Channel 9 - Discussions by vbrunner__

Coffeehouse - looking for geeks in the tucson area

A1C Stephen Collins — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:30:15 GMT

hey guys!

i haven't been on in about two years. i'm a busy guy with the whole joining the air force, getting married, and becoming a dad thing.

but now i'm finally settling down at my first duty station in tucson, az. so if there's anyone out there from the area, drop me a line. it will be great to finally get in touch with some real geeks for a change.

looking forward to hearing from you!

-sven

Tech Off - CLR Stored procs and INSERTs

A1C Stephen Collins — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 22:28:03 GMT

scott976 wrote:

Okay vbrunner using a * as your delimeter is not any different than a comma. I heard another way to do it is use ~ as your delimeter.

how is that at all necessary? i was only providing anecdotal evidence of that pattern in my company. the relevant part of that comment was the "it's still a hack" part.

Tech Off - CLR Stored procs and INSERTs

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:46:13 GMT

well that's hardly the ONLY way. where i work one of thier methods is just a really long string split up into chunks the size of the field with a * at the end. it works quite nicely, actually, but it's still a hack.

Tech Off - CLR Stored procs and INSERTs

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:41:11 GMT

this thread provoked my question:
also, i apologize if this is nothing but a demonstration of my newbie-ness in SQL...

am i the only one that thinks a series of INSERT statements to submit many rows of data is a little insane?
say i want to add 100 new authors to a table; i'd much rather call some sort of stored procedure to do this all in one fell swoop then to make 100 round trips to the DB.

that's where CLR Stored Procs come in. i've never tried them, but from what i know this will allow me to just pass a List to the database to preform all the inserts right on the server, correct?

Tech Off - .NET 2.0 Win App Eror (EventType clr20r3)

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:29:04 GMT

in that case my only suggestion is wrapping everything in Main(string[] args) with a try and see if anything is caught. but if you're seeing the error i think you are it's occurring before Main is even called, so i'm sorry but beyond that i don't know. where's littleguru when you need him?

Tech Off - is 'new object().property' or 'new object().method()' a good idea?

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:22:00 GMT

ScanIAm wrote:

Console.WriteLine(new String("Bob").Length);

The part that concerns me is the accessing of the function 'Length' when you don't really know that the new String has actually been created.

Of course you know that the new String has been created. why would you not? that's exactly what you are telling the compiler to do. consider:

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            System.Console.WriteLine(new System.String('c', 10).Length);
        }
    }
}

here you are telling the runtime to create a new object of type String by calling the constructor with provided parameters, get the Length property, and pass a copy of it to the Console.WriteLine function. from there it doesn't matter what happens to the String object because it is no longer needed; the WriteLine function has it's own copy (because it's a value type) of what we wanted, so no worries.

am i right, guys?

Tech Off - .NET 2.0 Win App Eror (EventType clr20r3)

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:04:17 GMT

my first suggestion is to make sure that .NET 2.0 is properly installed on the client machine. many times stock XP machines are missing various dlls in the GAC if they have not touched the internet in a while. Just run the setup.exe that is deployed with your ClickOnce deployment, then try it again.

if that doesn't work, try one of the two following things:
1. Create a Setup project that only installs all the detected dependencies of the project you are trying to deploy, but not the project output. this will ensure that the GAC has all the neccessary assemblies for your application.
2. Manually check the dependencies in both the GAC and the locations your application is loading them from.

for all i know this could have nothing to do with missing assemblies, but that seems to be the remedy when it happens to me.

Tech Off - Code to list dependancies of stored procs and/or tables?

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:32:17 GMT

You may also want to try the Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo assembly/namespace.

Tech Off - Registry permissions troubles

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:03:19 GMT

jasgrg wrote:

Try

RegistryKey key = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(
@"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VSTAHostConfig", true);

It opens the subkey as writeable.

wow. figures it would be something that simple.
thanks.

