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Matt Hawley said:

Welcome!
# February 12, 2004 10:03 AM

Colt said:

Welcome aboard Jeff :)
# February 12, 2004 10:36 AM

Matt Hawley said:

I had this same conversation in comments. Someone told me it would be better to do all business logic within SQL stored procedures rather than in the BLL calling different stored procedures within a transaction. Sometimes I just wonder if these people have real programming experience in the enterprise world.
# February 13, 2004 11:40 AM

Mathew Nolton said:

In general, I tend to see people go after certicications when they lack professional experience (but not always). Personally, I still go for professional experience when I am judging someone for a position.

As for business logic in your data tier. no way....data is just that. Data. Your business logic layer is for business logic.

-Mathew Nolton
# February 13, 2004 1:33 PM

Darrell said:

Sometimes you can't go for experience. Do I want someone who has done nothing but VBScript for 7 years over someone who has been programming .NET for 2?

It depends. I usually hire for motivation, teamwork ability, intelligence, and ethics. With those skills, the employees can learn anything they need to.
# February 13, 2004 2:40 PM

Darrell said:

Oh, and certification is a sign of motivation.
# February 13, 2004 2:40 PM

jeff said:

That's where I disagree. Maybe I'm just too fiercely independent (or too much of a hard-ass for my own good), but I look at it as buying into Microsoft marketing. :)
# February 13, 2004 3:20 PM

Tim Marman said:

What's very dangerous is that two of my favorite local watering holes both have WiFi now (one offers it themselves, the other comes from a resident upstairs).

This could get ugly sometime soon.
# February 13, 2004 9:55 PM

Shannon J Hager said:

You should be able to pick up a copy of a Post-PDC/Pre-public beta build at DevDays.
# February 16, 2004 12:52 PM

Julie Lerman said:

Not quite. [Unless something has changed in the last few weeks,] DevDays is PDC bits! I asked the person who was responsible for arranging for the bits to be distributed and was told it's the same as PDC.
# February 16, 2004 2:46 PM

Alex Lowe said:

It is the same as the PDC.
# February 16, 2004 3:34 PM

Shannon J Hager said:

I have read in at least 2 places that it was going to be a newer version.
# February 16, 2004 6:04 PM

Michael Carr said:

My favorite Windows-based video editing software is Vegas Video by Sonic Foundry/Sony. It's by far better than anything else I've seen.

On the bottom of my list would be Adobe Premiere... not sure why everybody likes that one so much.
# February 16, 2004 6:51 PM

Jeff said:

Agreed. Permier exists only because people like Photoshop and it's cheap, relatively speaking.

Vegas is pretty good stuff. Not as clean as Avid, Media 100 or Final Cut, but good stuff.
# February 16, 2004 7:13 PM

Brian Desmond said:

We've got two Avid editors at school - a G5 and a G4. The person that does our video editing is going to show me how to use one of them this week - looks pretty intuitive from what I've watched. Hope this is actually the case.
# February 16, 2004 11:09 PM

Jay Glynn said:

Noise canceling headphones. The best 50 bucks I've ever spent.
# February 17, 2004 8:49 AM

Doug Reilly said:

I have one day a week at a client site with cubes, and I use my walkman. It is noise, but at least it is noise I like...
# February 17, 2004 9:11 AM

Philip Miseldine said:

I am that guy you are referring to :)

I did insist that what I said wasn't necessarily best practise in the "real world", and that I did have no experience in the enterprise market...after all, I'm only 23 and I decided to get academic experience before I entered the workplace.

People can only go on what I have experienced. Pratical real life experience takes time, and yes, it is vital IMHO. I just haven't the experience yet, but education helps you prepare and learn how to adapt to new technology and new ideas, as well as learning how to research (in the case of a PhD).

Certification is education, and certainly achieving a certificate shows the key skills of learning, digesting, and being motivated to pass the course. Financial considerations aside, it can only improve one's own ability and interest. I can't see the real problem.
# February 18, 2004 10:18 AM

Philip Miseldine said:

And, if you read the thread, you'd see I *did* accept those points you raised. And I *wasn't* sure I was right. That is misrepresenting what the situation was. I was asking why I was wrong, not enforcing I was right.

