Lessons for Businesses from open source and blogs

A very interesting read on what businesses can learn from open source and blogs
http://www.paulgraham.com/opensource.html

Article on custom events in VB.NET 2005

My article on custom events in VB.NET 2005 is published in the simple-talk journal at the following URL
http://www.simple-talk.com/2005/09/26/custom-events-in-vbnet-2005/
This article shows various options of handling events in VB.NET and introduces the new custom event construct available part of VB.NET 8.0

MVP Global summit missed out

I was looking forward to attend my first MVP global summit but unfortunately will be missing out this year. The US embassy refused to provide visa and was under the conclusion that going to the MVP global summit was not a valid enough reason to visit USA.<Sigh>
On the bright side i will be here for the first ever Tech-Ed to be held in Srilanka. So if anyone do attend it, feel free to pop in and say hello at the dot net community stall. I would be very much interested to discuss anything under the sun especially topics related to dot net.

.NET 3.0 More mind blowing

If you thought .NET 2.0 had a lot of new features wait till you see what's in store on C# 3.0 and  VB.NET 9.0 (.NET 3.0). Some of the hottest stuff coming in are:
Linq
DLinq
XLinq
Anonymous Types
Inferred Types
Extension Methods

Get more information at http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/future/

Tech-Ed in Srilanka...Don't miss out

E-bay to acquire Skype

Looks like E-bay is planning to acquire Skype. Read more at http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200509121135272.html

Article on creating debugger visualizers using VS.NET 2005

My article on creating debugger visualizers using VS.NET 2005 is published in the simple-talk journal at the following URL
http://www.simple-talk.com/2005/09/05/debugger-visualizers/
This article looks into the concept of debugger visualizers and shows you how to create your own debugger visualizers. The sample code on creating an image debugger visualizer is included with the article. Let me know if there are any suggestions

Non OO programming using an OO language

I am pretty sure lot of us would have come across applications where non OO design and coding was applied to an OO programming language such as C# or Java. Inherently a lot of code was done in a structured method and the only thing OO about the code is the fact the methods were inside a class definition.
This usually leads to a whole lot of problems when someone tries to change something. The biggest principle i like about OO code is when it is done in a "closed for modification and open for extension" principle. The need to test code that is already tested can be avoided greatly. Is there any justification to using an object oriented language such as C# or Java and not use proper object oriented practices or coding patterns?

Passed SCJA beta

Got the results of the SCJA beta exam i did a couple of months ago and had passed the exam. See my previous posts on SCJA
http://thedeveloper.blogspot.com/2005/06/scja-beta-experience.html
http://thedeveloper.blogspot.com/2005/05/scja-beta-exam-for-free.html
http://thedeveloper.blogspot.com/2005/03/new-java-certification-exam-scja.html

Happy Blog-Birthday to my Blog

This is one year completion for my blog on the internet. It was the same date last year when i decided to start a blog to rant and ramble whatever i like and things i do. So for everyone who have ever come to my blog thanks a lot for keeping company.

Hurricane katrina

My deepest sympathies to all the victims of the Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Being in Srilanka I know the problems our country went through when the Tsunami happened … Some things are just way beyond our control

WinFS beta 1 released

Looks like the WinFS beta 1(the next generation relational file system) is released and is available for MSDN subscribers. It runs on Windows XP with SP 2 and requires the .NET 2.0 framework version 2.0.50215.322

Google Talk

Google has entered the world of IM as well with their Google Talk software. Check it out at
http://www.google.com/talk/
And on a related note MSN messenger 7.5 is also released and you can download it from
http://g.msn.co.uk/7MEEN_GB/EN/INSTALL_MSN_MESSENGER_DL.EXE

C# and VB.NET Language Specs

I keep on forgetting the URLs to download the language specs. So hence I am posting them here
C# 2.0 language specs
VB.NET 8.0 language specs

Blogging using MS Word

I am posting this entry from the Blogger addin for MS Word. Once this addin is installed you can use MS Word to write your blog entries and post them directly. You can download the addin from http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword.html

VS.NET 2005 Beta 2 extensions for WinFX Beta 1

Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WinFX Beta 1 is released for download. This enables you to build WinFX applications using VS.NET 2005. You can download it at this URL

Open Source Software Conference in Srilanka

Asia’s premiere free and open source software conference is to be held in Srilanka from the 7th to the 10th of September. There are some big names and leaders from the open source software community attending it. You can find more details at http://www.fosssl.org/index.htm

101 Code samples in VB.NET 8.0 and C# 2.0

Download 101 code samples for Visual Studio.NET 2005 in VB.NET and C# at the following URL http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/downloads/101samples/default.aspx

 

August .NET User group meeting

We had the August .NET User group meeting yesterday. The audience was relatively small compared to the other days. I did a session on “The art of refactoring” and here are a few resources on refactoring:
http://www.refactoring.com/
Refactoring:Improving the design of existing code (Book)
http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/download/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/downloads/2005/tools/refactor/
And on a related note here are some tools to do unit testing:
http://www.nunit.org/
http://nunitasp.sourceforge.net/
http://nunitforms.sourceforge.net/

Article on getting schema information using ADO.NET 2.0

My article on getting schema and metadata using ADO.NET is published in the simple-talk journal at the following URL
http://www.simple-talk.com/2005/08/02/using-adonet/ 
This article looks into getting schema and metadata information using ADO.NET 2.0 with examples using SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft Excel. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.