<p>I am working on migrating my blog from the old hosted Wordpress site that I was using to be hosted by GitHub pages, powered by Jekyll.</p>
<p>Why, you might ask. Because I can.</p>
<p>Also, because I want to use my domain to host this, and I <em>think</em> that I can do that with Google Domains and this site. We'll see how that works out.</p>
<h2>Progress</h2>
<ul>
<li>2016-08-11: I migrated from the beginning through 02 April 2014. It's a good start, I think.</li>
<li>2016-08-12: I've migrated through 23 Jan 2015. Slowly but surely!</li>
<li>2016-08-17: Since I had to fix the encoding on all of the markdown files, I spent most of the day fixing all of the question marks.</li>
<li>2016-08-24: I migrated everything from the Wordpress blog, and some of the more important posts from Exactly One Hobby.</li>
</ul>


Hello World!

<p>The <em>Dopy Challenge</em> is a four day event at Walt Disney World Resorts.</p>
<ol>
<li>Thursday - Pluto's 5k</li>
<li>Friday - Minnie's 10k</li>
<li>Saturday - Donald Duck's Half Marathon</li>
<li>Sunday - Mickey Mouse's Marathon</li>
</ol>
<p>In completing the Half Marathon and full Marathon, <em>Dopey Challenge</em> participants also satisfy the requirements for the <em>Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge</em>. This results in six medals, six t-shirts, and four extremely early mornings. I had a lot of fun doing the events, but once is certainly enough for me. It was a unique tour of the parks, getting to run through two for the half marathon and all four for the full marathon; however, circling Epcot two additional times for the 5k and 10k made the final return trip at the end of the marathon torturous. Getting up at 3:45 for four mornings in a row put a huge damper on enjoying the rest of the trip. Combine that with the overall cost, and I cannot see myself doing the challenge again; however, I would consider doing the <em>Goofy Challenge</em>, again.</p>
<h2>My Experience and Lessons Learned</h2>
<p>If you are reading this post, you probably already know enough about the challenge that I don't need to spell out all the details. The <a href="http://www.rundisney.com/disneyworld-marathon/#dopey-challenge">runDisney website</a> does a sufficient job describing the event beyond what I wrote above. I ran the Half Marathon with my girlfriend, but did the other three races by myself. There are a couple of key lessons that I definitely learned (the hard way) that would have greatly improved my experience.</p>
<h3>Submit your Proof of Time Qualifying Results</h3>
<p>This is something that I missed when I registered. For the Chicago Marathon, the organizers send out multiple emails reminding runners to log into the website and add their Proof of Time. Since I didn't do this, I was stuck at the back for all four races. It was <em>awful</em>. As someone who can casually run a 24 minute 5k, I was stuck behind all of the walkers — all of which seemed perfectly happy walking six wide through the narrow parts of the course. The 10k was just as bad. The half marathon was as bad, but I noticed it less, since I was running with at my girlfriend's pace, and she was perfectly content slowing to a walk during the bottlenecks. For the marathon, it was absurd how often I was running through and around large groups with zero course etiquette.</p>
