There are a few pre-formatted validation expressions available in the VS.NET property editor, including one for email addresses.

If you select the ValidationExpression field of the RegExpValidator and click the [...] icon in the far right you will be able to access them.

Nathan

Hi nathan. Thanks...I knew about the pre-formatted ones, but it would be nice to see them all rolled into a single server control.

Actually, I got feedback from Scott Guthrie on this one...he's going to run it by the team doing validation controls for their consideration. Sweet!

Where do you draw the line though? TelephoneNumberValidator? IpAddressValidator? UrlValidator? You could end up with a very bloated product. There are already a whole raft of controls being added in 2.0. My feeling is that such a control is completely unnecessary. If you really need it, it's a simple task to create a custom server control.

One good aspect of the current RegularExpressionValidator is that developers have to learn (to a certain extent) how regular expressions work (very handy). If this was hidden, then creating regular expressions for validation might not be used so much (use the built-in ones instead) and the skill is "lost".

Plus, the functionality is already in ASP.NET, as has been pointed out. It's no real work to access it.

Hey Johnny,

Good point and certainly very true. I've been wanting to request that an e-mail validator be available for some time.

Actually, truth be told, I had the same concerns when Microsoft said they were rolling the Login controls all into one. It's helpful, but I found it to be tedious overkill, and maybe just done more for marketing to tout it as "an aggregated feature".

But considering how MS is really working to use as mant declarative controls as possible with minimized code, I thought it would fit into the feature set nicely, since so many other feautres that can be rolled or already have existing APIs are being consolidated.

I agree that it might be a bit much, bu for devs just starting out, it would help...and regular expressions are still arguably really hard for beginners to work with, IMHO. It's all about making advanced web app development possible for the masses.

I see the push towards more declarative development, and I don't have a problem with it.

I'm not overly happy about the push to dumb-down web development, if indeed that is what it is.

There are too many poor developers out there already. New controls don't make web development easier, they reduce the amount of code that needs to be written, sure, but the *really* difficult problems don't go away:

- How to design a great UI
- How to architect the back-end to allow for reuse, maintainability and reliability
- How to scale the application for large numbers of users
- How to construct an efficient and usable framework or API
- etc

Having more and more controls worries me, to a certain extent. How much bloat can we contend with?

The features that I like in 2.0 are those which will make it easier for me to construct great applications - better custom control development tools/frameworks, db cache dependencies, integrated SqlXml, ObjectSpaces, MARS.

Great feedback. Undoubtedly, that's a concern of Microsoft's, too, to stay competitive. However, it's assumedly likewise a goal to make web development - and in particular, advanced web development - available to the masses.

My initial recommendation was to build-in a utility that would speed up development, not dumb it down, although I can see how that it might be perceived that way. I was one of the classically-trained web devs people who got mad when Dreamweaver first came on the scene and Joe Schmo who's been working with a PC (not just web programming) for less than a year, and is able to churn out a database-driven site because of an IDE, all the while remaining ignorant to the processes behind-the-scenes, despite my years of training and toiling.

It's the bigger picture that MS is concerned with, because that's where the money is. Granted, it opens up a whole new arena of headaches, but consider the control is has, too. Some newbies may move over from JSP or PHP to ASP.NET based solely on the fact that ASP.NET offers auto-validation controls. People are weird like that.

If the issue is that encapsulating functionality into server controls dilutes the amount of total control a developer has, then maybe the midground would be to create a framework delivering the best of both worlds - delivering powerful functionality WITH lots of room for extensibility.

On that note, I really like what the ASP.NET team has done with caching - specifically, unsealing the Cache API so that devs can write their own caching schemes. If this was encouraged a bit more throughout other areas of the Framework (validation being another, et al.) this would be great.

Thanks for the review. I saw the book at the local Border's Books. I have been using Archer's Inside C# 2nd ed.

Reason for not wraping dependent controls
seems obvious-two controls can have the same
"manager" but different placement context not
directly connected to it's "manager", think
also about ability to set DataSource/"some kind of manager" from code at runtime.
Where are you placing validation controls for example or any non-visual controls connected with visuals?

A regex works, but some things like an email address must adhere to a published standard.

It would be nice to have validators that enforce those standards exactly.

I would also like to see a type validator, it just feels silly to use a compare validator and to say that the compare to do is a type check.

I would also like to see a Required property on all validator so I don't have to always put two validators to require something in a specific format.

Given that I've got a bunch of "ASP+" books sitting around, I'd rather wait until 2.0 is a little closer to release than have a bunch of outdated books.

Plus, with pre-release stuff who needs a book when there are n+1 blogs, newsgroups, and web sites out there hawking the 2.0 stuff. There are already XAML examples for cryin' out loud and that's not coming out until Longhorn in 4-6 years .

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

Good point, but I'm interested in seeing Dino's work, in particular since it'll be after the New Year and hopefully incorporate some of the new features that were developed post-PDC.

A type validator would be very solid!

Is this the main reason? I just thought it was initial Alpha design that it "could" be dropped anywhere in the page and didn't have to wrap the WebPartZones it managed. I think that approach would be better design and lead to less problems down the road.

Of course, your point is very well taken - that on complex <TABLE>-based designs, you'd be wrapping essentially the entire document, and this could get tricky if UI stuff was dynamically written within. Great point.

The IE web controls are all pieces of crap that have very bad object models, they should definately NOT be included in ASP.NET 2.0. However, rest assured that you will see a lot of functionality in ASP.NET 2.0 webcontrols that was not in 1.0 (including treeview).

You think so? I'll agree that their use, either declaratively or programatically is far from simplistic, but you can do some pretty cool things with them.

And, they automate most, if not all, of the DHTML, which I like.

Maybe the suggstion should be:
"I'd like the see variations of the ASP.NET 1.x IEWebControls ship in 2.0, but completely reworked."

I haven't checked but you if you are not then you should really be placing these great features/feedback items in either the asp.net forums for Whidbey or the lists at AspAdvice.com to ensure that they are seen by the ASP.NET team.

Additionally, the IEWebControls that were originally shipped were not production quality controls and no one claimed that they were. They were, as I understand it, created to emulate parts of an old version of Outlook Web Access.

Hi Alex,

Yeah, actually I split the difference and post comments like suggestions in as many places as I can. You never know who'll run across them, or when.

I learnt most of what I know about ASP/ASP.Net from ASPFriends. Of course, I've forgotten it all now, but it put me on the road to becoming a programmer, for which I am grateful.

Jim

Hi Jim,

Me, too. I really grew in my ASP.NET knowledge and as a programmer. Exposure was great, amnd I've met a lot of really cool people who I'm happy to call friends.

I am quit proud of the YahooGroups @ AspFriends - they serve a lot of people well as their archives will show. Guthrie and Howard choose to fund AspAdvice covertly and that is their choice, and I choose to find ways to help the community (with some styles and topic choices I prefer) without their help.

Go to Http://www.aspfriends.com and there are quite a few. A quick look at the archives of
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AspNetAnyQuestionIsOk
and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AspClassicAnyQuestionIsOk
reveals Mucho help you ignore because of your tendency towards subjective biased statements with little basis in fact.

While it is true some (but not all) of the AspFriends.com groups I "gifted" to others did not become very active that was the choice of the people I gifted them to squander the audience by not priming the lists.

I don't consider you a friend. That assumption is yours. Your story was not researched by the normal journalistic standards of integrity. Once you published that shallow piece that was a mockery of what journalism is supposed to be you lost all credibility as a journalist with me - and as a human who pursues excellence in their career.

You interviewed 2 people, omitted wuch of what I said, and did no research as to whether what each of us said was true, gathered no documents (the MS contract for example), treated Guthrie's words as if they were accurate with little verification. I really enjoy true Journalism (the kind where people actually research dozens of sources, verify facts and actually attempt to determine some truths not just publish portions of 2 interviews and call it journalism.

And not everybody has Blogs - some of us realize that updating and maintaining blogs is a time management trap that eats resources from other non-blog efforts. Read
Drive Yourself Sane
by Susan Presby Kodish, Bruce I. Kodish
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0970066465/learnasp
to learn how you misuse language and make absurd statements that the actions of a couple hundred developers blogging somehow consstitutes the whole community blogging.

The code @
http://www.learnasp.com/freebook/learn/xmltextreader.aspx
is a great thing to run over any XMLfile. Answrs many questions about what the Reader object emits as messages when it encounters XML strutures.

Hi Charles,

Thanks for commenting and for demonstrating the sterling level of professionalism, maturity, and candor that only goes to prove how ASPFriends ultimately went under in the first place.

That's certainly true about what you said about not everyone having blogs. That was a clever exaggeration of the speculation that everyone in the ASP.NET community blogs to prove a point, rather than an outright statement of fact. Apparently, you didn't pick up on that.

Thanks also for the book recommendation...I think one of my producers has this at work. I'll check it out. I'm appreciative of your criticism of my article and I'd like to hear specific recommendations about how you think my station's journalism may improve. I'm always happy to hear from readers how I or the people I manage may get better at what we do.

Thanks for the link Charles! :)

Visio is dying with Whidbey. Whitehorse will more than likely support all of that stuff.

Really? That's too bad - RIP. Actually, Visio might not have been the right fit. But some modeling tool would definetly help.

Thanks for the info!

Yeah, that MSNBC.com, what a crazy web site! Jason - thanks for your hard work. Keep keeping Guam informed!
-b

Hi! Thanks for blogging with me! Where do I know you from...KUAM.COM? :)

I tried your link: http://photoalbums.wdwmagic.com/showgallery.php?cat=500&amp;ppuser=9378&amp;thumb=1 but it didn't work.

Definitely looks like ASP.NET. I think they're using HttpHandlers for the articles now, since I doubt each article resides in it's own directory. Pretty slick setup IMO.

Yep...this seems to be a new trend...prettier URLs!

Either an HttpHandler or perhaps using RewritePath() in Application_BeginRequest in Global.asax.

ASPAlliance started doing the same thing with its articles recently (making IDs directory names) and I implemented something similar a few months back:

OLD:
http://www.kuam.com/news/story.asp?headline=1234

NEW:
http://www.kuam.com/news/1234.aspx

Just an update...the code for ASP.NET in C# is here:

http://weblogs.asp.net/jasonsalas/posts/43303.aspx

Whenever I had to build an app that made heavy use of query strings, I'd pop it up in a window with no address bar after login. Then they couldn't fudge with the app if they knew what they were doing.

Sweet. I did the same thing on numberous occasions - although a few crafty users were able to point it out from getting into IE's History folder and hovering over the page title.

Even though it's quite frequently recommended, I'm not a big fan of <input type="HIDDEN"/>.

I would like to add that it's not only the appealing part of the query string that drives site builders to using 'friendly querystrings' but also the fact that search engines treat these url's as directory indexes thus successfully indexing them in contarary to the bla.asp?foo=bar pages.

That was the original concept behind the Apache MultiViews trick anyway, not sure if the search engines have become smarter nowadays,

- Cheers

Hiding your address bar is by no means foolproof - Ctrl-N pops up a new window with default settings, including the address bar; if you're relying on hiding a querystring like ?superuseradmin=false, it's not tough to get around that.

We used a similar url rewriting technique on a CMS driven website recently - it's nice for other reasons, too. Search engines and website traffic analysis tools (webtrends, etc.), can catagorize by folder locations (even though they're virtual) a lot better than by querystrings, usually.

Is there an example somewhere showing how to do this? Also can this be accomplished using ASP Classic too?

Hi Waseem,

Thanks for the tip...I'd read before that there were certain search engine advantages advantages to not using the query string. :)

Hi Jon,

Yeah...totall not foolproof!

