Rants
Personal opinion rants that I probably shouldn't share.
I’m sure you’ve heard the term “law of leaky abstraction”, apparently put forth by Joel Spolsky (if you’re unfamiliar, please go read it – it’s worth your time). Lots of people have blogged about what leaks, what doesn’t leak, why things leak and so on.
To deal with this, people often are in search of creating a “cleaner” abstraction layer that doesn’t leak. And how many times have you seen an internal framework that took way too long to create – time spent refactoring to keep it “clean” by hiding the underlying system ? I think this is a big mistake…
Let’s...
Back in February of '04, I posted “.Net says - multiple languages supported. VS.Net says - don't try it“. A quick response by Paul Vick showed that it would probably never be fixed for Visual Studios 2002 and 2003 - but that they'd work on it for Whidbey.
Alas, the beta 1 and multiple CTPs came and went, and the bug continued. However, I am happy to report that in VS.NET 2005 Beta 2, the problem seems to have been resolved. My test case now works, and I'm a happy camper.
Thanks to the background compilation teams for c# and vb.net! While...
I really do like the “Whidbey” generics for both C# and VB.net. In my opinion, they bring a good solution to some problems with gaps in strong typing to the .net family. Great stuff, really.
However, I'm not happy with one of the constraints on constraints. I'll endevor to explain. Hopefully this is either addressed or (at the least) acknowledged by those in the know. (Or, if I'm an idiot, feel free to let me know in comments)
For a good background on C# generics, see this article on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/csharp_generics.asp
Okay, so let's say I have a generic collection that sorts items:1public class SortEx<T>2{3 ...4 public void...
Due to mass comment spam, I'm turning on moderation (that I got from Don XML, with his .text moderation modifications entry). I did not enable the CAPTCHA stuff yet (from Miguel Jimenez’s HIP-CAPTCHA Control), because I hate to annoy anyone who may want to comment, but I will turn it on without further hesitation if need be.
However, the thing that's most important to me is now done - I will no longer give Google Juice to spamming losers. (The regular kind of loser can comment here and get juice if they want, as long as it's on topic)
Rob Caron and Buck Hodges discuss a newsgroup post by Ajay Sudan discussing how Microsoft subscribes to one of the multiple-universe theories... That is, MSDN Universal subscriptions will become “most” of the software a developer needs, and then you can buy additions to make it complete.
Huh? Let me look up the term “Universal”.
Now, I'm not whining about the cost (well, maybe I am) - I pay for a universal subscription out of my own pocket because it's worth it to me - I know that with that yearly fee, I can go into any client site and have the software...
I am sure that VS2005 will improve before release, but I'm fearful that smart tags are the way its going to be.. I've been trying to say it in comments, newsgroups and Ladybug, and I'll say it again here:
SmartTags are not productive in the code window. Bold ( and italic) statment? Perhaps, but true as well.
The Smart Tag has one great feature - it's a visual cue that some action is available on a piece of text. However, actually using that action takes way too many steps. 1) click the text. 2) Hover over the tiny sliver of an icon under...
[Update 12/14/04] - Because I get a lot of Google referals where I'm a #1 or #2 result looking for how to give a network share full trust with CAS, I'm adding how to actually do it, rather than just complain about the name.
So, to give a network share or mapped drive full trust, execute the following at a .net command prompt:
caspol -q -machine -addgroup 1 -url file://z:/* FullTrust -name "Z Drive"
This will give anything on the “Z“ drive full trust, make the name of the rule “Z Drive“, and put this at the machine level (applies to all users). You must...
I'm uninstalling the MSN Toolbar Suite Beta. Not only am I not happy, but I'm actually annoyed. I tried the reviewers guide by Scoble, but I don't trust a guide of questions by a maker of one of the products. They give you the questions they want you to ask, but not what is really meaningful to you.
So much potential, wasted. For those that don't want to read the entire “review“ below, it boils down to me saying this:“Yes, I get it, you want me to use MSN for everything. There's a point where that stops being convenient and...
I have a problem with Intellisense (no, I love intellisense, I just want it to quit making me type more at times)
Create a new windows project. Add a textbox to the default form. In the code for that form, create a method. In that method, do the following:
Type “TextBox1.TopLevelControl“.
Press Enter
Delete the line that we just typed in.
Type “TextBox1.Top=“.
There's the problem. Note that when you hit “=” (or space, or whatever), your line was changed to “TextBox1.TopLevelControl”
Ack! Top is short. I can type it in. But now I must hit “.Top<escape>“ or “.Top<up arrow>“ instead. Makes it really annoying when you're...
[Updated again 8/12/04 (yes a bit late)] - added beta 1.[Update 5/30/04] Versions affected by this bug:
VS2002 (all betas and RTM)
VS2003 (all betas and RTM)
Whidbey PDC bits, VS2005 CTP1, VS2005 CTP2 and also VS2005 Beta 1
Here's to hoping they can fix it. I know it's not easy (kudos to Paul Vick for admitting that it was a mistake, and thanks for the extensive explanation) - so I'm not sure if they'll have the time. But I still hope.
It's beta 2 of the new visual studio, soon to be VS.Net 2002. It's awesome, and I'm blown away. In all ways, I...
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