Archives
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Atlanta Code Camp 2006 Registration is Open
Registration for the 2006 Atlanta Code Camp (to be held on May 13) is now open. We're in a larger facility this year, but its still going to "sell out" (it is free though), so don't wait.
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Review: Programming SQL Server 2005 by Bill Hamilton
Programming SQL Server 2005, by Bill Hamilton, is an excellent book to help developers experienced with MS SQL 2000 to get up to speed on what's new in 2005. First, it is focused squarely towards developers, which is a great thing for developers -- no more having to wade through all of the DBA-oriented features. Next, it is only about the new features, which again is a good thing for most of us -- no need to skip the usual chapters on the basics of MS SQL and T-SQL. Finally, it is short and concise, with good practicle examples, which is good again -- no massive repeat of the documentation or silly hello world examples. There is good coverage of the new T-SQL syntax, of the CLR integration, of all things XML, of SMO which replaces DMO, and of SSIS which replaces DTS. There are also intros to all other features, like Web Services, WMI, Reporting, Server Agent, Service Broker, Notification, Replication, Analysis, and SQL Mobile. This content level feels about right for a concise book on what's new -- you may need more on some features, but there are entire books on some of these. Note that the book claims to be for all levels of developers, but its clearly only appropriate for those with SQL 2000 experience since its just what's new. Finally, as with every other book I've seen, there is no attempt to give you any advice on what you should avoid and why -- something that I would like to see. For instance, everyone likes to talk about CLR integration, but most will misuse this, and most DBAs will never allow you to use SQL Web Services. But in general, if you are an experienced MS SQL 2000 developer that wants to quickly get up to speed on SQL 2005, then this will be an excellent book for you.
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Using Reflection (and O/R Mappers) with Nested Classes
I can't say that I've ever used a nested class myself, but I recently had a problem posted to my forums that involved a nested class and my ORMapper. I tested it myself and concluded that it was a bug due to my never having worrying about it before. Well it wasn't easy to find the solution, but I'm happy to report that there was no bug at all -- you just have to know the trick that .NET expects when using nested classes with reflection. It turns out that you should use a plus sign (+) instead of a dot (.) when referring to the nested class in a type name that you are going to reflect on -- so something like this: "Name.Space.Main+Nested". Its even in the MSDN docs here, although its not in other parts of the MSDN docs that I was originally looking for it at, like here. Anyhow, I assume this information will be useful to anyone using reflection with nested classes, and it probably applies to other O/R Mappers also, so it seemed worthy of posting on this blog.
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Anyone heard of Login problems for some IE users?
I'm using the new ASP.NET v2.0 Login control and it works great for me and most other users in both IE and FireFox, but there seems to be a small number of users that cannot get it to work in IE on at least some computers. I'll be the first to admit that maybe its not the Login control at all, since maybe its some other esoteric code of my own or some setting I've chosen, and in fact I have created a very bare-bones test with the Login control that seems to prove it is not the issue for these users. So my question, since I haven't figured it out yet, nor do I see anything like this in the forums or the MSDN Feedback Center (Ladybug), is if anyone else has encountered anything like this, and if so then how were you able to resolve it? Again it works great for me in IE, so I can't duplicate the problem, and it works great for most other IE users, but there are a few IE users that are unable to login (or at least their credentials are lost immediately) and they don't report anything odd in their browser settings.