Of note: here's a good link about making search engine-friendly URLs: http://www.codetoad.com/asp.net_ma_searchenginefriendly.asp

Hi Shahn,

Here's a sample, borrowed from Steve Walther's seminal work "ASP.NET Unleashed", which runs in the Application_Request event of your web app's GLOBAL.ASAX file:

public void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string currentPath;
string customPath;

currentPath = Request.Path.ToLower();
if(currentPath.IndexOf("/content/") > 0 && System.IO.Path.GetExtension(currentPath) == ".aspx")
{
// the request is within the /CONTENT/ directory, so re-write the URL to appear to be a filename, rather than a URL with a query string.
customPath = String.Format("/mysite/content/templatefile.aspx?headline={0}",System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(Request.Path));
Context.RewritePath(customPath);
}
}

IMHO what I try to do is:

1) hide the "engine" I am asked to build "Web based applications" not web sites.
in word you don't get to see the name of the cpp files they used so why see the .asp / .aspx / .pl and so on ?

2) reduce the "attack surface"
things I am working on include striping off all the MS / IIS headers that annonuce what kind of server hardware / software is running that application, after killing off the
"IIS 6.0" and the "Powered By ASP.NET" and related headers the next thing is to make the cracker think the pages are just html if ican.
while a dedicated attach will figure out what I have done a casul peek at a site that only uses www.acme.com/this/that/foo/12637gf/at66/
and never serves up a foo.aspx or the like will be a tad less likeky to get targeted for more time cracking it.

and for some apps I toss up a frameset that grabs the /sss/ttt/sss stuff and just lets the user see: http://www.acme.com/
thats it, all the pages are called from under the master frame page thats just a big 100% * 100% frame.
so back to the "application" ness.... you just started "http://www.crm.acme.com/"
so thats all the URL bar should show in that case... as we don't want our customer data to be "Googled" .... so we add in https and no-cache and all that stuff....

I don't think Google will spider URLs based on querystring...

Hi Tim,

When my site's former naming convetion used ID columns in the query string, Google would index them this way, but it was sporadic. I think your chances will be better faking a filename or directory.

Tim, Google will spider URLs based on QueryString quite nicely. For example, ASPFAQs.com - http://www.aspfaqs.com/ - has a single "render" page - ShowFAQ.aspx - which takes in a querystring value to determine what FAQ to show. Google has all the ASPFAQs.com FAQs available...

hi,

I always wandered how to do the "get rid of the querystring" thing.

does anyone knows how ?

kem

H, Kemal

Here's a sample, borrowed from Steve Walther's seminal work "ASP.NET Unleashed", which runs in the Application_Request event of your web app's GLOBAL.ASAX file:

public void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string currentPath;
string customPath;

currentPath = Request.Path.ToLower();
if(currentPath.IndexOf("/content/") > 0 && System.IO.Path.GetExtension(currentPath) == ".aspx")
{
// the request is within the /CONTENT/ directory, so re-write the URL to appear to be a filename, rather than a URL with a query string.
customPath = String.Format("/mysite/content/templatefile.aspx?headline={0}",System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(Request.Path));
Context.RewritePath(customPath);
}
}

For anyone interested, here's an <a href="http://www.alistapart.com/articles/succeed/">article</a> on A List Apart which talks about URL rewriting.

Their's was the method I'd used in the past when building PHP driven web sites.

<a href="http://www.alistapart.com/articles/tacklingusability/">This article</a> talks further about URL rewriting, as used in the redesign of their site not too long ago.

*gulp*

Excuse the messed up links, I should have noted that .Text doesn't permit html in comments :/

Also, note that in ASP.NET 2.0, you can manually control URL mapping for complex, unattractive URLs to friendlier addresses with web.config.

<urlMappings enabled=“true”>
<add url=“~/dir/dir2/filename.aspx?key=val&key2=val2” mappedUrl= “~/MySite/index.aspx”/>
</urlMappings>

This is neat, but hardly new. Apache has had mod_rewrite for quite some time now. http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/rewriteguide.html

It's nice to see a easy method of doing this in ASP.NET. All of the other methods I've seen were ISAPI based. Ick. I've got some querystring based parameters, nothing like "admin=false" or anything like that, that would be nice to hide from an aestethic point of view.

I went through the same thought process awhile back, but Don Box made me see the light.

It is, after all, just XML. Why do we need (or even want) specialized classes for dealing with specific XML dialects?

I have a few more thoughts on this which I'll try to post later tonight.

Hi Tim.

Good point. Do you not think custom server controls to generate - and now that I think about it, consume - RSS feeds would be a worthwhile addition to the Framework?

I think sometimes web services for this purpose can be a bit too top heavy. I wrote a client-side process of getting data from a remote source (http://weblogs.asp.net/jasonsalas/posts/43257.aspx) just to get around this.

Thanks for your feedback! I'm lookiing forward to seeing your other thoughts.

They already have this, it is called the Xml control.

PS: you would never use a server control to generate an RSS feed. That would imply it was inside a web form, which implies you are going to be outputting XHTML or HTML pages. It takes like 5 lines of code to create a http handler to export RSS from your site, I doubt anyone would really gain much from built in .NET support.

Hi Jesse,

Thanks much for the feedback. I agree with what you said about it being tough to use a server control to generate XML only. However, maybe junior developers or people just getting into programming might appreciate the control. A top-notch coder like yourself would probably want to do it by hand, anyway. :)

I think it's possible to change the MIME type of a control to "text/xml", and then bubble up to the parent Page control and set "Page.Visible = false" to negate the default "text/html" headers, so that XML could be written, right?

If junior level developers dictated every framework design, we would all be in a lot of trouble... especially if these junior level programmers you are designing for aren't capable of performing simple string concatenation. Those developers need training, not class libraries.

In any case, server controls are not intended for such things. You can do many unwise things if you really want to.

No offense Jesse, but thank god you aren't in charge of programming languages. We'd all still be programming in Assembly or punch cards.

I'll tell you the first thing that will happen if you don't include a class in the Web namespace; Someone will write a parsing class. Which is fine if the argument is "Should we include one in the Web namespace or should we include one at all either as a namespace or as a server control." I'd say, it doesn't matter. There will BE one whether Microsoft writes one or not.

Hi again Jesse,

True, if development was left to be dictated by underlings and newbies, we'd totally be in trouble. But remember, the key element here is that the non-expert market is a major demographic to tap, and that means big money if MS can build controls that will get a company to take a small team with people without 17 credentials after their names (big $$$), and can still be productive and build effective apps. If they choose this path over Java, that's a major sell.

I'd venture to say that the majority of programmers out there aren't gurus.

In lieu of any formal marketing push at the moment, ASP.NET 2.0 seems to be about a move towards more declarative programming, which fits in with that crowd perfectly, while still satisfying those of us who like to write everything by hand.

Case in point: Macromedia Dreamweaver, circa 2001. Everyone I knew had a cpoy of that, and were building database-drven apps WYSIWYG-style, without knowing a thing about them or their internal processes.

For some, ignorance is bliss. And again, this can be very profitable.

Dewayne Mikkelson and his Radio WebDog, Shadow

Why do you think this wouldn't work? The default output caching mechanism is based on a URL plus whatever attributes you assign to the cache characteristics so there's I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work. Then again I haven't tried it either :-}...

Hi Rick,

Thanks for commenting. I was thinking it would going into my little experiment, but I'm now stuck trying to figure out a way to test if it really does. :)

I'm no expert, but from my understanding remoting has been deprecated in favour of Indigo (which is something I plan to get into in 2K4). I want to understand XML Schema better. I might try my hand at some avalon too. In the coming year I also plan to try get more acclimated with "products" like sharepoint and maybe biztalk.

I believe you could use performance monitor to monitor the "Output Cache Hits" counter. This counter should tell you if requests for the text/xml files are being served by the output cache or not.

Thanks Alex!

A few thoughts:

1) Development at Microsoft is done with a number of different end users in mind. In other words, APIs and features are designed and chosen by taking the perspective of (these are just examples of the kinds of things you might see) Fred the VB 6 developer who is really a hobbyist turned consultant for small shops, Jim the experienced developer consultant, and Bob the enterprise architect at a Fortune 500. All of these people have different needs, wants, approaches to development, etc. so we try to cater to all of them as best we can. The important concept here is that no one is lopped off because they are not an enterprise developer, etc.

2) The XML server control does make it fairly easy to consume and display/manipulate XML as Jesse suggests. I'm not sure Microsoft needs to create the RSS consuming control simply because there are other controls that are more critical for customers. I think we'd all rather have the ASP.NET team spend time on something like a sweet menu control, etc. before they build an RSS control or controls. I think someone like Jesse should take the XML control and write a composite RSS control that exposes RSS specific functionality that the XML server control does not have. =)

3) As far as the Framework is concerned, I think the RSS specific implementations should be done by the community (who also controls the RSS spec) as they have been done to date. I don't see anything wrong with using RSS.NET (http://rss-net.sourceforge.net/). When our customers start telling us that they are building and using RSS in a business critical fashion then I know you will see RSS libraries in the Framework.

Well put Alex...thanks for the feedback! I'm actually almost done writing a custom control of my own to do harvest/publish headlines for RSS.

Yes, Indigo is where it (distributed programming in .NET) will be at in the future.

I'm all for learning more about the enterprise server products as well. Office development is high on my list as is Tablet and other embedded/compact development.

Agree. If you do want to track links to your domain, you can get a start with google "link:domain" queries: http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Aweblogs.asp.net

I think it's interesting to track who's linking to you, but I very much agree it's stupid to try to control it.

Or check the logs for all referrers.

output caching should work for any content types. I am caching dynamicly generator jpeg, png's, xml, text you name it !

tip : use application level tracing when you want trace info on requests other then html.

NPR tried to have a link policy and the people revolted over it: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53355,00.html

Why not incorporate a Creative Commons [1] license into your blog? This should help alleviate some of the legal wrangling that your users endure.

[1] http://creativecommons.org/

Hi Oddur,

Thanks! That's very helpful. :)

Hi Phil,

That's a perfect example of what I was talking about! The fact that the company's police was called "brutally stupid" cracks me up! Thanks much!

Just as a follow-up, I spoke with Rob Howard from MS, who confirmed that any data type can be output cached. Awesome.

I thought this one was quite good,

http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt

Good grief! :)

innovative.

I'd like to point out that this could also benefit client side scripting. Instead of having to use hidden form fields the client side script could modify the viewState directly. I'm not sure if this is actually feasable - just pointing out the fact. I remember reading something about v2.0 better support of client side scripting - can't remember where though. Letting controls decide if they want theyre viewState typed could be beneficial - giving controls that require client side code to modify theyre viewState the ability to do so.

There's a good thought. Whidbey does provide a lot of helpful integration with managing server-side data to the client, but I'd also like to see more of the opposite - supporting client-side data pushed into server-side logic.

When the christmas rush is over I'm thinking about sitting down and writing something to make it easier to modify a Control through client side scripting.

I'm thinking a c# control base class that includes a ClientState dictionary (strKey, obj, type) ala example 3 and some client side js code to make working with it easier (as in ClientState[strKey] = value). The base class would write the ClientState into a hidden field (like ViewState is now) - but in a format that the client side js would be able to parse and modify. On postback it would verify that the returned ClientState is valid and pass it on to the control.

In short: Client side editable ViewState.

Anyone interested enough to comment? Or am I trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?

Hi Snorrk,

That's a great idea. I'd be interested in working with you on the theory behind it (after the holidays), but optimally, I'd like to see this ship as part of the .NET Framework, so such could be implemented for other controls.

It's interesting that you compare Visio to other products. Rational XDE, while a good modeling tool, sucks up memory like Visual Studio .NET. I shouldn't have to get more memory to support a modeling tool that is based on the code. And Together for Visual Studio right now has locking issues on dlls. Which means it is basically worthless to me (as partners, we are working with Borland to fix it). So while Visio may not be perfect, it does produce valid UML and doesn't crash all the time.

Hi Darrell,

Thanks for writing. I have Rational XDE, but can't run it...not enough RAM. I use Visio too, for UML projects, but to be honest with you, as a web dev, the vast majority of my documentation and visual modeling is done with he "UML-by-PowerPoint" method, or quick sketches on paper. In my opinion, again, true UML is a bit much for a typical web project, and makes for more work. I'd like a refined extension of UML wherein we can get our architectures down with a somewhat standard set of symbols and then get to work.

