t go than it was to actually make the decision to go.

What got ME to the 1st ThatConference

Clark Sell exemplifies what makes the developer community great. When I was first discovering the dev community, meeting him (& others I “just clicked” with) inspired me to be confident being myself. Clark is always Clark, and his confidence, acceptance of himself & others, and enthusiasm for the people in the community profoundly helped me address my own insecurities.

I went to show my support for his efforts in this inaugural endeavor.

Thank goodness for that. I would have missed an event like no other I’ve experienced, and this is why:

Developer Families

“#thatconference was great because it wasn’t about .net or ruby or JS. It was about people who write code.” –@bphogan, 8-16-2012

This Tweet does a great job of summarizing the overall theme & feeling of ThatConference, but honestly, I’ve experienced that in the community & this message is a driving reason I love the people so very much… Not to undercut this event in that light in any way; I could go on for days about my appreciation for the team that spent so many sleepless nights putting this on, and the respect I have that CodeMash provided guidance, rather than rivalry. I could rave about the fantastic keynotes by @rubybuddha, @shanselman & @richcampbell. I could talk about how well @alanstevens facilitated the perfectly-located Open Spaces (& how surprisingly great 30 minutes between sessions was for the community aspect). I couldrave about the quality of the speakers & what an honor it was meet & talk to so many I follow on Twitter or whose frameworks I’ve used, but I want to talk about the family aspect, because it was so very cool, different & unique.

For example, in the same conference when, during the middle of giving a demo in Posh-Git in the Open Spaces area, I discovered that @dahlbyk (Keith Dahlby, creator of Posh-Git) was looking over my shoulder, I also met his wife & their adorable, blonde, curly-haired, (future-developer?) daughter. In addition, I had the privilege of talking to his wife about bringing tech to youth in the Cedar Rapids (IA) area AND got a walk-through by Keith of how he implemented tab-completion in PowerShell using named regex patterns (something I had just learned about in a great session entitled, “Regular Expressions” by @vongillern a few hours prior to that code walkthrough).

How often do you get to see for yourself that @81megs’ kids are even lovelier in person than they are in the adorbale pics she tweets (and see your girls buddying up around laptops); or get to watch your daughter go head-to-head with @tedneward’s son at Burgertime during Game Night (plus meet his entire, wonderful family); or observe @jbogard playfully talking smack with your kiddo?

Although my husband & my 6yo did not come to ThatConference this year (largely due to the cost of airfare), I decided to bring my 9yo daughter (when I realized I was not going to find a girl geek to split my room).

Sharing this conference experience with her was priceless.

My Best “Kids Who Code” Takeaway

It’s no secret that I want my daughters to be nerds (like me).

I spent quite a bit of time researching Programming Resources for Kids, but mistakenly stopped exploring it myself when Codecademy came out.

Until last week, I intentionally avoided pointing my kiddo(s) to “fake” programming languages because I didn’t see value in learning anything but a “real” language that could actually be used. I’ve been trying since the launch of Codecademy to get my oldest daughter to want to log in & finish her lessons… with no success.

I discovered at ThatConference I made a mistake. That discovery alone made the experience priceless for me.

To sit in the “Kids Who Code” session on SmallBasic with my 9yo daughter and notice there were THIRTEEN other girls listening with their parents sitting next to them was inspiring (…and CodeProject.com even sponsored pizza, cookies & drinks for the kiddos!).

The look on my daughter’s face when she realized she really COULD give a talk to kids on SmallBasic was priceless. The excitement she had, to go use Kodu after her session, was the spark that I’ve been trying to light for so long (and lasted long enough for her to go to the hall to code on her laptop & find out Camp Kalahari was having a “kids cookie frosting” event, but at least that was 10 more minutes than any coding spark I had been able to ignite up to that point =P).

