Tobler.SoftwareArchitecture()
John Tobler's somewhat ordered collection of thoughts and resources mostly related to software architecture and software engineering.
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[General] CSharpener's Weblog Name Change
I'm not for willy-nilly changing the names of things that have been around for awhile but it's time for me to label this technical weblog with my name. Please adjust your Blogrolls, etc., accordingly. The new title is:
"John Tobler's Techno-Log"
I am apparently a repeat victim of "alias theft."
Even though I am firmly convinced that I was the first to use "CSharpener" for anything, and a Google Search for 'CSharpener' currently lists my weblog at the very top, it appears that some company that doesn't know how to use Google, or any other search engine, for that matter, has decided to co-opt this alias that I have been using since the very early days of C# and .NET. I should sue them, I suppose. =)) The questionable company in question produces C-Sharpener for VB, a VisualStudio add-in that converts VB.NET to C#. The product may be just fine but I do resent them stealing my little personal identifier.
My old alias, "GrepNinja," which was given to me by a very good friend *many* years ago, was also pilfered. My previous technical weblog, GrepNinjaLog, has been on the NET for years and a Google Search for 'grepninja' still pulls me up first. In spite of this, someone who shall remain nameless apparently had no moral or ethical problems whatsoever with appropriating my well-established alter-identity as his own when he put Grepninja.com out there for public consumption.
Personally, I would never even consider consciously doing this to someone else.
Perhaps this is a sign to me that the technogeek aliases that were once popular are no longer useful.
So, from now on this weblog will simply bear my name.
Incidentally, although I am a musician (multi-instrumentalist, composer, and songwriter), I am *not* the rock music journalist and author who wrote these books.
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[.NET General] Argument Against Strong Naming
It looks like Craig Andera has had enough of .NET strong-named assemblies. He has proclaimed, "I Hate Strong Names!"
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[.NET C#] A Public Domain, "Dogfoodable" C# Compiler!
Mike Stall has just released Source for a C# compiler written in pure C# that can compile itself. Mike states that this project is simply a "just a glorified reflection-emit demo." Yeah, right! But the rest of us are envious, anyway, Mike! Mike's code provides a great starting point for any prospective language devs out there to play with. This gift to the C# community well deserves CSharpener's "Contribution of the Month" award!
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[Tools] Three Little Web Development Tools
Thanks to Larkware News and The Daily Grind 572, I discovered three cool little web development tools: ieHTTPHeaders, FullSource, and ToggleBorders.
Regarding FullSource and ToggleBorders, it has been a long time since I have seen so much useful functionality in so little space (less than 4K for both)!
An old friend just reminded me that the Web Developer Extensions for Firefox offer similar tools for that fine browser (my default browser, in fact, even though I spend a lot of time in MSIE because that's what we .NET'ers regularly target for our ASP.NET-based products). If you develop for Firefox, you will definitely want this great extension toolbar.
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[General] Allegiance - I never thought to see this day!
I never thought to see the day when Microsoft would release the source code for a Microsoft-developed multi-player space combat game, but, here it is: Allegiance! The FreeAllegiance.org site is your gateway to Allegiance information and your point of entry to the game system To get started as a player, your journey begins at the Allegiance Academy. Batteries (Allegiance source code) included! What is the (software development) world coming to?!
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[Semantic Web] Semantic Web Resource Guide
The Semantic Web Resource Guide is an article I quickly wrote up to introduce a co-worker to some basic information on the Semantic Web. Perhaps others will find it helpful. The links have been fixed.
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Semantic Web Resource Guide
Let's start with definitions: -
[Tools] A New XML Editor: XML Marker
XML Marker is a nice new free XML editor. Currently, it has very limited support for DTD and none for XML Schema. I hope Symbol Click will address that weakness very soon. XML Marker is lightweight and fun to use for simple tasks -- and the price is right!
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[Tools] A Free Fast PDF Reader
Do you, like me, get weary of waiting for Adobe's PDF reader to do whatever it is that it feels that it needs to do at the moment before it lets you read your document? Try the free Foxit PDF Reader, a lightweight and very fast alternative. Sorry, Adobe, thanks for all of the free tech, and all that, but, over seven versions of evolution, your venerable Acrobat Reader has become *really* slow. It used to be wonderful, back in the days when it was a simple PDF reader. Foxit's contender weighs in at less than 1 MB and is lightning fast by comparison. This bout was just won in round one by a KO. New champ: Foxit Software!
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[Tools] Another Free Disk Usage Statistics Viewer
Check out WinDirStat, a new free disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows. This is a new addition to those mentioned in my previous posts, But Now Competing In The New "Useful UI" Category Is ...., And The Clear "Unusual UI" Winner Is ..., More Harddisk Space Managers, and FolderSizes.