That's what I'm after...a quick and easy convention of modeling that will be understood by ASP.NET developers.

Have you tried PocketUML for VS.NET? (http://www.codeguru.com/net_general/PocketUML.html) It's supposed to be really good for C# projects.

In my Christmas Eve browsing, I came across this workspace (http://www.scottonwriting.com/sowBlog/RssFeed.htm">http://www.scottonwriting.com/sowBlog/RssFeed.htm) started/owned by none other than my favorite writer (Scott Mitchell - http://www.scottonwriting.com).

I also noticed that the XmlDataSource control in Whidbey has been modified to read both local *and* remote xml data sources making it ideal for reading RSS feeds. Once you've got the data in the XmlDatasource control, there are a variety of other server controls that making displaying the RSS text a breeze. =)

Hi Alex,

Yeah I saw Scott's post yesterday, which is sweet! Thanks for your input...and Happy Holidays!

PS: Love your tag line dude. Talk about a jack of all trades! Do you develop while you're on the air?

Anchor #1: And in other news, shots rang out....
<loud screaming off camera>
<camera pans to Jason typing into the inset monitor in the newsdesk>
Jason: Sorry.... I just figured out how to post to my blog from Microsoft Word.

You may not want to go into the whole (ASPElite) thing.... as the name intails it was doomed from the start. Just what developers need is to appear to be MORE elitist then they already are.

So..... DataReader... or... DataSet?!?!??

re: ASPElite
Not to mention that it doesn't include ALL of the really elite. I know some guys that could program rings around most of the bloggers I read that would never join any kind of user group. :)

Hi Robert,

Tell me about it...I've literally had to run at lighjspeed back to my office's workstation and make 7-second fixes to a database thing in the middle of commercials. :)

Or, even worse....make a mad dash back to the PC to put something online that I just teased to 80,000 people as, "if you'd like to see the budget bill in its entirety, visit our website RIGHT NOW at www.kuam.com". It's many hats to wear at once, but incredibly challenging and super-fun.

Hi Steve,

Essentially, what I've seen is people debate the merits of each, and find out which one is more suitable for their needs. It was mainly a "forward-only vs. disconnected" argument. At least now people know.

Just a follow-up...Steve Smith explains how he pulled off this trick with Regular Expressions: http://weblogs.asp.net/ssmith/archive/2003/11/06/36191.aspx

Try Enterprise Architect by http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/. It can roundtrip C# code and allows for defining your own UML elements & stereotypes.

Thanks!

can someone at MS please five Placewear a free Passport SDK and license so I can log in with having to remember ANOTHER long random username/password?

Or at least require them to put a "forgot your password?" link on the log in page?

Or host the WMV version on your own servers?

Or email me a link so I can download it?

Couple of thoughts, off the record, so to speak. Per the "cheesy examples" :-), if I read this correctly, you're proposing that viewstate also store a token of some sort indicating the type of the value (?). What happens on the getter? Does it pre-cast the value back to that type? E.g.


String myName = “Jason Salas”;
ViewState[“aDudeInGuam”,System.String] = myName;

// ...

String aName;
aName = ViewState["aDudeInGuam"] // works
DateTime aDate;
aDate = ViewState["aDudeInGuam"] // throws ??

As for client scripting, it would be interesting to hear about the scenarios. I don't think typing is the issue as such, since javascript types dynamically. It's really an issue of simply getting to the data in viewstate -- or is it setting? But javascript has access to the page in its client form, with controls populated, so is the issue primarily with being able to access arbitrary, non-control data?

* Robust
* Seamless

My criteria for deciding to use a DataReader vs. a DataSet usually has nothing to do with the "Forward-only vs. disconnect" It's usually a case of "size of the Result Set vs. What I'm going to do with the Result set(functionality"

And what do "we" think about this topic in the docs?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html/vbcondecidingondataaccessstrategy.asp

that sux

that really sux

Dude, you can!!

http://xenia.media.mit.edu/~mt/thesis/mt-thesis-3.4.html

Jason,

I use an agent for my book projects. It costs me a bit more than 7%, but I've never regretted it, as my agent is very good at negotiating contracts. Of course, given the current state of the technical book market, that's not saying a whole lot at the moment, but my agent has definitely paid for himself in negotiations, as well as in being the go-between when you have something I'd sooner pass off to him to deal with.

That said, I do wish I could use him for contracting stuff as well, but while he's got great connections in publishing, contracting's not his thing. There are, of course, contract placement agencies, but their cut tends to be bigger, often with less personal attention than you get in a one-on-one agent relationship.

Check these out:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-981121.html
http://www.talentlab.com/media/media/0002101.htm

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the links. I remember hearing about the Carerra Agency, but I don't know how well they did. They're out of San Diego, if memory serves, and they contacted me when I was looking for a change of career about 1.5 years ago. Now that I think about it, when they first started out (about the time of the ZDNet article, circa Jan. '03), they only sourced talent for a set number of firms. They kinda bridged the gap between talent agent and corporate headhunter.

I wonder what they're up to now...

Hi Andrew,

Good thoughts. I've always done the publishing thing solo, although it's got its ups-and-downs. I get more in the aggregate, but I've also been screwed on a couple of occasions. Thanks for sharing.

Jason,

These "agents" are called staffing companies. They squeeze for a lot more than 7%.

The problem is that the majority of developers and programmers don't know how do the basics of running a business and get run over by the people that do.

Wally

I'd love to comment, except all I get is a blank page.

It works here, but it's power-point-ish and I didn't make it past the third slide. I don't know that I've ever seen a PowerPoint presentation that was worth posting online without audio.

Hi Shannon,

You should try the other slides...the good stuff kicks in after the 5th slide...some interesting architectural approaches used.

I find it insulting when people post their presentation outline like this. PowerPoint slides are rarely more than headlines for sections of a talk. If this were actually "a presentation", then the person who gave this did nothing more than read these words, right? Well, I'm willing to bet that he said a lot more than what is posted there.
I see no difference than this and someone scanning and posting a handful of 3x5 notecards they listed the key points of their speech on and claiming they posted their speech online.
The outline you linked to does look like it could be an interesting one-page document if it were a single Word.doc or html page and wasn't confined to bullet points and the over-sized "see jane run" paradigm.
PowerPoint is fine when a presenter is speaking to a room full of people and wants them to see his notes in big bold letters in order to reinforce the ideas, but that just doesn't carry over into any other area for me. "Dick and Jane" books only had a few big words on each page but they at least had illustrations.


Darren: The page is IE only, other browser get a blank white page. That may be the problem you're having.

The most interesting thing about OOP is that it allows for a high degree of re-use. The most interesting thing about most OOP code is that it is never re-used.

Scott Ambler (Software Development mag) had an excellent article recently about 'The Right Tool for the job'. It compares various methodologies - http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/s=826/sdm0312h/ (may need a free registration).

I love C# too.. where can one order that cool C# gear you mentioned?

This page provides descriptions of more advanced operators than any
website or book I have run across (besides my own).

Many pages in Google Guide may appear to describe basic concepts, but if you read them carefully, you'll discover helpful insights.

Rather than telling you other things that I think are great about Google Guide, here's what users think about Google Guide. These comments and others can be found at
http://www.googleguide.com/page_1a.html

It might be unofficial, but it's the best online guide on how to use Google I have ever seen. Pay it a visit. --Robert Skelton, Google Answers Researcher and developer of SearchEngineZ and Google Fan

Exquisite and detailed. A treasure for beginners as well as veterans. A serious guide that is easy to use. Highly recommend. --Community Walla, Israel

This is an excellent tutorial to assist folks of any computing background get acclimated to the vast resources Google has to offer. --Bruce Pechman, Vice-President of the Atlanta PC Users Group and President of PowerPartners Computer Services

A comprehensive and up-to-date guide on searching Google successfully. --Kolyom, Israel

Here's the URL I intended to include along with my previous message.

http://www.googleguide.com/page_10.html#advanced_operators

This page provides descriptions of more advanced operators than any
website or book I have run across (besides my own).

Jason did a good job putting this together. I really like reading this kind of stuff…

I could be critical, perhaps, of 2 of the design patterns covered, however...

** Single Responsibility Principal **

I don’t like the limitation of 1 responsibility per object. I view objects as a collection of cohesive responsibilities. Moreover, an object can have hundreds of responsibilities as long they are cohesive, and we don’t have overriding reasons to decouple them. I believe following this principal can lead to an anti-pattern (whose name escapes me! I think – “Ghost”) which refers to systems made up of 100s of tiny objects which, while flexible (in a pick & choose way), do not provide any type of easy-to-consume façade.

Now, as far as you example goes… I would agree that the serialization of the object should not be a responsibility of the customer. Not because a customer object shouldn’t know how to serialize itself, but because by decoupling this responsibility we could address serialization in a generic way that could benefit all our business classes (not just Customer).

You know what, though? Some of my differences may be about semantics… I think the “packages” you describe are the “façade” that wraps together your single-responsibilty classes… So I think you have built into your process a solution to the anti-pattern I describe above… certainly, I can see some advantages.


** Open-Closed Principle **

I don’t really agree with the use of inheritance as it was demonstrated in the “Open-Close Principal – Refactored”. That is, I don’t agree with the reasoning cited for promoting Customer to a base class.

I would suggest that “fear of breaking the original class” is almost never a good reason to introduce inheritance.

Perhaps, an intermediate developer working on an unfamiliar, and very mature system – might have reason to make such a move. I think the question to ask is, “if I knew about Loyalty points when I first designed this system, would I have made customer a base class?” If the answer is no --- then you should not refactor it in this way to support your new requirements.

What happens when you have a new requirement for a “Preferred” customer? Do we now have classes like: Customer, LoyaltySchemeCustomer, PreferredCustomer, and PreferredLoyaltySchemeCustomer?

Now, don’t get me wrong – this set of classes might be completely appropriate – for example, if the responsibilities of a “preferred” class were so fat they really needed to be separated.

However, I would suggest here that fear of breaking the original class has resulted in an inheritance scheme which may not be appropriate – and may have resulted in a less adaptable and more error-prone system.

To summarize, I just think that inheritance is often an over-used “hammer” – I would think twice about introducing it, unless an original design (based on current knowledge) would have used it as well.

Just my 2 cents... enjoyed the document.

I enjoyed the document. Refactoring is one thing that is beginning to interest me. It seems to help make code cleaner and more maintainable.

There are too damned many polls and things going on to screw up the system. Make it simple and straight forward like the SuperBowl and the NCAA Basketball Playoffs and the NBA and every other sports league on the planet. They try to convolute it with all this ither crap, and look where it got them: nowhere. HOLY CRAP it doesn't need to be that complicated.

The problem with opinion polls is people see patterns that are not really there (is it a natural attempt to create order in the world? I don't know).

Computer polls remove this, but like you said do not take into account the fact that teams play differently on different days. Thus if team A beats team B, and team B beats team C, that does not mean that team A will beat team C, the fundamental fallacy in the computer ranking. I forgot who showed it, but someone created an example team matchup where, based on player ratings, A would beat B who would beat C, and C would beat A. Interesting.

two words, like it or lump it.

"Playoff system"

This isn't why college football is so screwed up, it's why college football is so great! Months after the season is over, fans can get in heated arguments over USC vs LSU (vs Miama of Ohio? Boise St.?)

The Superbowl is almost an after thought of marketting and production for most on the US (cities of teams playing excluded of course). The level of debate, the human element and all that goes with it makes College Football one of the most intense and exciting things to play and be a fan of. You are looking at a system where 25% (at minimum) of the fans and players go out winners each year.

I don't know, maybe this is crazy talk from an University of Louisville fan who is resigned to be happy to simply make it to a bowl each year and hope for a win. I like my basketball with the tourney, and I like my football with it's wacky bowls and quirky rankings.

Javascript popups .. Grr

Oh and those little scripts that tell you your IP address and any other normal information that are supposed to make the owner look like an 'leet haxor'.

I hate Javascript slideshows ... If you want to show me a series of picture ... Please give me a forward and backwards button !

