January 2005 Blog Posts
If anyone in the Cleveland area is looking for a .NET contractor with a specialty in ASP .NET feel free to contact me.
If you're not in cleveland, and don't mind a virtual employee feel free to contact me.
Grant Killian has a good article about why a coder shouldn't use try-catch blocks in just any situation. I am ashamed to admit that back when I first started using .NET I was guilty of the sin he speaks of.
What I wanted to add to his post was another very common poor usage of try-catch I have seen many inexperienced coders (including myself at one point in time) do.
try
{
ddlMyDropDownList.Items.FindByValue(myValue).Selected = true;
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
//Do nothing or display some kind of warning message
}
Bad Bad Bad! Try this instead:
ListItem li;
li = myDropDownList.Items.FindByValue(myValue);
if(li != null)
li.Selected = true;
I have a personal goal for my Micro-ISV product Easy Assets .NET in two new flavors by April 2005:
1. Local install version for those clients who do not need their data hosted. This will also come with a programmer's reference for importing the business layer .dll to build your own interactions with existing systems customers may have.
2. Local install version + full sourcecode disclosure for those customers that want a fixed asset management system and rather than start from scratch would rather “gut” mine.
Both of these versions will be available for much less than your traditional packages like TrackIT and FAS! ...
So, it's that time of year again, Fortune has listed the 100 best companies to work for. Ranjan D Sakalley is making statements about developing talent. I'm currently taking a MBA class on Organizational Behavior. All this is building up to a commentary on business and IT that I hope is Joel Spolsky-like
There are some very serious problems in the business world today. Most of them apply to all the workers out there, but since I'm an IT guy I'm going to focus on IT. All the problems I'm going to address boil down to one final conclusion that should...
Some people have been discussing SQL Stored procedures lately. I figured I'd weigh in.
As with most things programming, it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. There are certain situations when lots of stored procedures are appropriate (application designed to run on a single database, higher security, speed, etc), and certain situations where they are not (dynamic queries, multiple database types supported, etc).
The most helpful thing you can do in any type of programming is pick a pattern and stick with it! Real world however, it's just doesn't seem to work out that way- there's always some wierd...
Am I in the wrong line of work?
Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence
You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.
What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?
You know, I'm so freaking tired of my “broadband” internet provider.
My eSuite supposedly provides me broadband internet over cable modem. I've complained and they've sent techs out several times to “check“ and the techs have reported that my max speed of 37 KB/sec “isn't too bad“. This is after living in Albany, NY where I had roadrunner and a blazing 150-300 KB/sec. I feel like I've been hamstrung! My eSuite has a virtual monopoly on my apartment complex because no other cable companies are allowed in here and SBC Yahoo DSL isn't available yet though they have a switch a few miles...
I wrote this bit of code today and I thought it was neat so I figured I'd post it here.
Lets say you have a datagrid filled with addresses which are editable in-grid. In addition you have a footer with an add button that displays the same style of edit boxes as the line items. This is all well and good and fairly well documented in the community so let's add a twist: When a user types in a zip code, grab a list of cities in that zip code and display them as a dropdownlist and populate the city and...
I'm not quite as nerdy as Sahil Malik I sure can't resist these stupid tests though.
13% scored higher,1% scored the same, and 86% scored lower.
What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:High-Level Nerd. You are definitely MIT material, apply now!!!.
I was reading the latest post from Joel Spolsky and I got to thinking about a few comments that were made within.
“Most college students, fortunately, are brash enough never to bother asking their elders for advice, which, in the field of computer science, is a good thing, because their elders are apt to say goofy, antediluvian things like 'the demand for keypunch operators will exceed 100,000,000 by the year 2010' and 'lisp careers are really very hot right now.'“
“programming is incredibly good training for all kinds of fabulously interesting jobs, such as business process engineering, even if every single programming job...