Plip's Weblog

How do we (the community) encourage people to use so-called best practices?

I want to ask this question as I feel the new release of Visual Studio and indeed the .NET Framework will grosely enlarge the gulf within the development community between those who currently use best practices, and those who do not.

To explain what I mean by this, I'm going to refferr to an article by Wally McClure on the DataSource control that's shipped in VS.NET 2005.

If you look at the article, you'll see, right there on the page, Inline SQL, what's worse than that, is that's EXACTLY what the control is designed to help people do.

I've spent the last few years learning: - 

• INLINE SQL IS BAD
• DECOUPLE YOUR UI FROM YOUR DATA ACCESS

There's no Data Access Layer, there's no Business Facade and there's nothing to encourage new users to the platform to even look in to these areas.

I think that as time goes by, and the new platform is adopted, we'll see the divide between those that KNOW how to do it the right way will, and those that don't, won't, worse, the newbies will have no need to learn as long as controls like the SqlDataSource control exist.

What do you think?

How do you like your Windows?

Here's how I have mine, I like to have my Start Bar on the Left, with the Desktop Sidebar on the Right, I run at 1600x1200 on this machine too, and I like the current theme :-)

What does yours look like? (traceback to this post).

AES - Advanced Encryption Standard - Rijndael - C# Samples

If you've never used encryption, then this may all be like trying to read from clay tablets in some forgotten language.

I found some fantstic free C# samples when looking for an answer for someone on the ASP.NET Newsgroup, you can view them here: -

http://www.obviex.com/samples/EncryptionWithSalt.aspx

http://www.obviex.com/samples/Encryption.aspx

Here's some info on AES: -

http://csrc.nist.gov/CryptoToolkit/aes/index1.html

Acclaim Entertainment (Computer Games) in Trouble

Looks like the firm I used to work for is about to go *pop* :(

Acclaim Entertainment May Face Bankruptcy

Here's what their share price is doing right now: -

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=aklm

I hope they come out of it okay, I still have alot of friends working there, and my best friend starts working for them in a couple of weeks!

Using .NET 2.0? You CAN'T deploy it ... not till Beta 2 !

Remember, all these great .NET Features you're all using, and lets face it, they're all FANTASTIC features, but remember - you cannot deploy any applications or publish any web sites using .NET 2.0 - not until Beta 2, when there will be a Go Live license similar to the one that was deployed with .NET 1.0 Beta 2.

It's really easy to spot an ASP.NET 2.0 site, so if you're thinking about cheating the license, be careful ;-)