Oh forgot to say, regarding Copy and Paste, Whats wrong with using Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V ?

Hi Russ,

Thanks for commenting. The site basically negated the copy-and-paste functions, so it basically copy-protected its content, so the keyboard strokes wouldn't work.

Have you got the URL for this site ? Iwouldn't mind trying to see how they did this ?

Purely for research purposes you understand ...

Here 'tis: http://www.bondbuyer.com. The JavaScript file is at: http://www.bondbuyer.com/js/nocopypaste.js

Thanks for that .. and Yes , that is dammed irritating :)

Yep...but hey...it does what it's supposed to do. Mission accomplished...to my dismay. :)

Clocks that spin!

Hi,

Disabling active scripting in IE's security settings does the trick. What bugs me is when they use redirects to require you to have sripting enabled just to get to the site.

Hey,

Using firebird does the trick :-))

I love stupid little games where you get to build stuff and wage war...so Settlers (1-4), Rise Of Nations, C&C Generals, Emperor Battle For Dune are favourites...

While everyone seems to want closure on the season, supporting a single playoff system, I love the duality of the BCS and polls. I love to watch ESPN, CBS, and listen to sports radio on a Saturday afternoon and listen to the rankings of each team. Georgia was #6, #5, and #4, all on the same day (USA Today Poll, Coaches' Poll, BCS / AP poll). If you give credibility to informal (yet recognized and predictable) sources such as the ESPN "College Gameday" rankings by Corso and Herbstreit and your team could possibly represent the entire top 5 teams.

Something that the BCS does correctly is the strength of schedule indicator. The strength of schedule variable is the indicator making it possible to have A defeats B, B defeats C, and C defeats A. The BCS is not some arbitrary points system, it is very statistical in nature.

The coaches' poll includes the intangible and nameless component, sometimes referred to as "style points." Georgia beat Tennessee at Tennessee... it takes a lot for a team to overcome 90,000 fans shouting "ROCKY TOP!" But Georgia didn't just beat Tennessee, they manhandled Tennessee. The BCS considers a win, but does not consider the amount of trouncing that occurred, how effective the defense was at shutting down a consistently succesful running game, how the offense improved over the past several games.

When LSU beat Georgia, some called it a fluke and said Georgia was limping. I watched that game, and LSU was the better team on the field, especially defensively. At the time, coaches' polls put Georgia at #4, as did BCS. When LSU met Georgia again for the SEC playoffs, LSU had drastically improved both in offense and defense and walked over Georgia. Georgia was a much better football team than LSU had seen earlier in the season, but LSU had improved at a higher rate than Georgia did.

And it is that intangible factor that makes the coaches' poll an essential part of the equation. The BCS might indicate that a team improved considering strength of schedule, but the coaches' poll indicates just how much a team improved considering how good the team they were playing is.

Besides, if we boil it all down to a playoff series, how does that improve the system? The only improvement that I see is that we get to see a couple more great games, but it leaves the question open for who the best team is. Should a wildcard game be included? Can a team be in a playoff game that did not win their conference?

Definitly, definitly Metal Gear on MSX

Metal Gear Solid is okay, but Metal Gear definitly ruled my world! Other great games were Usas and... oh, gotta go... really important meeting! Hahaha! ;)

Konami rules the world, as does MSX!

Of all time? That's a tough one.

There's two games back on C64 which I've wanted to play again for the longest time: Mail Order Monsters (one day, I WILL do a remake if no one else does!) and Bruce Lee.

I had an NES, SNES, and N64, but I was usually more into PC gaming (I always had a better computer).

The Zelda series has always been a big favorite. Baseball Stars on NES - I love games that you can "build" with, so even for sports games where you could improve your team over time and there was some GM-esque strategy.

For similar reasons, the original Civilization, the original Railroad Tycoon... Hero's Quest 1: So You Want To Be a Hero (what later became the quest for glory series).

Police Quest 1, Gold Rush....

In fact, me thinks I will be going home to play one of these classics now that you put it in my head.

Moving forward, I wasted a hell of a lot of time in college playing Goldeneye and Red Alert 2, among other things.

Right now I have Madden 2004, C&C Generals and Civilization III installed on my machine.

Oh and Rise of Nations, but I haven't given it a proper playing yet. Seems promising, though - it's like a mix of an RTS and Risk.


I'm sure I'm missing a ton.... but.

David beat me to it, but if you disable scripting you're all set :)

Still have to say that even with all the incredible games out now, I have spent more time playing the original Tecmo Bowl on NES than any other game. I used to have a whole notebook full of codes for each game of the season with each of the teams. Modern day replacement for Tecmo Bowl - ESPN NFL Football 2k4.

My favourite pc games are Battlefield 1942, Americas Army and Call of Duty.

On the PS2 its pro evolution soccer 3.

Cant wait for half life 2 either, thats gonna rock.

My favorite RPG was "Final Fantasy I" (in the US series--I never played the Japanese versions). It was very simple and straightforward, but flexibile enough to feel like I was playing. RPGs I've played since (especially in the FF series) are all movies with a little bit of button pushing every now and again. I'm currently protesting the whole FF series because they've released a game with two version numbers ("Final Fantasy X II").

I also loved a game called "Romance of the Three Kingdoms III" by a company called KOEI. It was a turn-based empire strategy game that included battles with hexagonal, turn-based strategy combat. They're probably up to version 12 by now.

I was a big fan of Quake II. Even though games like Halo and Counterstrike have surpassed it in graphics, the simple gameplay of using a keyboard and mouse can't be matched with a console controller.

Currently. I spend most of my video game time playing "NHL Rivals 2004" on Xbox Live. It's the best sports game I've ever played, but I guess I'm biased as a hockey playing Microsoft employee.

Civ 3, it's the only game that gets consistantly re-installed every time I rebuild my machine. (hey, it's Windows!)

Well, now that I say that I notice that I've got Bejeweled installed on my PC and my Treo and I play it all the time going to work. hmmmmmmmm.

I was addicted to Superstar Ice Hockey (Mindscape) for C64. It was way ahead of its time. It featured multi-season franchise play (trades, drafting new players) which has just been added to most console games in the last couple years. It also had a great feature (depending on your perspective) that kept track of when you started a season game. If you lose the game and turn off the computer before it had a chance to save the results, it would detect that and count the game as a forfeit. And you couldn't just turn off every game in a season in hopes of getting last place (and therefore the most "improvement points" for draft picks, etc) because forfeits counted against your improvement points. Today's games give you the "option" to save your results, meaning you can go undefeated every season if you so choose.

Oh yeah, and I also spent countless hours on:
Kings Quest 1 & 2
Empire!
Civilization 1-3
Bard's Tale 1-3
Wasteland (pre-cursor to Fallout)
Railroad Tycoon

The list could go on. I'm still a big videogame fan, but I don't play them nearly as much as when those games were in their prime. My most recent addictions were Medal of Honor online multi-player (PC) and the Tony Hawk series (PS2).

Or how about File | Save As... (Html). Sure, its not as quick as CTRL-C, but you can still get at the content (by opening the saved file in a text editor).

The point being, they aren't really "protecting" their content, so why bother? It's just annoying.

Every protection scheme I've ever seen is easily foiled by attaching a script debugger to IE. Sure that's beyond most people... but sure isn't going to stop me for more than a half a minute.

Hi Ed,

Thanks for sharing! The Finaly Fantasy game that Suqaresoft put out for the oroginal GameBoy was way beyond its time. I got it for Christmas in '90, and I didn't as for it, and it blew my away at how deep it was. I've also got Final Fantasy X for the PS2, and it's amazing. Gran Turismo 3 ain't bad, either. :)

Hi Josh,

Tecmo Bowl ruled! I played the 16-bit Ninetendo copy all the time.

My Favs :-

Mouldy Oldies (ie. from way back) include :-
Grid Runner by Jeff Minter on Commodore64
Elite on Amiga

Current titles include :-
Halo (Xbox)

Hi Tim,

Gosh, the Bruce :ee title you mentioned makes me remember "Kung Fu" for the 16-bit NES, which was based on the same storyline as Bruce's movie "Game of Death" (I think...whichever one it was that featured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). Classic!

Anyone into Dark Forces for the PC (although I think they later made console games out of them), the Doom knockoff with the Star Wars theme, or WarCraft/SratCraft? I've only ever played WarCraft on a Mac, but it's hours of fun.

Hi Paul,

Wow! I rememebr GridRunner! Almost makes me long for the days of the original Tron and ExciteBike.

Battlefield 1942 and the arcade classics from yesteryear.

chromeless pop-up ads are my least favorite JS trick.

I don't mind when people disable the right-clicks as long as they don't give me that "haha! you can't do it!" dialog. That kills me.

Anything that scrolls automagically usually bothers me, too, mostly because it is rarely done well.

Another kind-of javascript trick is redirecting so that you can't use the Back button, or more accurately, if you do, you end up on the same page. Technically not necessarily a javascript trick (though it can be), but way annoying anyway. :-)

Let's see, how about the following (honestly, this started as a short post ;-) ):

Amiga -
Jumping Jackson
Killing Game Show
Beast and Beast II

Atari 2600
Breakout
Space Invaders
Missle Command

Sega Genesis
Sonic Series

TurboGrafix 16
Bonk

Sony Playstation
Tekken

PC (yesteryear)
Bouncing Babies (a really old one ;-) where you are a fireman saving babies bouncing out of a window onto one of those catcher things three times into the firetruck - silly, but was fun)
Black Cauldron (one of the first Sierra games that made me say Wow! Adlib Sound! - probably the first game on the PC that made me think games on a PC could be great.)
Commander Keen (a lot of time wasted on this game)
Raptor (one of the coolest, even by todays standards vertical space shooter)
Wolfenstein (had to be on the list)
Doom (well, you know, had to be on the list)
Duke Nukem (was just downright fun with all of the vocals)
Need For Speed (first racing game that was fun)

PC (a little newer)
Quake Series
Warcraft
Dungeon Keeper
Age Of Empires (series)

PC (today)
Halflife/CounterStrike
Halo
Tron 2.0
Neverwinter Nights (with expansions)
Dungeon Siege

XBOX
Halo (duh!)
Dead Or Alive 3
Project Gotham Racing 2
Ghost Recon / Island Thunder
Magic The Gathering: Battlegrounds
Rainbow 6 III

I'm amazed at the responses you've gotten so far with the lack of XBOX game references. The games/graphics/sound are extremely impressive. Only one other person mentioned it. On top of this, XBOX Live is probably one of the most impressive game 'technologies' that have come along in a long while. It's just too easy to jump on, find someone to play against (don't get me wrong, it can use some improvements in the friends management department, but overall, it's pretty cool).

DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR! DDR!

Dance Dance Revolution, on the Jap PSX and PS2!!!!!!!!!!

I'm the second oldest person I know that's still into DDR, but I do owe it giving my lazy butt some physical activity.

Anyhow, I'd have to say the ultimate SYSTEM for developers is the Gameboy Advance, which has a great games library and can sit there on your desk next to you every time you need to take a break ;)

Having never used XBOX live, and honestly scared away by fees, what makes it so much better than the free (Gamespy) alternatives we are used to with the PC and PS2?
(not trying to start a debate, genuinely curious)

XBOX Live... consistant interface and performance across all titles. At $50 per year, not a bad deal. Also, since all games are using the same service, it drives the whole platform forward and ensures that cheating will be held at bay. Any vulnerabilities found, thus address, can take effect across all of the games. Gamespy does offer a consistant interface, so to speak, but not all games use the same mechanism. With PS2, each game is responsible for their own online content, connection and delivery. XBOX Live puts all of this into one package and ensure that you are getting what you paid for when you see the XBOX Live logo ;-) For the price of one game per year, I don't see that as being a bad thing.

Some of these comments here seem to be criticisms of PowerPoint rather than the material itself. I had no problem at all following the content and the examples, and can't see why you would need someone to actually stand up and talk about the slides. They look pretty self-explanatory to me.

