One of the more interesting things you can do with events is give the delegate a return type. As far as I know you can't do this in Visual Basic (or at least I haven't spent the time to figure out how) but it's perfectly valid in C#. This can be useful in some circumstances, but usually the complexity and general "oddness" of the structure isn't worth the benefits.
Anyways, I posted a quick C# console application over on paste-it.net that you check out:
Return Values from an Event
- Seth
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Property Moving Class
Recently in the newsgroups, a poster asked how to quickly move properties from one class to another based on the property name. I quickly decided to throw this together, untested, and post it to the blog.
To take a line from Ayende, If you see any problems with it, please submit a patch.
You can easily grab (or look at) the code over at: paste-it.net
Hope this helps out!
- Seth
To take a line from Ayende, If you see any problems with it, please submit a patch.
You can easily grab (or look at) the code over at: paste-it.net
Hope this helps out!
- Seth
Thursday, August 7, 2008
The Tools I Run With (no scissors involved)
I thought I'd compile a quick list of some of the tools I live and die (not much of that) by. These are the first things installed on my machines whenever I end up with a new one, or I reformat an old one.
1) Visual Studio Team System -No surprise here, except maybe for the Team System part. I used to only use VS Pro, but since Microsoft was nice enough to give me a freebie MSDN I use Team System exclusively. Not sure if the additional features would be worth the cost, but I definitely make use of them.
2) CodeRush / Refactor Pro! - This is my new favorite friend. I had zero idea of how much my programming could improve productivity wise until I installed this. This one however isn't free (unless you're an MVP) but it's worth every penny of the ~240 dollars it costs. You can make up that amount in very little time from the boost in productivity.
3) NUnit - I'll admit I don't use NUnit nearly as much as I should. Before you scream, I'm not saying I don't test my code, I simply end up finding myself using MS Test (*gasp*) more often. Why you ask? Simply because I like the Test View and Test Results windows better than the NUnit interface. But whenever tests get ran on servers, its NUnit all the way.
4) TestDriven.NET - When I do choose NUnit over MS Test, this is the addin I use. It takes the pain out of using NUnit.
5) Rhino.Mocks - If you don't know what this is, then you need to go find out. Rhino.Mocks is an incredible addition to anyone's testing and development practices.
6) Twhirl - The twitter client of choice for me. I enjoy Witty as well, but somehow the corporate IT folks have managed to block Witty.
7) Skype - My choice for IM chats because of the easy to use drag and drop functionality. Not to mention the fact that it acts as an IP Phone. My major complaint? The sheer lack of custimization! If Skype were to provide skinning functionality it might knock the next tool off my list:
8) Trillian - Not everyone uses Skype, and I use Trillian to keep in touch with those individuals.
9) Xobni - Just discovered this one today thanks to a retweet by Gary Short. I don't have much business use for Xobni, as most people contact me via Skype, but it's really fun to just play around with.
10) Paint.NET - My coworkers don't allow me to do much graphic work because they know I suck at it, but when I do any I do it in PDN. Granted, most of the stuff I draw in PDN is for either my Windows background or poorly merged photos of my coworkers as the Master Chief from Halo, but PDN is a great product.
The above list isn't close to complete, but I'd hate to bore you with anymore. Hopefully some of the items listed are items you haven't heard about and will go try.
- Seth
1) Visual Studio Team System -No surprise here, except maybe for the Team System part. I used to only use VS Pro, but since Microsoft was nice enough to give me a freebie MSDN I use Team System exclusively. Not sure if the additional features would be worth the cost, but I definitely make use of them.
2) CodeRush / Refactor Pro! - This is my new favorite friend. I had zero idea of how much my programming could improve productivity wise until I installed this. This one however isn't free (unless you're an MVP) but it's worth every penny of the ~240 dollars it costs. You can make up that amount in very little time from the boost in productivity.
3) NUnit - I'll admit I don't use NUnit nearly as much as I should. Before you scream, I'm not saying I don't test my code, I simply end up finding myself using MS Test (*gasp*) more often. Why you ask? Simply because I like the Test View and Test Results windows better than the NUnit interface. But whenever tests get ran on servers, its NUnit all the way.
4) TestDriven.NET - When I do choose NUnit over MS Test, this is the addin I use. It takes the pain out of using NUnit.
5) Rhino.Mocks - If you don't know what this is, then you need to go find out. Rhino.Mocks is an incredible addition to anyone's testing and development practices.
6) Twhirl - The twitter client of choice for me. I enjoy Witty as well, but somehow the corporate IT folks have managed to block Witty.
7) Skype - My choice for IM chats because of the easy to use drag and drop functionality. Not to mention the fact that it acts as an IP Phone. My major complaint? The sheer lack of custimization! If Skype were to provide skinning functionality it might knock the next tool off my list:
8) Trillian - Not everyone uses Skype, and I use Trillian to keep in touch with those individuals.
9) Xobni - Just discovered this one today thanks to a retweet by Gary Short. I don't have much business use for Xobni, as most people contact me via Skype, but it's really fun to just play around with.