Tech Off - C# array constructor & initialization

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:00:26 GMT

consider the following:

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    using System;
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            new MyClass();
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
    class MyClass
    {
        public MyClass()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");
        }
    }
}

it's completely insane to do such a thing, but as evildictator pointed out, the compiler has no idea at new MyClass(); what that side effects that constructor has.
that's why new Object(); compiles and new Object[] { }; does not.
MyClass[] { }; has to be put somewhere because the initialization of an array requires several steps and again, just does nothing.
I suppose you could argue that new MyClass[] { new MyClass(), new MyClass() }; is valid because each constructor has a side effect, but before you can call those constructors you have to reserve some memory for the array, and since you did not specify where to store the pointer to that memory, it's just not allowed.

Tech Off - C# array constructor & initialization

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:46:03 GMT

janzenr wrote:

My question is not about whether it makes sense.

In fact, it makes no more sense to do this:
new Object();
than this:
new Object[] {"foo", 5, 2.22};

The question is, why is the first statement allowed, and the second disallowed in C#.

with repect to my last reply, my answer is now "good question."
neither does anything, so as far as i know should not be allowed.

Tech Off - C# array constructor & initialization

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:42:04 GMT

janzenr wrote:

Why does the C# compiler allow statements like:
new String(); (This does throw an error because there is no no-argument constructor for String, but feel free to replace Object for String in any of these examples. My mistake. The spirit of the question is the same. The original code at the top is correct.)
and
(new String[] { "foo", "bar"}).GetType();
and
Console.WriteLine(new String[] { "foo", "bar"});
but not:
new String[] { "foo", "bar"};

The last example gives me:
"Only assignment, call, increment, decrement, and new object expressions can be used as a statement"

I do not understand why the last statement does not compile.

i haven't read any replies yet, but i can go ahead and tell you that the last sample as a single statement should not compile in any language.
what are you doing with it? where is this memory going? the compiler can't do anything with it if you do not specify what's going on. does
new String[] { "foo", "bar"}; alone is not a statement or an expression, it's just a fragment.
string s = new String[] { "foo", "bar"}; puts the data somewhere. it allocates memory and puts something in it.

It's not that the statement is inherently wrong, it's just non-functional.

Tech Off - VSTA SDK incomplete?

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 03:04:37 GMT

After hearing about it on the latest .NET Rocks! podcast, I set out to try the new VSTA SDK, and much to my surprise everything works up to one point: generating the project templates. I followed the instruction in the MSDN Library addition it installed, and came up with the following instructions for how (I thought) to get the most basic sample, ShapeAppCSharp, to function with VSTA:

(All paths/command-line commands are in bold, the .reg file is in italics. Copy them verbatim, quotes and all, and it will work fine.)

Install VSTA to default location (C:\Program Files\Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Applications SDK)
Start - >Run -> msiexec /i "D:\Program Files\Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Applications SDK\2007.02\VisualStudioToolsForApplications\SetupPackage\vsta_aide.msi" VSTAINVS=1
Extract: D:\Program Files\Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Applications SDK\2007.02\VisualStudioToolsForApplications\Samples\ShapeAppCSharp.zip to: C:\ShapeAppSamples
Open C:\ShapeAppSamples\ShapeAppCSharp\ShapeAppCSharp.sln
Add a new C# Class Library project to the solution named ShapeAppCSharpProxy
Add a new set of references to the new project (All under the “.NET” tab):
1. System.Drawing
2. System.Windows.Forms
3. System.AddIn
4. Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Adapter
5. Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Contract

Open Project Properties for project ShapeAppCSharp
Paste the following text into the “Post-build event command-line” box on the “Build Events” tab:

set proxygen="D:\Program Files\Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Applications SDK\2007.02\VisualStudioToolsForApplications\Tools\ProxyGen\x86\ProxyGen.exe"

set ProxyClass="$(SolutionDir)$(TargetName)Proxy\Proxy.cs"

set objPath="$(ProjectDir)obj\$(ConfigurationName)\$(TargetFileName)"

set proxyPath="$(SolutionDir)$(TargetName)Proxy\$(TargetName)OM.xml"