<p>If you are in a later corral for any of the races, expect to be standing around for a very long time. It was at least 41 minutes between the race start and when I was on course for the 5k, 49 minutes for the 10k. For the half and full marathon races, it was over an hour. If you are staying at Disney, take the latest possible bus you can, and take your sweet ass time getting to the corral. It is close to negligent how long it takes to get everyone onto the course. Additionally, expect significant delays throughout the race. The course narrows to just a single lane on a narrow access road throughout many different parts of the course. I understand the need, from an operations standpoint, for this (their employees still need to get to work); but the bottleneck brings athletes to a complete standstill.</p>
<h3>This Isn't a Race, It's a Guided Tour Of Disney</h3>
<p>It wasn't until I was halfway through the Half Marathon that I had the realization that these aren't races, like every other running event I had done. Instead, this was a paid, self-guided tour through the various parks at Disney World. There are no awards for overall place or age bracket places; few people are attempting to qualify for Boston. The entertainment along the course is, in fact, designed to delay you - who can pass up a picture with your favorite Disney characters? The challenge is also a great way to pad the number of participants for the 5k and 10k, and to convince runners to stay at the parks a few extra days. Especially with the expo being on Wednesday, you have to be there for at least four five nights - because who is going to go home Sunday night.</p>
<h3>You Will Get Sick Of Seeing That Damn Golfball</h3>
<p>Since all four races start and end in the Epcot parking lot, you will have to run through the front, and around back of <em>Spaceship Earth</em> four different times. Come the end of the marathon, you are going to loathe seeing that geodesic horror once more. After I finished the marathon, I had the choice of which park we were going to visit, and while I would have liked to walk around Epcot, I hated the idea of seeing it yet again that I chose to go to <em>Animal Kingdom</em> instead (had a wonderful time there, too).</p>
<h3>Extend Your Trip An Extra Day</h3>
<p>A friend who works for Disney said that the second weekend in January used to be the slowest weekend at the parks, which is why that weekend is now Marathon Weekend. It is now also one of their business non-holiday weekends. However, I can attest from experience that nearly everyone goes home on the Monday after the marathon. The park and the resort we lodged at were both nearly empty. Park lines were almost nonexistent and there were no crowds at restaurants during peak meal times. If you can afford to stay an extra day, definitely plan on spending Monday doing all of the things that you would normally have to wait in long lines.</p>
<h3>Enjoy The weekend</h3>
<p>In spite of all of these early mornings, terribly long corrals, mediocre race support, and exhaustive expense — it certainly was a fun weekend, made all the better by the company and the visits to the parks. I am glad to have done it, but more at being able to say that I've done it. In the future, there are certainly bigger challenges that await the ambitious feats of endurance I might undertake (Ragnar, RAGBRAI, Ironman, etc).</p>


