Channel 9 - Discussions by RomSteady

Coffeehouse - Professional Programmers Interview

Michael Russell — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 23:13:55 GMT

1. What interested you in this field of work?

When I was a kid, I was ripped off by a "Super Breakout" machine at a Godfather's Pizza. I looked at it and said, "I could do better." Since then, I have.

2. What requirements do you need to have a position in this field?

Knowledge of your platform and programming language of choice, and a willingness to accept "no" for an answer.

3. What software programs do you need to know in this field?

It depends on which subfield of programming you're going into. If it's video games, C++ is a must, as is knowing at least something about 3D editing packages. For government coding, we use Visual Basic .NET and some custom scripting languages required by some of the crud we have to work with.

4. Do you belong to any professional organizations?

I belong to several user groups.

5. What duties do you have during a typical day?

Design, code, test, deploy, rinse, repeat.

6. What do you like the most about your job?

I can work on any project I want in any order I want.

7. What do you like the least about your job?

If I need custom functionality, I either have to find a BSD or public domain version of the functionality or develop it myself due to budget constraints. A lot of times, we get crunch projects where the entire project has to be done in under four weeks.

8. What advice would you give to a student entering this field?

Do it because you love it, not because of the pay...because the pay is already leaving.

9. Are there any perks with the job you have?

In three more years, I'll be fully vested in our pension.

10. How many hours per week do you work?

I work 40 hours a week. (Government employee.) Since I worked 80-100 hours a week back when I was at Microsoft Game Studios, the 30% pay cut was a decent exchange for the 50-60% cut in hours.

11. Do you get paid hourly, salary, or by project?

Salary.

12. Any additional comments

Didn't it suck dying on CD #1?

Tech Off - Am I authorized to redistribute VisualUI.ttf?

Michael Russell — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:12:46 GMT

Note: I'm not from Microsoft Legal. I used to be employed by Microsoft, but this should not be construed as me speaking for Microsoft.

This one is a bit of a weird file, I admit. The sole purpose of the font is to provide UI widgets as character glyphs. While Visual Studio does provide a selection of graphics that can be freely redistributed when embedded, this font is not included in that folder.

Also, this file is not listed in redist.txt as one that allows redistribution.

However, the argument you could make is that you are attempting to ensure a standard user experience across products.

If I had to make a guess based off of how Microsoft handles things, I would say, "No." The font file's sole use by Microsoft is as a support file for Visual Studio. MSLegal would probably come across as thinking that if people start embedding one Visual Studio file without explicit permission, the next step would be to embed the IDE. (They're paranoid like that.)

Tech Off - DrawString emsize and centered glyph.

Michael Russell — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 19:59:11 GMT

Have you considered constructing a Metafile of your text and/or graphics, retrieving the dimensions, setting a GDI+ transformation, and then "playing" the Metafile to the screen?

Admittedly, System.Drawing.Imaging.Metafile isn't the most documented class, but it sounds like it should be right up your alley.

Tech Off - .Net SqlCommand parameters

Michael Russell — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 16:35:20 GMT

For what you were discussing up top, there is no difference as to what would be sent over the wire. You may have a slight hit using the (string, object) overload due to the conversion required, but the time you're waiting on the wire would dwarf the extra delay.

So in this case, I'd just pick whichever one would give you the most readable code. Besides, if you're adding enough parameters that you're going to noticably slow down the client app, there are problems far beyond the .NET Framework with your design. [grin]

Tech Off - .Net SqlCommand parameters

Michael Russell — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 17:11:54 GMT

Also, if you are using prepared statements (think one-time use stored procedures to help eliminate SQL injection attacks), you need to use the (string, SqlDbType) and (string, SqlDbType, size) overloads.

Normally, I'd use a stored procedure for this, but here is an example:

Dim cmd As New SqlCommand("INSERT INTO ecom_pplog(txn_id,info) VALUES (@1,@2)", conn)
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text
cmd.Parameters.Add(New SqlParameter("@1", SqlDbType.Char, 17))
cmd.Parameters.Item("@1").Value = Request.Form("txn_id")
cmd.Parameters.Add(New SqlParameter("@2", SqlDbType.Text, Request.Form.ToString.Length))
cmd.Parameters.Item("@2").Value = Request.Form.ToString

conn.Open()
cmd.Prepare()
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
conn.Close()

Tech Off - Memory manager problem?

Michael Russell — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 17:09:56 GMT

Okay, token dumb questions...

1) Are you running the code as debug in Windows?

2) Which compiler and version are you using?

Coffeehouse - office assistant

Michael Russell — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 16:52:57 GMT

Check out the Agent SDK http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msagent/agentstartpage_7gdh.asp

..although isn't trying to make ArcGIS user-friendly a lost cause? Every person our GIS department shows ArcGIS or ArcIMS to gets the "glazed donut" look within 30 seconds.

We ended up having to write our own "easy-to-use" address finder/pathfinding/geolocation system. Took about two weeks to do...and to be honest, the time we spent was more than made up for with the annual savings on our ESRI licenses.

Tech Off - .NET Bitmaps

Michael Russell — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 22:42:38 GMT

Try using DrawImageUnscaled.