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Review: pdDataWatch
I love addins! I can't help it... I just love seeing my Visual Studio get more powerful doing more for me. pdDataWatch is a tool that I've needed for awhile. It's an addin that lets me view the data in datasets/datareaders at debug time.
So enough copywriting (somehow I got in that mode.. sorry). Is it cool or what? Yeah, I think it's cool. Is it a must have? I dunno it depends. It definitely makes life easier when you are trying to track down a data issue. BTW, it's more than just an addin; In standalone mode, you can connect it to any datasource and...
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TechEd Sold out??
I guess I might not be at TechEd. Chris Wallace reports that it
is sold out. This really sucks! I wasted a little time on
this but it has taken my employer even longer... I have yet to get a confirmation from my employer (it
wasn't a done deal as of yesterday... so you can bet it's not done
today). With everything else going on with my employer right now,
I think I really need to work more on my exit plan ... <sigh>
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VB.Net 2005 gets refactoring...
Hurrray! VB'ers get Refactoring in Vs 2005! It's the
community edition of Refactor! (which appears to have a better feature
set than C# refactoring that will be built-in). Download is here. My understanding is that Microsoft heard our cries, and made arrangements with Developer Express!
[Via Duncan Mackenzie's Blog which points to Cory Smith's blog.]
BTW, I'm actually excited about VB.Net 2005 again (sort of). Now if we could only turn off Default instances...
[Sorry so short, but this news has to get out!]
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IL Quiz...
[I'm going to try a Sahil thing]
In IL, what is the difference between the following statements:
[C#]
aClass Obj = new aClass();
[VB.Net example 1]
Dim Obj as aClass = new aClass()
[VB.Net example 2]
Dim Obj as new aClass()
Go ahead and comment... I'll post the answer later (although I bet this
isn't that hard... I'm doing this for someone else's benefit)
[Everyone knows this... The code in IL is the same... BTW,
Raymond, the C# compiler will also warn you that the Obj variable hasn't
been used... this is I'm beginning to believe that the blue code is by
far superior to the green code ]
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I don't always do this.. but what does the Dev Theologian speak?
I'm all confused... can ya tell?
Your Linguistic Profile:
70% General American English
10% Midwestern
10% Upper Midwestern
5% Dixie
5% Yankee
What Kind of American English Do You Speak?
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Adventures in C#: Why the 'optional' keyword is evil...
[I've begun to do a few more C# projects and so I bought a couple books
on the subject. I'm going to start writing down a few
observations along the way].
About a year ago I had someone tell me that the optional keyword in VB
(used to define optional parameters) is something that really shouldn't
be used. The advice I got was "don't use it!" I hate advice
like this, because I don't really learn anything... it always begs the
question "why?" When there is no answer to the "why?' I figure
that either: 1) there is a reason, but the person doesn't know it, or
2) the...
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Hire a good coder...
This is my attempt at trying to get a couple of people a new job.
Dave BalzerThe first is my best friend Dave. Dave has been programming professionally for about 5 years. He and I have known each other for close to 15 years. He is the inspiration for my Adventures in OOP where I got him a little more up to speed with OOP techniques in VB.Net. I also mentored/taught Dave shaping him as a programmer for a bit. About 1-2 years ago (??), Dave moved back to our native Ohio to be nearer to his family. He also set...
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Future Personal Language Choices in VS2005
I had a conversation with a friend this morning that somewhat scared me. This friend has been the biggest VB.Net proponent I have ever met. His stance is what has inspired to stand up to "stupid language bigotry" (BTW, this ended in a truce). I have hated how the C# crowd (and other language proponents) has painted VB as a toy language utilitized by a bunch of know nothing "Morts" who have no real business programming. I use OOP methods; I think my methods utilize some decent patterns; and yes, I use VB.Net (at least I do at Version 7.1).
My friend...
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Addendum to my Security Rant...
Friday, I blogged my Bi-Annual security rant. Just to recap I was having a problem with a commercial tool that has a free version for single programmers (it's more of a team-oriented piece of software, but it helps me manage bugs). After reading their support forums (without an answer), I decided to take another shot. Once again the recap is that I couldn't get this things database to install. It wouldn't run under my account (which is an administrator) using Windows Permissions, and it wouldn't run under an SQL account (that was SystemAdministrator) -- and the rant was that I had...
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No, I will not teach you to code... ok, maybe...
[I'm a part of my church's programming team. We are a team of
volunteers. I've had some thing happen to me a few times, and so
I'm writing it in a blog post to try to get my own handle of how I feel
about it... you may have been here, too].
I was aproached by a leader in the church (who I have total respect
for) with a guy who could be a possible resource. I'm
thrilled. More workers means less of my free time programming and
more of it is involved with managing the project as well as there is
now less work for me because...
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Bi-Annual Password Rant...
[It's time for my Bi-Annual Password rant... you know the one where I
yell at us programmers for building systems that don't allow someone to
enter a unicode or ascii character in a password. This is also
the rant where others tell me that I shouldn't use weird characters in
my password because it's easier to type an extra character...]
I have a piece of software that I'm trying to install on my box at
home... I will leave the company's name out of it but they sell a
product that tracks bug defects (which works) and this is a new 2005
version that includes a few more...
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C# to VB.Net syntax translations...
I'm writing this post for me... it may be helpful to you... VB and C# have some class modifiers that do the same thing, but the words are totally different. I personally can never keep this stuff straight, so I thought I would blog about it...
(I hope this makes sense to you)
C#
VB.Net
static
shared
virtual
overridable
abstract
mustoverride
override
overridesThere are more (and I'll add them - or you can in the comments... I just can never remember these)
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Datasets are the bomb as is Remote Scripting and ASP...
[In honor of our new name today on April 1st, 2005].
I want to confess to the community that I have changed my mind. I
have decided that DataSets should be used everywhere... Data Access
layers indicate a bloated over-coded solution. Look how great a
DataSet is; it has the entire data structure in it. It's
perfect. I think it should even be used over WebServices due to
the fact that you can easily keep a synchronized data structure.
I have also seen the light on Remote Scripting. You should never,
never, never refresh a page. In fact I'm working on a solution
that contains nothing but blank.htm and...