Being constructive is far better than being overtly critical...
# February 18, 2004 1:22 PM

Jeff said:

You assume that the story is about you and that Sitepoint is the only place on the planet that I post.
# February 18, 2004 2:06 PM

Philip Miseldine said:

Call it deductive reasoning ;)
# February 18, 2004 2:11 PM

Chris (d) said:

I would to agree with Philip ;o)
# February 19, 2004 5:02 AM

Steve said:

Build it and they will come. Just put a .NET logo on your marketing material and its sure to sell ;-)
# February 19, 2004 10:01 AM

Robert Scoble said:

The antidote is a Tablet PC. Particularly the Toshiba M200.
# February 21, 2004 10:58 PM

Lotas Smartman said:

Hmmmm. thank (insert your icon of worship in here) i dont read the same places you do! :P
# February 25, 2004 10:14 AM

TrackBack said:

# February 25, 2004 9:55 PM

TrackBack said:

# February 25, 2004 9:56 PM

Thomas Tomiczek said:

Very well said. When I saw the pictures, I thought immediatly that the people working there must by the "typical american idiots" as they are envisioned in the world. Kids which have achieved nothing in their life and date to disrespect someone who built one of the most successfull businesses in history.

You do not have to agree with him, but you could at least show some respect.
# February 26, 2004 10:39 AM

R said:


I agree with Thomas .. but surely it's harmless fun? Is Mr G really likely to get *that* upset about some jibes about ancient history? He's a target BECAUSE of who he is, in the same way that celebrities are the target of the papparazzi ...
# February 26, 2004 10:47 AM

Jason Alexander said:

Yeah, I was really pretty disgusted with Ajay's post, as well, and really thought it threw a bad light on his University, personally.

I'm always of the mind, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.", but unfortunately not everyone is engrained with the manners that they once were.
# February 26, 2004 10:48 AM

Jeff said:

At issue isn't if someone hurt his feelings. The real issue is that a bunch of snot-nose know-it-alls think they know better in the face of one of the most influential people in the history of our industry. It doesn't even matter if you think he's brilliant. Few people have ever had more influence on anything.

I think George Bush is a moron, but he is the president, and if I could hear him speak in person, I wouldn't miss the opportunity and I'd be respectful. It's just what we do in a society like ours.
# February 26, 2004 11:07 AM

George Chernyha said:

I wanted to read Ajay's post but it seems to have gone missing.
# February 26, 2004 1:52 PM

Ajay Juneja said:

http://weblogs.asp.net/ajuneja

It's right here :)

Oh and Jeff, cut it with this disrespect thing -- you need to lighten up and have some fun sometimes.

Also, a talk entitled "Solving the Hardest Problems in Computer Science" should have more content on that topic than be a marketing spiel.

I'd also argue Steve Wozniak had as much influence as dear Bill, and he wasn't smacked down cause his talk had CONTENT in it.

You're right, students at CMU don't take well to sales pitches whether they are from Gates or otherwise.
# February 26, 2004 8:14 PM

Ajay Juneja said:

Oh, and I made the most talked about posts list... 1400+ hits... not bad :)
# February 26, 2004 8:15 PM

Jeff said:

Whatever dude... you don't know anything about me or my ability to have fun. If you're going to make an argument, do so as a grown up and try not to resort to personal attacks.
# February 26, 2004 9:34 PM

Ajay Juneja said:

Where was there a personal attack on anyone?
I made reference to his talk being bad, not Bill being bad.

Bill's a huge philanthropist, and I certainly admire and respect that.
# February 26, 2004 10:37 PM

Jeff said:

Not to him, to me! Move along now...
# February 27, 2004 7:49 AM

Scott Mitchell said:

A bit of shamelss promotion, but........