Disney's Dopey Challenge

<p>I've finally done it; I finally ripped, twisted, and otherwise cajoled the default MVC template, Identity code, and a few other tweaks I wanted to make into something I am semi-confident will be a good starting point for future projects. Which is really to say ? I'm at a stopping point and I'll probably burn it all to the ground, tomorrow.</p>
<h2>The Best Things In Life Are Passed Tests</h2>
<p>Sometimes, the best thing that can happen in my day is that all of the unit tests pass. Not just once, due to some odd coincidence with timing, but because they actually, legitimately pass. I am sure that veterans of Test Driven Development will scoff at a lot of these tests. However, it was fun to learn how to use <a href="https://xunit.github.io/">xUnit</a> and <a href="http://www.moqthis.com/">Moq</a>. Previously, I had been determined that I was going to be able to write my tests without using external libraries. I was just going to extend the different classes that depend on external resources and change them all to work in memory. This was stupid, time consuming, and generally fraught with errors. My tipping point was when I realized I was writing tests for these Test classes.</p>
<p>How awful is that?</p>
<p>I chose xUnit and Moq because they seemed to be the most popular. The primary difficulty that I have with mocking at this point are extension methods. Since I cannot mock a non-virtual member, mocking the extension classes is impossible. Thus, I need to find the source code, figure out exactly what the extension method is doing, and properly mock whatever method is used internally. It was a frustrating set of investigations, but I did enjoy digging into the internals of Identity and <a href="https://katanaproject.codeplex.com/">Katana</a>.</p>
<h2>Tests that Cover Code</h2>
<p>It feels like half of my tests are in place just to improve my Code Coverage percentages. Even with that, there are two sticking points that I am having trouble getting over. The first are some the set portion of automatic properties in my <a href="https://github.com/drovani/Vigil/blob/VigilBaseSolution/Vigil.Data/Vigil.Data.Core/Identity.cs">Identity</a> and <a href="https://github.com/drovani/Vigil/blob/VigilBaseSolution/Vigil.Data/Vigil.Data.Core/TypeBase.cs">TypeBase</a> abstract classes. I have searched high and low and cannot find a solution to this. I am hoping that as I inherit from these classes, tests on those new classes will happen to start covering these properties.</p>
<p>The second part is managing to get the MoveNext() method to register as covered. It's a pain to get <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dwayneneed/archive/2014/11/17/code-coverage-with-async-await.aspx">Code Coverage with Async Await</a>, but Dwayne Need's blog post was very informative. It will be a while before I worry about getting that in depth with the code coverage that I will need to put all this work together for what amounts to no (seemingly) real gain.</p>
<p>Another "close enough" for Code Analysis</p>
<p>Most issues that the utility would flag were ones that I was able to fix. Rules like "CA1063 Implement IDisposable correctly" and "CA2000 Dispose object before losing scope" are easy to correct. The two rules that I completely turned off were "CA1056 URI properties should not be strings" and "CA1062 Validate arguments of public methods". The former, because it was a monumental pain to convert everything in my code to URIs, but return them back to strings when sending them to different frameworks; the later, because it did not <a href="http://geekswithblogs.net/terje/archive/2010/10/14/making-static-code-analysis-and-code-contracts-work-together-or.aspx">account for Code Contracts</a>.</p>
<p>The final block of rules that I am ignoring for now are "CA1020 Avoid namespaces with few types" and "CA1704 Identifiers should be spelled correctly". CA1020 is a valid notice, but the project is still in its infancy and namespaces are going to be sparce. CA1704 is flagging the words "Owin" and "POST", even though both of them are in my CustomDictionary.xml file, located in each project. I'm sure I'll stumble on a fix for this at some point.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Code Coverage is down to only missing the .MoveNext() method calls.</p>
<p>Code Analysis is reduced to just "POST" and "Owin" identifier issues and Avoid namespaces with few types.</p>
