I laugh very big.

I have an idea for a utility I would like to write as a way to practice TDD and some other agile methodologies I have been reading up on, with a view to releasing it as an open source solution when i am done. I am not sure though if there is anything already out there which will suit the purpose. If you do know of something available, or a better alternative to solving my problem then please post in my comments section…

We have 10 sites running a WinForms based system each connecting to a local SQL2000 server. We use the application updater block to deploy new versions of the application to each site – with some additional tweaks to support decent change control. Updating the schema (or data) of the DB is not quite so easy though. All the SQL instances are accessible on the WAN, so when a change is required this means opening a connection to each instance in ISQL and running an update script. This is not a suitable solution though because it is too easy to miss a site, and there is no way of knowing which scripts were run where and what the last script to be run on any given DB was.

The solution I propose is a simple WinForms utility with an XML data store. You add a list of sites to the app (in the form of a SQL connection string or such). Then when you have a new script to run, you add it to the app and press play. The app then runs the script on each individual site and reports the success or failure, with the option of automatically rolling back the transaction at all sites if any one of them fails to succeed. The app also assigns the script a reference number and saves it to its XML data store. It also records the date and time the script was run for each site so that you can go back and see when changes were made, as well as see the last change that was made. Should you not wish to update a particular site within a run you should be able to unselect it from that run, but then when you do want to update that site the app should enforce a rule that all scripts are successfully run in the order in which they were added to the system. The XML data store could possibly be checked into source control.

What do you think? This app would certainly be useful to me; would anyone else find any use in it? Am I missing the point completely? Does something out there already provide this functionality (for free)?

[A bit of background for the non South African reader of my blog (my auntie in London): The debate is currently raging in South Africa over whether or not the South African National Blood Service should be able to use racial profiling as one of the factors in determining the risk of a particular blood donor having HIV.]

This is a serious topic, i know, but this comment from Chris Roper had me rolling (from his News24 column)...

“Still, as empathetic as we want to be here, the acid test is - if Manto Tshabalala-Msimang happened to be in a car crash, and was given the choice of blood that had undergone stringent safety checks, or blood that was politically correct, which would she choose? You're right, it was a trick question: the answer is Garlic.”

[Never mind auntie, it is a South African insider type thing]

I know a lot of people who loved the trial version of ReSharper but then baulked at the $100 price tag. Well JetBrains is offering a 20% discount per licence for the December period.

If $80 is still to much for you to fork out at this time of year, you can always complete their online survey and stand a chance of winning a free copy...

[UPDATE: Bummer, the 20% discount only applies if you buy their IntelliJ product as well (see comments)]

In my short career (6½ years, to be exact) working as a software developer I have been involved in the rollout of more systems than I can remember off the top of my gradually balding head. These installations were all pre-dotnet though, and since I moved over to dotnet I have been creating mostly server side stuff. Although I have done a fair bit off WinForms work, I have never been involved in an actual client-side deployment on the dotnet platform. I assure you, this is much more by design than pure good fortune. The days (and frequent nights) I spent in DLL hell are not a fond memory. Just the mention of the words "ActiveX can't create object" and my stomach starts to get queasy.

So, you can imagine how much I was looking forward to getting involved with a client-side rollout again and along the way it has been every bit as difficult as I anticipated - delayed flights, troublesome hardware, touchy sysadmins, illiterate users, you know - the usual.

There was one thing that was far from 'usual' though. The one thing that never gave us a single moment's trouble, at 10 different sites, on 10 different LANs was the application itself: Install the framework, run the MSI. Boom. Done. First time, every time.

And with our use of the app updater application block, if we need to release minor bug-fixes or add features, it is a simple case of copy-paste from our latest good CruiseControl.NET build, generate a new manifest and go make some coffee.

What a pleasure.