Requisite reading for anyone who is wanting to write a computer trade book:
http://scottonwriting.net/sowblog/posts/146.aspx

# March 1, 2004 4:22 PM

Jeff said:

I read that before I even contemplated writing the proposal. Sadly, I did it anyway even though I knew what I was getting into!
# March 1, 2004 5:15 PM

OmegaSupreme said:

LOL
# March 2, 2004 9:29 AM

Jason Salas said:

Great post, Jeff! RTC is my favorite game of all-time! Yeah, a friend and I were commenting about how one dude did the whole thing on his own...amazing!

Jas
# March 3, 2004 5:58 PM

TrackBack said:

# March 3, 2004 10:16 PM

Rory said:

Jeff -

A lot of what you say is quite interesting, and I agree with some of it.

However, consider this statement:

"if you want to consume a Web service from Amazon or Google in your app, reading docs on either one would never lead you to believe that you could treat these as object-oriented services."

Web services are still very much a mucky-muck sort of thing. They're messy, and they're tough. Is this something the hobbyist is even going to get into?

I realize it's only one example, but I think it's important to consider. When I think of a hobbyist, I think of someone who just wants to throw some data on the screen, organize their CDs, or whatever. I don't think too much about people who are trying to deal with web services. I think that once you even know what a web service is (as many in our profession don't), you've already gone beyond being a hobbyist.

It might just come down to definitions, though - what I consider to be a hobbyist might not be what you consider to be a hobbyist, and therein lies the confusion.

Still, though, I didn't mean any ill-will towards anybody, and I'm certainly not a CS degree coder. My roots are firmly grounded in the hobbyist camp - but, my hobbyist days were spent trying to rise to the level of the professional because I *knew* that I wanted to code.

Maybe that's the difference that helps define a hobbyist coder: A hobbyist coder doesn't want to be a coder, but must become one for a short time in order to get something done, whereas the non-hobbyist, even though he/she isn't getting paid, has every intention of becoming a coder.

I don't know, though. ::shrug::

It's a tough topic :)
# March 4, 2004 11:08 AM

-e said:

I don't think its a simple thing. I am in this field because of a hobbyist start - how else did any of us end up here, if not writing crappy games on our TI/C64/XT/etc.? What else could have driven us to the path we are now on? Sure - there are exceptions, but I bet the bulk of professional developers started out as hobbyists as kids.

That having been said, I am geeky enough to admit that I probably would have done it anyway.

So I don't really wish to argue that point.

But I do want to point out that SharpDevelop is free, and to get a copy of C# or VB.Net is under $100 (sure, it has its limits, but we're talking hobbyist). And my copy of VS.Net Pro cost me about $350 - not cheap, but not prohibitive, if you really want to play. I mean, how much money did those golf clubs, skis, or mountain bike cost you?
# March 4, 2004 11:20 AM

Jeff said:

Why would a hobbyist use an Amazon Web service? Because they want to make money, and hosting a high-traffic site, even if it's your hobby, is not cheap. When I started CoasterBuzz.com four years ago, I never expected to be serving pages to 10,000 people every day, but here I am. I make more money on that hobby than my mother does as a nurse.

And I have a six-figure career now too. Not bad for someone who went to school for radio and TV.
# March 4, 2004 11:23 AM

Ken Robertson said:

VS is not necessarily expensive for the hobbyist if they are in college. I bought my copy through my campus's MSDN Academic Alliance for $13.
# March 4, 2004 11:55 AM

Jason Bunting said:

Jeff,

I am interested in your last comment about how you make "more money on that hobby than [your] mother does as a nurse."

But then, I went to your coasterbuzz.com site and noticed this quote:

"Is POP World Media just out to make a buck?
It would be nice if we could, but not likely. We've already spent thousands on hardware and software, so at this point breaking even would be nice!"

