Channel 9 - Discussions by PeteBeech

Tech Off - Reflection Emit

PeteBeech — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 16:16:34 GMT

If you mean a business reason to use dynamic compilation in general, we definitely had one.

In a large pricing application, users had the need to write formulas to generate prices based on certain base prices, prices of other related products, and a set of inbuilt functions reflecting different pricing strategies.

We did this using CodeDOM, and created a C# class based on what the users entered for each formula, one function per formula. The syntax they used was a slightly modified C# syntax, which we knocked into shape to get it to compile. This was much much quicker than interpreting and parsing the formulas ourselves. The prices of 100s of thousands of products were then calculated based on these formulas, so it made a lot of sense to have them compiled.

But if you mean specifically a reason for creating a class based on IL opcodes at runtime, I'm not sure. If the users had wanted some totally new expression syntax (like APL maybe) which was unlike any language supported by CodeDOM, maybe it would have made sense to have a mini compiler of our own, then emit the IL code dynamically.

Tech Off - A New Age "Old" Debate E&C vs Refactoring

PeteBeech — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 15:08:05 GMT

I think the root cause of many bugs is a design that has become too brittle (or was brittle in the first place) - the symptom of the design's deterioration is generally more bugs appearing, because the whole thing becomes more difficult to maintain, etc.

So, E & C emphasises fixing the symptoms, rather than trying to fix the root cause, as refactoring claims to be able to do, or at least help with.

So, in terms of productivity, refactoring should enable the whole thing to be maintained easier, and this should lead to less bugs, so less need for 'edit and continue', and therefore greater productivity.

With 'edit and continue', you'd continually be patching up holes in the boat - you might do that more efficiently, but it would still be patching.

I think thats what the refactoring guys would say anyway, and I tend to agree with them.

Pete

Coffeehouse - Should we step up the video quality?

PeteBeech — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 09:19:53 GMT

I think the videos are excellent as they are, pretty much. Making everything more slick and polished would definitely lose some of the appeal for me. The whole idea, after all, was to be like the original 'Channel 9' on the plane, where you get to hear everything exactly as it is, not staged or approved, etc. If it went in the more professional direction, it would certainly seem more as if everything is being too controlled, which I assumed is exactly the impression you don't want to give.

As others have said, I just think you need to have an additional mic for the interviewer. I even like the sometimes shaky camera work - it just seems much more low-key, something that anyone might do, more real.

Tech Off - Scientific research and .NET

PeteBeech — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 13:05:28 GMT

There's an article on the BBC technology website, about a "brain control" research project using C#.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3485918.stm

Some quotes from the artice:

"A video game in which the character is controlled directly from a player's brain without the need for wires has been developed by researchers. "

"Developments like Microsoft's new object-oriented language C#, a variation of C++ but with Java-like functions, have made this signal-processing and translation easier. "

"Mr Lalor and the rest of the team are keeping up with the plethora of research being done around the world on brain activity and hope to move the work on quickly."

" 'With the software tools that we have, we can develop stuff a lot quicker than most places.' "

Coffeehouse - curly bracket placement thread

PeteBeech — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 19:09:40 GMT

Definitely a column man myself - I've always thought it looked more logical, cleaner and for me a lot more readable.

I've often thought that there might be a correlation between how much people are into Microsoft, and their brace style (Microsoft->Columns). Based on my (totally subjective and non-scientific) observations over the years, this theory seems to hold up quite well!

Could be good for a poll..

Coffeehouse - PDC Sessions online - when do they get taken down?

PeteBeech — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 19:00:10 GMT

Yes, its a bit out of my price range as well..!

I might try asking my boss though, if these sessions do get taken down in the next few days,

Coffeehouse - PDC Sessions online - when do they get taken down?

PeteBeech — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 13:48:22 GMT

At http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc/ it states that the PDC sessions are online for 'the next 6 months'. When are they due to be taken down, as I don't know exactly how long after the PDC they were first put up. It must be pretty soon I suppose..

Is there any chance they could be left up a bit longer - I still haven't got through half of them!

Coffeehouse - Trying to read MSDN on the Pocket PC

PeteBeech — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 07:29:09 GMT

Robert Hess wrote:

Actually, the page you should be starting with is:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobiledefault.aspx

but the problem still exists that any "real" content you try to view will just be normal web pages and not something that is tuned for a PDA sized screen.

I wasn't even aware that we had that much prepped for a PDA. I'll look into this a bit and see what I can find out.

-Robert

Hi, yes, sorry - just using mobile.aspx goes to the MSDN headlines, which you also get to by choosing the MSDN Headlines link from mobiledefault.aspx.

Anyway, if it went to content consistently in the way you describe (i.e. not tuned for a PDA, but still the content I want) I would be happy (or happier!). However, when I choose as an example, from mobiledefault.aspx, "MSDN Headlines", followed by the current first article, "WS-Addressing Additions" and Updates, it jumps straight back to mobiledefault.aspx. Same for the 3rd article ("Efficient Techniques for modifying large XML Files"), and probably for many more.

But, yes, once that is sorted out, it would be great if they could be optimised for the mobile device - like I say, the MSDN magazine articles are not bad on that score.

Coffeehouse - Trying to read MSDN on the Pocket PC

PeteBeech — Mon, 12 Apr 2004 22:58:08 GMT

Well, the normal site looks horrible on a Pocket PC, thats for sure - but I didn't expect anything else.. but did you try the mobile version (http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobile.aspx ). Thats just a text only type thing, and thats the one I'm talking about.. and I wouldn't say it was pretty either, but the main thing is it doesn't seem to work properly.

(Actually, articles which are from MSDN Magazine often seem to show up reasonably OK - they seem to support mobile devices.)

