Click here to Skip to main content
15,889,542 members

Dominic Burford - Professional Profile



Summary

Follow on Twitter LinkedIn      Blog RSS
6,554
Author
2,053
Authority
9,852
Debator
8
Editor
100
Enquirer
212
Organiser
2,954
Participant
I am a professional software engineer and technical architect with over twenty years commercial development experience with a strong focus on the design and development of web and mobile applications.

I have experience of architecting scalable, distributed, high volume web applications that are accessible from multiple devices due to their responsive web design, including architecting enterprise service-oriented solutions. I have also developed enterprise mobile applications using Xamarin and Telerik Platform.

I have extensive experience using .NET, ASP.NET, Windows and Web Services, WCF, SQL Server, LINQ and other Microsoft technologies. I am also familiar with HTML, Bootstrap, Javascript (inc. JQuery and Node.js), CSS, XML, JSON, Apache Cordova, KendoUI and many other web and mobile related technologies.

I am enthusiastic about Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Application Life-cycle Management having configured such environments using CruiseControl.NET, TeamCity and Team Foundation Services. I enjoy working in Agile and Test Driven Development (TDD) environments.

Outside of work I have two beautiful daughters. I am also an avid cyclist who enjoys reading, listening to music and travelling.

 

Reputation

Weekly Data. Recent events may not appear immediately. For information on Reputation please see the FAQ.

Privileges

Members need to achieve at least one of the given member levels in the given reputation categories in order to perform a given action. For example, to store personal files in your account area you will need to achieve Platinum level in either the Author or Authority category. The "If Owner" column means that owners of an item automatically have the privilege. The member types column lists member types who gain the privilege regardless of their reputation level.

ActionAuthorAuthorityDebatorEditorEnquirerOrganiserParticipantIf OwnerMember Types
Have no restrictions on voting frequencysilversilversilversilver
Bypass spam checks when posting contentsilversilversilversilversilversilvergoldSubEditor, Mentor, Protector, Editor
Store personal files in your account areaplatinumplatinumSubEditor, Editor
Have live hyperlinks in your profilebronzebronzebronzebronzebronzebronzesilverSubEditor, Protector, Editor
Have the ability to include a biography in your profilebronzebronzebronzebronzebronzebronzesilverSubEditor, Protector, Editor
Edit a Question in Q&AsilversilversilversilverYesSubEditor, Protector, Editor
Edit an Answer in Q&AsilversilversilversilverYesSubEditor, Protector, Editor
Delete a Question in Q&AYesSubEditor, Protector, Editor
Delete an Answer in Q&AYesSubEditor, Protector, Editor
Report an ArticlesilversilversilversilverSubEditor, Mentor, Protector, Editor
Approve/Disapprove a pending ArticlegoldgoldgoldgoldSubEditor, Mentor, Protector, Editor
Edit other members' articlesSubEditor, Protector, Editor
Create an article without requiring moderationplatinumSubEditor, Mentor, Protector, Editor
Approve/Disapprove a pending QuestionProtector
Approve/Disapprove a pending AnswerProtector
Report a forum messagesilversilverbronzeProtector, Editor
Approve/Disapprove a pending Forum MessageProtector
Have the ability to send direct emails to members in the forumsProtector
Create a new tagsilversilversilversilver
Modify a tagsilversilversilversilver

Actions with a green tick can be performed by this member.


 
GeneralWhat makes a Senior Software Engineer? Pin
Dominic Burford30-May-17 21:53
professionalDominic Burford30-May-17 21:53 
GeneralMore Software Interview Skills 101 Pin
Dominic Burford25-May-17 6:03
professionalDominic Burford25-May-17 6:03 
GeneralSoftware Interview Skills 101 Pin
Dominic Burford12-May-17 5:44
professionalDominic Burford12-May-17 5:44 
GeneralBeat the Thrashing Pin
Dominic Burford5-May-17 6:03
professionalDominic Burford5-May-17 6:03 
GeneralWorking with Azure Blob Storage Pin
Dominic Burford27-Apr-17 2:29
professionalDominic Burford27-Apr-17 2:29 
GeneralWrestling with Apple Pin
Dominic Burford20-Apr-17 3:37
professionalDominic Burford20-Apr-17 3:37 
GeneralTwo unit tests, zero integration tests Pin
Dominic Burford10-Apr-17 22:39
professionalDominic Burford10-Apr-17 22:39 
GeneralThe Mediocre Mindset Pin
Dominic Burford29-Mar-17 1:10
professionalDominic Burford29-Mar-17 1:10 
I wrote an article [^] recently about creating a strong development team. Complementary to that article I think it's also important to build a team that strives for success. A team that wants to be the best. Where excellence is the determining factor in a project's success. A strong team of developers who are striving to create the best solutions is capable of anything.

Certain individuals are content with muddling along without ever really breaking into a sweat. They get the job done but will never set the world alight or go out with all guns blazing. They are happy to be mediocre. Close is good enough. The definition of success for these people is "It works".

I call this the Mediocre Mindset. They have low expectations and standards, and aren't willing to put in the extra effort to create something really exciting and breathtaking. They don't invest in themselves and don't put in the effort to keep their skills up-to-date. They are happy using that technology from years ago. It keeps them ticking over and that's good enough.