Maybe you should update that text now that you are apparently making money. :P
# March 4, 2004 11:57 AM

Jeff said:

I guess I should change it! Making money is I suppose relative, as I still have some lingering debt to eliminate from things like SQL Server licenses and MSDN subscriptions.
# March 4, 2004 12:37 PM

clutch said:

Eeh, I have a similar issue. I get called a "know it all" because I typically have the correct answer for a given problem. This, however, is a statistical anomaly. If I don't know something, I just simply state "I don't know", and people around me forget about it. So, while I might appear to be right > 95% of the time, it's only because I am answering < 40% of the questions coming to me. Think I might have better luck making up answers to everything, and being wrong more often? You just can't win, ever.
# March 6, 2004 2:36 AM

Scott Galloway said:

Well, it doesn't have to be in the same file - that just happens to be the default option in the Alpha Version. The code-beside model (using Partial Classes) in Whidbey is a great improvement though. Code beside is still compiled to an assembly...
# March 9, 2004 1:07 PM

Paul Wilson said:

But code-behind in Whidbey (also now called code-beside) does require the cs/vb files to be deployed, which is compiled on demand, and which no longer needs to be manually rebuilt when you make small changes. Of course there is also a way to pre-compile, but so far with Whidbey this also pre-compiles the aspx pages and only leaves a stub so that you can no longer make even aspx changes on the fly! I'm hoping there will be an in-between state, like we have right now, that only pre-compiles the code-behind, but I haven't heard anything that has acknowledged even the need for it.
# March 9, 2004 1:11 PM

Jeff said:

I realize what VS is doing by default... that's not the issue. The issue is what's best (and easiest) for my audience. Those of us that are more experienced often forget the vast majority out there who don't yet have the same skills.

There's a reason that the "official" ASP.NET forums are not as popular as they could be, and where you do see them deployed they haven't been altered in any way. You have to know what you're doing and understand a lot of things that the novice wouldn't to hack in there and change stuff.
# March 9, 2004 1:18 PM

Scott Galloway said:

To be honest, I think the 'official' ASP.NET forums are just fine - the Starter Kits are more designed for learning from whereas for forums are primarily designed to run the ASP.NET forums. Personally, I like the design, it really is a pretty nice, scalable and extensible design which would be pretty difficult to duplicate using in-line coding. Personally, I don't use the in-line coding approach in my applications - priamrily because I like to maintain the separation inherent in using code-behind (the View-Helper approach).
# March 9, 2004 1:55 PM

Shannon J Hager said:

I have grown accustomed to the code-behind model and don't like the looks of the way it seems Whidbey may force me to work. Currently, all 'real' code goes into my code-behind cs files and all I deploy from the test to production servers are the aspx, asax, and config files. Any minor changes in the layout can be done in the aspx without recompile, but that isn't an issue for me because all changes are first done on the test server and the compilation on the local network isn't time-consuming at all. I deploy from test to production servers using Steve Sharrock's ASP.NET FTP Deployment tool (http://www.dotnetftp.com ), which automatically selected any changed files and skips cs, resx, and other files not needed on the production server.

I know that Whidbey is going to have built-in functionality to replace Sharrock's tool, but will I now have to deploy *all* files to the production server?
# March 9, 2004 2:38 PM

Alex said:

Pretty obvious, but with separate files you can have a designer work on the HTML, layout etc. without having to worry about him/her making a mess of your vb or cs code.
# March 9, 2004 2:52 PM

Scott Galloway said:

Shannon, Whidbey doesn't force you to work in either way - code beside does rule (you don't have to declare controls in the 'code ' file etc...) - you can continue to work as-is you can even keep using code-behind if you really want to (I personally can't wait for code-beside to arrive). In short, Whidbey gives you more options - but it never forces you into a way of working...
# March 9, 2004 3:57 PM

Jeff said:

I still think you guys aren't seeing the flip side. Forum applications, I'd venture to say 95% of the time, are on sites run by someone catering to a niche audience. They don't have "designers" and "programmers," there's one guy/girl. They aren't building enterprise-class n-tier applications.

