Mike Clark is posting a question at a time about his interview by Mike Gunderloy (of Coder to Developer fame). The first one is about continuous integration on large projects. Mike G. asks if there is a size limit on CI projects.

Mike C. says no, and turns it around to say that he gets more and more uncomfortable as the size of the project increases.

I agree with him. While the project I'm on isn't huge, it's not small either (we're currently at about 500,000 lines of code and over 1500 types). We don't have a perfect build process, but all of our projects get built whenever change occurs, and it's definitely helped the team know when there are issues. And we never have to worry about doing a build - we know we have a working copy in source control. Couple that with an awesome QA team, and we have a pretty good process going.

I've made the comment to others in the office that I don't think I would want to do another project without CI. I feel that strongly. It does take time to get it set up, but it's made up in savings down the line. In fact, I've recently had the chance to help convince two other teams to use CI on their projects. I'll probably never be on those teams, but I know they'll be much better off if they set it up, so I'll take the time to help them get up and running.

Scott Mitchell has a pretty good article that gives a nice intro to the Enterprise Library over on 4GuysFromRolla.com.

I really need to start playing with this thing!

If you've developed any .NET application, you'll probably want to check out this page to see what might break when users use different frameworks, and to see if your software will run on a different framework.

This time it's stored procedures versus parameterized queries. Peter DeBetta and Frans Bouma go head to head over on TheServerSide.NET about the pros and cons of each.

I'm still on the fence about this one. Lately, I've been falling to the side of pqs, but for a different reason than I've seen listed. I've yet to see an easy way to put stored procedures under source control. I've done it in the past, but it was a pain. It's much easier to put code under source control.

In my current project, we use stored procedures. The Tourney Pool Manager doesn't. Why? Database independence was easier without sprocs. I guess it mainly comes down to what works best for you and the task at hand.

Brian got our press release for the release of the Tourney Pool Manager into the Great Lakes IT report, and the next day, I saw it in an email, but I wasn't aware the release was online - until I got the Technorati search result tonight. It's online, and can be viewed here.

There's an MSDN event at the Crowne Plaza Hotel tomorrow (Thursday, February 24th, 2005) from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM. I would love to attend, but deadlines loom!

It looks like a good talk. There's three sessions about Winforms, troubleshooting ASP.NET apps, and Visual Studio Team System. It looks like Bill Steele will do the Winforms talk. I'm not sure who will do the other talks.

I wish I could go. If you go, let me know how it went!

The rain in California has extended your chance to win the $25 Best Buy gift certificate!

Because the rain has been so heavy in California, they have given the course an extra day to dry. That means the Accenture Match Play tourney won't start until Thursday morning, so I've opened up the deadline until then.

I don't post much about college basketball. Not because I don't follow it - mainly because I don't have a whole lot to say about it. But I've seen a few things that have piqued my interest lately. Maybe the prospect of talking about it on the radio has made me think about it a little more lately.

I watched Kansas lose to Texas Tech (2 OTs - great game!) last week and Oklahoma last night. Then I watched ESPN tonight say they think Kansas will be a number two seed. I don't know. I think they'll be a three or four seed, but a lot can change as conference tourneys start up.

Is it just me, or are there more upsets happening right now than usual? Early in the season it's pretty common as teams (or more likely, pollsters) adjust to get teams falling into the right spot. But in the past couple of weeks, I saw Kansas get beat (three times!), Kentucky drop to South Carolina, and Duke lose - Duke lost 3 of 5 before getting back on track and upsetting (is an 8 seed beating a 5 seed really an upset though?) Wake Forest. Duke surprises me - they were undefeated until recently, and they've been a .500 team since that time (8 games ago). To me, that looks like a team who lost it's confidence. Shouldn't Coack K be held responsible for that?

Illinois is obviously the favorite right now. They look pretty good, but can they make it a perfect season? I'm saying no, but that doesn't mean they will lose in the tourney - I predict they lose in the Big Ten tournament - where they won't have the drive for an automatic seed that some of the lower ranked Big Ten teams will.

How many championships can Boston handle in a 12 month period? First, the Red Sox, then the Patriots (twice now), and next Boston College? It's possible. They'll probably be a number one seed. They have a couple of tough games coming up, but I think they'll hold course and get a one seed. With Illinois, that's two of them.

The other two? North Carolina and Arizona. I know - Arizona is a long shot, but I think they will. They have an easy schedule to finish the season, so they shouldn't get beat. Wake will drop, as will Kansas, and I think Kansas will beat Oklahoma State, so they'll drop too. Kentucky - I think they'll get upset one more time too.

With that out of the way, where will my alma mater fall? That's Michigan State for those who don't know. I'm going to say a three seed right now. They'll probably lose one more in the Big Ten Tourney (I think they'll win out the rest of the schedule), and that will drop them from a two seed to a three seed. Tom Izzo has done a very good job with them this year, and they usually step up in the Big Dance, so watch out for them! Of course, my homerizm is showing again!

Ok. Enough hoops for now! Back to your regularly scheduled geek speak.

I haven't had a chance to dig into Enterprise Library yet, but Scott Densmore has a list of upcoming webcasts about them. These should give a pretty good overview of how to use the Library.

Don't have time to watch them while you're online? You can use this post to find out how to download them for offline viewing!

A while back I posted about how there were very few bloggers in the West Michigan area, at least based on the BlogMap service, but there was one - Eric Maino.

Well, that may change. He's interviewed at Microsoft, and has an offer. He hasn't accepted yet (at least not that he's let on), but if he does, that's one more local sucked into the Mother Ship.

Congrats, Eric. Even if you don't accept, it's still a big accomplishment!