Archives
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Guidelines, a hidden feature for the Visual Studio editor
Sara Ford tells us how to use a hidden feature of the Visual Studio editor: visual guidelines.
These guidelines are visible column indicators for the VS editor.
I tried it with Visual Studio 2003 and it works fine. Here is the value I use: RGB(255,200,200) 80
This helps you to keep your code lines within the 80-caracter wide limit.
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Common ASP.NET 2.0 conversion issues and solutions
In a timely manner (see the ongoing discussions here or here), Microsoft has released a list of conversion issues when upgrading from ASP.NET 1.1 to ASP.NET 2.0.
If you are used to 1.1 and plan to move to 2.0, you'd better read this document to learn about the breaking changes and how to fix them!
Even if a conversion wizard will be delivered with the final release of Visual Studio 2005 to better avoid some of the current known issues by automatically implementing the necessary changes, you still have to know about the changes because a conversion/migration is not a final step: you'll have to actually code with ASP.NET 2.0 and so will face the same issues.
One more occasion to warn you: moving to ASP.NET 2.0 will not be a smooth process. -
Microsoft needs to leave the cargo ship and jump aboard a speedboat
Paschal complains that using Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 in real world is not that easy.
I think a lot of teeth grinding is to be expected next year in enterprises when managers wondering why there is a sudden productivity drop will have to hear that people who have been learning .NET for years now need to relearn how to work with .NET and Visual Studio!
Microsoft is moving slowly lately, in the sense that they prefer big bad updates such as the "VS 2005 / .NET 2 / SQL Server 2005 / Biztalk 2006" pack instead of regular and agile improvements. Where are .NET 1.2, .NET 1.5 or Visual Studio 2004? C# 2.0 has been ready for years and we still cannot use it for production! This is just an example.
I'm not even talking aboutLonghornWindows Vista (you know, the one that looks so small in a telescope).
Apparently Microsoft is aware of the problem and I think we will see some changes next year with the Atlas project or Cω and the .NET Language Integrated Query Framework, which will be delivered as interim releases or upgrade packs... Well, at least I hope so!
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Free XSLT 2.0 and XQuery engine
Start working with XSLT 2.0 and XQuery today!
Still waiting for Microsoft to include XQuery & XSLT 2.0 support? Altova makes the same engines that drive its XMLSpy, MapForce, and StyleVision XML development tools available for use in custom applications – free of charge! Sold!
AltovaXML is an entirely free download that includes the Altova:
- XML validating parser
- XSLT 1.0 engine
- XSLT 2.0 engine (schema-aware)
- XQuery 1.0 engine
- Well-formedness checking
- Validation based on DTD or XML Schema
- XML transformations via XSLT 1.0
- Schema-aware XML transformations via XSLT 2.0
- XML queries and transformations via XQuery
- Command line operations
- COM interface
- Java interface
- .NET interface
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Did I already tell you that I hate the new web project model?
Let me say it one more time: I hate the new (and improved...) web project model in Visual Studio 2005.
The more I work with it the more I hate it. Microsoft, please reinstate the previous model for the final release!
Here are new complaints for the day.
Because there are no more project files like a .csproj or a .vbproj, you cannot open a web project by double-clicking on the project file. It is also not possible to use drag&drop to open a web project. You have to start Visual Studio first and navigate to the folder you had before your eyes in the Windows Explorer.
It also not possible to know whether a folder is a web project or not by looking at it, because nothing differentiates it from any other folder.
Please let Microsoft know that we'd like the previous model back! -
Tools for .NET 2.0
I've just added a new attribute for the tools in the SharpToolbox to indicate whether they support .NET 2 or Visual Studio 2005.
If you know of a tool that supports .NET 2 and that is not marked as such, please let me know.
No doubt this attribute will be used a lot very soon!
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[OT] Is hate commonplace in the USA???
The host city for the 2012 Olympics was picked. New York was out early and that was a big relief to me, personally. I think New York needs a rest from big events. All that security wears on you.
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OlympicBoard, site about the Olympic Games
I would like to announce a new site about the Olympic Games: OlympicBoard.
This site still needs some work, and we have a lot of improvements we would like to implement in a close future, but it currently already proposes news about the Olympic Games in English, French and Chinese, for 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012.
If you are interested in being part of this project and post about the Olympic Games in your own language, just drop us a note. We would be very happy to extend the support for various languages!
Things are heating up a bit due the vote for the selection of the host city for the 2012 Olympic Games that will happen tomorrow in Singapore. I know a lot of people are eagerly waiting for the decision, especially here in Paris...
But read all the latest news about the Olympic Games now!