The IBuySpy and starter kits have code all over the place. It kind of sends a mixed message about what you're "supposed to do." Certainly I just assume keep everything as is, but only because it makes sense to me. I like using code-behind as well. I suppose I can offer different versions in different configurations, since it's just grunt work to move the code around.
# March 9, 2004 4:12 PM

Scott Galloway said:

I don't really agree with the approach you're espousing - it's very much the approach which used to be taken with ASP - so lots of code in-line. The Web Matrix approach is a lot more like the one you mention so mixed code / presentation and I aggree is ideal for the 'hobbyist' - but I really do not think it's necessarily the 'best' approach in terms of flexibility and / or security for anything like commercial level applications (which after all the market to which Microsoft sell their Servers - and therefore ASP.NET). The code-beside model which Whidbey allows in my opinion really does give the best of both worlds - it really 'feels' like you're working on a single file - but it does require compilation (which catches many errors).
# March 9, 2004 4:36 PM

Jerry Pisk said:

Asp.Net does not even come close to separating logic from presentation. The fact that you can have two files, one with code and one with HTML does not make it an MVC platform, those two files (logic and presentation) are stil tied together. And don't even get me started on post backs (to the same page that generated the input view).
# March 9, 2004 4:44 PM

Jeff said:

I agree with Jerry. Suggesting that code-behind really seperates anything I think is being liberal with your interpretation.

Having a code block at the top of your page is NOT like ASP.old, not by a long shot. It's not inline code, it's a block at the top. I think there's a huge difference.

Remember... I agree that "the right way" is with traditional code-behind, but you can't really identify what's right and wrong without really exploring the good AND bad with the opposing view.
# March 9, 2004 7:11 PM

clutch said:

I like using the code-behind methodology. It's easier to read, and easier for me to maintain. The idea of mixing all of my HTML code with my methods is not very appealing. This scrolling through the code and reviewing it a hassle, unlike now where I know that all of my presentation stuff is on one page, while my methods are on another. While the term "separation" might be considered liberal, I think of it as somewhat accurate. It is separating the HTML/presentation code into another file, and away from most of the "hard code" stuff that makes it go. I hated the days of scrolling around in Vis Interdev to get things done, and while the current idea isn't quite the same (mixing bindings with the HTML constantly, rather that simply performing this at the top of the page with the rest of the handling code), it still feels the same.
# March 10, 2004 1:22 AM

TrackBack said:

You've been Taken Out! Thanks for the good post.
# March 10, 2004 1:42 AM

Shannon J Hager said:

I wouldn't call it "seperation" in the same sense that a DAL and a BL Layer are seperated, but the code for the aspx page *is* seperated more when using the code-behind model than using inline. I honestly don't know how Dreamweaver handles inline code but my graphic designers have no problem at all diving into aspx pages right now using the codebehind model and the fact that the "real" code is in the .cs files makes me a lot more confident because those guys know not to touch anything other than aspx files.
# March 10, 2004 4:09 PM

OT-hater said:

Unfortunately, it's all too common in the technology industry that we're expected to work massive overtime. Whoever came up with that idea needs their ass whooped. Occasionally it's ok, but if you consistently have to work 50 hour weeks to get your job done, then there is something wrong with the way your business is being run.
# March 11, 2004 10:09 AM

Oleg Tkachenko said:

Sounds like you're not a geeky kind of person ;)
# March 11, 2004 10:22 AM

LeeB said:

I couldn't agree more!

The developer improvements in ASP.NET Whidbey are real timesavers. I don't want to write my own MasterPages or membership classes any more. Not when I know MS have done this! I want to use the master pages designer and actually see what my page looks like.

I don't care about Yukon, I'm happy to use SQL2K.

Many, many people seem to be in general agreement with the above. Come on Microsoft have a read of http://weblogs.asp.net and listen to some customer feedback!
# March 11, 2004 10:22 AM

denny said:

Hey Bill and Steve read the news.... get with us developers in the trenches.
# March 11, 2004 10:31 AM

Jerry Pisk said:

All I can say - we live in a fairly free world, if you don't like to work too hard just move to France, where you're only allowed to work 35 hours a week. It must be great to live there ;) And you can work at all those great French software houses...
# March 11, 2004 12:27 PM

Frans Bouma said:

Exactly.

As a related question: Am I the only one who finds it weird that all the MS bloggers here haven't mentioned a single word on this issue? They all babble along as if nothing happened...
# March 11, 2004 4:30 PM

Josh said:

Frans - it is obviously (at least from Rizzo's remarks) a marketing decision. What do you expect to hear from the Microsoft bloggers? That is the part of the company that they have no control over, and are probably at odds with themselves.