<p>All tests are passing. Stamping this as the first official branch.</p>
</blockquote>


Vigil Base Solution

<p>In the quest to get to a Minimum Viable Product, I wanted to be able to wrap together a set of projects that would act as a complete framework for future projects. Every (nearly every) project requires users and a way for them to register and login. I had already tied myself to the <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn613255.aspx">IdentityDbContext</a> for user and role management. Initially, I had my base context (<a href="https://github.com/drovani/Vigil/blob/master/Vigil.Data/Vigil.Data.Modeling/VigilContext.cs">VigilContext</a>) inherit from IdentityDbContext. I had trouble coming to grips with having every project then required to bring in the Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.EntityFramework assembly. As I was explaining a completely unrelated problem to a coworker, it dawned on me that the whole point of <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/jj883952.aspx">Bounded Contexts</a> was to have multiple contexts, and limit them to only a narrow scope. VigilContext was not going to be used everywhere; its purpose is for database initialization and future migrations.</p>
<h2>Enter the 'Vigil' Solution</h2>
<p>This is a terrible idea, and I am probably going to regret it later, but I do not have a better way to organize everything just yet. I started a new Solution that will be all-encompassing, containing all of the projects, neatly organized into Solution Folders. This will get unwieldy, eventually, but for now I know that everything compiles, all tests pass, and code analysis returns acceptable results. Creating new solutions down the line for specific sets of projects should be rather trivial.</p>
<h2>Vigil Identity</h2>
<p>The primary usage that requires a class that inherits from IdentityDbContext is to use the rest of the Identity library and the <a href="http://coding.abel.nu/2014/05/whats-this-owin-stuff-about/">OWIN authentication</a>, including the <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn613257.aspx">RoleStore</a>, <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/dn613259.aspx">UserStore</a>, <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn896559.aspx">SignInManager</a>. Therefore, a new project, created with the same naming pattern in the based modeling project, has a context that inherits from IdentityDbContext and all of the customized classes that inherit from the Identiy and Owin generics. The most common way of managing users is through a web application. Which means that any ancillary projects that do not actually manage users will be able to have bounded contexts that do not include the Identity assembly.</p>
<h2>Got Ahead of Myself - Vigil.Web</h2>
<p>I was so excited about being able to add and edit users that I jumped ahead and created a new web project utilizing the Owin context. What a terrible mistake that was. I spent too much time focused on converting the default template to utilize all of my Vigil classes, and then suddenly stressed over not having tests for this new web project. Then I got myself buried under needing to figure out how to mock a Role Store, User Manager, and User Store in memory; and then how to start a whole test Owin context; which lead to attempting to create a mock Owin server; which lead to despair and two months since my last post.</p>
<h2>Paying Down Debt</h2>
<p>Like missing a payment on a credit card, I need to get this debit under control right away. I cannot just make the minimum payment and figure out later how to pay off the balance and exploding interest. I am going to target just the unit testing surrounding the Identity Model project. Much of this will come from looking at the source code for the Identity Framework, and learning a lot from that.</p>
<p>That is my update - not much to say except for reminding myself to post more often, and make a meaningful, complete contribution to the project before spinning out of control.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Moved files around to better keep a uniform folder structure. Reduced the solutions down to one, though this will probably go back up once executables need creating.</p>
<p>Started adding testing framework for the OWIN and app server to be able to test Identity controllers.</p>
</blockquote>


