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.
Tuesday, Apr 6, 2004, 9:56 AM in .NET
MS Developer Tool Roadman: '05 and Beyond
Wow. I've seen bits and drops of Whidbey (I'm limited to builds that work on Longhorn), so haven't seen the grand, overall vision of it. In the latest Microsoft Developer Tool Roadmap, they whole darn thing is laid out and the new stuff goes on forever! Details are presented for IDE enhancements, language enhancements for VB, C#, C++ and J#, Windows Forms, ASP.NET, devices, ADO.NET, web services, Office, SQL Server, Analysis and Design (aka "Whitehorse") and even a bit about what's coming in Longhorn on the tools side. Holy New Stuff, Batman!
Tuesday, Apr 6, 2004, 9:38 AM in .NET
Longhorn Sample: RSS Reader (Like, Out Loud)
Jason Nadal has posted an RSS reader that uses the Longhorn text-to-speech APIs to actually read you the morning news while you do other things. Includes source.
Tuesday, Apr 6, 2004, 9:34 AM
Laptop Lust
I think these are the sexiest PC laptops I've ever seen, but I can't decide if I want the Cabriolet or the New Yorker.
Tuesday, Apr 6, 2004, 9:19 AM
Channel9 Ships
I'm sure by the time you read this, you'll have already heard about Channel9 (apparently Greg announced it first). There don't seem to be nearly as many snowmen shooting rectangles at each other as I'd expected, though...
Tuesday, Apr 6, 2004, 12:00 AM in The Spout
Filling In Missing Computer Science Knowledge
Tuesday, April 6, 2004
Sometimes I get emails from folks that don't have a formal computer science knowledge and want the benefits of one w/o actually going back to college. Since I was disappointed in my own formal education (despite going on to "better" my BS in Computer Science with an MS), I can understand this desire.
My first thought was the MIT Open Courseware, which has a full course of computer science curriculum. However, while the course material is all there, unless there are officially sanctioned forums for each course, there's really no place to ask questions even of fellow students.
After thinking on it for a while, I thought I'd go right to my favorite source. Prof. Joe Hummel is a professor of computer science at Lake Forest College in Illinois and has spent a lot of time thinking about how to fill in missing CS knowledge in professional programmers (VB programmers, mostly) at DevelopMentor. Here's what he said:
For starters, I'd recommend a book by Brookshear called "Computer Science: an overview" (8th edition). It's written for those new to CS, but introduces lots of nice CS concepts like algorithm analysis, theory of computation (e.g. that some problems cannot be solved!), and other things like OS, networks, DBs, etc. It's a great starter book. After that, I'd recommend books on data structures and algorithms. After that, it really depends on what his interests are: Programming Languages? Theory? Operating Systems? Distributed Systems? Software Eng? AI?
Monday, Apr 5, 2004, 5:49 PM in Tools
WiX: Open Source XML-Based MSI Creation
Rob Mensching, an MS SDE, has finally released his WiX tools for building MSI files from XML. I say "finally," because I've been using his tools for months to build the MSI files that MSDN puts up on microsoft.com/download. All of our downloads have to be wrapped in an MSI so that you have to agree to the EULA before you get the files. Plus, we need to bundle some descriptive text and author name in there, along with the code that pops open the install folder after the files have been installed. Instead of using VS.NET to create the MSI files for each set of folks, I built a tool and the best programatic interface to creating MSI files that I could find was easily Rob's. Check it out.
Monday, Apr 5, 2004, 2:46 PM in .NET
Is This One Better? Now Cover the Other Eye...
Here.
Kevin Lindsey has been exploring Avalon and posting some things he didn't expect. I love how he posts pictures of what he expected alongside of what he actually got:
- Possible Avalon SpreadMethod Bug
- Possible Avalon LinearGradient Bug
- Avalon Missing Pen Functionality
- Possible Avalon Rectangle Stroke Bug
Keep it up, Kevin!
Monday, Apr 5, 2004, 1:31 PM in .NET
Ryan on Getting Starting Building Longhorn Help
Ryan has posted a nice, consise write-up of getting started writing help in Longhorn.
Sunday, Apr 4, 2004, 11:02 AM in The Spout
Welcome to 04/04/04
That is all.
Sunday, Apr 4, 2004, 9:13 AM in .NET
Windows Forms Has At Least Another Decade In It
Apparently Robert had a conversation with a customer that was holding up .NET adoption because Longhorn was coming with Avalon. If you're already planning on building Longhorn-only applications, more power to you, but most folks will need to write apps that run on other versions of Windows for some time to come. For those folks, we have .NET and Windows Forms today and for at least another decade. Let's do the math:
- According to recent industry rumor, Longhorn won't ship 'til 2006.
- According to our internal OS folks, a new OS isn't ubiquitous enough to target it as a base for new consumer application work for 6 years.
- Even 2 years after .NET was available everywhere, people are still actively doing the MFC and VB6 thing.
- 2 years 'til 2006 + 6 years 'til ubiquity + 2 years not doing the new thing = 10 years of good, strong life left in Windows Forms at least.
In spite of my love on Avalon, I'm so confidendent that Windows Forms has a life left that I'm working with Mike on Windows Forms Programming 2/e. A book is hard enough that you don't do it if the topic is dead, so that's me putting my time (and Addison-Wesley's money) where my mouth is.
Saturday, Apr 3, 2004, 3:04 PM in The Spout
The Future Is eBay for Services
Here.
With the bottom line more and more important, the era of "company loyalty" and "guaranteed employment" is long over. RentACoder.com takes this to it's logical conclusion, matching vendors with jobs and money with qualified folks with the time and willingness to do the job at the asking price. As connectedness improves, the importance of being on site declines, the perfect market for services will develop, giving us eBay for employment.
Saturday, Apr 3, 2004, 2:53 PM in .NET
Why Longhorn So Soon?
Here.
Robert Hess, that .NET Show guy, talks about why he's so into Longhorn in the recent .NET Shows lately:
"What you -do- need to pay attention to, is how 'Longhorn' will evolve the users concept of exactly what a Windows application is all about, and what features and functionality it should be providing them with. Many application developers should be starting to think about this TODAY, and how to begin incorporating some of these features into their application moving forward. Just the schematized file system that WinFS will introduce alone can represent not only a big jump in the potential functionality of an application, but also a considerable change in how your existing application might want to begin thinking about data storage."
Friday, Apr 2, 2004, 10:52 AM
Microsoft and Sun Settle
Here. I honestly never thought I'd see this day. Now I have to come up with other fun news of which to make fun in my talks (maybe the 0.0000007% change in Avagadro's number over the last 5 years?).
Friday, Apr 2, 2004, 10:18 AM in Tools
FxCop for SQL Server
If you were listening to the .NET Rocks show today, you heard me invent something that Microsoft has already shipped: The Microsoft SQL Server Best Practices Analyzer. <whew> One less thing I have to build myself. : )
Thursday, Apr 1, 2004, 11:23 PM in The Spout
Let There By Light In The Darkness
Here. The one where it's late, I'm on my 3rd Diet Coke (I never use caffine), I stumble onto a piece of writing I like but have never published and decide what the hell...