If you look at the UML tutorials on the same site you'll see very few bullet points and lots of diagrams and sample code. I suspect Jason's avoided using UML here because he doesn't think a lot of .NET developers will know it - not that they need to understand design principles or refactoring.

The OCL tutorial and UML for Customers is good stuff :-) Never seen anything like that before. The advanced stuff like Test-driven Analysis & Design is a new idea, too, I think.

i played the original Legend of Zelda on NES for a small percentage of my life from age 9 on. metroid was also a big hit w/ me.

currently Halo has dominated most of my console experience, and i can'w wait for Halo 2.

i still feel obligated to drop a quarter or 2 in whenever i see galaga :-)

Seems like a case for clustering.

I lived on guam for a few years, when I was 8-10, 86-88 I believe. For some reason I knew the submarine ride was closed, but I don't know why, as I haven't been to Disneyland since 95.... Maybe it was closed back then, I can't recall.

oh, BTW :) Congrats on the MVP!

Thanks! Yeah, it was a real polar day...happy then sad! Oh well, the world could be worse...maybe EPCOT's in the future. I haven't been there since '87! :)

Congratulations & Welcome aboard (no pun intended)!

Clever! Thanks Brian!

Bummer about the Sub ride, but congratulations on the MVP!

Awesome about the MVP award Jason!

This sounds like an opportunity to build your own submarine...you do everything else, right? :P Congrats on the MVP award, Jas.

Hahaha! Thanks Chris. Yeah, I guess I'll be having to recreate it if I want to see the sub ride again. Congrats to you, too!

At least they didn't close DisneyLand like WalleyWorld..........

Wally

Have you seen SNL's "Behind the Music" spoof featuring Blue Öyster Cult? ("I've got a fever... and the only prescription is more cowbell!")

Hi Phil...yeah! That's a classic skit with Christopher Walken as "Bruce Dickinson" which they keep repeating, which was an off-handed reference to Iron Maiden's legendary frontman.

Also, the Simpson's spoofed BTM, doing "Behind the Laughter". Did you see that one? Hilarious.

I agree. I found these very useful.

I personally remember watching the original "Triumph of the Nerds" in 1996 instead of studying for my U.S. history final! I still got the second highest grade in the class on my U.S. history final somehow. But man, that thing was so valuable for me it's not even funny. I got to see the personalities of those who dominate silly valley (as I affectionately call Silicon Valley) -- and it's a great historical documentary. I read Nerds 2.01 when it came out in 1999-2000.

Knowledge of your industriy's past helps one figure out how to strategize one's future.

Admittedly, I haven't seen several of the episodes you listed, but for me the quintessential Behind the Music episode was TLC.

Are u interseting Cricket ?

I have Nerds 2.01 but have not read it. Now it's next. :-)

Some others I have read that I think everyone in the industry should read:

Accidental Empires by Robert Cringely
Catty, sometimes hilarious history of the PC industry, highlighting many of the occasionally odd characters who made it happen. This is the basis for the program "Revenge of the Nerds," but Cringely is a funny writer who's well worth reading in the original.

Hackers by Steven Levy
The definitive history of the rise of hacker culture. Although the book is old by now, he describes the ethos that eventually gave rise to what we now call the Open Source movement.

Insanely Great by Steven Levy
History of the Mac, which captures the phenomenon of Apple.

A Brief History of the Future by John Naughton
Account of the invention of the Internet, with clear and interesting stories about the development of the ARPANET, packet switching, USENET, etc.

Go To by Steve Lohr
History of programming, which is recent enough to touch on .NET.

Code by Charles Petzold
A layman's guide to how software works.

The Code Book by Simon Singh
History of cryptography, from ancient times through Enigma and into public/private.

The Chip by T. R. Reid
History of the invention of the microprocessor. We take it for granted now, but this book describes how remarkable it was that you could put an entire computer on one chip. Very readable.

Hi Manjeeva,

Not really...I'm more interested in American football, baseball and basketball scores.

It's not down...but they are requiring partnership with them. You have to email or call and they will send you a differing URL with a sponsorship number as a querystring value that you pass to get the valid XML. The tech I spoke with did talk of bringing it down and replacing it with pay-only service. That'd suck for me.

Here's my hug!

And we get a bottle of cheep wine ;)

Quite a few of my clients have bought me lunches and gift certificates, the latter, which I promptly exchanged for books.. :-)

I worked for a consulting company about 5 years ago that pushed me to first get my MCSD. I was the very first one for this company in their Atlanta office, and the first overall on the new MCSD track of the time. Again, they pushed it, claiming that it was super important, so I did expect to really be thanked for it. What did I get -- movie tickets! What did they get -- I immediately started looking for other jobs and got my recognition (and raise) elsewhere.

That's an easy one ... they don't. We slog on in relative obscurity, being assigned more work and more responsibility for which we have demonstrated ability, but that's about it ...

Congratulations on the MVP but reading your blog just made me realise that I've never heard the term 'core competency' outside of a Scott Adams book until today :)

Hi Russ,

LOL! That's 2.5 years in graduate school for ya...

Hi Brad,

Yeah..the tecnhies get more work, while the marketing morons continue to wear sunglasses inside, take 3-hour power lunches and play golf. :)

One thing I do know about getting technical achievements...I may not get recognized for it, but they sure are quick to push me to doing talks and sales calls. Funny...

Well I'm working my way towards an MCSD.NET and I know of others that are. I think there has been a delay caused by the depressed market - why get the certs if there is no one to sell them to. .Net arrived when there were precious few new projects for folks to cut their teeth on. But that seems to be changing, new projects are emerging and certs seem once again to be a valuable addition to a resume.

So I think pronouncing the death knell for certs is a little premature

You guys are lucky. I get a "why didn't you get this done last year?" and a "sign this form that says you won't leave or quit for the next year, or we'll make you pay us back at the highest possible interest."

correction: "won't quit or get fired for the next year"

News flash Jason (har har, pun intended) :)

Certs are and always have been useless! Read on true believers!

http://www.lazycoder.com/article.php?story=200401291020509

Derick: That's exactly why I never let my work pay for any training, unless they force me to go, or certification tests I take (only happened 3 times). I knew a guy who was a CNE and refused to put that on his business card because the company he was with wasn't paying him enough to get the extra cred his cert would have given them. The CNE cert was one of the few that required you to actually KNOW something non-trivial.

Can you give me the contact info to get a sponsorship number?

Hi Derick,

I've heard & read that IBM had a serious turnover problems becauses of this...people got jobs there and just worked there, and as soon as they got the comp,any to pay for training/certification, they split. A former empployer of mine made all staffers sign an agreement that said that we had to agree to work there as long as it took to get trained or certified, if the company provided for it.

Hi Scott,

Good point. Many ocmpanies I know could care less if the people they employ have credentials, but they do pay for certification and training to use their people as sales drivers.

Hi Scott,

I read your counterpoint, and I really enjoyed your thoughts.

Sure, the MVP program has taken off due to more people being awarded it than in the past, and with greater frequency (it apparently used to be only a few people selected annually, now it's several quarterly, if memory serves). It’s on paper an acknowledgement of one’s commitment to using and sharing knowledge of Microsoft products, and indirectly acts as a way of ensuring external promotional push, which is an invaluable asset in any industry.

Not a bad idea, and a classical approach to marketing dominance we’ve seen time and again from all types of businesses – I’ve been doing this for years with having people outside my newsroom link to stories on our site to get us free exposure.

There are pros and cons to which is better/more superior/carries more clout – the MVP program or genuine Microsoft certification – or if either is even worth it in the real world. Foremost among these is that the MVP is, as you pointed out, by selection only from Microsoft staffers, so one can't buy their way in like one can with certs. The MVP program is, when you think about it, that same model in reverse – Microsoft is not only rewarding the commitment of those who use its stuff, but it’s also securing their brand loyalty.

However, you’re right...this very reason makes the program suspect for political favoritism. There's certainly a justifiable argument that those granted MVP status (myself included) are MS kiss-ups and not really gurus. Still (and granted I can only speak for ASP.NET), I’ve yet to meet a person who’s been selected as an MVP who’s not what would be considered an expert and professional, being extremely knowledgeable, competent and conducting themselves in a mature, civil, friendly, helpful manner. So there is some distinction in the designation.

But in the end, you’re right – certs and credentials don’t really make the developer, its skills and the ability to use them that separates the men from the boys in programming. In the meantime, it’s all about stacking Ye Olde Resume in the hopes of opening a door with a good company or landing a sweet contract.

At any rate, keep up the good work...I enjoy all your blog posts...especially this retort! Write me back at jason@kuam.com if you want to rap about this some more, or if you post other comments to this subject. I'd love to read them. :)

Jas

Note: I got certified several years back and was just awarded MVP status myself a couple weeks back, and it's interesting to see the differences between the two programs first-hand. However, in either case I’m no more “Rah Rah, Microsoft” than I have been (or have not been) in the past because of it. And neither makes a developer that have them superior to those who don't.

I've gone through the interview process twice - once for an internship and once for a full-tiime job. The vast majority of the questions I got were technical, and not brain teasers or riddles like those listed. There were some typical college CS classes, like, "Write the code to do a postorder traversal of a binary tree," "Given an list of words as an array of strings, write code to find all the anagrams," "Write code to implement C's atoi() function," and "Write code to determine if there exists a cycle in a linked list."

I also had some typical questions - where do you see yourself in 5 years, why do you want to work for this company, blah, blah, blah. Both interviews, though, were a boatload of fun - one up in Redmond and one in Silicon Valley.

>assume you have to market a new alarm clock for the
>deaf. How do you do it?

"Market" or "create?" If it was market, I dunno, run some ads in "The Deaf Quarterly," and on deaf-related sitcoms.

>suppose two spaces occupy two distinct values.

I know those words, but that sentence makes no sense. A space occupies a value? Usually things occupy spaces, not the other way around, no?

>how can we make Word better to lawyers?

What's funny, my lawyer uses some ancient version of WordPerfect that is DOS-based, he has to drop to the command line to run it and gets 80x25 resolution. No WYSIWYG, no mouse. But, man, he knows the keyboard shortcuts like nobody's business.

Hi Scott,

Yeah, part of the challenge was sussing out what was trying to be said. I think you're right about the "create" over "market" question, but I do remember vividly one hiring manager asking about spaces occupying values, which I took to mean variables. It was basically a math question to have X, Y and Z, and have Z at some point assume X's value. Or something like that. I found the answer in a book I bought in the Seattle-Tacoma Airport "How to Get A Job At MIcrosoft"...on my way back home after the interview. :)

The company where I work dont like to pay for the courses and tests nor the cert itself anymore, cause they believe ( the new boss anyway ) that " the only reason that we want certs is that it`s more easy for us to get another job" . Wouldn`t you ?

Good point Uffe,

Why train when it's just setting you up for departure?

I got asked to describe 5 server controls the ASP.NET team should add; then once I was done answering I had to tell the interviewer why they should not add them.

Another memorable one...Design an object model for poker :)

Hi Keith,

I forgot about that one! I was also asked to describe a new server control for the ASP.NET team and break down the object model, and add in new features. The big challenge was that the hiring manager kept shooting these rapid-fire conditions at me while I was in the middle of my sentences.

We must have been interviewed by the same woman! She kept interrupting me trying to guide (or misguide) my path of reasoning. Twas frustrating but considering the position, very neccessary.

I was in talks with someone over at Microsoft about a possible interview and she had a tip for me:

Read this book: Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job

There would be questions related to thing such as insert/delete a node or reverse a singly linked list. Also, you should be able to do the same for a doubly linked list. (To reverse a doubly linked list, just swap the next and previous pointers -- it's a trick question.) Other types of questions are to determine if a b-tree is valid (nodes on the left are less than nodes on the right), to reverse a text string, etc.

...another popular book...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316919160/qid=1075449567//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-5929800-7631059?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Personally, always found it about as funny as a nail in my hand...but I guess my cultural perspective is different...I don;t think it's quite as appreciated in the UK as it seems to be in the US

Hi Scott,

Yeah, I've heard that Benny has a bigger fan club to the left of the Atlantic. :)

a few of us were talking recently about how benny died a broke, lonely old man... he was dead for a week or something in his flat before someone noticed...

