October 2003 - Posts
I have posted new and updated articles (See "Articles" category on right-side of page) in an attempt to organize and consolidate the links to sites, and articles to which I frequently refer people (and myself):
I hope you find them useful!
Note: the coincidental use of the word "Essential" does not imply any relationship with the various books written by current and ex-Developmentor employees.
This isnt all-inclusive, but a good start. There are so many articles from MS right now, its going to take a while to catalog.
Update: I reorganized these links as an Article to make it more maintainable and permenant.
I just noticed that the Microsoft Developer Tools Roadmap was updated with much of the information presented earlier this year. However, there is much more text describing each of the projects.
After reading this, I had one confusion:
Is the previously mentioned VisualStudio.NET "Orcas" the same as WinFX mentioned at PDC?
This pretty much sums-up the majority of the reason why I have the PDC Blues this week…
"Whidbey" Content at the PDC
And if that wasn't enough, here are some more blog-posts that some of my PDC-attending friends emailed me recently:
Data binding in ASP.NET Whidbey
WINFX
Indigo in a nutshell
MSBuild
Key Note Overview
For those of us MSDN Subscribers missing out on PDC 2003, you can contact MSDN customer support and order a FREE copy (DVD only) of the same bits given-out at PDC. The following was posted on MSDN Subscriber Downloads:
Special Access to Longhorn and Whidbey PDC Release Code
Active MSDN Operating Systems, Professional, Enterprise, and Universal subscribers may request a set of software distributed at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2003 (PDC), including the preview versions of the "Longhorn" operating system and SDK, and Visual Studio "Whidbey".
Eligible MSDN Subscribers can request the previews by calling MSDN Customer Service. Certified Partners and Breadth ISV / Empower partners should contact their respective Service Centers for further assistance. Note that the preview package contains DVD media, and a DVD drive is required. Please allow 3-4 weeks for fulfillment.
Hey, 3-4 weeks is better than nothing... On the other hand, I'm sure someone will burn me a copy between now and then! :)
Update: Here is the MSDN Customer Service Center Phone Number: (800)759-5474
I'm an admitted audio-quality biggot, so when a coworker introduced me to the audio player utility
FooBar, I was skeptical of his claims of it being a better mousetrap. But, now after a little time switching back and forth, listening to the same music on Media Player 9, and FooBar, I have to admit its lack of a descent UI is definitely compensated by its incredible audio-processing.
Check it out...you may lose your handy blog-tool hooks, and may miss the nicer UI, but if your an audio-freak, you will quickly forget about those minor annoyances.
I was recently reminded of Eric Gunnerson's 2001 MSDN article "Writing Exceptional Code". This pretty much sums-up my feelings:
"While it is theoretically possible to write code using error codes where all errors are correctly handled, it's not something that's ever observed in the wild"
Above all other arguments, this is the primary reason I advocate Exceptions over Error Codes. This fits in nicely with recently adopted philosophy of
the Pit of Success.
Based upon Joel's recent post on the evils of Exception handling, I guess I have been foolish to worry so much about defining best practices in Exception Handling...
Of course, if Joel is correct, then it's equally an indictment of Microsoft, the .NET Framework, C#, Java, C++, and most other modern programming environments. Not to mention the many fellow programmers who have generally posted their disagreement to Joel's controversial position! :)
I am still weighing my thoughts on this topic, but can definitely say that I believe in Exception Handling. However, having said that, I also agree with the implication that Exceptions have largely been abused by many C++, Java, and C# programmers. There ARE many cases where a return-value makes more sense, just as there are many cases where Exceptions make sense. It is all about choosing the right tool for the job.
If you are a carpenter, who says “I don't like screwdrivers“ and use a hammer instead, your abuse of the tool will often end up making a mess of your projects. As a programmer, I would expect the same....so my philosophy is to always choose the right tool for the job, and never take away a tool that you just might need one day!
I'm a newbie to many of the established OO patterns, but am trying to learn. Many months ago, I joined the GDN Workspace for the MS User Interface Application Block. This application block employs Model-View-Controller(MVC) style pattern that intrigued me. Overall, I understood the premise, but frankly ,so far, it seemed too complicated to understand.
Lastnight, I read a simple article “Build Well-Factored UIs“by Josh Lane while perusing the examples, and everything finally clicked!
Now, I just need to put together some applications and play with it a bit to cement my understanding. Eventually I want to try this with a more ambitious WinForm project I have been working on. Does anyone know of a good MVC example using MDI? (preferably using the UIProcess Application Block)
I saw this posted on someone's blog recently(sorry, cant remember whose), and sent it to my coworkers:
The Pit of Success: in stark contrast to a summit, a peak, or a journey across a desert to find victory through many trials and surprises, we want our customers to simply fall into winning practices by using our platform and frameworks. To the extent that we make it easy to get into trouble we fail.
-Rico Mariani, MS Research MindSwap Oct 2003.
By replacing the words "customers" with "Users" and "platform and frameworks" with "tools and interfaces", I think it makes a great philosophy for us Enterprise developers too.
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