May 2003 - Posts

• Welcome Brenton

  Just found out a little while ago that Brenton is on his way over.  Good deal!!!  This brings the total number of Turner bloggers up to 3: Myself, Mark, and now Brenton. I'm trying to convince some of our other developers that blogging is a great way to become part of the .NET community, but it's just not sinking in... Oh well... their loss...  Brenton: See you on the ninth 16th! [Listening to: Morpheus Laughing - Skinny Puppy (4:00)]   Posted May 28 2003, 02:18 PM by dbrowning with no comments

• IE

  Pachel L says: And for those who talk about Mozilla, how many versions should be there before having no more crash on my PC? I'll agree Mozilla is a little flaky (I think because it's a huge "suite" of internet apps that have all been developed on different paths), but you should really try Firebird (formally Phoenix).  You won't be disappointed.  I use it regularly (have since 0.2), it very rarely crashes and is a kick ass browser.   Posted May 27 2003, 06:39 PM by dbrowning with no comments

• Microsoft is missing the SDLC boat....big time....

  Alex blogs about MS missing the boat on the Software Development Life Cycle here, and I agree with him 100%... But in his rant, he asks this question: Source Control - Visual SourceSafe 6.0xyz. Yeah, 'xyz' is the next super minor build that will be available next month. Ok, kidding aside, SourceSafe needs to be seriously overhauled and/or replaced. I'll bet anyone $100 dollars that it is being replaced but it is WAY too late. Other products are propping up and I'm very tempted to buy them. Microsoft is lucky that I invested money in SourceSafe and I don't want to have to reinvest. It's not a good thing when your source control product is probably considered the most unreliable product available in its space. It's especially disconcerting when your development products are used by millions of developers. I would argue that Visual SourceSafe should be retired and a completely new product pushed. I don't trust SourceSafe and I've used it for quite some time; I know new folks don't trust it because they only hear horror stories. Microsoft, PLEASE give us a more robust source control product.   I think I can talk about this (after all this goes back 2 /12 years), but back in the early .NET days (beta 1'ish) I remember hearing word coming out of Redmond that a new source control system was coming, and was originally supposed to ship with .NET.  I think it was called TeamSource and it was based on Exchange, had extremely tight integration with the IDE, had embedded collaboration tools, the works.  It sounded like a rockin replacement for VSS, but as work on .NET progressed, I stopped hearing rumors about TeamSource.  I guess it either got pushed back to infinity, or died an ugly death.  Who knows.   We are in the process of switching to CVS (on more of a voluntary project-by-project basis), and plans for Subversion  aren't too far down the pipe; but Alex's post makes me wonder what could have been with MS's uber-SCC app.  I mean, maybe there are plans to ship something new with Whidbey (I'm sure VSS won't live forever), but MS may be missing the boat when it comes to SCC stuff.  It seems CVS is becoming a more acceptable alternative to many MS development shops.  It has here...   [Listening to: Ministry - Reload (4:44)] Posted May 27 2003, 02:24 PM by dbrowning with 3 comment(s)

• re: Is Internet Explorer Dead?

  I agree with Don, MS is letting so much time pass since IE 6 shipped that they must have something *big* up their sleeve.  I'm going to be waiting on pins and needles for Scoble's reply (if he's able to give one).  My money says IE7 will be a major upgrade.   For me though, I'm trying to figure out if it will be too late?  I've been a faithful Phoenix (now Firebird) user for almost a year now.  IE is going to have to do some amazing stuff (like fetch my bagel every morning) to convince me to switch back.   [Listening to: You Often Forget - Revco (8:51)] From: Don XML (not that Don) Posted At: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 10:32 AM Posted To: .NET Weblogs Conversation: re: Is Internet Explorer Dead? Subject: re: Is Internet Explorer Dead? Ron Green (SlightlyBent) asks this question on his blog, and Robert Scoble is going to try to get an official answer from Microsoft.  But I’m going to go out on a limb here and tell you what I think.  Basically, it’s as dead as COM is.  Now I know that the answer may seem pretty cut and dry, but it really isn’t.  You really have to go back to Don Box’s December 2000 House of COM MSDN article to get an answer to the question, “Is COM dead?”  The last paragraph sums it up:   Posted May 27 2003, 08:16 AM by dbrowning with no comments

• Bought a new car this weekend...

