Apr 20
I'm not sure if this just affects Gateway laptops or if all laptops are
subject to this issue. On a laptop even when the correct mouse
drivers are installed you are not able to set all mouse properties.
One of the annoying ones is the "lines to scroll" for each mouse wheel
rotation. It defaults to a very annoying low amount of 1.
This is not very good at all.
To get around this you can use the
TweakUI
powertoy from Microsoft to change the lines per scroll. Download
the powertoy then open it, go to the Mouse branch then Wheel, make sure
Use mouse wheel for scrolling is checked and then choose the Scroll by
X lines at a time where X is the number of lines you want to scroll.
Apr 12
I've been thinking recently about a possible maturity index for
languages/platforms. I use Java and C# as my main development
languages. They are very similar in syntax and in function.
If you can do something in one language you can probably do it in the
other. The differences are usally a bit of "syntactic
sugar." The major difference is the maturity of the documentation
and of the available "code in the wild" by which I mean demo, samples
and full fledged open source libraries. Java has this in
spades. C# and by association .NET have a lot of this and it is
growing each day, however Java has a much bigger head start and a
more-open source build-it-yourself mentality.
Hence the point of this post. VB was my first language. I
came in to it at version 6, obviously at the end of its life
cycle. However, VB was in its prime. You could find books,
magazines, samples and examples galor. Programmers had explored
every angle of VB, not only had they put on the rubber glove and
explored its orifaces but they had opened it up and shined the light on
its entrails. VB was a mature, highly productive platform, which
is something that Java is now and C# is definetaly becoming.
This is not to put down C#. On the contrary, when C# has the
maturity that Java now enjoys it should be a true work of art. I
think that as the .NET platform enters into version 2 we should see C#
hit its sweet spot. The major thing I see holding it back is the
lack of open-source (read FREE) software. Obviously it is
designed and publilshed by Microsoft for the intent of selling MS
product. I see promise in that most popular Java utility
libraries (JUnit, JDoc, Log4J) have been ported to .NET. I would
like to see more enterprise applications out there. An open
source appserver and web server would be nice. Some decent object
pooling and threading libraries would help.
I think these will come, its just a matter of maturity.
Apr 8
Pragmatic Labs is pleased to announce its second product
offering tentatively code named "Prometheus"
Simply stated; Prometheus is a code generation tool for .NET applications.
However, Prometheus goes a step further then most generation tools. Most
code generation tools are tier specific, meaning that they target one tier of
the application. The most common example of this is the data access layer
generator. Generators of this type usually read a database schema and generate
code for CRUD operations on the database
Prometheus is a step beyond the single tier generators. Prometheus allows an application to be
defined in a tier independent schema file using XML. From this schema Prometheus generates the
database creation script, stored procedures, the data access layer, the
business logic layer and the user interface.
The reason this works is there are certain common patterns that emerge when
building applications. Harnessing the
experience of developers and the distilled knowledge of design patterns, a
rather full skeleton of an application can be generated very rapidly.
Prometheus allows for code extensibility with either
inheritance or region directives. No
matter how good a code generator is there is still a need for manual coding to handle
business logic and special case situations.
Prometheus seeks to coexist with manual code and provides a clear separation
between generated and manual coding.
Prometheus is currently scheduled for release in the fall of
2005.
Apr 1
I found a way to “bind” objects to a web user control so that you don’t have to do this:
Address a = new Address(….); This.txtLine1.Text = a.Line1;
This.txtLine2.Text = a.Line2;
Instead you can just do this:
UserControl.LoadData(a);
Then in the user control you have this:
Public void LoadData(Address a)
{
FormBinding.BindObjectToControls(a,this);
}
You can also retrieve the fields once the user has made changes:
FormBinding.BindControlstoObject(a,this);
It uses reflection. It requires that the controls on the form be named the same as the properties of your object. This actually makes the system very easy to read since your object properties, database fields, stored procedure variables and controls all have the same names.
Here is the
original source.
I’ve used this in two separate projects and it has worked very well. If you combine it with code generation then you really realize some definite time savings with little (if any) performance penalty. See the link for the article for more info.
Mar 29
In reference to this previous post, which was inspired by a java patterns book, Holub on Patterns: Learning Design Patterns by Looking at Code, I was again looking for the grail.
Holub uses a builder pattern approach to avoid exposing each private
field through a getter and setter. This approach is interesting
but it quickly becomes complicated in the implementation as a series of
interfaces and implementations become necessary and this leaves the
casual observer wondering if the getter/setter method might be much
simpler to understand.
Holub's assertion is that accessors are used mostly for visual
designer created UI's. This may be true to a large extent but the
alternative seems pretty convoluted. Holub also argues that
accessors are very procedural which may also be true and that object
oriented progroms become procedural at the margins where they must
communicate with procedural systems like UI and database access.
However, in the OO middle the program should be objects which consist
of an almost service stack like service object which provides methods
in which to accomplish tasks (isn't this procedural?).
Conclusion: I have headed the warning of not to go crazy with
accessors and mutators but the alternatives don't have a good
smell.
Mar 28
An
article on OO design and CASE tools versus CRC cards and hand drawn diagrams.
I would have to agree that many times the tool causes such a disconnect
from the model that it is more trouble then it is worth. There is
some fundamental mind-body link that causes the mind to be stimulated
by drawing and writing.
This is why the CRC cards, a white board and a digital camera are essentials for the SDK.
Mar 28
I am in the process of putting together my own SDK (Software Development Kit). No this is not a 50 Meg download from my site but rather a portable software development toolbox that I can take on the road.
fLogViewer
Mar 27
Referring to a previous post, I have been looking at the ways a business object can be represented or accessed through various tiers. Of the ways this may be done is using the builder pattern.
The builder pattern leaves the the representation of an object open-ended meaning that an object can have many different representations. However, we do not need to know all of the representation at the time of construction. Additional representations of the object can be added later.
I have seen this pattern used extensively in java and I am actively searching for examples in C#. Java seems to be a very pattern rich language and often strikes me as an academic language. More on this in another post.