Letting Users Get Ahead Of Me

<p>A friend forwarded me an article from Runner's World (written by editors at Men's Health) titled "<a href="http://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/8-true-tests-of-your-overall-fitness">8 True Tests of Your Overall Fitness</a>". The article describes the test, drones on about the author's experiences, and then gives some helpful tips on how to meet the test objectives. I wanted a quick chart that I could easily reference, so I'll just post it here. The 30 pound dumbbells and 315 pound deadlift assumes 200 pound body weight.</p>
<p>| | STANDARD |
| STIFF ARMS PLANK | 10 seconds |
| BROAD JUMP | 7 feet |
| SQUAT, HAMMER CURL, OVERHEAD PRESS | 20 reps in 60s, 27 lb |
| FACING WALL SQUAT (2 IN) | 1 squat |
| BEEP TEST | Level 12 |
| CLAPPING PUSHUP | 10 |
| DEADLIFT | 315 lbs |
| SIT AND REACH | 17 inches |</p>
<p>My goal is to update these with my actual figures over the rest of the summer training season. most of the day fixing all of the question marks.</p>


Overall Fitness In 8 Tests

<p>Another summer, another marathon season.</p>
<h2>Montrose at 6:00 am</h2>
<p>I will be continuing to be a pace leader at the Montrose site for the Chicago Area Runners Association (<a href="http://www.cararuns.org/">CARA</a>). Two years ago, I was a participant, and the social experience is what got me through training and to the start line. Last year, as a pace leader, helping to bring all of the runners through the long runs and the hot runs and the wet runs is what got me through training and to the start line. This year, I hope to bring my experience, enthusiasm, and energy to a new group of runners.</p>
<h2>Pacing at 8:30/mile</h2>
<p>I was on the fence about whether to continue pacing with the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/cara69/">Six Niners</a> or move up to the 8:30/mile pace group. There was a fair amount of interest among my runners from last year in doing an 8:45/mile pace group (we would call ourselves the Eight Forty Five Bandits). By the time it came around for me to make a firm decision, the site coordinator for Montrose (<a href="http://www.athlinks.com/Athletes/173452181">who shall</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/kim.maves">not remain</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/kimmaves">nameless</a>) had already told the front office to put me down for the faster group. Thus, the decision was made for me.</p>
<h2>Running in Saucony Kinvara Shoes</h2>
<p>Over the winter, I added a pair of <a href="http://www.saucony.com/en/kinvara-5/12219M.html?dwvar_12219M_color=S20238-1">Kinvara 5 shoes</a> to my rotation. I would do my long runs in the Kinvara pair and my weekly runs in one of two pairs of Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 30+ (which they don't make anymore). By the end of training, I had switched almost entirely to the Kinvara shoes. My calves would be extremely tight the day or two after each Saturday run, but work itself out by Wednesday or Thursday. However, once I started doing my weekday runs in the shoes with the smaller drop, my calves recovered even faster. My form has improved as a result, my hips and knee (i.e. IT band) are less of an issue, and the shoes just look faster. The weight difference between the two models is amazing and noticeable while running. I am looking forward to switching entirely to the lighter shoe. I will be buying a second pair of Kinvara 5 shoes for the summer, and probably add a pair of Kinvara 6's to wrap up training and take to the Chicago Marathon in October.</p>
<h2>Increased Miles, Decreased Days</h2>
<p>Due to changes in my scheduling compared to last year, I will be changing my running schedule from the <a href="http://files.ctctcdn.com/cf1b22b5001/cd6f0faa-23b4-4e57-b4cb-b36accdf6773.pdf">official book</a>. I am planning on doing the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Sunday: Recovery run as planned in Advanced (9:00/mile)</li>
<li>Monday: Moderate run as planned in Advanced (8:30/mile)</li>
<li>Tuesday: Speed Training (whatever Coach tells us) or Day Off (depends on social obligations)</li>
<li>Wednesday: Short Morning Run or Day Off - if I take Tuesday off, I'll do some speed work in the morning (6:45/mile) before I leave for work.</li>
<li>Thursday: Tempo runs, mileage from Intermediate plan (7:20/mile)</li>
<li>Friday: Day Off</li>
<li>Saturday: Long Run as planned in Advanced + 2 miles (8:30/mile)</li>
</ul>
<h2>Best Laid Plans…</h2>
<p>…and all that jazz. I'll see how this goes, and adjust as needed.</p>
<p>The only race between now and the Chicago Marathon is the <a href="http://www.runningguru.com/EventInformation.asp?eID=13394">Burgers &#x26; Beer 5k race</a> (need to beat 20:47 for a PR). I may squeeze in a half marathon on a Sunday, but that is still open for debate.  After Chicago is the <a href="http://www.rundisney.com/disneyworld-marathon/#dopey-challenge">Disney Dopey Challenge</a> and then <a href="https://results.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-19034">F^3 Lake Half Marathon</a> race in January (it is a busy month).</p>


