A number of people periodically request an official bio from me for inclusion in speaking engagement literature, use in RFP responses, etc. so I have finally just decided that this page will be the one place that I endeavor to keep this text as 100% current as I can. So, without further ado, here it is for anyone who’s interested…
Stephen A. Bohlen
Currently a Principal Software Engineer for the Commercial Software Engineering (CSE) Team within Microsoft Corporation, Stephen brings his varied 25-plus-years of experience as a former practicing Architect, CAD Manager, IT Technologist, Software Engineer, CTO, and consultant to assist select Microsoft Partner organizations in their adoption of cutting-edge and pre-release Microsoft developer products and technologies.
Stephen is an active contributor to several Open-Source Software projects including NHibernate, Spring.NET, NDbUnit, Common.Logging, and others as well having developed a number of Visual Studio productivity add-ins.
Active in the local NYC software development community, Stephen speaks publicly, blogs (semi-) regularly, and is the author of several popular screencast series focused on Agile and ALT.NET concepts and technologies including the widely-praised 15-part Summer of NHibernate video series introducing viewers to the popular open-source O/RM tool and the Autumn of Agile series that takes viewers through the design, planning, and construction of an entire .NET project in an Agile context. He is also a contributor of a number of shorter screencasts available on Dimecasts.NET and elsewhere.
Stephen is also a founding/organizing member of the NYC ALT.NET user group which meets monthly to discuss Agile-focused techniques and technologies in the world of Microsoft software development and beyond as well as a co-organizer of the New York City Domain Driven Design User Group. For the past several years, he has been the Chairperson of the Organizing Committee for the annual New York City Code Camp event. He is also a past Microsoft MVP award recipient in Solution Architecture, ASP.NET, and Visual C#, a member of the ASP Insiders and the Visual C# Insiders, and formerly held the office of the Vice President of INETA, North America.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Stephen was a Senior Software Engineer in the SpringSource division of VMware where he was the Technical Lead and Community Evangelist for the Spring.NET Framework. Before SpringSource, Stephen was a Senior Software Engineer for Skiff, LLC, a start-up focused on developing an e-Reading platform for digital content publishers which was ultimately acquired by NewsCorp. Prior to that, Stephen spent many years as a Senior Solutions Architect and Project Manager for the software consulting practice of Microdesk where he oversaw the development and delivery of numerous software solutions for Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Geospatial, and Real Estate firms. Before becoming completely immersed in software development, Stephen spent years as a both a practicing architect and CAD Manager for architecture and engineering companies developing custom CAD software extensions, implementing CAD Standards, and supervising network design and implementations.
Stephen holds a BS in Architecture from The Ohio State University and is a proudly uncertified SCRUM Master.
For a comprehensive list of Community and Educational Activities Stephen has been involved in, see this page.
Short-Form
Currently a Principal Software Engineer for the Commercial Software Engineering (CSE) Team within Microsoft Corporation, Stephen brings his varied 25-plus-years of experience in software and technology to assist select Microsoft Partner organizations in their adoption of cutting-edge and pre-release Microsoft developer products and technologies.
Stephen is also an active contributor to several other .NET Open-Source Software projects including NHibernate, Spring.NET, NDbUnit, Common.Logging, and others. Stephen is also a past Microsoft MVP award recipient, a member of the ASP Insiders and Visual C# Insiders, and formerly held the office of the Vice President of INETA, North America.
Hi Stephen,
I’ve been watching your screen-cast and I think you’re doing a terrific job. Right now, I am currently viewing your Autumn of Agile series and in it I’ve been taking note of all the tools you’re using. I was wondering if there are any free (or low cost) alternatives to the programs you were using in the video?
Thanks,
and keep up the great work.
@John:
Glad you’re finding value in the content — thanks for the feedback.
Re: free (or low cost) alternatives to the tools you see me use there, you will be pleased to learn that MOST of the tools that you see me use do in fact come in some free ‘express’ versions, free ‘personal’ versions, and low-cost versions too.
The most expensive tools you see me use there (with the obvious exception of Visual Studio and SQL Server) are the Developer Express CodeRush and RefactorPro! products (which together retail for about $250/year in recurring licensing costs). Putting aside how little time something has to save the average developer for an investment of $250 to be worthwhile, let’s assume that you’re a self-employed dev or a hobbyist and the $250 is too expensive for you 🙂
The good news is that Dev Express has released a freeware ‘CodeRushXpress’ product that you can read about in either of the following blog posts of mine…
http://unhandled-exceptions.com/blog/index.php/2008/10/31/coderush-xpress-completely-free-is-announced/
http://unhandled-exceptions.com/blog/index.php/2008/12/20/coderush-xpress-v-coderushrefactorpro/
As you can see from the second of those two posts, (obviously) not all of the functionality of the commercial products is present in the express product, but its perhaps 60% of what you will find yourself using most often. I STILL argue for the value prop of the commercial tools in this case, but again let’s assume you lack the $250.
The remainder of the tools you see me using are in fact either opensource or freeware with the exception of the TestDriven.NET test-runner product although there IS a persoanl license for the product that allows you as a single dev to use it for free. For a comprehensive list of ALL of the products and tools you see in the videos, check out this blog post…
http://unhandled-exceptions.com/blog/index.php/2008/07/16/confessions-of-a-developer-tool-hound/
If you are explicitly interested in the ClassCleaner add-in for DXCore, then you will also find value in…
http://unhandled-exceptions.com/blog/index.php/2008/11/28/cr_classcleaner-and-cr_documentor-builds-updated-for-dxcore-322/
…and…
http://unhandled-exceptions.com/blog/index.php/2008/12/29/cr_classcleaner-build-updated-for-dxcore-323/
That ought to cover it~! 😀
Hello Stephen,
Your series are absolutely nice, thank you. I am a developer from Moldova – small country from the former USSR.
Would you be so kind to tell me what code snippet in VS2008 you used in your series ?
Thank you,
VASILI
@Vasli:
Thanks for the feedback, I’m glad you’re enjoying the screencasts and finding value in them.
As mentioned in my response to John (above), you can find the comprehensive list of the tools that I use in the screencasts (and in my daily work) in the following blog post:
http://unhandled-exceptions.com/blog/index.php/2008/07/16/confessions-of-a-developer-tool-hound/
-Steve B.
Hello Stephen again from Moldova !
You know, you did not mention in your screencast series that we will need to put “GUID.COMB” instead of “ASSIGNED” in the map files… ( )
Otherwise id does not work. But when I downloaded your code files there were “GUID.COMB”. 🙂
With “assigned” I got error:
“a different object with the same identifier value was already associated with the session: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000, of entity: Microdesk.SkillPortal.DomainModel.Skill ”
But anyway, code files contain right parameter for generator class !
Regards, VASILI.
Hi Stephen,
I attended your session last night in NJ, and found your talk on IoC very compelling. I was very interested towards the latter part where you introduced Aspect Oriented Programming. Aside from a few notes I took I would like to know if it would be possible to grab a copy of your PowerPoint presentation to share with the rest of my team who weren’t able to make it.
Thanks,
Eric