Random Thoughts of Jorriss

Here are some links that I have found in my investigations on .Net remoting.

.Net Remoting FAQ
Glacial Component's Remoting Articles
A newsgroup thread on how to connect a GUI to a windows service.

More to follow.

It seems like MS is planning a new visual design system (Whitehorse) into Whidbey.  Sounds good.  I've been occasionally using Rational's XDE for the past year and found it useful for the most part.  I still think XDE is too complex to use for everyday development.  Maybe MS will get it right in Whitehorse

MS has made Visual Studio posters available. Kewl.

Here is another interesting post from Jim Fawcette.  He says that improving software tools are partially to blame for the eroding IT programming market.  I think that we are still feeling the effects from the dot-bomb and from our recent economic downturn.  I also think that we'll see that the offshoring of programming duties will, in the end, raise costs.  Software maintenance/enhancement costs will skyrocket due to the inability of the offshore programmer to understand the full impact of the code they are writing.  Developers that read a spec and understand the way it affect the application as a whole are far more valuable in time and cost then a programmer who just writes code.  It is this analysis that our employers pay for.  It is this type of analysis that will keep jobs home.  Can an offshore programmer do this, yes.  The real question is will an offshore programmer do this?

Darcy Burner of MS has a dead on reply to this.

Also, interesting thoughts from a testers perspective.  No spec = bugs.

Recently, we decided that we need to build a better server control for our navigation buckets.  (We refer to our side navigation as buckets.)  Building this control from scratch allowed me to better understand the way ASP.Net creates the page from controls.  It also helped me to realize that I shouldn't have to write all of this plumbing code to get one stupid control to work.  Although the control is now working, we did run into a few problems.  Remember, if you ever need to keep data do not replace it with Nothing.  This is a bad thing is difficult to debug.  Also, if you need data from an item cast it to the correct class.  If you don't more bad things will happen. 

Overall, it wasn't that bad if you have the right information.  I suggest buy Deveoping Microsoft ASP.Net Server Controls and Components from MS Press.  And don't forget to download the source code.  It is extremely helpful.  Below are some articles I suggest that you digest and understand to build a better control.

Creating Web Server Control Templates Programmatically
Templated Data-Bound Control Sample
Creating Templates Dynamically in a DataList Web Server Control
Creating a Data Bound ListView Control
Implementing a Web Forms Data-Bound Control Designer
Implementing Dynamic ItemTemplates
Loading ASP.NET Templates Dynamically
Dynamic Templates for the Repeater, DataList and DataGrid Controls
Understanding Templates in ASP.NET
ASP.NET Controls Templates
Building Templated Custom ASP.NET Server Controls

What are these wackos doing to my Alma Mater?  It seems like a group of students thought that it would be a good idea to hug Lake Osceola which is in the center of the University of Miami.  Too bad they removed the crocodiles earlier this month, then the 'hug the lake' could of been interesting.  Maybe this was a show of support for new football recruit Willie Williams.  Nah, they would of had a bigger turnout for that.

Duncan Mackenzie has posted a code snippet of VB code showing the use of generics.  Now if you're like me and can read code better than a white paper about code check it out.  It's very cool.

Here's a cool site:  SharpToolbox.  Its a site that keeps a list of .Net components.

I've also found a cool article on Whidbey and its new controls.

No matter how many years I've been coding I always learn something new.  A few days ago I need to take the opposite value of a boolean variable.  Normally I would use an Inline If statement (I've also heard it called Immediate If).  I don't know why I do this, probably because of my beginnings in Access 2.0.

Button.Enabled = IIF(bValue, False, True)

After looking at the code and realizing something wasn't right I thought about the problem.  How do I take the inverse of a boolean value?  Duh use Not!

So here is what I came up with:

Button.Enabled = Not bValue

Much better.  I wonder what I'm going to learn tomorrow?

I've encountered an excellent article on MSDN today dealing with Web Control Templates.  If you are creating a web control that needs to use templates this is a good primer.

The Cubs will sign Greg Maddux to a three year $24 million deal.  When I heard the news last night I just about hit the ceiling.  Every year Cubs fans begin the season with hope.  This year we have hope and a bunch of upgrades.  Here is the Cubs starting rotation:

Mark Prior (18-6, 2.43)
Kerry Wood (14-11, 3.20)
Greg Maddux (16-11, 3.96)
Matt Clement (14-12, 4.11)
Carlos Zambrano (13-11, 3.11)

Dare I say the best in baseball?  I dare.  Greg, I'll see you in Arizona.  Now if we can only bring Ryne Sandberg out of retirement...

Chris Kinsman lets us know that MS has posted the official .Net Compact Framework FAQ.

Last Friday I visited the site BleedingCharity.com. The site promotes the band Bleeding Charity out of Chicago.  A friend of mine Jed, whom I know from the University of Miami, is a member of this band and posted the link on this blog.  So I downloaded their MP3's, burned them to disc and listened to it on the way home.  And I really liked it.  So much so I've got their cover of Eleanor Rigby in my head for four days now.  Somebody please help me.  Hmmm.  Jed maybe you guys should cover Help!

Tonight @ 10:00 PM Eastern, Mel Gibson will be discussing his new movie The Passion of the Christ. So fire up that Tivo.

I get in the office this morning and I don't see the lights on.  First thing that goes through my head is, "Oh crap, I've got the day off."  Not that I wouldn't be working mind you but at least I could be wearing jeans.  If Lucy had the day off and I was here then I would really be upset.