Hi Cameron,

I've read that despite his success, at the time of his death Benny didn't own his own house or car.

But he wasn't broke...he left £7.5M, he was just really mean (http://www.vgernet.net/tpelkey/bennyhill/bio.htm)

I had a couple when I interviewed - One was about the number of cars going over the golden gate bridge, another was about telling which was the heaviest out of n balls in the fewest moves. I had a security one about secure key exchange (public / private key stuff) and an odd one about 'the perfect alarm clock'. Unfortunately, I was sick and jet-lagged, they may as well have asked me to count up to 10 in sumerian for all the sense they were going to get from me (I spent the next 2 days in a Seattle hospital)

Or you could have a bunch of gay guys make-over the ne.... oh, right. Has to be original.

I hate reality television as well, but the one that let me down most was Joe Millionaire. As I've said in the past - they should have found a Bill Gates look-alike and brought HIM on there.

It's like put Halle Berry or Heidi Klum etc up there and tell me she's rich. Then tell me she's not. Big deal, she's still hot, you know?

I feel dirty knowing this but....

They always make sure that the reality people don't have access to a TV or radio and limited access to the internet. Every time I see that I think "that would never fly with a geek in the house. He/she would have some kind of proxyless WiFi connection leeched off the house down the block using a Pringles can."

"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts."

Hi Jason,

Thanks for reading my dinky little articles. :)

My point, which I may or may not have made, is that certification is being replaced by the MVP program. I hope my retort didn't come off as slagging the MVPs. I have to say that MOST of the MVPs I've seen blogging would get my respect anyway. They don't need a title. I didn't need to see the little MVP logo at Scott Hanselmans site to know he knew his stuff. I knew it when I downloaded his TinyOS sample. I can't fault them for accepting the title, they get swag with it. Swag is like air to a geek. :) That being said, it seems to me that there is a wide margin for questionable MVP selection and a lack of clarity in what being an MVP actually means. For example, Chris Pirillo was recently made an MVP for "Digital Media". (http://chris.pirillo.com/archives/2004_01.html#008768)
I have no idea what that means? I should contact Chris if I'm having trouble getting WMP to play my MP3's? If I wanted advice on internet marketing, Mr. Pirillo would be one of the first people I would think of as a resource. If I wanted advice on SVG, I think DonXML(http://weblogs.asp.net/donxml) would be a better choice.

I've noticed questionable code and design posted on some MVP blogs which has made me think, "How in the heck did THEY get MVP status? What does MVP really mean?". (a an aside I see some of the same things in the Microsoft blogs) I realized that MVP doesn't mean any more or less than the old MS certifications. Some people seem to actively campaign for the title, which tends to give it a popularity contest type feeling.

Like I said, it's a win-win situation for MS. The carrot is dangled for people who aren't participating and the people that win have to keep participating to maintain the status. It's a lot cheaper than the cert program.

Hi Scott! No sweat, and like I said, I agreed with the majority of your rebuttal, and you're right in the end. And no one's more surprised that they landed the MVP than me. Keep up the great work and great thoughts!

Jas

Hi Scott,

Yeah, my jetlag had a little to do with the rapidity of my responses...coming from Guam, I'd been on planes for 19 hours straight, and then got into Seattle at 5AM, with the interview at 7AM. But nothing like yours. Hope everything worked out.

Hi Scott,

Not like I want to talk bad about a man that gave me so much laughter, especially after he's passed on, but there was a big controversy about his politics and the fact that several people thought he was a bigot.

My old company put out a press release to the Associated Press. They also included a blurb about the award in a "Meet the company" presentation they did with new customers, etc.

My Company uses it in all there marketing brochures, presentations, and uses it for requirements into the various partner programs at MS.

The only help I got towards the certification was the company paid for my exams after I passed each of them, which is okay since they are so expensive now.

Jason, sounds like a very good idea indeed. I think you should or someone else should approach a techie producer and director and start something up. Very nice idea indeed.

Although I cannot say what the task was and are assigned on a daily basis, I can say that my Boss allways comes up with work and which is "just very urgent" and "ASAP". People in my company comes up with problems and want the answer or solution straight away (they think computer people are God).

Well I quite enjoy the level of respect I get when I get it but I also enjoy the challenge that I face and the innovative ways I come up with to meet those challenges.

asdf

Not sure what you mean by "rename" the GridView. GridView is a new (in 2.0), improved version of the DataGrid control. (What's to rename?) We'll also get a DetailsView control that allows you bind to a data source and to scroll through individual records to view and edit them, *and insert new ones*, yay.

As you probably know, the data controls will (can) use a new model whereby you put a data source control on the page that handles the connection and the query. You then bind controls to the data source control. IOW, data access is abstracted into a component (technically still a control) that you can bind any bindable control to. This will apply to the new controls like GridView, etc., as well to the older controls like ListBox, etc.

The new model is easier also in that the data source control and the control bound to it can talk and determine when it's time to data bind. No more 4-line Page_Load snippets to perform data binding.

And just to be clear, all old data-binding technology will work just fine.

Hmm. Got off on a tear there, sorry about that. :-)

Just add on Mike, we can always use (backward compatabile) DataList, DataGrid, GridView and DetailsView control in ASP.NET v2.0. FYI: http://aspalliance.com/88

Moreover, just want to mention 1 point and the subject of this blog might be:
The evolution of a control: DataGrid ==> MxDataGrid ==> GridView ...

(MxDataGrid is an "enhanced" DataGrid control and work like a GridView control and come with the ASP.NET Web Matrix project)

ooops...typo: backward compatible instead of backward compatabile

True -- Web Matrix is a pretty good peek at many of the new Whidbey features. :-)

Hi Mike,

It's halftime during the Suepr Bowl, so I've got about 30 minutes with which time to respond. :)

I know of the GridView control (a souped-up baby brother of ASP.NET 1.x's DataGrid), and I enjoy it, as well as the DetailsView for ASP.NET 2.0. But check out the article I linked to in the blog (http://weblogs.asp.net/rprabhu/archive/2004/02/01/65777.aspx) in which Raghavendra indicated that for WinForms, GridView has been renamed to "DataGridView". I'm not sure if this was just for WinForms or not.

Go Pats!

Jas

My post referred to just the WinForms control, not the ASP.NET one.

Jason,
Read my weblog entry and sample about extending CultureInfo. I've done a sample to create a Klingon culture (et-Klingon):
http://weblogs.asp.net/cnagel/archive/2003/07/06/9753.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/cnagel/archive/2003/07/06/9751.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/cnagel/archive/2003/07/06/9750.aspx

Thanks much Christian! I was gonna mess with Pig Latin as a sample project, but I'll check out your stuff. :)

I'd guess it is something more simple like you can't inherit static (Shared) methods, so it's hard to fabricate the proxies.

Hi Mark,

Yeah, I figured it was something like that. :)

I've been working with Wiley since they picked up some of the Wrox titles. Pro C# should be out in March. I have to say that working with Wiley has been a joy compared to others. Best of luck.

Jay

Good luck Jason.

Thanks Jay! IO'm still steamed at not being paid and being ignored when trying to collect, but I've got some reliable friends that work there now, so everything should work itself out.

Jason

Thanks Tejas!

Here's the actual code for extending the CultureInfo class Christian mentioned in his reply above (thanks, Christian):

using System;
using System.Resources;
using System.Collections;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Threading;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace Nagel.Demos.Enterprise
{

// derive from CultureInfo, so it can be used as a CultureInfo
public class EnterpriseCultureInfo : CultureInfo
{
private string name;
private string displayName;

public EnterpriseCultureInfo(string extendedCulture) : base("en-US")
{
if (extendedCulture != "et-klingon" && extendedCulture != "et-vulcano")
throw new NotSupportedException("The culture " + extendedCulture + " is not supported");

name = extendedCulture;

switch (extendedCulture)
{
case "et-klingon":
displayName = "Klingon";
break;
case "et-vulcono":
displayName = "Vulcano";
break;
}
}

#region Overridden properties of CultureInfo
public override string DisplayName
{
get
{
return displayName;
}
}

public override string Name
{
get
{
return name;
}
}

public override string EnglishName
{
get
{
return displayName;
}
}
#endregion

// also needed for a full implementation: date/time format, Klingon calendar, number format...

}

}

I started in 2000 on the PDC bits and Code Behind never grow on me. I still hate it with the same vigor now as it was then :)

Wow...never had that experience, I use to code ASP with VBScript classes, I always hated in-line coding - especially as in ASP 2.0 they had a big performance hit (the context-switching issue). I jumped from ASP to Jave then to ASP.NET - sode behind seemed far more straightforward to me...

All the ASP projects I worked on, at least the large projects, all used the code-behind paradigm anyway by placing all the business logic in VB COM DLL's and calling them from the ASP page. Most of my ASP pages looked like this.
<%
set oBO = Server.CreateObject("ApplicationName.BizObjects")
oBo.doStuff() ' paraphrasing, I often had several different methods for each piece of functionality

set oBO = nothing
%>

Well, I usually had some ASP code in the page as well to manipulate the HTML. But most of my drop down list creation waas handled with a call to "createDropDownList(byVal rs as ADODB.RecordSet, textFieldName, valueFieldName)". A short stint in the Java/JSP world made the transition to C$ and ASP.NET a lot easier; Helped me get into a more pure OOP state of mind although you can still see some procedural linerarity in my code.

"...therefore completing the “Wine, Women and Song” trifecta."
:D
I don't think a lot of people call the E-A powerchords hetfield is hammering on his jackson V guitars 'songs' ;)

Ouch...that one hit home...I've been covering Metallica songs since I was 12 (I'm 29). Keep in mind that most blues music (from which lots of metal, including Metallica, is derived) is based on the 1-4-5 chord progression, which by its nature isn't that complex, but leaves lots of room for improvisation. =-)

That's a bit of pity Jason. Well atleat you can access it at office. i am sure it won't be that difficult for you as you would be found in the office 80% of your time :). While having heard your story I will try to have a bit more patience why my ADSL connection is playing up.

i saw a stat yesterday stating that only 8% of Australian homes currently have broadband. Even though I've only had access to it for about a year, I can't imagine life with out it. Or without my 802.11G home network either.

But, let's look at the upside of not having broadband... oh wait, I can't think of any! :-)

Dude, have you ever thought about moving?

Hi Cameron,

Yeah, I've thought about moving somewhere else on island, but I live in a really nice, quiet, crime-free neighborhood with stores and schools close-by (and I'm only 5 minutes away from work), so it wouldn't offset not having broadband to ship out.

It's funny...Guam is growing in broadband use...about 11,000 people have it locally out of the 30,000 potential customer base, so it's gotten better (I used to work at a large ISP here).

However, if I do make it out to the States...

**UPDATE**

Thanks much to Paul Murphy (http://blogs.aspadvice.com/pmurphy/) for confirming my theory about the requirement for an instantiated object. He responded in the ASPAdvice mailing list:

--------------------------------
You can not create a Context around a static method (since there is no instance how to you wrap it?). Therefore the wrapper attribute that does the serialization can’t be applied to the method. If you want to read more about it dig into the System.Runtime.Remoting.* namespaces.

Paul

Yeah, your only other choice besides moving is probably a satellite connection. Those aren't that great though, lots of latency.

re: great thing about not having broadband. - when I first moved to Seattle, I didn't have anything but a local free ISP for dial up. I noticed that I tended to be a lot more picky about what I surfed. Quality over quantity. I spent a lot more time reading and programming. hmmmmmmmm, maybe I should call Comcast and cancel?

Using SQL Enterprise Manager over dial up is an experience not unlike being on the receiving end of a root canal without the benefit of novacane. Heck, the same could be said for using EM over broadband.

yeah. I agree. I've been in the email marketing business for 3 years now and the 1% that does things wrong has grown to about 20%. It has made it virtually impossible for us legitimate marketers to deliver campaigns while ensuring that only those who are willing to be deceptive and criminal are operating with impunity across the world.

