You've reached the internet home of Chris Sells, who has a long history as a contributing member of the Windows developer community. He enjoys long walks on the beach and various computer technologies.
Monday, Mar 17, 2003, 9:53 AM
Wrox hit the rocks as Glasshaus cracks
Here. The red-covered books are not long for this world.
Saturday, Mar 15, 2003, 9:48 PM
Comments on the "Agile Dev Process"
Here. While I don't necessarily agree with surana, I so loved the way that he stated his opinions that I had to post it here (even if it is 3 weeks old!). My favorite quote is: "...programmers are idiots... XP's pair programming is laughable. Can two idiots do much better than one?" You gotta admire a guy that isn't afraid to speak his mind. : )
Saturday, Mar 15, 2003, 9:41 PM in .NET
NEW C# LANGUAGE FEATURES
Here. At OOPSLA late last year, the C# team made a splash by announcing some of the features they'll be adding to the compiler in the next next version of C# (not Everett). This link has that presentation as well as a very nice white paper discussing the new features in detail.
Wednesday, Mar 12, 2003, 1:11 PM in .NET
Serialization Basics, Part 3 of 3
Here. My 3rd installment of the basics of serialization, this time covering how to customize the serialization process.
Saturday, Mar 8, 2003, 5:09 PM in .NET
nprof - Open-source .NET profiler
From Matthew Mastracci: I just released the third alpha version of my open-source .NET profiling application. It supports everything I've thrown at it so far (multi-threaded programs, NAnt, SWF apps) and is getting close to feature-complete. It comes with a basic VS.NET add-in that lets you profile from DevStudio. There is a source package on the downloads page for those who are interested in tinkering. Download it at http://nprof.sourceforge.net
Friday, Mar 7, 2003, 9:52 AM in .NET
What's New in WinForms 1.1
Here. This article presents the new features in WinForms, including new namespace features, new IDE features and how to develop apps that support multiple versions of the .NET Framework itself.
Friday, Mar 7, 2003, 9:51 AM in .NET
Serialization Basics, Part 2 of 3
Here. Continuing the discussion of serialization in .NET using formatters for custom types.
Friday, Mar 7, 2003, 9:50 AM in .NET
Serialization Basics, Part 1 of 3
Here. This is the first of a 3 part series I wrote as an appendix to my WinForms book because I couldn't find the topic of object serialization covered adequately elsewhere in any of the popular texts. This part covers the basics of text and binary serialization for simple types.
Tuesday, Mar 4, 2003, 8:44 AM in Fun
Grandpa's Scalloped Corn
This is a recipe that I sent in for the O'Reilly title "Gastronomy for Geeks". It was handed down to me by my grandfather at our cabin on the lake. He was into manly food that sticks to your rips and left the more delicate dishes to my grandmother.
Ingredients
- 1 15oz can of cream-style corn
- 1 15oz can of non-cream-style corn (drained)
- 2 cups of crushed saltine crackers (although other crackers and even potato chips work well)
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup of milk (scant)
- 1 tablespoon of butter or margarine
Number of Servings
- 9 normal human servings or
- 3 hungry developer servings
Directions
- Grease 7" cake pan (or nearest equivalent, Grandpa wasn't picky)
- Mix cream-style and drained non-cream-style corn together in mixing bowl
- Spread 1/2 of the corn along the bottom of the cake pan
- Spread 1/2 of the crackers over the layer of corn
Repeat for one more layer of corn and crackers - Beat eggs and milk together for 2 minutes in a mixing bowl (preferably the corn mixing bowl, which should now be empty, to save on dishes that need washing)
- Put egg/milk mixture over the layers of corn and crackers, using a fork to poke holes in the layers to allow egg/milk mixture to seep into all crevices
- Drop button (or margarine) in dots over the top
- Bake at 350 for one hour or until top is golden brown
- Bake at 200 for 30 more minutes for rustic Grandpa goodness
- Let cool for as long as you can stand to wait, cut into pleasing shapes and serve
Chris Sells
Submitted for O'Reilly's "Gastronomy for Geeks"
Tue 3/4/2003 8:44 AM
Tuesday, Mar 4, 2003, 6:52 AM
Microsoft is #1 (in the UK)
Here. From Jed Farr: An annual survey by The Sunday Times tracked the UK's best companies to work for, with 10 tech companies in the top 100 -- including the top spot which was taken by Microsoft.
Monday, Mar 3, 2003, 12:08 PM
Loving NewsGator
Here. Once I got some help from the friendly tech support, I'm finding that having my RSS feeds right inside of Outlook is very nice and. I miss the toast from FeedReader, but overall I'm enjoying NewsGator.
Monday, Mar 3, 2003, 12:01 PM
SSW LookOut! for Outlook
Here. Check out this Outlook Add-In that checks your emails for angry words (and attachments and Reply All and a bunch of other stuff) before you send it.
Wednesday, Feb 26, 2003, 9:26 AM
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Benchmarks
Here. The Transaction Processing Performance Council has posted non-clustered tpmC results for the pre-release WinServer 2003 Datacenter edition that shows it to be w/in 5% of the top spot (Solaris 8) for less than half the price. The machine running WinServer 2003 was a 32-way NEC Intel Itanium2 box, while the Solaris machine was a 128-way Fujitsu SPARC64 box, which probably accounts for the difference in price/performance ($12.98 vs. $28.58, respectively). The big news is that with WinServer 2003 Datacenter, MS jumps past the IBM/Oracle best of 427,760 tpmC and $17.75 price/performance.
Monday, Feb 24, 2003, 4:22 PM
Advice to Microsoft regarding commodity software
Here. "Stop looking over your shoulder and invent something!" David Stutz, ex-VB architect and ex-Rotor architect has some parting advise as he becomes an ex-MS architect. [jepstone.net]
Monday, Feb 24, 2003, 1:27 PM in Interview
How to Interview a Programmer
Here. In attending a summit on code quality recently, we each shared the techniques we use in screening/hiring a programmer. This story provides a summary.