CLaueR's Blog

Borland is releasing a C# IDE called Sidewinder.

"Sure they will add some features that Microsoft does not currently offer in the stock VS.Net installation. (...) these are not add-in's into Microsoft's Visual Studio IDE. This is an entirely new IDE created by Borland. This is the part I just don't get, Microsoft has always ruled when it comes to creating IDE's."

[Mathew Nolton Blog]

I do not agree, Mathew. I was a Delphi developer in a previous life. I've used Delphi from version 2 to 4. At that time, i much prefered working with Delphi than with Visual Studio or Visual Basic. Even being today a .NET Evangelist, I can say that Borland has a strong experience and has always been very successful in development tool. I expect to find many good ideas and improvements in C#Builder.

My previous post was also about C#Builder and tryed to gather some rumors about features in the future release of the tool. Check the Flash auto-demo of C#Builder.

Competition is good, we all will benefit from it. The more .NET dev tools on the market, the better it is for all of us, .NET developers.

Christophe Lauer

C#Builder Sneak Preview from Borland's site

Borland was amongst the partners during the Windows Server 2003 Launch Event in France. At their booth, they had an auto-demo of C#Builder in Flash. From what I heard, the final product is expected to be on the shelves for mid-June. Looks pretty interresting. They have also written their own C# to IL compiler. I'd like to compare the IL code that this compiler and the one from the .NET Framework SDK provide. I Hope I can get a Beta version to play with.

Disclaimer:

Repeat after me:  "I swear that I don't take the following for granted."
These are just rumors to me for the moment, but it sounds true.

Here are some more details I found on DotNetGuru (Sami must have had an interview with someone at Borland):

• C#Builder will have its own "Properties Editor", slightly different from the one in VS .NET
• A better ADO.NET wizard
• Will support several languages - which is not obvious given the tool's name : C#, VB.NET, JScript et J#, and also Delphi and Managed C++ in a next release (SP1?)
• The core of the IDE will be the foundations of future Delphi 8
• Will support .NET Framework 1.1 primarly
• Will support ASP.NET pages in IIS or Cassini

Things you won't find in the box:

• No support for NAnt or NUnit, whereas JBuilder does :-(
• No support for .NET Compact Framework, whereas JBuilder supports J2ME and C++Buildere supports SymbianOS :-(
• No support for multiple languages in the Web designer

C#Builder will also provide new Namespaces:

• Borland.Data: specific DataProviders for Interbase, DB2, ... and some replacement classes for MS Command and Connections objects
• Borland.Delphi: Delphi support for .NET, especially the compiler
• Borland.VCL: .NET facade a subset of the Delphi VCL
• Borland.Win32: No details
• Borland.Corba: Might be some Corba/Visibroker support in .NET

Feel free to comment if you've got more details or if some assumptions are wrong.

Hosting Woes or Why I should move to Community Starter Kit

My hoster is playing some tricks on me. Repeatedly, my web site contents disapears and shows an empty DocumentRoot. 

 Name                    Last modified       Size  Description

 Parent Directory        15-Jan-2003 10:46      -  

RSS Aggregators nice to have feature

I'm such a lazy guy that I haven't installed latest release of SharpReader yet. In fact, I'm still using Syndirella as a primary aggregator. I've checked the release notes for version 0.9.0.1 of SharpReader, and I think that the feature i dream about is not in.

I think it'd be cool if one could subscribe to an OPML document and monitor it's changes. When it detects "new feeds on the blogs", it could ask the user to add them to his subscriptions, on a per feed basis, or all new feeds.

Would you find this feature useful? Comments welcome ;-)

Yet Another PocketPC RSS Aggregator in plans

Robert McLaws in a recent post says he's working on a PocketPC RSS aggregator project. He's asking for design advices, on wether to use SQL CE or an XML file to store data, and other such questions. There's also a comment from DanF that contains interresting features ideas. So far, I've tryied some PocketPC RSS Aggregators and none of them really convinced me. Look forward to see what Rob's project will become.

