Tobler.SoftwareArchitecture()

For your historical, or hysterical, information, here are some interesting release dates that can help you catch those "embellished" resumes.  As of August, 2009, anyone who claims to have ten or more years experience with .NET had better have a matching "Microsoft" entry on their resume.  If not, they either must have worked for one of the MS Elite level partners or should utter the magic acronyms “NGWS“ and “ASP+“!  Likewise, any non Microsoftie who claims 13 or more years experience using Visual Studio should be regarded with suspicion!  More than 10 years of XML?  Did they work for the W3C, perhaps?  If not, well, ....

Aaron Skonnard has lots of XML Resources, including some XML in .NET Tools.

A reader just pointed me to DataVision, a cool Open Source reporting tool that is “similar to Crystal Reports.”  Report descriptions are stored as XML and reports can be exported as HTML, XML, PDF, LaTeX2e, DocBook, or tab- or comma-delimited text files.  DataVision is written in Java and has a SourceForge project page.

For Python developers, Boa Constructor is a great cross platform Python IDE and wxPython GUI Builder.  Boa Constructor is written in Python and uses the wxPython library which wraps wxWindows.  Highly recommended - and fun!

JOHN TOBLER

If you need to code in C++ without the benefit of Microsoft (C) Visual Studio, but you still want to use an IDE, try the free Dev-C++ IDE by Bloodshed Software.  By default, Dev-C++ installs and uses the Mingw port of GCC but it can also be used with Cygwin and other GCC-based compilers.

I have been temporarily distracted from making new entries on CSharpener's Weblog because I am currently looking for a new position.  If you know of any openings in the San Diego area for a senior .NET architect/engineer, please let me know!