“It was very inspiring and I loved meeting the people there & all the kids because everyone was just so nice & I had a great time. I loved that they had kids sessions because that’s really cool you can bring your kids, and the whole family, and can all enjoy it.” –Katelyn (my 9yo)

Clarification for Childless Devs

Don’t let my focus on kids & family scare or prevent you from wanting to attend. It was a “normal, grown-up” conference in every way (kids weren’t just running amuck or anything). With the exception of game night, 2 kids coding sessions & the closing ceremonies, kids weren’t even around much, that I saw.

I focused on the kids aspect because I was seeking it out =).

Huh? Where Were the Kids the Rest of the Time?

The Wisconsin Dells Kalahari is ENORMOUS. Without leaving the resort, there is an entire world of things to do for all ages, including:

• Camp Kalahari(Pic of activity day example on right)
• Indoor Theme Park
• Indoor & Outdoor Waterparks
• Arcades

I’m assuming this is where they were, but all I can do is speak for my kiddo.

The Kalahari’s Indoor Theme Park is open until 11pm (midnight Friday & Saturday). A one-time $19.95 fee gets you unlimited mini-golf, laser tag, go carts, ropes course, climbing wall, Ferris wheel & carousel for the entire stay.

Although I did not let my daughter go to the water park without me, she spent a lot of time while I was in sessions in the Theme Park. (She has a cell phone, and quickly learned that by texting me with every move, her leash was lengthened while I still maintained comfort with her whereabouts. She’s 9 going on 40, though, and I realize most 9yos aren’t as responsible as she is.) After she met other kids at sessions, she spent some of her time with them & their [parents, grandparents].

Developer Spouses

I came home inspired & compelled to sit on the computer for the next few days, deep in my head, doing things like…

• writing this blog a post on one monitor
• reading about Myers-Briggson another monitor, flying off on another blog post tangent centered around definition of “introvert”
• installing VS2012 in the background
• installing Windows 8 on (multiple other) computers
• experimenting with ideas / talks / teachings that inspired me at the conference

Somehow, my husband understood.

Meeting the significant others of those who support our Inner Introvert and love us for it (…or in spite of it) really extended the family aspect to me.

Our loved ones support our compulsive, mental itches & understand how important it is for us to scratch them when the inspiration hits. I have no idea how my husband tolerates that part of me. He encourages me to challenge myself. His support enables me to face my fears & grow my confidence. It was very cool to meet & talk to the support systems of fellow community members.

Speaking of crazy-supportive developer spouses, I have to dedicate this paragraph to Clark’s wife, Carrie Sell. Without her support, Clark (and many others) made it clear this would not have been possible. She was part of the planning committee from the beginning, she handled the venue & the food, and she supported his vision. That vision was insane. Clark couldn’t stop at just throwing the conference. His vision included unique, never-been-seen-before craziness like a pig roast & hand-making (what, 700 of these?) awesome tablet/iPad/slate stands for the attendees. CRAZY.

Ironically, they weren’t able to bring their kids with them because they were too busy making ThatConference the huge success that it was to have their own fun, family downtime (AND their kids DID start school that week).

ThatConference 2013

Someone described Wisconsin Dells as, “Farm, Farm, Farm, HOLY COW AMUSEMENT PARKS, Farm.”  I didn’t even realize Wisconsin Dells WAS a tourist area. Look, it’s true!

Yes, it cost me more than Codemash (which I still hope to go to if I can get a ticket before it sells out), but now that I’ve been to both, I understand the reason for the price difference is all about the time of year. Since it is tourist season & most kids are still out of school for the summer, the hotel room cost difference is understandable, and $350 for my ThatConference ticket was a steal (it cost over $600 per person to put it on; Thank you, sponsors)!

I came back from ThatConference 2012 PUMPED UP to go again next year AND to make it a family event.

Next year, my kids will be 7 & 10 years old. I’m starting to save money now for next year’s ThatConference trip. I even want to go a week early to explore the many tourist attractions in the Dells with the whole family, then stay with my oldest for the conference itself.

HUGE THANKS to the many who helped in this massive undertaking. This was truly a great event in a great location in a great time of year, and I am very much looking forward to next year.

Now, I’m off to make Squishy Circuits (home-made Conductive & Insulating Play-dough) with the kiddos =D