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Dominic Burford - Professional Profile



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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.

 

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GeneralThe next generation technical stack Pin
Dominic Burford12-Mar-18 4:43
professionalDominic Burford12-Mar-18 4:43 
GeneralWriting flexible code Pin
Dominic Burford22-Jan-18 23:58
professionalDominic Burford22-Jan-18 23:58 
GeneralA cautionary tale of over-confidence in your own opinions Pin
Dominic Burford22-Dec-17 1:57
professionalDominic Burford22-Dec-17 1:57 
GeneralWhat lies ahead in 2018 Pin
Dominic Burford21-Dec-17 0:18
professionalDominic Burford21-Dec-17 0:18 
GeneralTemplated HTML emails using RazorEngine Pin
Dominic Burford30-Nov-17 4:49
professionalDominic Burford30-Nov-17 4:49 
GeneralSending emails using Azure Sendgrid service Pin
Dominic Burford29-Nov-17 11:18
professionalDominic Burford29-Nov-17 11:18 
GeneralBuilding native enterprise apps is (probably) the wrong approach Pin
Dominic Burford28-Nov-17 1:05
professionalDominic Burford28-Nov-17 1:05 
GeneralAppropriate vs Consistent Pin
Dominic Burford9-Nov-17 3:24
professionalDominic Burford9-Nov-17 3:24 
I stumbled across a tweet recently that got me thinking about how we apply consistency when building software applications. I think most software developers would agree that consistency is by and large a good thing. Being consistent helps us learn and understand how the code works. Code in one part of an application will work in a similar fashion to code in other parts of the application as they are "consistent". So if we already understand how one part of the application works, we will more quickly understand how other areas work. We can then extend this analogy across different applications, domains and even technologies.

However, we shouldn't slavishly follow these patterns just for the sake of consistency. We also need to bear in mind what is appropriate. What may have worked and been appropriate in one part of the application may not be appropriate for other parts of the application. In such cases it is perfectly acceptable to be inconsistent.

Like standards, being consistent sets out guidelines and general modes of operation and structure. These enable us to develop our applications in such a way that they reuse modes of operation and structure that went before. But that doesn't necessarily imply that all future development going forwards will benefit from these modes of operation and structure. In fact, the exact opposite may be true.

Balance is needed. Whilst consistency is certainly a good thing, doing it for its own sake at the expense of what is appropriate will lead to poorly constructed software. And this is where experience comes into play. To be able to weigh up the pros and cons of each possible solution, and find the one that fits best. There is no rule of thumb here. Where consistency and appropriateness trade off each other will depend entirely on the merits of the specifics of the application.

So when building that shiny new application, just bear in mind that you aren't slavishly being consistent, and that you need to balance consistency with what is appropriate.
"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

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GeneralCreating Generic RESTful API Services Pin
Dominic Burford20-Oct-17 5:01
professionalDominic Burford20-Oct-17 5:01 
GeneralIs your software team a democracy or a dictatorship? Pin
Dominic Burford16-Oct-17 21:44
professionalDominic Burford16-Oct-17 21:44 
GeneralSimplifying updating data Pin
Dominic Burford21-Sep-17 22:46
professionalDominic Burford21-Sep-17 22:46 
GeneralWhen 100% code coverage is not always enough Pin
Dominic Burford21-Jul-17 5:11
professionalDominic Burford21-Jul-17 5:11 
GeneralThat's the app in the app stores Pin
Dominic Burford18-Jul-17 5:00
professionalDominic Burford18-Jul-17 5:00 
GeneralDefensive Programming Pin
Dominic Burford28-Jun-17 7:23
professionalDominic Burford28-Jun-17 7:23 
GeneralMy first year - How time flies Pin
Dominic Burford19-Jun-17 1:40
professionalDominic Burford19-Jun-17 1:40 
GeneralShould software architects write code? Pin
Dominic Burford16-Jun-17 4:22
professionalDominic Burford16-Jun-17 4:22 
GeneralEnsuring your data is safe with Azure SQL Database Pin
Dominic Burford2-Jun-17 2:24
professionalDominic Burford2-Jun-17 2:24 
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 

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