Coffeehouse - Trying to read MSDN on the Pocket PC

PeteBeech — Mon, 12 Apr 2004 21:52:09 GMT

Go on, there must be someone who's tried looking at MSDN on the Pocket PC. Or is it just not working for me?..

Anyone from the MSDN library team on Channel 9 yet?

Coffeehouse - Why is C# Case Specific?

PeteBeech — Mon, 12 Apr 2004 21:27:25 GMT

irascian wrote:

When you only have a few data types it makes sense, although even with a few the hungarian notation used seemed to vary quite widely somewhat defeating the point of the exercise. WIth .Net there are so many different types Hungarian Notation just makes no sense. Three letter acronyms soon run out, start conflicting and before you know it you've got horrendously long hungarian notation prefixes just to separate out one type from another.

Yes, I agree - actually I only use it for 'primitive' types, i.e. the ones for which there's a C# keyword. I don't use it for all the different types in the FCL, at least not with a 3 letter mnemonic - although I usually try to make it fairly clear somehow in the name.

irascian wrote:

I know there is a lot of "don't use the _ character for fields" sentiment around, but it's convenient to differentiate between fields from parameters and also means fields get listed all together in the drop-down list boxes when you're in Visual Studio.

I haven't been keeping up with this, but the last I knew was that the recommendations were to use the _ for field names. I just saw the other day that it (possibly) isn't recommended anymore. When did all this change? Is it still in the official recommendations?

Coffeehouse - Why is C# Case Specific?

PeteBeech — Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:09:45 GMT

paulcam wrote:

Case-sensitivity can be a good thing, and so can Hungarian notation (these arguments tend to show up in clusters).

It seems like hungarian notation is out of favour now, and the latest coding convention guidelines say it should not be used (see the middle of this blog entry). I really wonder what the rationale behind this is, as I still find it incredibly useful.

Is it because they think it makes code harder to maintain (e.g. if the type of a var changes, which in my experience doesn't happen too often), or as you say, that the IDE should give that support (not much good if you use notepad, or you're reading a hardcopy of the code for a code-review or something).

Coffeehouse - Trying to read MSDN on the Pocket PC

PeteBeech — Sun, 11 Apr 2004 22:09:00 GMT

Has anyone ever tried reading MSDN articles on a pocket PC. with Pocket IE? You end up going to a page at msdn.microsoft.com/mobile.aspx.. which looks great, and you think the whole thing has been optimised for running on a mobile device.

But, after choosing a category and then a link, almost every library article you choose takes you back to the main menu. MSDN TV doesn't work - there's no link to watch the video (the buttons don't work on Pocket IE). DotNetRocks won't even play (from MSDN - its fine from franklins.net). It seems ironic that I can't see Microsoft documentation on a device running a Microsoft OS with a Microsoft mobile Internet browser - especially since there seems to have been some initial efforts to start making it mobile device friendly.

If anyone else has tried it, do you have the same experience?

This has been like this ever since I found MSDN had a mobile "optimised" page, and I've been hoping it would be fixed by now. Where can I notify the MSDN Library team about these problems?

Coffeehouse - Microsoft in future.

PeteBeech — Sun, 11 Apr 2004 21:12:21 GMT

Sabot wrote:

Japan_Germany has a point. In Germany Microsoft isn't King just a very strong contender. Just ask Munchen Met Council, they have 10,000 Linux desktops.

I live in Munich, and they don't seem to have their 10000 Linux desktops yet - I've been in quite a few of the local government offices recently (as a normal customer, getting bureaucratic stuff done), and I checked out what they were running, and it was still Windows. I didn't see Linux once.

And apparently they're having tremendous problems porting to Linux, one reason being because its too difficult to convert the custom software they have under Windows into Linux. The problem is the development tools, and that the people doing it aren't up to speed on Linux development - which is fair enough I guess. To get around some of this, I believe they're planning on running Windows software on a Windows installation running on VMWare on Linux, or something like that. And, as a taxpayer, you do wonder why they are bothering..!

It will be interesting to see if it works, and if most of it does end up on Windows on VMWare, whether they still claim success.

Coffeehouse - How to Hate Microsoft?

PeteBeech — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 20:30:39 GMT

I think you have to give credit to Microsoft for doing all this application blocks stuff in the first place - certainly they could be more coherent with each other, but it's still early days (most are still version 1), and as they mature they can only get more consistent with each other and stable.

With the bit about Response.Redirect vs Server.Transfer, I guess you're referring to UIP? On the GotDotNet forum for UIP, the developers have explained that a decision was made based on customer feedback that they would prefer the URL not to remain constant in the browser address box. The main thing is, you get the full source, so its possible to change these things to fit your needs, or you can use them just to get architectural ideas.

(BTW, very curious - why shouldn't ApplicationException be inherited from - I think I remember reading this once, but forgot why)

I'm struggling to think of things to complain about with Microsoft, as with all this openness in the last couple of years they have addressed most of my major concerns. However, I still get annoyed at the documentaion for .NET - generally its first class, but there are sometimes glaring errors or misinformation, and its still up there on MSDN - e.g. things like the order of certain events in Windows Forms apps, or the exact return value of certain functions in all cases - sometimes the most obvious case is missed out. Also, maybe some links to relevant parts of the .NET Framework Development Guide from the FCL references. And how about incorporating QuickStarts directly into the docs?

The docs are the most polished yet from Microsoft, I think, but surely you could have a small team chugging away through all that stuff to really squeeze out the last mistakes from it. I encounter mistakes in the docs on an almost daily basis, and I often use the feedback thing to report the mistake, but nothing ever seems to change.

However, that was scraping the barrel a bit, and I would still say the .NET documentation is way above previous efforts, and most other companies. But it could go just that extra few yards, and be practically faultless.