And Jeff - you're explanation makes it seem like you wish Microsoft hadn't shown what they are working on, because it only frustrates you. My suggestion is that maybe you shouldn't go out seeking the latest info, and just stick to RTM products. That's my strategy with movies - I hate it when friends try to show me "sneak peaks" of a cool movie coming out in a year. I may be anxious about a movie, and I know there is plenty of details available on the internet somewhere, but I choose not to read it. I'll see the movie when it is released.
Are you saying you are working worse, slower, and making less money now that you know what MS has in mind for its future products? If so, stop paying attention. I know plenty of .NET developers that have no idea what is in Whidbey, because they don't go seeking out that information.
# March 11, 2004 5:03 PM

Jeff said:

Whatever... don't make it my problem. Visual Studio has been broken since the day it was released in terms of Web development. I have an annoying client right now that read about standards compliance and validators and he gets his panties in a bunch because <HR> isn't correct markup, but <hr /> is.

So yeah, I should stop paying attention. That would be a fabulous career move on my part. Good thinking.
# March 11, 2004 7:12 PM

Shannon J Hager said:

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Whidbey can solve your problems today. It can't. Not next week, either. Maybe when it hits Beta 1, but that is NOT today.
# March 11, 2004 8:27 PM

Jeff said:

According to you? It sure seems to work for me.

What's with everyone telling me what I need?
# March 11, 2004 11:13 PM

Shannon J Hager said:

According to Microsoft, Whidbey is not yet beta quality. According to the presenters at DevDays today, Whidbey is not yet beta quality. I saw 3 versions of Whidbey demonstrated today, all 3 with different feature sets, none with the full set. None working well enough to be considered beta quality. None of them with fully working features (i.e., one build had Whitehorse but it was not fully functional, the presenter explained, mentioned, and pointed out a few features that are almost there or are there but just don't work yet).

If Whidbey works for you, either you have a newer version than any I've seen or heard of, or you're not working it very hard.
# March 11, 2004 11:42 PM

Frans Bouma said:

Shannon: Within a few weeks the alpha tester group gets new bits of whidbey, we'll see what's true / false of what's working and what's not.

It's definitely not feature complete as new features are still debated in the alpha tester forums, but it gets close. Being not-feature complete means that it is not beta yet. Beta 'quality' means nothing btw. Beta means: feature complete, let the testing begin.

Whitehorse is an add-on to vs.net, not a main part. Whitehorse was barely runnable in the first alpha we saw. But it's March, not October.

No matter what, the pushback of the release date creates a big problem. ASP.NET development IS broken in vs.net 2003, the HTML editor is horrible. It might sound weird, but ASP.NET is the major .NET feature which makes people use .NET in the first place: a lot of websites currently using ASP and for example Oracle are ported to ASP.NET.

If developers have to wait for more than a year before a decent ASP.NET editor is released, what to do? And don't expect a 3rd party editor which solves the problems: any 3rd party editor developer knows that ASP.NET 2.0 totally changes the picture.

As an O/R mapper vendor I should be glad Objectspaces is pushed back for more than a year. In a wicked way I am, but just a little, and for the most part I'm not all that happy with this delay. .NET 2.0 solves a lot of problems and can bring a lot of good things I really need but now I have to wait for a long period of time before I can start updating the code with f.e. generics, true IXmlSerializable support, design time databinding of my objects etc.
# March 12, 2004 4:04 AM

Jeff said:

Of course, Shannon... I must be imagining things. Thanks for setting me straight.
# March 12, 2004 8:24 AM

Josh said:

Jeff - I wasn't trying to make an attack, I don't think my tone came across correctly. I was honestly offering that (ignoring pre-release material) as a valid solution which really does work for a lot of people. I was responding to your specific statement:
"but it's too late, they put them out there for us to see, and now we want it"
That, to me, sounds like you are sorry that you know what they are working on.
# March 12, 2004 10:59 AM

Alex Hoffman said:

I, like most normal people, value things other than just work. To do otherwise, is clearly disfunctional and represents a skewed value system.
# March 14, 2004 5:20 PM

Wallym said:

BTW, I use the VS.NET designer alot. I agree that it has bugs. I have lost code, just like everyone else. I have also lost code with other development tools. I save often and I do my best to use source-safe as much as possible. Yeah, I know it is a pain and problems like this need to be fixed.

