June 2003 - Posts
"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."
[]
"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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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)
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