It's a massive problem and it won't go away until companies subscribe to personal data instead of people giving a copy of personal data to companies.

I can't wait for Longhorn.

Paul

Jason,

The reason that I see why they aren't using FreeText and such is that MS's fulltext engine in Sql2k is not very good. It takes an amazing effort on the part of the CPU to get it working. Yukon's full text engine is suppossed to be much improved.

Wally

The actual indexing may take some cycles, but it only happens on the schedule that you set. Any good DBAmin should know how to setup the schedule to run during the lowest traffic times, and create a good fulltext index for searching.

As for the actual fulltext searching in SQL Server 2K, it's actually part of Indexing Service that gets called to do the searching. If someone complains about SQL 2K fulltext, but also uses the Indexing Service, then that person is full of crapp.

I personally think that the fulltext searching in SQL2K is quite nice. But then, I actually spent a few minutes to write a query parsing engine that builds proper fulltext search queries based on user input.

Never whistle while you are pissing.

-Fictional character in a book by R-A Wilson.

I've got two, one inspirational and one that simply reminds you of the "big picture" in any project.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Albert Einstein

"When you are up to your ass in aligators, it is difficult to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp." - Unknown

If they make better or worse managers, no idea. But the mental if then structure probably exists in a lot of us programmers.

But sometimes, thinking with logic isn't always good, there seems to be different kinds of logic. What seems logic to you may be completely wrong to someone else, and vice versa.

I do believe programmers are a lot mor goal driving, with long term plans (like when you code something, you think in the future as well) and also, our minds thinks in a form of statements, which kinda creates order (or chaos in the eyes of others)

Hi guys,

Good thoughts. I'm pondering moving to FTI myself, but in doing so I'll need to migrate the entire SQL Server DB we use now (only about 9,000 records, with multiple NTEXT fields) to a different database server.

Has anyone seen any creative alternatives to using a good classical search?

Here's one of my personal faves form the late Benny Hill:

"The wise man believes only 50% of what he reads, but it is the genius who knows what 50% to believe."

Hmm...although the Microsoft way of interviewing is often seen as the pinnacle of Tech Interviewing, it's not perfect by any means. Have a look at "How Would YOu Move Mount Fuji?" - it gives some decent insights into this method of assessment as well as some pretty decent opinions as to what works and what doesn't with this approach...

Hi Scott,

I agree, the MS interviewing process is admired by many, but certainly its still a fallible machine (is anything perfect these days?). However, I did learn a lot from my trips to Redmond, about asking questions and really pushing a candidate to think.

My biggest challenge is getting someone to really experience what it's like to work in our hectic environment, and really expose them in some fashion to the problems we've got, as they're likely being brought on to solve some of them.

Thanks for the good word on our web service test page design. It may not serve much purpose for the guy who goes straight to the WSDL but it helps those less familiar with it.
Best Regards
-Stephane Dubois
Xignite

**UPDATE**

I wrote Juval Lowy directly and he confirmed that this would not work, as (1) returning a type from a WS call requires the assembly to be local to the client, and (2) such would arguably be a major violation of most security and versioning models.

I was actually thinking of using this as the basis for an app I was going to share with the members of my user group - developing a core API and letting them derive from it for their own implementations.

Oh well, back to the drawing board. 1 out of every 10 every crazy ideas I get like this actually works. :)

Via an article on This is Broken (http://broken.typepad.com/b/2004/02/frontpage_banne.html) there is an error in the HTML code in the ad. There should be no slash in the <p> tag on line 28.

Kind of makes me want to believe that FrontPage will be better...

Ha! I wonder who created this ad - a technical firm or an ad house. Ifd it's the latter, that's what happens when you leave a technical ad to artistic people.

Not the first time I've seen typos in Microsoft Ads. There's one that keeps appearing in DDJ magazine, and CUJ that not only mis-spells webService as webServce - in a code sample; it has done since the advert has been out (several months).

I sent a mail to feedback@mic.... but it's never been fixed. Guess they just don't care ..

Hi Jason:
I appreciate you quoting my post, but you should know that I wrote that based on a news story about the impending release of FrontPage 2003.

I haven't actually looked at or reviewed the program, so I can't say with any authority that these changes made it in, or that they lived up to the pre-release hype.

Regards,
Ron Miller

Hi Ron,

No problem..I figured that. No intention to hold you responsible for the features the program did or didn't have. :)

Well, what about WebML? http://www.webml.org

Hi Michiel,

WebML is great, but NOT specific to ASP.NET, which is what I'm after.

I agree... it'd be nice to see something with a little more meat to it. I was really interested when MS published the "case study" on Match.com and its conversion to .NET, but it was really weak in terms of getting to what they were really doing with architecture. I suppose there's only so much you want to reveal in that case (the dating site market is pretty competitive), but something more than an assembly and server count would've been nice.

Don't worry, you'll find the new AdventureWorks sample database to be just to your liking, I think. If you want a preview, download the SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services evaluation, which includes the first (I think) public release of AdventureWorks.

Good news to know! Thanks Mike.

The problem for those of us creating samples that talk to a database is that we often don't want to focus on the underlying database, but rather on whatever it is we're illustrating -- ADO.NET code, whatever. So we pick a database that we figure the largest percentage of our reader base will be familiar with. IOW, Northwind. Even when Yukon comes out with AW, Northwind will still be the best-understood database out there, and so we'll probably continue to use it for examples that need to use just any old database you happen to have handy. Unless, of course, the point is to illustrate some specific feature of Yukon or of AdventureWorks itself.

Hi Mike,

Oh sure....and I agree, testing with the Northwind or Pubs DBs is a snap because they've been in use for so long that we can recall the recordsets from memory, so if we connect and call data, we can be sure a script works.

I was just hoping for a new set of data from perhaps a different industry, using a different DB schema and table configuration - just to be honest. :)

Northwind sucks. It has table names with spaces, it has stored procedures prefixed with sp_... it's a horrible example of how to design a database. Good to know it's gonna get better. Thanks for the heads-up Mike!

go for the DVD instead of CDs - you get a $300 rebate and lighter mail packages..

Lucky me...I got the DVDs. I should have mentioned that. :)

Too bad Microsoft has filed patents on their use of XML in Word....

You're right about the table names with spaces Robert, but not about the sp_. At least not on any of my installs of SQL 2000.

I think that pubs is fine to use for an example. Like Mike said, you don't want your "student" spending 1/2 their time or more trying to figure out your DB schema. But neither Northwind nor pubs are good examples of what SQL 2000 can do. Neither of them use user defined functions or types. Heck even the views in both of them are pretty simple. I'd include at least one partitioned view, those are pretty powerful IMO.

You might want to take a look at Salamander .Net Linker and Mini-Deployment tool (http://www.remotesoft.com/linker/index.html). It looks like it'll turn the IL into native code. "The framework appears as an integrated part of your own application"

BTW, this seems to be a popular topic. Joel Spolsky wrote a piece on "can we have a linker?", which generated lots of commentary. Just a sample, starting with Joel himself:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/PleaseLinker.html

http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=108812

http://weblogs.asp.net/pleloup/archive/2004/01/29/64541.aspx

http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/01/29.html#a6440

Thanks Mike! I'm thinking about working on a consideration note to the ASP.NET team to possibly make this available.

Thanks a bunch James. Good tip. I've been thinking about this more and the possibility of having a somewhat-portable runtime and hosting environment, and if it could fit on a disk or somewhere around there.

**UPDATE**

Here's a good article that's along the lines of what I was talking about:
http://www.microsoft.com/belux/nl/msdn/community/columns/desmet/hostaspnet1.mspx

**UPDATE**

A Microsoft PM that owns the Globalization subset of the ASP.NET feature set was nice enought to point me to a working sample of how to add new custom cultures in order to tap into resource files: http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/UserSamples/Details.aspx?SampleGuid=a193b952-2e44-45ed-811d-c1fabf2f6e8a

There is a List class in the namespace System.Collections (this is what the error said). This List class is private.

Yeah...I got that part. Again, I understand about the List type being inaccessible, but the error code didn't really imply that. :)

The error code said "'System.Collections.List' is inaccessible due to its protection level". I think this is completely fair, because System.Collections.List is a private class.
However, you just wanted to use the class System.Collections.Generics.List. This list was inaccessible because you didn't include the namespace.

Maybe the error should say something like "if you want to use 'System.Collections.List' this class is inaccessible due to its protection level. If you want to use a List class from another namespace, import the namespace" ;-)

Hey Jason Salas & M. Keith Warren ,
What position did you guys interview for?
Rex John

Hi Rex,

At the time, I was up for a product manager position on the Office team.

Right - I agree, the error code makes sense, but it's confusing as to the real nature of the problem with the code.

Great idea Jason, I'd buy one in a snap.

You can use any key mapping tool for this purpose.
Take a look at WinKey 2.8. You can download it from http://download.com.com/3000-2344-913626.html?tag=lst-0-1

Yeah, but you have to remember what the keys are Firoz.

Maybe we should pressure this company to release an overlay for Visual Studio and the different languages?

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/gaming/5fed/

I know they have overlays for Word and Excel.

Why change the hardware?
Add a C# "mode" to a regular keyboard using a rarely used key as the toggle, or more generally use macros...?

Hi Firoz,

Oh sure...but I'm one of those people who would prefer a set piece of hardware that had specific purposes in mind.

Also, should anything ever happen to my PC and the settings get erased (perish the thought), I'd have to do the whole thing over again. I wouldn't mind paying extra for new hardware that someone built that laid everything out for me.

Case in point: varying joysticks for flight sim and racing games.

In other words, I'm an idiot, I need help and I'm one the people who would buy this type of thing. :)

Hi Scott,

Now there's an idea...I might shoot this by a couple of product managers I know for their input....

Yes, Jason, I'm still at Microsoft. I'm very interested in your localization project, as I have had to do some localization frameworks myself here. I'd be very interested in what you come up with.
Also, I'd certainly make my web service available to you, or anyone else for that matter. Got to keep the Chamorro culture alive, and this is one way I can do it.

Hi guys, I'm applying for an internship (summer) as a software design engineer. I have amazing background in mathematics and problem solving. I was a former International Mathematical Olympiad participant.

But the problem is, I've only experienced C++/programming for a year. So my computer knowledge really isn't THAT great. My worry is that they ask me some technical things about C++ or computer knowledge and I wouldn't have a clue.

I can ace the riddles/logic questions with ease, but technical C++ questions I don't think I can do too well. I've taken 2 courses in C++ so I know everything up to linked list/polymorphism...ect. But I really haven't delved too deep into techniques/tricks.

Am I in a bad situation?

Hi Paul,

Just be yourself and answer honestly. Try and work out whatever strange problems they throw at you and give it your best shot. The worst thing you can do is try and lie your way through it or give up right away. Good luck!

I've sent in my electronic resume about a week ago and haven't heard a phone call yet. Does this mean there is no hope? Generally how long is the time between sending out the resume and receiving a phone call (if Microsoft is interested)?

Thanks.

Paul,

This is the gray area. I've known people who've sent their resumes and get nothing back for months. The company is constantly shifting and evolving, and departments get new hires positions and close existing ones all the time.

Remember, Microsoft is a huge corporation, so they literally get thousands of applications a day, which stack up over time.

Sadly, the only thing you can do it wait. :(

well all i know is that benny hill has to have been one of the funniest comedians of his time, i still really crack up laughng when i see a skit involving Fred Scuttle.
I think it's a shame the way he died alone but can't we just remember the man for how funny he was and how he managed to bring a smile to everyones face?

Is it also the same for interns? When do people applying for summer interns (college student) get interviews?

I think if you have to openly apply for an intern job (i.e., you're not contacted by a Microsoft recruiter or your school doesn't set it up for you), it's a waiting game.

Good luck!

(IE users) If you have edit text software.. no need for file/save as.. just "Edit button" and select which tools you want to use to view the source. And then save it right into your hard drive. So far I have not seen any site can prevent that.

