June 2003 - Posts

• More thoughts on Code Generation

  "In short it came down to the fact that typing code statements is time consuming, boring and error prone, and has nothing to do with programming, which is defining algorithms, data-structures and functionality specifications, in a language independent way." "I really feel sorry for those people who do not understand what power code generation really has. They are doomed to do boring work which can be done by computers in a fraction of the time without any error." [Frans Bouma's blog] "I think code generators are an extension of frameworks. With a framework (like .NET, Java, etc...) you've got a bunch of funcitonality pre-built for you -- this saves you time. With a code generator, you've got the ability to customize pre-built functionality. And you do it in a lot less time and with less debugging required. That's value." [Patrick Steele's .NET Blog] I think people need to realize that every time a new programming language is released, the amount of code you have to write decreases. Assembly -> C -> C++ -> C#, each hop resulted in less code to write. By using code generation you are simply following the trend of programming evolution, less time on grunt work coding and more time on what really matters like design and business logic. -James Posted Jun 29 2003, 12:17 PM by jamesavery with no comments

• Angry Coder speaks out on code generation

  Jonathon Goodyear has some comments on code generation in this article on his site, and then some additional comments in this blog entry. He does not seem to think very much of code generation, and the points that he makes in the article are very valid when you consider the tools he was looking at. What he misses is that there are code generation tools out there like CodeSmith which make it very easy to generate select parts of your application. For instance if you currently have all of your stored procedures created in your database, generating the DA methods using codesmith is very easy and time saving. Using a generation tool in this method does not force you to subscribe to a particular application design and since you are just generating the actual code you can modify/customize it as much as you want. This does not mean you are tying a business entity to a particular table, but rather to a stored procedure which could pull from a number of tables or views. I do not think Code Generation will ever replace developers, but I think it can be an important and invaluable tool of the developer. -James Posted Jun 29 2003, 12:10 AM by jamesavery with 5 comment(s)

• Doug Thews is blogin'

  Doug Thews, one of my co-authors on ASP.NET Performance, has started a blog on his site. He has already posted some good posts about detecting network connectivity in the .NET CF as well as a "hiccup" with CF deployment. -James Posted Jun 28 2003, 11:02 PM by jamesavery with 3 comment(s)

• Google Toolbar 2.0 Spreading like Wildfire

  Everyone I know is installing and raving about the new Google toolbar. I have for a long time been a fan of the google toolbar, but with the addition of the popup blocker it becomes a necessity not just a convenience. The other must have feature is hidden in the Options menu, where you can enable google as your default search engine in internet explorer so when you try to go to a site that does not exist it will take you to google instead of that worthless MSN search. (Page Info is also cool because you can see the cached version, translate, etc.) I am glad to see that if Microsoft is not willing to improve Internet Explorer until Longhorn then at least Google will be around to add some of the features that we all want. -James Posted Jun 27 2003, 03:58 PM by jamesavery with 1 comment(s)

• More thoughts on FeedDemon

  Ok, I spoke to soon when I said that FeedDemon did not include any revolutionary features... there is some very cool stuff in this application. Here are the things that I have seen that really add serious value and will change the way I read RSS: 1) Synchronize with an OPML file. I have been dying for this feature for a long time as an easy way to keep readers on multiple systems synchronized. 2) Newspaper View - This view aggregates the top posts from your group of feeds in an easy to browse format, less clicking more reading. 3) Watches are a way to search all of your feeds on a certain criteria, and then have those posts appear in a separate list. This will come in very handy when you want to make sure you read all the posts on a certain topic, but might not have time to read all of the items on all of your feeds. I will shut up about FeedDemon for now...  -James Posted Jun 27 2003, 12:38 AM by jamesavery with 2 comment(s)

• From Sharpreader to FeedDemon

  The OPML file that is generated from Sharpreader will not import into FeedDemon by default, what you will need to do is add a <head> section to your OPML file like this one: <head>   <title>Sharpreader Posts</title> </head> Then the import should work perfectly. -James Posted Jun 26 2003, 11:18 PM by jamesavery with 4 comment(s)

• FeedDemon Beta Released, and it Rocks

  I pulled down a copy of the FeedDemon beta, and I have to say that it has exceeded my expectations. The layout of FeedDemon is very similar to Outlook 2003 which makes it much easier to read posts. While it does not really add any revolutionary features, it adds a ton of nice features from a usability stand-point. The newsbin and the "newspaper" style are particularly nice. Unfortunately I have not been able to import my feeds from Sharpreader, so I will probably have to do some manual tweaking to get the import working. -James Posted Jun 26 2003, 10:47 PM by jamesavery with 4 comment(s)

• New Codesmith Released

  CodeSmith 2.1.1270 was released today, if you have not checked it out before then I would definitely check it out now. Eric has done an awesome job of improving this tool and I look forward to see what he does with it in the future. -James Posted Jun 25 2003, 12:47 AM by jamesavery with no comments

• More on the future of the software industry

  My buddy Scoble had some comments (couldn't find a permalink so you will have to scroll) on Eric's "No Future in the software Industry" article. At first it appears that Robert does not agree with the article, but the more I read it the more it looks like they really do agree. Both of them see great possibilities in small software companies that want to change the world, Eric just had a more pessimistic view of a Microsoft dominated software world than Robert was willing to swallow. The future Eric wants is with small companies innovating, not one company dictating, and not a bunch of people working for free. I happen to like Microsoft very much, but I also want to see small software companies prosper and continue to compete with and challenge Microsoft. I think part of me wants to run a small software company at some point, so perhaps that is why I am particularly endeared to smaller companies and their future. I actually wanted to read Eric's article again to make sure that I had not misinterpreted it, but apparently his site is down for the moment and google has not cached it yet. -James Posted Jun 25 2003, 12:30 AM by jamesavery with 2 comment(s)

• Three new Application Blocks

  I was excited to see that three new application blocks were released today: The first is the Configuration Management Application Block which looks particularly promising as it allows you to store configuration settings in a XML file, the registry, or a database. It will even encrypt the data if you do store it in an XML file. The second is the Updater Application Block which provides an easy way to keep windows application up to date. The third is the User Interface Process Application Block which basically provides a method to write reusable navigation and workflow. I love the fact that Microsoft keeps cranking these out. -James (Posted from Blogert) Posted Jun 24 2003, 11:59 PM by jamesavery with 7 comment(s)