10) Paint.NET - My coworkers don't allow me to do much graphic work because they know I suck at it, but when I do any I do it in PDN. Granted, most of the stuff I draw in PDN is for either my Windows background or poorly merged photos of my coworkers as the Master Chief from Halo, but PDN is a great product.
The above list isn't close to complete, but I'd hate to bore you with anymore. Hopefully some of the items listed are items you haven't heard about and will go try.
- Seth
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Cuil.com Search Result Images
I just saw cuil.com for the first time today, and for the lack of a better thing to search for I entered in my name. Needless to say, when I saw the image it gave beside one of my old newsgroup posts, I cracked up. Before the image is removed, I thought I'd share it:
For those of you who didn't notice, an accurate image of myself is located to the right in the "About Me" box. Needless to say I am not a gray haired, middle aged priest!
Right now I can't say I'm too impressed with cuil.com, and apparently a lot of other people aren't either. The first I heard about cuil was from the daily CodeProject.com emails, an interesting article about how cuil smoked its servers shortly after going live:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/07/28/cuil-crashes-and-burns-at-launch
It seems to me that with missing results (by missing I mean ones that Google or Yahoo! would regularly return), very incorrect images, and scalability problems, I don't think that Google has much to worry about!
- Seth
For those of you who didn't notice, an accurate image of myself is located to the right in the "About Me" box. Needless to say I am not a gray haired, middle aged priest!
Right now I can't say I'm too impressed with cuil.com, and apparently a lot of other people aren't either. The first I heard about cuil was from the daily CodeProject.com emails, an interesting article about how cuil smoked its servers shortly after going live:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/07/28/cuil-crashes-and-burns-at-launch
It seems to me that with missing results (by missing I mean ones that Google or Yahoo! would regularly return), very incorrect images, and scalability problems, I don't think that Google has much to worry about!
- Seth
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Fallout 3 Countdown
Fallout 3 at IGN
Already have my survivor edition preordered, can't wait till this sucker releases!
- Seth
Already have my survivor edition preordered, can't wait till this sucker releases!
- Seth
Saturday, July 26, 2008
The DXperience Project
Humorous viral video from DevExpress, thought I'd do my part to spread it around the web. If you haven't already, you should run over to their site (www.devexpress.com) and check out their products. I'm not affiliated with them, nor have I used all of their products, but the ones I have have been terrific and easy to use. Anyways, check out their spoof of the Blair Witch Project about the new release of DXperience:
http://tv.devexpress.com/DXperienceProject.movie
- Seth
http://tv.devexpress.com/DXperienceProject.movie
- Seth
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Speed up your Coding
I've just come to a realization of a way that everyone could speed up their coding, and its so simple you might not believe me.
What is it you ask? Simple, just unplug your mouse. Visual Studio, as well as almost every other program out there, is chocked full of keyboard shortcuts that remove the need for taking your hands off the keyboard. You already know that, but the problem is that you don't want to learn them, because you're lazy. It's much too easy to continue switching back and forth from mouse and keyboard than to learn shortcuts like [Ctrl+Up Arrow] to jump upwards through methods or [Ctrl+M+L] to collapse or expand the code outlines.
That brings me to my point, how do you force yourself to learn these shortcuts? I've just proven (by calling you lazy) you can't do it with the temptation of having your mouse plugged in, which brings me to my point; the fastest way to speed up your coding is to unplug your mouse. With the devil device gone, you'll be forced to keep your hands on the keyboard and learn the shortcuts you've been promising yourself you'd learn.
Of course, I'm not saying you should run your computer without a mouse, that would be silly. What I'm saying is next time you program, unplug your mouse and lock it up in your cabinet, this will force you to learn those shortcuts you've been avoiding. After a few sessions of mouse-less programming (if you use the shortcuts like you should) plug your mouse in and leave it, hopefully you've learned how to avoid it while in Visual Studio.
- Seth
What is it you ask? Simple, just unplug your mouse. Visual Studio, as well as almost every other program out there, is chocked full of keyboard shortcuts that remove the need for taking your hands off the keyboard. You already know that, but the problem is that you don't want to learn them, because you're lazy. It's much too easy to continue switching back and forth from mouse and keyboard than to learn shortcuts like [Ctrl+Up Arrow] to jump upwards through methods or [Ctrl+M+L] to collapse or expand the code outlines.
That brings me to my point, how do you force yourself to learn these shortcuts? I've just proven (by calling you lazy) you can't do it with the temptation of having your mouse plugged in, which brings me to my point; the fastest way to speed up your coding is to unplug your mouse. With the devil device gone, you'll be forced to keep your hands on the keyboard and learn the shortcuts you've been promising yourself you'd learn.
Of course, I'm not saying you should run your computer without a mouse, that would be silly. What I'm saying is next time you program, unplug your mouse and lock it up in your cabinet, this will force you to learn those shortcuts you've been avoiding. After a few sessions of mouse-less programming (if you use the shortcuts like you should) plug your mouse in and leave it, hopefully you've learned how to avoid it while in Visual Studio.
- Seth
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