Let's Do the Time Warp Again

<p>I have found that it is better to put structure in place around a project before going hog wild on implementation. While I recognize that some practices grow organically, a healthy amount of structure up-front can save a project from technical bankruptcy down the line. The two tools that I use early and often are interfaces and contract classes.</p>
<h2>Interfaces and Contract Classes</h2>
<p>There are a collection of interfaces that I regularly utilize throughout most projects.</p>
<ul>
<li>ICreated
<ul>
<li>VigilUser CreatedBy</li>
<li>DateTime CreatedOn</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>IModified : ICreated
<ul>
<li>VigilUser ModifiedBy</li>
<li>DateTime? ModifiedOn</li>
<li>bool MarkModified(VigilUser, DateTime)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>IDeleted
<ul>
<li>VigilUser DeletedBy</li>
<li>DateTime? DeletedOn</li>
<li>bool MarkDeleted(VigilUser, DateTime)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>IOrdered
<ul>
<li>int Ordinal</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>IEffective
<ul>
<li>DateTime EffectiveOn</li>
<li>bool SetEffectiveOn(DateTime)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>IEffectiveRange : IEffective
<ul>
<li>DateTime EffectiveUntil</li>
<li>bool SetEffectiveRange(DateTime, DateTime)</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>The Obvious — ICreated, IModified, IDeleted, IOrdered</h2>
<p>These four interfaces serve to ensure that all properties are identically named throughout the solution. They also serve as a guide to future developers about what restrictions should be placed on the class. Every class that persists data to storage should implement ICreated — everything was created by someone and at some time.  An object that doesn?t implement IModified should never actually be modified. A class with IDeleted should not have the records actually removed from storage, but just fill in these fields to flag them as deleted. IOrdered means we know to set a default sort on the Ordinal field.</p>
<h2>Instead of Deleting It — Effective It!</h2>
<p>For values where we need historical data to be easily accessible, such as changing schedules or payment information, an interface is created to track the EffectiveOn date. Starting at that specific date and time, the new record becomes effective. There needs to be some way to group the different records, which is usually performed with a header type table. By definition, there can only be one effective record at any given date.</p>
<p>An example of its use is storing the payment information for a recurring transaction. The historical data for payment information is useful when looking into the past, and frequently the patron may want to change the payment option effective some future date. However, at no point will two or more payment methods be active. By implementing the IEffective and ICreated, the details of who made the change (and when) fully replace any functionality that might be lost by not implementing IModified.</p>
<h3>Need Multiple, Overlapping Effectives — Range It!</h3>
<p>When multiple records need to have their history saved or allow for changes effective in the future, the IEffectiveRange comes into utility. For IEffective records, the end of their effectiveness is the beginning of the next record?s effective date. However, for classes where there can be multiple records that come and go, an explicit range is required. This is useful for line items on a gift ? do see when any given detail was the authoritative record, especially useful after the gift has been posted and receipted.</p>
<h3>Contract Classes For</h3>
<p>I battled back and forth with whether to include the shell for code contracts with every interface I write, or to only build it out when needed. I quickly found that I was including, at minimum, a contract invariant method on each interface, so I decided to just make it a standard part of every interface. Even if the Contract Class contains no Contracts, at least the shell is there, and I can easily add them later, as needed.</p>
<p>A quick standard I have put together is that all Contract Classes are contained in the same file as the interface, in a child namespace of ?Contracts,? and named after the interface. Keeping the classes as internal and abstract means it can only be called within the assembly,</p>
<h3>Minimum Viable Framework</h3>
<p>I finally feel that I am at a stage where I have the minimum of a framework on which I can start to build an actual product. From here, I will slowly add and expand modules, slowly drifting towards the user interface, and tool with refactoring, templating, scripting, and finding other ways that I can reduce the complexity of complex tasks.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Added generic interfaces, and began cleaning up some Code Analysis rules from the ?All Rules? playlist.</p>
<p>—<a href="">Commit 4010e840a8b168a1ab65466fa5c61cc342b56d8e</a></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Added new Code Analysis rule sets to eliminate rules that I would be ignoring anyway.
Resolved several Code Contracts and Code Analysis issues.</p>
<p>—<a href="">Commit 2b1ff8a55711cb585750d4241df9c97895b7edfc</a></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Decided I didn?t like having fields for the context, testuser, and now. Put them back as variables in each test method, and added a ContractVerification(false) attribute to the whole class. I think I?m going to find myself adding that attribute to a lot of testing classes.</p>
<p>—<a href="">Commit df9e61081f22471546dd1fd1132c8ecfecc3a26c</a></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Added Contract Classes for each of the Interfaces.
Created the Identity and TypeBase classes to expand the foundation of classes before working on POCO?s.
Need to add more unit tests to fill out the Code Coverage.</p>
<p>—<a href="">Commit 716da101f6da28158ab0ed52aaba037b4c027676</a></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Added ExcludeFromCodeCoverage attributes to the ObjectInvariant methods in the interface contract classes.
Added tests for the TypeBase class (via inheritance through a TestTypeBase class).
Filled out the ChangeLogTests tests.</p>
<p>—<a href="">Commit bcc51aeaa46dc8780ffcd9c33f88d8ecb1c2fffd</a></p>
</blockquote>


Rovani's Sandbox

Blog Posts - Page 11