Despite building applications with C# for years, I was frustrated today with some basic JSON parsing. This is something that I have done hundreds of times in Ruby and Python, where parsing JSON consists of deserializing into a Hash (Ruby) or Dictionary (Python) on the fly without defining a class, or mapping, beforehand. It’s easy to build the objects on the fly in the dynamic languages. But, with C# being a statically typed language, it’s taken a long time to get to that point.

NOTE: when I started writing this, I thought the deadline was August 1st, turns it was extended today to August 8th. So, come back and read this next week I guess. Enjoying your summer? Soaking in that Friday night feeling? Have that nagging thought in the back of your mind that you haven’t finished your PIE application for you great idea? Ah ha, I knew it. Since I’m one of the biggest procrastinators around, I feel your pain.

I won’t dwell on the fact that it’s been 3 years since I last posted. As I work on posting regularly again, it will be fun to revisit the last few years. But, the occasion of moving half-way across the country is enough to stir the blog into action again. This past weekend, I made the journey from Portland to Boulder, Colorado, marking the culmination of a frantic few months of tough decisions and planning.

Working at Strands has presented the unique opportunity to work in an all Mac shop, which is fun seeing all the MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs around the office when I’m there. But, as many people quickly discover, these things get HOT, like burn your lap and destroy your child producing ability hot (not to mention the possible damage to the hardware itself). The question was posed at work with the ultra modern social media tool of “send email to whole company” about how to keep things cool.

This last Thursday and Friday was the annual WebVisions conference here in Portland. 2008 marks my 4th year in attendance, and I definitely look foward to it every year. You can’t beat the price, it’s one of the cheapest conferences around and with it being local, there’s really not much excuse not to come and check out at least a few sessions and a keynote. Plus it’s a great chance to catch-up with my local developer and entrepreneur friends and meet some new ones.