Rob, i'll keep in mind this quote "If you're going to build a similar app to everyone else then fine, but make it 10x better than anyone else" ;-))

RSS Überall

Reading various blogs here and there, it seems that the RSS madness is actually everywhere. You can find tools to check for incoming e-mail in POP3 through RSS, browse your Windows Event Logs in RSS, RSS for NNTP, RSS feed to the tools added to the excellent .NET Tools List of Fabrice Marguerie, etc...

Well, let's try to be a little bit creative, and imagine new RSS feed use cases. The week-end is coming, some of you are certainly looking for a 2 days hacking project, so follow me:

• RSS feeds in front of CVS, or any source repository, VSS, SourceForge, GDN Communities,
• RSS feeds in front of software/shareware tools depots a la Freshmeat.net and HotScripts.com,
• RSS feeds in front of web forums, for instance on www.asp.net/forums,
• RSS feeds in front of your calendar, so that you can quickly check your recently plugged meetings,
• RSS feeds over the OS filesystem, to quickly check the newly added files,
• RSS feeds through a Web Service on your Smartphone, so you can quickly check the recently added contacts,
• RSS feeds ...

Oh, wait, i think i've just gone RSS mad too... ;-)

Software, Security and the Universe

A recent article of the French journalist Marc Olanie highlights the conclusions of the ISS report which states that Q1 2003 has been the worst quater ever in computing industry in terms of Security.

We're in a world where computers, networks and software become more and more connected, and it's a really tough job for the network and security admins to keep all this stuff safe.

As G. Andrew Duthie says it in this post, the most common error is that admins did not manage to keep systems up to date. It's true that not so long ago, tools like MBSA or HfNetChk didn't exist and made their job very hard. Today, the situation is different. Admins have a lot of tools to check and enforce the security of their systems and applications: MBSA, HfNetChk, Windows Update, SUS aka System Update Services in Windows Server 2003, and also URLCheck, IISLockDown and e bunch of tools for SQL Server. More to come, we can expect to see more and more  of this tools and features included in the products, as a consequence of the  Trustworthy COmputing initiative at Microsoft.

Well administered systems running applications designed with security in mind can obtain fairly good results. Just check the Open Hack 4 Contest results to convince yourself.

As a conclusion, i'd like to give you this quote from an unknown author : "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." 

Do not loose your faith ;-)

#include "std_disclaimer.h"

Yes, it should have been the very first entry of this blog. But it's not too late to correct the situation.

This blog, like many other blogs is maintained by myself, it contains my entries which may reflect my opinion - at least at the time of posting them - and shall not be considered as reflecting my employer views, opinions or whatever.

Yes, i work for Microsoft. Yes, i'm a .NET Evangelist. Yes, i love .NET.

You should also remember that English is not my mother language, so, it may happen that some of my sentences misses their goals, and can be misunterstood. Before flaming me, you better push me a mail and ask for clarifications.

Standard Disclaimer:

- This posting (and all other posts on this blog) is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
- Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

Well, i said it, let's blog now.

Sometimes, Messenger may not be your Friend

One of Scott Hanselman's blog most popular entries is an excellent article giving you lots of useful tips on how to make a successful Microsoft presentation. Being myself an MSFT insider, i confirm that it is pure truth.

I'd like to add just one more advice from my personal experience to the chapter "Be Utterly Prepared (No excuses)". Yes, anything can happen. Last time i gave a presentation to partners, i suddenly saw all of them smiling at a time i had not done a joke. It happened: the damn blue piece of toast had popped-up, my wife had just sent me one of those very personal messages that make you immediately feel so uncomfortable.

In short, here's my tip: "Do not forget to switch Messenger off"!. In Office 2003, Powerpoint is supposed to block Messenger when in presentation mode. I hardly can wait for it.