These people don't push any boundaries, challenge the status quo, think outside the box or put in extra effort to achieve a goal. They don't pull out all the stops and give it their all to meet a deadline. Accepting mediocrity as the standard for success will ultimately harm the business. It won't take much for your competitors to beat you squarely when your goal is "It works".

I would much rather have someone constantly questioning me, pushing me, challenging me. It is well known that in many sports the key to getting better is to participate with someone who is better than you. As a cyclist I know this only too well. If you cycle with people who ride at the same pace as you, you will simply continue to ride at the same pace. You won't get any faster. If you cycle with people who ride faster than you, then you'll get faster as you'll be forced to keep up with them. You may struggle at first, and it may take several weeks / months of hard effort and training, but eventually, you will be able to keep up with the faster riders. The improvements can be made if you have the desire to make them.

This same analogy applies equally well to software development (and probably most areas ofhuman endeavour).

Surround yourself with people who won't accept anything less than the best as the definition of success. People who will strive to create the best solutions, will invest their time and energies researching new and emerging technologies, who propose new and exciting solutions and bring fresh ideas to the table. I want to see fire in someone's belly. I want to see their eyes light up when talking about a project.

Is there a better way to create that application? How can that legacy application be improved? How can we speed up that process? Can that manual task be automated in any way? These are people who are constantly looking for ways to improve the working environment, processes, tools and technologies.

What I cannot bear to hear is "Well that's the way it's always worked". As if that was somehow a sufficient explanation for never improving anything. By the same argument, why bother to drive to work, when you could get a horse and cart. After all, that works too right? The difference of course, is that one can make the same journey in much less time than the other. If time isn't a factor, then by all means, use a horse and cart to get to that meeting.

If you have individuals who meet the definition of the Mediocre Mindset then try pushing them, challenging them. See how they respond. Maybe they have never truly been challenged and therefore adopted and cultivated an attitude of low expectation. By pushing them and challenging them they may respond accordingly and rise up to the challenges you are giving them. In which case you have successfully raised them up from mediocrity. If they don't respond, then you may be in trouble. Maybe they need smaller challenges and more gentle pushing.

I believe that everyone can improve themselves. Everyone can push that little bit harder. Meet ever greater challenges. Whilst some people may already be highly responsive to such an environment, even those that are totally new can become supreme advocates if coaxed and coached in the right manner.

Given the right encouragement and positive feedback, people can become inspired to achieve greater goals beyond their normal expectations.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare

Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter

GeneralHow much code coverage is enough? Pin
Dominic Burford21-Mar-17 5:14
professionalDominic Burford21-Mar-17 5:14 
GeneralThe Mythical Full Stack Developer Pin
Dominic Burford14-Mar-17 3:18
professionalDominic Burford14-Mar-17 3:18 
GeneralCreating your own private NuGet server Pin
Dominic Burford2-Mar-17 0:36
professionalDominic Burford2-Mar-17 0:36 
GeneralConsuming a dependency using NuGet Pin
Dominic Burford28-Feb-17 6:05
professionalDominic Burford28-Feb-17 6:05 
GeneralCoding Standards Pin
Dominic Burford24-Feb-17 6:02
professionalDominic Burford24-Feb-17 6:02 
GeneralSoftware Architecture Challenges Pin
Dominic Burford17-Feb-17 1:31
professionalDominic Burford17-Feb-17 1:31 
GeneralGetting the Most Out of Your Unit Tests Pin
Dominic Burford9-Feb-17 9:21
professionalDominic Burford9-Feb-17 9:21 
GeneralBuilding a strong development team Pin
Dominic Burford8-Feb-17 6:31
professionalDominic Burford8-Feb-17 6:31 
GeneralLast pieces of the mobile app in the Web API puzzle Pin
Dominic Burford27-Jan-17 5:03
professionalDominic Burford27-Jan-17 5:03 
GeneralSerializing .NET types that contain DateTime Pin
Dominic Burford22-Jan-17 18:53
professionalDominic Burford22-Jan-17 18:53 
GeneralClearing the Dead Letter Queue on an Azure Service Bus Queue Pin
Dominic Burford16-Jan-17 8:57
professionalDominic Burford16-Jan-17 8:57 
GeneralMigrating ASP.NET Web API services to the Azure platform Pin
Dominic Burford10-Jan-17 2:45
professionalDominic Burford10-Jan-17 2:45 
GeneralProcessing Azure Service Bus messages using an Azure Function Pin
Dominic Burford4-Jan-17 9:10
professionalDominic Burford4-Jan-17 9:10 
GeneralThe Structure of an Azure Service Bus message Pin
Dominic Burford30-Dec-16 3:11
professionalDominic Burford30-Dec-16 3:11 
GeneralMy Introduction into Service Bus Architecture Pin
Dominic Burford21-Dec-16 6:40
professionalDominic Burford21-Dec-16 6:40 
GeneralAdding resilience to your services by implementng a retry pattern Pin
Dominic Burford19-Dec-16 1:10
professionalDominic Burford19-Dec-16 1:10 
GeneralAuthenticating Web API services with JSON Web Token Pin
Dominic Burford13-Dec-16 2:26
professionalDominic Burford13-Dec-16 2:26 

General General    News News    Suggestion Suggestion    Question Question    Bug Bug    Answer Answer    Joke Joke    Praise Praise    Rant Rant    Admin Admin   

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.