Microsoft has released FlexWiki to open source, on SourceForge of all places. This is the software that handles the Wiki pages for Microsoft's Channel 9 site.
The license is very open, you can basically use it however you want.
Looks like the entire site is written in C#, but I'll be looking into how to use it later.
September 28, 2004
September 25, 2004
MSN add-in
I just saw this add-in for MSN Messenger
http://www.msgplus.net/
Why do I think this is the greatest thing: it allows you to change the names of your contacts.
Be-it, you could do this with Jabber for the past couple of years...but everyone I talk to is on MSN Messenger service.
Why do I want to do this: because I have 3 Jim's, 2 Chris's, an Annie (not her name), 4 email addresses, and a niece that thinks it is cute to create names that look like (|)gUrL's*JuSt*wAnT*tO*hAvE*fUn*(L)
That, for me, is short for "smack me please".
http://www.msgplus.net/
Why do I think this is the greatest thing: it allows you to change the names of your contacts.
Be-it, you could do this with Jabber for the past couple of years...but everyone I talk to is on MSN Messenger service.
Why do I want to do this: because I have 3 Jim's, 2 Chris's, an Annie (not her name), 4 email addresses, and a niece that thinks it is cute to create names that look like (|)gUrL's*JuSt*wAnT*tO*hAvE*fUn*(L)
That, for me, is short for "smack me please".
September 17, 2004
Hungarian Notation considered harmful
I went to a NetDUG meeting last night on ASP.NET Best Practices, given by Carl Prothman. See the write up here.
Overall the presentation was fine, he have a lot of good information, tips, techniques, and so on. The one part that I took issue with was where he talked about Hungarian notation. He stated that for C# programmers, Hungarian notation should not be used. His premise was:
1. C# is strongly typed already
2. Visual Studio environment gives you all of the information anyway. All you have to do is hover over the variable.
3. There was also the reason that if the variable type has to change, you then have to change the variable prefix all over the place.
Here are my argument against his.
I work in a large enviroment with many developers. Typically, one developer will start a project, work on it for a while, then hand it off to another developer, who has to make more changes. That second developer will have code from many other developers in his hands at once and has to be able to read it all.
Now let's be frank. C# allows developers to write some pretty sloppy code. Variables can be declared anywhere, in any form. They might be prefixed with private or public, or they might not. You can declare a exception class as IgnoreMe instead of IgnoreMeException. Curly brackets can go anywhere. C# is not a structured language. It is up to the programmers to add structure, and frankly, not using Hungarian Notation is just adding one more inconsistency variable into the mix.
To sum up: Hungarian Notation makes code easier to read and understand for other developers, removes reliance on other development environments, and up to this point, every argument I've heard of for getting rid of it has been insubstantial and petty.
If anyone cares to prove me wrong, please do.
Overall the presentation was fine, he have a lot of good information, tips, techniques, and so on. The one part that I took issue with was where he talked about Hungarian notation. He stated that for C# programmers, Hungarian notation should not be used. His premise was:
1. C# is strongly typed already
2. Visual Studio environment gives you all of the information anyway. All you have to do is hover over the variable.
3. There was also the reason that if the variable type has to change, you then have to change the variable prefix all over the place.
Here are my argument against his.
- Delphi, C, C++, VB, Java, and many other languages are also strongly typed, but it is still considered best practice for those languages. I really like C#, but I dont believe it has done anything to make Hungarian Notation obsolete.
- Great, so now if you print out the code, how is Visual Studio going to help you. Also, why should I have to move my mouse just to figure out what type a variable is, what it's scope is when I can just look at it. If I have to take my hands off of the keyboard, you are wasting my time. Also: I'm sorry, but you should not, under any circumstances, assume that everyone reading your code will be using Visual Studio, or any other environment for that matter. With the onset of Mono, SharpDevelop, and the new Delphi environment (which supports C#) that is dangerous argument. Programmers are fickle and prone to change quickly, tomorrows Visual Studio.NET might be Emacs (or VI -- cough).
Motive 2: If I'm having trouble with a procedure I've written, I'll bring in another developer to look at that procedure. I dont want him to have to inspect the entire class just to figure out where the variables are declared. Now you are wasting the time of two developers. - Haven't any of you people heard of "Search and Replace"? It has been a standard feature for years and has become very useful to the modern programmer. Changing a variables type is not a small matter anyway. Any time you change a type you should go through every place where that variable is used and make sure that it is still going to work. Think of it this way, one of the tips that Carl gave was that when you check in your code to your source code control (Source Safe, Vault, CVS, etc), you should inspect EVERY line you changed. When you change a variable type, you have affectively changed every line that variable is used on. What better way to make sure you look over every line than to change the variable name.
I work in a large enviroment with many developers. Typically, one developer will start a project, work on it for a while, then hand it off to another developer, who has to make more changes. That second developer will have code from many other developers in his hands at once and has to be able to read it all.
Now let's be frank. C# allows developers to write some pretty sloppy code. Variables can be declared anywhere, in any form. They might be prefixed with private or public, or they might not. You can declare a exception class as IgnoreMe instead of IgnoreMeException. Curly brackets can go anywhere. C# is not a structured language. It is up to the programmers to add structure, and frankly, not using Hungarian Notation is just adding one more inconsistency variable into the mix.
To sum up: Hungarian Notation makes code easier to read and understand for other developers, removes reliance on other development environments, and up to this point, every argument I've heard of for getting rid of it has been insubstantial and petty.
If anyone cares to prove me wrong, please do.