OK, let me start with some simple model for ASP.NET apps:

4 class stereotypes:
- <<ClientPage>> (represents the stuff that comes down the wire and renders/executes in the browser)
- <<ServerPage>> (represents the .aspx page on the server that builds the ClientPage)
- <<CodeBehind>> (represents the .cs or .vb code that is referenced by ServerPage
- <<JavaScript>> (represents the stuff that executes locally when runs-on-client events triggers)

4 relations stereotypes:
- <<builds>> (the relation from ServerPage to ClientPage: "ServerPage builds the ClientPage and sends it down the wire")
- <<event>> (the reletation from ClientPage to JavaScript - "ClientPage triggers the execution of JavaScript" or from ClientPage to ServerPage - "ClientPage triggers the submit up to the ServerPage")
- <<redirect>> (the relation between ServerPage and ServerPage - "ServerPage redirects to another ServerPage")
- <<include>> (the 1:1 relation between ServerPage and CodeBehind)

At design time you build ServerPages, which automatically include specific CodeBehind-s for every ServerPage. At run time browser calls ServerPages (event) that generate ClientPages (build) that fire events either locally (to JavaScript) or back to ServerPages.

If you agree with this, we can move on to Web Services model.

I had hella problems with it under Windows 2000 (IIS 5 I think). Things like images coming up rex'ed, CSS missing, all sorts of stuff like that. I'll have to try it again if I ever get to work on at IIS 6 server. :(

That's funny, cause the CODE directory is my least favorite feature. I hate the fact that Microsoft is continually dictating to me what my directory structure should be. That folder should be configurable on a web-by-web basis.

Ahh...so you're one of those people who instead of using the default "images" directory, changes it to "pictures" just to be non-conformist? :)

LOL.

No, actually, I have a folder called "Common" that hold all the items common to the different parts of the site. I then have several nested folders underneath. They are:

-Components (Code)
-Controls (User Controls)
-Images
-MenuData (ASPnetMenu XML Files)
-Scripts
-Stylesheets

You shouldn't have .VB (or.CS) files strewn around your site for no reason. If it's not an ASPX page, it doesn't belog outside the common folder. When several sites depend on the same files, I have a "Common Folder" outside of the main web, and link it into the web directories using NTFS junctions. That way, if one file changes, all directories get updated.

I'm extremely anal about website organization. Mostly because most people aren't. I got fed up with inheriting projects with no organization whatsoever. So I came up with a predictable system that I use every time. Has served me very well.

The good news, I think, is that the further you are beyond that first critical job, the less the degree and institution matters. Lots of high-tech firms recruit directly out of such universities (and many more), but when hiring someone with experience, the experience count about 1,582% more than the schooling. Just as with high school -- that GPA mattered when applying to colleges, but who cares now?

I vote for the Code folder. :-) It's actually double-good, although that's my opinion. First, no need to compile classes -- just run and go. We could have used this feature w/ Web Matrix, heh. Second, the Web page designer in Whidbey gives you IntelliSense on anything in the Code folder. How cool is that?

Excellent points! (Although, those dang Ivy League fraternities seem to stay eerily close-knit...)

Sweet. I know people that sing the praises of Microsoft technologies up and down the street, but change absolutely every default setting and recommended coding convention just to prove they can.

These type of people setup an MS-driven site and then proceed to make the default documents something different than "index.html" or "default.aspx", rename all the provided dirs and other quirky stuff.

I'm in the middle...I change some things, and leave others the way they were set up. I always create several directories:

/images
/css
/modules
/customcontrols
/usercontrols
/servercontrols

Hey, it takes all types...

Hi Mike,

I'm very pleased directories like /code, /themes and /resources got the treatment they did for V2 on a functional level. However, I was surprised at the naming convention used. It makes sense to keep things simple, and undoubtedly the engineers took the fact that legacy apps may have those dirs named already and so would allow files and folders within those spaces to be served and/or non-compiled, but I think for some it creates a headache.

I would have opted for some other naming system...something most people woulnd't be using to rule out not technical incompatability, but confusion for webmasters running migrated sites.

Think about how many people out there right now have a /code and/or /resources folder one step down from root containing sample source files.

I guess it's a self-defeating argument...you can't really pick a name that's easy to remember and short enough that someone out there isn't using already.

And for the record (and for any corporate recruiters reading this now), I once got 3 gold stars and a complementary puffy sticker for drawing The Pokey Little Puppy for my 4th grade book report. :)

One great email validator is one that, after performing the string expression validaton, check if the domain name exist (using dns query), get th MX for this domain and check if the user exist in SMTP server. Theses validations may be anabled/disabled by properties of this validation control.

Jason-

Very well-expressed. Remember what you have going for you more than any platinum-level diploma is your technical competence and quality work experience. You're one of the most brillant men I know, especially with all the varied and demanding hats you wear at KUAM. Keep smiling, Jason, as you're going places!

> Keep smiling, Jason, as you're going places!

Thanks Rich...hopefully sooner than later! :)

**UPDATE**

They made the change. Cool. :)

I'm impressed. I got out of broadcast years ago because the pay and consolidation (in radio especially) made it not very fun anymore. I still miss it, being behind or in front of the camera. Good times!

Non sequitor: Why must Stuart Scott adopt a "hip-hop vocabulary"? He's not ghetto - does he have to pretend solely because he's black? I don't get it.

:)

I write better code when listening to "lounge music" like Sinatra, and Deano.

Actually for me Techno or Hard House is the way to go - must moving at over 140 beats per minute have proven to wake you up. (better than caffeene) Allows me the same sort of clear focus you observed. Code becomes much easier and productivity goes way up.

Techno / electronic type stuff. I highly recommend www.modarchive.com . There's a big mixture of stuff there, all sorts of styles. I've barely sampled it myself, but I've found plenty that works good for me.

Hey David & Mark,

Cool. I think because I grew up listening to metal, it's more conducive to the way I work. Like I said, I know people who CAN'T work without techno.

Jazz, man. Late night work + late night jazz = true productivity. And the guys at the radio station must know that, too, coz they just keep the good stuff comin'.

Now that's the ticket! I can also code pretty well to the blues...Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughn, mostly.

ALl kinds of music: Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Beethoven, Sarah McLachlan, Crystal Method, Mudvayne, Slayer. I dig it all.

The mobile story in Whidbey uses so-called adaptive rendering; each control has an adapter that can render the markup appropriate to the browser request. This works something like browsercaps, but rather than just set various switches based on the user agent, the control can instiate entirely different classes to render the markup. It's both tons more powerful as well as extensible. (New device? New adapter class.)

Whidbey also introduces device filtering, which you can apply at the property level. For example, you can have default text (maybe terse text for all devices) and override the Text property for desktop browsers with more verbose text.

So these features are in the service of making it substantially easier to create single-source pages that work for many devices. (Rather than having to author MMIT pages separately.) That said, adaptive rendering and filterin aren't going to make the need (or desire) for separate desktop and device pages go away altogether.

Hi Chris,

Beethoven ==> Sarah McLachlan ==> Slayer

Now that's an eclectic list! :)

Sounds like a great idea man. Looking forward to see how things turn out.

Have you found anything that is relatively easy to use or easy to program yet?

I found a java applet on Johnny Damon's website ...

If you can change the 404 page used on your site to a .aspx page, you can effectively have the .net framework process any path you want (as long as that path doesn't actually exist).

You could use this to have your asp.net pages look like .html pages or directories, or anything you like :

protected void Application_BeginRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string strPath=Request.RawUrl;

if(strPath.IndexOf("404.aspx") > 0 && strPath.IndexOf("mypage.html") > 0)
{
Context.RewritePath("realpage.aspx");
}

}

This would translate any request with the string mypage.html in it to the page realpage.aspx.

You could look up the user's ip address in whois to find the owner of the IP block.

This would provide the company information. Usually this information includes email addresses and URLs. Of course, this is more complex than using a web.config file.

Hi Garrett,

Interesting tip...although I'm pretty sure the default homepage URL for mobile splash pages wouldn't be available from within a WHOIS query.

Guys!!!

I have an interview in another 2 or 3 days. That is a phone interview of 20-25 mins. Please do tell me the ways. What is generally asked in the initial Phone interview.

Just keep some of the comments on this post in mind...and check out Chris Sells' post at: http://www.sellsbrothers.com/fun/msiview/default.aspx?content=question.htm

Good luck!

Thanks Jason,

I will let you know my performance !!!!

Hi Jason,

If you were interviewed on MS campus by less than 6 interviewers, is that a bad sign?
I read from web resources that 6 interviews (the last one being the project manager) is a good sign.
But my recruiter said it doesn't have to be 6 interviews....


Thanks,
Bill

Hi Bill,

I'd say that's typical. I've met people that say they've been through the wringer as many as 9 times in a day, and I've also seen people who have only gone to 5 hiring managers. And of course, executives typically have one high-level talk and they're in :)

Good luck!

I got an on-site interview with them on friday, and Im excited and scared at the same time. I know that its quite a challenge to get a job and I also know that there are a ton of really smart people applying also. I managed to get passed the phone interview and get a shot with the oncampus trials. It'd be awesome to get a job there but I look at stuff like, XSLT drawbacks and ASP.NET controls, and I have little to no knowledge about either technologies. I'm applying for a fulltime Sofware Design Engineer (I graduate in June), but considering these questions, I dont know that I have much of a chance.

Hi Santos,

Just be yourself...talk about the stuff you know and they won't harp on areas that you've got no experience with. You'll be expected to give deep opinions on the areas you are interested in and that you do work with, so just concentrate on being strong on working with what you do know.

Can any one help me for accessing the viewstate contents thro javascript code.
Kindly mail me at prashanth.k@sonata-software.com

I have an interview for a director level marketing position at Microsoft. Please guide me with any inputs to face the interview successfully. Thank you

Couple of reason why advertisers may user flash or standard GIF... If you are simply displaying text and maybe a few images, flash may yield a smaller file size. On networks like AOL:AIM advertisers use flash to display short movie previews simply because most people have flash and it does not require any extra download. It may not be of the best quality but it is extremely light weight. Also, I don't know of any publisher who would allow anything but flash or image as an interstitial.

I just had a conversation with a designer about this Friday. He was forced to use an animated .gif when the client really wanted Flash. The effect was nowhere near as nice and the file size was outrageous. Flash would have done the trick with ease.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you don't really know what is going on besides the animation you see. There could be all kinds of client/server communication going on and/or dynamic building of the text and animations. Most aren't doing this, of course, but Flash is still (usually) smaller and better looking than a similar animated gif (except for simple "blink" type animations).

Hi Shannon,

Good comments. I guess admittedly one thing that's nice about Flash is that you can also prevent someone from *easily* copying a resource.

Does anyone have the wav of that skit. Preferrably the, "I got a fever, and the only perscription is more cowbell."? Or atleast know where I can find it?

Thanks

Adam

Hi Adam,

I found this floating around in great volume before...on Kazaa, AudioPlanet and Napster when it was "legit" to use those services.

Actually, I think the SNL Blue Oyster Cult sketch w/Christoper Walken and the Jimgleheimer Junction sketch w/Cameron Diaz are the funniest bits to have come from SNL in the last 10 years.

Interesting comments, Jason. :)

I still don't like Mike Hall, I don't think he deserved to win, and I think ESPN cheated the viewers by not counting the audience vote at the end of the first hour of the finale.

If they had, Zach Selwyn and Aaron Levine would have been tied, and it would have been up to the infamous "red phone" guy as to who got cut. Zach probably would have been axed anyway (even though I thought he was better than Aaron was in the first hour), but at least it would have been a bit more upfront. (btw, only way I know about the audience's vote was a crawler at the bottom of the screen at the end of part 1. Votes to cut Zach were lower than the votes to cut Maggie -- how did she last so long, anyway, except for her writing? -- and to cut Aaron.)

Be that as it may, I still enjoyed what you had to say about the show -- and appreciated reading your comments, as they're more informed than most because you've actually done the job before.

Barb