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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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GeneralImproving Your SQL Stored Procedures Pin
Dominic Burford2-May-19 5:47
professionalDominic Burford2-May-19 5:47 
GeneralPassing a list of items to a SQL stored procedure Pin
Dominic Burford27-Mar-19 0:55
professionalDominic Burford27-Mar-19 0:55 
GeneralSoftware development is like plumbing Pin
Dominic Burford8-Mar-19 5:12
professionalDominic Burford8-Mar-19 5:12 
GeneralVersioning a .NET Core 2.2 application Pin
Dominic Burford7-Mar-19 5:04
professionalDominic Burford7-Mar-19 5:04 
GeneralUsing tags with push notifications from Azure Notification Hub Pin
Dominic Burford17-Feb-19 23:21
professionalDominic Burford17-Feb-19 23:21 
GeneralSending Push Notifications with Azure Notification Hub Pin
Dominic Burford25-Jan-19 4:34
professionalDominic Burford25-Jan-19 4:34 
GeneralUnit testing a Xamarin Forms mobile app Pin
Dominic Burford13-Jan-19 21:59
professionalDominic Burford13-Jan-19 21:59 
GeneralApple development sucks Pin
Dominic Burford8-Jan-19 1:09
professionalDominic Burford8-Jan-19 1:09 
I've been developing mobile apps for the Android and iOS platforms for several years now. I have used both Telerik Platform (now retired) and Xamarin Forms. Both of these are excellent development platforms. Most recently, I have been developing apps using Xamarin Forms. Most of the code for the app in a Xamarin Forms app is contained within a single, shared project. This code is shared between both the Android and iOS apps. When you require platform specific behaviour, you place this code in the Android or iOS specific project as required.

During the development of the latest app, we have hit several issues as you would expect. Some small, some not so small. Android development is pretty painless, intuitive, conforms to well defined best practices and standards. We have hit a few snags with Android, but these have been relatively small and easy to fix.

Apple however is a whole different can of worms. Nothing they do seems to conform to any well defined standard or best practice. They have this habit of almost deliberately ignoring the well defined and understood patterns and practices from other development platforms, and doing it "their way". It's fair to say that the "Apple way" is usually vastly more time consuming, complicated and error prone. The Apple motto seems to be the total inverse of Occam's razor.

When given two or more ways of solving a problem, always choose the worst option.

From provisioning profiles and certificates to asset catalogues (I have never encountered a worse way of storing images than this), the "Apple way" is never simple, straight-forward or intuitive.

Nearly every issue or bug we have encounterted has been with the iOS version of the app (on both Telerik Platform and Xamarin Forms). The Apple platform just doesn't seem as robust as Android (which just works).

I am assuming that the majority of Apple developers don't get much exposure to other development environments, and probably build mainly Apple apps. They therefore never get to experience how things "should" be. If you only know the "Apple way" of doing things, then you have nothing else for comparison.

I have worked within development for approaching 20 years now, and in that time have used pretty much every platform, tool and technology at some point. I therefore have a broad knowledge of what is considered "best practice" by my exposure to the huge number of technologies over the years. I know what works, and how things ought to work. I can spot efficiency, good design, simplicity and elegance from afar.

This is why I am of the opinion that the Apple way just sucks. Doing something differently merely for the sake of it is not innovative. There are very good reasons why certain ideas become best practice within the development field. It's because they work. And not just work, but are well understood and accepted by those working within the industry. They have been put to the test, and been successful.

In all my years as a professional software developer, engineer and architect, I can honestly say that I have never come across a development platform as poor as that provided by Apple. If you genuinely think Apple make great development products, then I'd suggest having a look at how everyone else builds their development tools. Microsoft and Google for example build excellent development tools, and they employ industry best practices and standards in their processes and workflows.

Unfortunately, while Apple remains a player in the mobile app space, developers such as myself will just have to put up with the "Apple way" of doing things. I think Apple would do well to take a look around at the other players in their industry and take some inspiration from them. Until they do, they will continue to frustrate developers who find the "Apple way" cumbersome, time consuming and inefficient.
"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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GeneralBut the tech giants are private companies Pin
Dominic Burford19-Dec-18 5:31
professionalDominic Burford19-Dec-18 5:31 
GeneralThe latest version of our app nears completion Pin
Dominic Burford7-Dec-18 2:21
professionalDominic Burford7-Dec-18 2:21 
GeneralIs Silicon Valley a force for good? Pin
Dominic Burford27-Nov-18 21:57
professionalDominic Burford27-Nov-18 21:57 
GeneralUsing Javascript to retrieve values from a Xamarin Forms WebView Pin
Dominic Burford27-Nov-18 5:01
professionalDominic Burford27-Nov-18 5:01 
GeneralUsing the MVVM pattern with a Xamarin Forms mobile app Pin
Dominic Burford21-Nov-18 1:13
professionalDominic Burford21-Nov-18 1:13 
GeneralConsuming a private nuget feed in an Azure DevOps build pipeline Pin
Dominic Burford2-Nov-18 6:55
professionalDominic Burford2-Nov-18 6:55 
GeneralBuild a Xamarin.Forms iOS mobile app using Azure DevOps Pin
Dominic Burford8-Oct-18 23:38
professionalDominic Burford8-Oct-18 23:38 
GeneralDeploy a Mobile app to Azure using Azure DevOps Pin
Dominic Burford21-Sep-18 5:30
professionalDominic Burford21-Sep-18 5:30 
GeneralSetting up my first build pipeline with Azure DevOps Pin
Dominic Burford19-Sep-18 4:06
professionalDominic Burford19-Sep-18 4:06 
GeneralChoosing a mobile application development platform Pin
Dominic Burford4-Sep-18 1:36
professionalDominic Burford4-Sep-18 1:36 
GeneralExecuting an AJAX request from an ASP.NET Core querystring parameter Pin
Dominic Burford20-Aug-18 5:05
professionalDominic Burford20-Aug-18 5:05 
GeneralBuilding a Document Manager with ASP.NET Core 2.1 Pin
Dominic Burford19-Aug-18 22:38
professionalDominic Burford19-Aug-18 22:38 
GeneralReducing the surface area of the client Pin
Dominic Burford26-Jul-18 21:32
professionalDominic Burford26-Jul-18 21:32 
GeneralUnderstanding what you're doing Pin
Dominic Burford26-Jul-18 3:24
professionalDominic Burford26-Jul-18 3:24 
GeneralSetting environments in ASP.NET Core Pin
Dominic Burford16-Jul-18 21:29
professionalDominic Burford16-Jul-18 21:29 
GeneralCreating a zipped deployment for an ASP.NET Core web application Pin
Dominic Burford28-Jun-18 23:59
professionalDominic Burford28-Jun-18 23:59 
GeneralI’m turning into a Microsoft fanboy Pin
Dominic Burford8-Jun-18 5:45
professionalDominic Burford8-Jun-18 5:45 

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