September 14, 2004
FireFox 1.0 Released
FireFox 1.0 is out. Seems to break a lot of my extensions that I had, but it is out.
September 13, 2004
VB: Not too advanced
Here is an interesting jem I found on news.com.
Worm speaks to Windows users
Here is a quote from the bottom of the article:
"It's the only (worm) I have found speech on, but it is not too advanced because it is written in Visual Basic."
That explains just about every Visual Basic program I have ever written. :)
Worm speaks to Windows users
Here is a quote from the bottom of the article:
"It's the only (worm) I have found speech on, but it is not too advanced because it is written in Visual Basic."
That explains just about every Visual Basic program I have ever written. :)
Visual Studio .NET Professional 2003 Special Edition
Visual Studio .NET Professional 2003 Special Edition
This is a new version of Visual Studio 2003 (Pro edition) with SQL Server 2000 and Windows Server 2003 bundled in. Lists for $750 (or $550 Upgrade).
The one interesting bit is that it is bundling Windows Server 2003 Developer Edition. What is the Developer Edition? I dont know. This is the first I have ever heard of it, and there aren't too many details about it.
This is a new version of Visual Studio 2003 (Pro edition) with SQL Server 2000 and Windows Server 2003 bundled in. Lists for $750 (or $550 Upgrade).
The one interesting bit is that it is bundling Windows Server 2003 Developer Edition. What is the Developer Edition? I dont know. This is the first I have ever heard of it, and there aren't too many details about it.
September 10, 2004
Enter the Tivo
I finally convinced my wife to let me get a Tivo. Actually, after I told her what the thing could do she was all for it.
So I did my research and desided on the Toshiba model with the built in DVD player. I already have a DVD player, but that is besides the point. The Toshiba comes with the Tivo Basic subscription plan. That is basically Tivo light (I can only see what is going to be playing 3 days ahead), but I dont have to pay a monthly subscription plan.
The test: I get home just in time to hook the thing up and have everything ready to watch the Colts verses the Patriots yesterday. No problem, so I missed some of the pregame show and possible wardrobe malfunctions. Mid way through the game my cousin calls up asking about a computer problem he is having. NO PROBLEM! I pause the game and fix his computer. Half an hour later I'm back to watching the game.
The machine is wonderfull
The problem: I used the TV Guide feature to tell the Tivo when to record and when to shut off. Football games are notorious for not ending right at the end of the hour. So 10:30 comes around and the game still has 2 minutes to go (about 20 minutes in real time) and the Tivo stops recording. I didn't realise what was happening, so I messed the last to minutes of the game.
Luckely for me, this was not another Heidy bowl, where all the point for the game were scored in the last 2 minutes. I guess the Patriots got the ball with 2 minutes left and just sat on it. Winning the game. So all I missed was watching the Patriots run the clock out. I feel better now, but still pensive for next time (Sunday)
But for next time: I'm just telling the machine when to start and when to stop recording. For football anyway. We shall see about other programs.
So I did my research and desided on the Toshiba model with the built in DVD player. I already have a DVD player, but that is besides the point. The Toshiba comes with the Tivo Basic subscription plan. That is basically Tivo light (I can only see what is going to be playing 3 days ahead), but I dont have to pay a monthly subscription plan.
The test: I get home just in time to hook the thing up and have everything ready to watch the Colts verses the Patriots yesterday. No problem, so I missed some of the pregame show and possible wardrobe malfunctions. Mid way through the game my cousin calls up asking about a computer problem he is having. NO PROBLEM! I pause the game and fix his computer. Half an hour later I'm back to watching the game.
The machine is wonderfull
The problem: I used the TV Guide feature to tell the Tivo when to record and when to shut off. Football games are notorious for not ending right at the end of the hour. So 10:30 comes around and the game still has 2 minutes to go (about 20 minutes in real time) and the Tivo stops recording. I didn't realise what was happening, so I messed the last to minutes of the game.
Luckely for me, this was not another Heidy bowl, where all the point for the game were scored in the last 2 minutes. I guess the Patriots got the ball with 2 minutes left and just sat on it. Winning the game. So all I missed was watching the Patriots run the clock out. I feel better now, but still pensive for next time (Sunday)
But for next time: I'm just telling the machine when to start and when to stop recording. For football anyway. We shall see about other programs.
September 02, 2004
Mozilla ActiveX Project
I haven't tried this yet, it is late and I'm not at my computer. This is more so I remember the link for later. What I'm after is a way of hosting Mozilla or FireFox from a .NET WinForms project.
http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm
I've also seen that the
Gengis project, see (a la Chris Sells) is planning to do this. But until that is done...
http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm
I've also seen that the
Gengis project, see (a la Chris Sells) is planning to do this. But until that is done...
Lost VS.NET Context Help
Here is a new problem I encountered yesterday. I installed the Microsoft SDKs (Platform, DirectX, etc) and lost all of my context help in Visual Studio.Net 2003.
I found a solution on Dr. Ex's Weblog .
From Visual Studio.NET, go to the command window (Ctrl-Alt-a).
Execute this command: View.ShowWebBrowser ms-help://MS.VSCC.2003/VSCCCommon/cm/CollectionManager.htm
Check everything and hit OK. That basically refreshes your entire help documentation for .NET!
I found a solution on Dr. Ex's Weblog .
From Visual Studio.NET, go to the command window (Ctrl-Alt-a).
Execute this command: View.ShowWebBrowser ms-help://MS.VSCC.2003/VSCCCommon/cm/CollectionManager.htm
Check everything and hit OK. That basically refreshes your entire help documentation for .NET!
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