Regarding the stability of Whidbey, I am impressed that the PDC bits are as stable as they are. I remember the PDC bits from Jul 2000. VS.NET keeled over every couple of minutes on me, if it didn't fail almost immediately on load. However, I have found several limitations in the PDC 2003 bits. While I am impressed at their stability within an alpha state, I would hold on anything else until further releases are made available. I do like some of the changes that I have read are coming.

And I do wish that MS would release a SP for .NET 1.1.

I love you last statement about fingers and toes.........

Wally
# March 15, 2004 10:40 AM

Christian Romney said:

Furthermore, people lose site of the fact that it's not just about the IDE. Server controls don't produce valid xhtml no matter what editor you use. Even notepad won't make <asp:textBox /> render an <input /> with a closing tag.
# March 15, 2004 11:34 AM

TrackBack said:

You have been Taken Out! Thanks for the post.
# March 15, 2004 11:29 PM

TrackBack said:

You have been Taken Out! Comments about your post on this link. Thanks!
# March 17, 2004 11:03 PM

Scott Willsey said:

Have to disagree with Scott Galloway's view that "the 'official' ASP.NET forums are just fine"... they are full of bugs, unfinished features, and are NOT plug and play, which means you have to be somewhat technical to get them working, generally.

At least, this was my experience the last time I looked at them.

As programmers, we tend to overlook problems that we can easily identify and fix... not so with end users. As Jeff says, most people running forums aren't programmers and don't want to be, they just want a community set up for whatever it is they are really interested in, and generally programming it ain't.
# March 18, 2004 4:02 AM

Jason Haley said:

Very nicely put.
# March 19, 2004 8:35 AM

James Crowley said:

I'm not entirely sure whether I'd agree with all of that. Sure - advanced developers certainly do blog more (though I blog, and wouldn't class myself as an "advanced developer"), write more articles, and as a result maybe have less time to devote to answering questions in a forum. But surely blogs are an equally valuable resource that perhaps need to be promoted more as such? Certainly articles and tutorials are.

When running Developer Fusion (http://www.developerfusion.com/), I used to spend a long time answering questions posed by our visitors - but now we have a strong community, and although I do "pop in" at least a couple of times a week, I don't devote as much time as I used to - because I know others are also spending time answering questions. I certainly don't feel that by spending less time answering direct questions, I'm contributing less - I'm just contributing in different ways.

Having said all that - I do see your point to some extent. We certainly don't want to reach a point where "advanced developers" won't "lower themselves" to answering questions in a forum - nor do we want to prevent less experienced programmers from having a blog or writing articles. But fortunately, I don't think we are at this point.

There are always exceptions to the rule, but in general, I think it's incredible how many people are willing to devote enormous amounts of time to helping out - in whatever way they can.
# March 19, 2004 11:01 AM

Memi Lavi said:

I would define a Delegate as a pointer to a function. It defines the signature of the function, but it's not the function itself.

One scenario in which I used delegate was this:
I had a base page which had a method that iterated hierarchicaly through all the controls on the page (would you believe that there is nothing like that built in the ASP.NET page model?) Problem was, I needed to tell the method what to do with all the controls it finds. For example, sometimes I wanted to put all the control values in a Name-Value collection. Sometimes I wanted to disable all these controls. And there sure will be other uses for this method.
What I did was to define a delegate that accept as an argument a WebControl, and add a parameter of this delegate type to the iterating method. Each time I needed this method, I created a new method with the same signature as the delegate, and passed its address to the iterating method. The iterating method then called the delegate with the appropriate parameter whenever it encountered a control on the page, and the new method did whatever was needed with this control.

