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October 2003 - Posts

Top 30 Features of SQL Server "Yukon"

If you are curious to know what are the benefits in Yukon read this page

 

Posted: Oct 31 2003, 10:59 AM by help.net | with 1 comment(s)
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Gator change its skin

News.com is reporting that infamous spyware distributor, Gator, is changing its name to Claria in an attempt to better reflect its business. Well see if a Gator really can change its spots.

Be ready for some Anty-spyware updates ;-)

Posted: Oct 30 2003, 09:41 PM by help.net | with 1 comment(s)
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New Keyword in VB 2

Just discovered that you have now Continue which allow you to close the current loop and jump into the next step.
The keyword can be used with For, Do, and While loops. In nested loops of different types, the desired loop could be specified by a suffix-for example, Continue For.

 

Posted: Oct 30 2003, 09:39 PM by help.net | with 1 comment(s)
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Lipsum generator

Tool to use if you need to generate online some Lorem Ipsum text for your prototypes, very cool ;-)

 

Partial Classes in VB.Net 2.0

Partial classes exists also in VB2 like C#2.

But the implementation seems to be different.

You define your main class as usual . Only the additional classes have to be marked with the keyword Expands, and they don't need any modifiers. The separation in several files is supported for classes and structures, too.

' Myclass.vb
Public Class Myclass

   Public Sub SomeMethod()
   End Sub

End Class

' Myotherclass.vb
Expands Class Myclass

   Public Sub AnotherMethod()
   End Sub

End Class

Posted: Oct 30 2003, 09:26 PM by help.net
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Using XML Documentation in VB .NET 2.0

Until now, direct source code documentation was reserved for C# developers.

From now on, code comment functionality is supported directly in VB.Net 2.0.

That's really cool !

The comments have to start with the familiar comment character (') followed by an @ symbol to make sure that the compiler will recognize them.

Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic

'@ <summary>That's my little foo class</summary>
Public Class Foo

   '@ <summary>These methods return the text passed as parameter</summary>
   '@ <param name="Text">Text to be returned</param>
   '@ <returns>Returns the string passed as
      <paramref name="Text"/> parameter</returns>
   Public Function ReturnMyText(ByVal Text As String) As String
      Return Text
   End Function

End Class

Posted: Oct 30 2003, 09:18 PM by help.net | with 4 comment(s)
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Gear Up for Generics

Excellent article if you want to know more on Generics .

 

Posted: Oct 30 2003, 09:06 PM by help.net | with 1 comment(s)
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Product roundup


Here's a sampling of products from PDC targeting the Windows Server platform.

 

Posted: Oct 30 2003, 09:03 PM by help.net
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No more projects files in Whidbey but...

Something different from previous approaches is that there's no special project file generated at the time of project creation in Whidbey. From now on, every file within the selected directories belongs to the project automatically. This approach simplifies adding new files, including references to the bin directory, and moving projects.

But what's happens for a web solution built in a multiproject configuration like we can do in VS.Net 2003 ?

It's surely obvious but I don't find any details anywhere. Somebody has the answer?

 

Posted: Oct 30 2003, 09:01 PM by help.net | with 3 comment(s)
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Avalon isn't about Web/GUI convergence

Jon Udell, as a sort of echo to my questions on Avalon/XAML give his analysis on the subject:

Edwin Khodabakchian echoes what seems to be a common -- but I think incorrect -- perception that XAML, the XUL-like layout language revealed this week to be a building block of Longhorn's Avalon presentation subsystem, heralds some kind of Web/GUI convergence:

We had prototypes and concepts at Netscape that were very close to what Microsoft is starting to promote with Avalon. One the positive side, it is great to see HTML, XML, CSS and SVG become the foundation of UI development within windows. [Organic BPEL]

My understanding, based on a demo I saw last week, is that although XAML is indeed an XML dialect, it has nothing to do with HTML, CSS, or SVG. It's true that the Avalon presentation engine is Web-like, or to be more precise ASP.NET-like in its separation of layout markup and "code-behind." But it builds no bridges to pre-Avalon clients. The foundation of Avalon's vector-based UI, for example, is Direct3D. I asked whether SVG -- an obviously relevant Web standard -- would be a preferred (or at least a supported) interface to Direct3D, and was told that it would not.

Here, from the newly-hatched Longhorn Developer Center, is another statement which implies a convergence that I don't see in the cards:

Avalon and XAML represent a departure from Windows-based application programming of the past. In many ways, designing your application's UI will be easier than it used to be and deploying it will be a snap. With a lightweight XAML markup for UI definition, Longhorn-based applications are the obvious next step in the convergence of the Web and desktop programming models, combining the best of both approaches. [Longhorn Developer Center: Code Name Avalon: Create Real Apps Using New Code and Markup Model]

To my way of thinking, you don't have "the best of both approaches" unless you have a ubiquitous client. As Jeremy Allaire pointed out the other day, Flash is making a serious effort along these lines, and has -- in Laszlo and the forthcoming Royale -- its own XML-based layout techniques. I've also mentioned Mozilla's cross-platform technique, XUL. Now Microsoft is pitching a Windows-only UI renderer that targets 2006-era desktops and notebooks, while allowing MSIE to stagnate. I can see how and why they arrived at this strategy, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of Web/GUI convergence I'm looking for.

 

Posted: Oct 30 2003, 05:06 PM by help.net | with 1 comment(s)
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