  After 9 1/2 years of driving the same car (a '94 honda civic), I decided to by a new car this weekend... My wife and I headed over to a little known Atlanta suburb (Lithia Springs) and picked up a '03 Accord Coupe. If you live in the Atlanta area and are in the market for a new car, I have one piece of advice: go out to Thortorn Rd in Lithia Springings.  They like to deal.  I think we stole the Accord and about 3 years ago we stole a Pathfinder from out there.  They are just far enough outside of Atlanta that I think they like to deal to get business. Anyway, it's been a long time coming; I love my new car!  =)   Posted May 25 2003, 11:49 PM by dbrowning with 1 comment(s)

• To Log or Not to Log... That is the question...

  Ok, sorry for the extremely poor Shakespearian reference, but its late and I've drank one to many this evening =).  Anyway, as I'm flipping through my code, adding logging information via Log4Net, I wonder: Am I getting carried away?  I guess I'm really looking for advice from people out there with experience writing logging code; just how much logging code is enough. I find myself wanting to write a log.info line for every executable line of code I have; and I know that's not right.  So here is the formula I'm currently using: Create a logging entry at the beginning of each method that reflects the name of the method (e.g. _log.Info("Class::Method(hashcode)"); Create a logging entry for each "logical" unit of work (e.g. I can't really define what this is, but I know it when I see it in my code) Create a logging entry for each error caught or thrown (e.g. _log.Error("Method puked", ex);) I'll be the first to admit, this is a pretty rudimentary approach, but at this point, I'm not sure of a better one.  The Log4Net documentation is excellent in terms of how to use Log4Net, but it doesn't describe a logging strategy.   So for that logging strategy I'm turning to you, the .NET blogging community.  How do you use Log4Net in your apps?  Do you following a particular strategy/formula.  If you do please let me know, I'm sure there's a better way!   [Listening to: A rerun of The Practice : my wife talk about our upcoming trip to wine country : my dogs playing with their food] Posted May 25 2003, 07:12 PM by dbrowning with 5 comment(s)

• Log4Net

  Currently in the middle of adding lots of logging code to my project via Log4Net.  I've got to say: I'm very impressed.  Yet another great open source project from the .NET community! Look for a complete write up once I'm a little more acclimated... [Listening to: Gravity Kills - Lost] Posted May 23 2003, 12:10 PM by dbrowning with no comments

• Test post from News Gator

  Ok, if this works I'm sold on news gator.  I usually have a problem with paying for software when there are open source efforts available that do the same thing, but NewsGator rocks! Anyway, we'll see how it looks when I hit "post". Update: Ok, I'm sold.... Better get out my wallet! Update2: BTW Brenton, you were right about NewsGator. [Listening to: Dig it - Skinny Puppy] Posted May 22 2003, 11:11 AM by dbrowning with 2 comment(s)

• Added a link to my Blog Roll

  You can find my blog roll here. It's just a list of links to all the blogs I'm currently subscribed to (although each and every one of them is an excelled read). BTW, it was generated using the opml2blogroll.xslt that you can find in my code snippets section. [Listening to: Earthworm - OhGr - (03:22)] Posted May 22 2003, 10:17 AM by dbrowning with no comments

• OPML to Blog Roll XSLT Transformation

  I got frustrated trying to keep up with my blog roll, so I decided to write a chunk of xslt to create one on the fly.  This no-frills code snippet will generate a HTML fragment in the following format: href="http://www.dotnetweblogs.com/dbrowning">.NET Brain Droppings One will be generated for each entry in your opml file (categories are skipped). Hope this helps everyone keep thier blog roll current!  =) <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output method="html" indent="yes" standalone="no" omit-xml-declaration="yes" /> <xsl:template match="/">          <xsl:apply-templates select="//outline" /> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="outline">          <xsl:choose>         <xsl:when test="@type='rss'">             <a href="{@htmlUrl}"><xsl:value-of select="@title" />a><br/>         xsl:when>     xsl:choose> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> The permalink to this code snippet can be found here. [Listening To: 38 - Revco] Posted May 21 2003, 09:27 AM by dbrowning with 1 comment(s)