Hope it helps.
# March 22, 2004 2:42 PM

Jason Mauss said:

Jeff - I wrote this article for my site a long time ago: http://www.vsdotnetguru.com/Articles.asp?aid=9

The analogy seemed to be well received. Feel free to steal it if you want.
# March 22, 2004 3:02 PM

Paul Wilson said:

Generics in VB:
http://weblogs.asp.net/pwilson/archive/2003/10/27/33936.aspx
# March 22, 2004 3:19 PM

Julie Lerman said:

When I was first moving from VB6 to .net, delegates was something that I just could not get a handle on (no pun intended). I looked everywhere for an explanation that worked for me and it finally clicked when reading Matthew MacDonald's "The Book of VB.NET" (no starch press). I have sinced passed the book on to someone in my user group so I can't give you the exact reference. But whatever it was that he wrote was just the right analogy for me.
# March 22, 2004 5:56 PM

AndrewSeven said:

I kind of like the dictionary.com entry ;)
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=delegate

Events are a little more concrete, they might be a good way to sneak up on the delegates.
# March 22, 2004 7:28 PM

Johnny Hall said:

Try this. I always point my new .NET guys here first...

http://www.sellsbrothers.com/writing/default.aspx?content=delegates.htm

# March 23, 2004 11:19 AM

TrackBack said:

# March 23, 2004 3:21 PM

denny said:

yep that viewstate is *HUGE* !

but there are folks using the message areas.... Heck I have about 1,090 ish posts up there ....

but it would be nice to see some updates to it and so forth...
# March 24, 2004 3:27 PM

Frans Bouma said:

"One question that no one could answer was, why is GDN its own little kingdom, separate from the teams running www.asp.net and WindowsForms.net? That never made sense to me."
An ex-MSN manager once told me: there is absolutely no vision nor toolset that is shared among all the teams running all those websites. Every team has its own CMS, running the site using its own graphics, templates and rules.

So it really doesn't surprise me that there are so many different sites ran by MS for .NET which are completely different and use all a complete different system to run the site etc. ... in short: are not working together.
# March 24, 2004 3:28 PM

Chad Humphries said:

I agree it came off as being poorly executed. Although I have some qualms with the look and feel of sourceforge it's very stable and a much better example of how to pull this type of system off. The only thing I dislike about sourceforge is the forums/messageboards are practically useless.
# March 24, 2004 3:49 PM

M. Keith Warren said:

Ding Ding Ding - We have a winner :)
# March 25, 2004 3:41 PM

CC said:

A fair and open fight between Linux and Microsoft sure would be nice to see, but I doubt it'll ever happen given Microsoft's relunctance to leave anything to chance. You never know, they might not win ;)
# March 25, 2004 4:13 PM

Darrell said:

CC - define fair and open. The definition of business strategy is putting yourself into a position where the competition is tilted in your favor. You cannot use illegal means to do it, though. What the EU seems to be doing is trying to make business strategy irrelevant. That will only hurt consumers in the end.

There's a reason that capitalism works, kind of like there's a reason that the theory of relativity works. They're both grounded on how things (in business or in nature) actually work. The EU might try to fight it, but eventually capitalism will prevail. Just look at Soviet Russia's downfall for the biggest example.
# March 25, 2004 4:59 PM

Thomas Williams said:

G'day Jeff- thanks for the view you've put forward. I like your point about Apple and what they bundle. Why aren't people complaining there?

There are other viewpoints/reactions/rants around, I reckon yours is pretty balanced and I personally agree with what you're saying (Frans does makes a good point about integrating vs "shipping with"/can be removed by OEM).

Thanks for clearly articulating it like this!
# March 25, 2004 8:44 PM

Frans Bouma said:

"I say let market forces determine the outcome, not government. If it weren't for the many shortcomings of Windows, Linux wouldn't be gaining in popularity, and Apple wouldn't see people buying into the switch campaign."
This is nice in theory, but in practise it will not work if a monopoly power is in place. You can't deny that MS has 90+% of the desktops and is the no.1. choice when you buy an OS with a computer (or better: when you buy a computer, almost all people expect windows with it).

Like 100% government regulation doesn't work (communism), 100% market regulation without any law doesn't work either (USA '10-'40). The EU