The Spotlight is on Brilliant STORM Authored some of our .Net content

RN: Please tell us a little about your company.

BrilliantSTORM: BrilliantSTORM is a consulting firm that focused exclusively on delivering .NET solutions, and mentoring developers and companies on the use of .NET technologies in the enterprise. We have pioneered the concept of “active mentoring” with .NET: blending “on the project” training with “as needed” consulting to provide one, seamless, service offering. By transferring skills and knowledge back into your company, we build agile teams at the same team we are building agile software!

RN: What did you enjoy most about writing your .NET test?

BrilliantSTORM: The challenge! The .NET Framework test was challenging in that it covers such a wide variety of programming tasks ranging from processing XML to working with streams to manipulating relational data. .NET is such a large animal, that there is hardly a day that goes by when we don’t see something “new” and exciting. Having a chance to delve into many of the areas of .NET in excruciating detail in order to construct a detailed set of exam questions was immensely rewarding.

RN: Tell us about your latest book?

BrilliantSTORM: Mike Snell and Lars Powers, the Principal Consultants behind BrilliantSTORM, have written the Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the .NET Framework Class Library. This book was specifically crafted to break the large .NET Framework apart into digestible pieces, and then show developers how each piece can be used across a wide variety of different programming tasks. The book is part reference and part guide, and includes an extensive cross-reference that allows readers to map Win32 API calls to their matching .NET Framework counterpart (and vice versa). It’s on book shelves now!

RN: What do you see as the future of .NET? Where would you like to see it go?

BrilliantSTORM: .NET was designed from the start to be an absolutely terrific platform for building distributed applications on top of an XML technology layer—and it does this very well. With future major releases, we would really like to see .NET improve its debugging capabilities (both at design-time and run-time), and extend its reach onto other, non-MS, platforms.

RN: Please share your thoughts with us on the role that ReviewNet evaluations play in hiring IT professionals.

BrilliantSTORM: ReviewNet plays an absolutely critical role during the whole candidate appraisal process. If you can't quantify an individual’s grasp of a specific technology, you can't make sound hiring decisions. In this day and age, a company's employees are by far their most valuable asset. It only makes sense to make sure that each and every job candidate is presented with the best opportunity possible to demonstrate their applicable skills and knowledge in relation to the job they are interviewing for. Although online reviews and tests can only provide a piece of the puzzle, they are nonetheless an indispensable part of the equation.

RN: How did you design your ReviewNet test to help eliminate IT hiring mistakes?

BrilliantSTORM: The .NET series of ReviewNet exams are specifically designed to test a candidate's familiarity on two different levels: the framework level, and the language level. At the framework level, it is important that developers recognize, and be deeply familiar with, the appropriate technology construct to use for a specific programming task. That, coupled with an understanding of the nuances of .NET code, is what we targeted with the .NET tests. An employer can be confident that an individual who shows an aptitude on the test will also be able to navigate their way around the .NET Framework Class Library, and write sound code.