%proxygen% /l:%objPath% /c:%ProxyClass% /o:%proxyPath% /f

%proxygen% /l:%objPath% /c:%ProxyClass% /i:%proxyPath% /f

Open Project Properties for project ShapeAppCSharpProxy
Sign the assembly with a new key named “key” (remember to uncheck the “Protect my key file with a password” checkbox)
Paste the following text into the “Post-build event command-line” box on the “Build Events” tab:

"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\gacutil.exe" /i $(TargetPath)

Right click the solution and click “Rebuild Solution”.
Right-click the ShapeAppCSharpProxy project, click “Add Existing Item…” and add the newly created Proxy.cs and ShapeAppCSharpOM.xml files to the project.
Right click the solution and click “Rebuild Solution” (to ensure everything is forced to rebuild anew.)
Check %windir%\assembly for the ShapeAppCSharpProxy assembly.
Create a .reg file with the following content:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VSTAHostConfig]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VSTAHostConfig\ShapeAppCSharp]

"AppName"="ShapeAppCSharp"

"ProjectTemplatesLocation"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft\\ShapeAppCSharp\\\\ProjectTemplates"

"VSCSProjectTemplatesLocation"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft\\ShapeAppCSharp\\\\ProjectTemplates\\CSharp"

"VSVBProjectTemplatesLocation"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft\\ShapeAppCSharp\\\\ProjectTemplates\\VisualBasic"

Run the new .reg script
Navigate to D:\Program Files\Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Applications SDK\2007.02\VisualStudioToolsForApplications\Tools\ProjectGen\x86\ and run ProjectGen.exe
Select ShapeAppCSharp from the dropdown at the bottom and fill every other box with “ShapeAppCSharp” (with the exception of the icon field, which we will leave blank). Click “Next”.
On the next page, Click the “…” button and navigate to the C:\ShapeAppSamples\ShapeAppCSharp\ShapeAppCSharpProxy\bin\Debug directory and select ShapeAppCSharpProxy.dll
Sigh with remorse at the message you see, as you have now followed the directions in the MSDN articles verbatim, but to no avail.

Am I missing anything?

The installer for ShapeAppAdvancedCSharp works fine, so for the time being I can still get a feel for how the thing works, but I'd like to step through the whole process myself to get a feel for how the migration process would be for one of my own applications.

(if the link at the top doesn't work, the SDK is at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7C2EA8AE-E051-449A-9051-3A351BF27B7F&displaylang=en )

Tech Off - Registry permissions troubles

A1C Stephen Collins — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:04:56 GMT

IdentityReference refer = new NTAccount(Environment.UserDomainName,
    Environment.UserName);
RegistryAccessRule full = new RegistryAccessRule(refer,
RegistryRights.FullControl, AccessControlType.Allow);
RegistrySecurity sec = new RegistrySecurity();
sec.AddAccessRule(full);

RegistryKey key = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(
    @"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VSTAHostConfig");
key = key.CreateSubKey("TestApp",
    RegistryKeyPermissionCheck.ReadWriteSubTree, sec);
// Validate args first.
key.SetValue("AppName", args[0],
    RegistryValueKind.String);
key.SetValue("ProjectTemplateLocations", args[1],
    RegistryValueKind.String);
// done!

the above code should add the keys necessary to register a VSTA application to prepare it to create project templates. problem is, .NET is telling me it can't change the registry.
Are my security checks incorrect? i'm on a corporate network, but i'm local admin on all machines in my domain, including of course my own.

any help?

Coffeehouse - Developer Interview Questions

A1C Stephen Collins — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:25:32 GMT

it works, but i sure wish you didn't have to cast so much.

Coffeehouse - Developer Interview Questions

A1C Stephen Collins — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:01:54 GMT

W3bbo wrote:

blowdart wrote:
Write a multiplication function; without using the multiply operator. It must take two integers as a parameter and be optimised.

Aren't you also meant to prohibit use of For?

int Multiply(int operand1, int operand2) {

for(int i=1;i<=operand2;i++) {

operand1 += operand1;

}

return operand1;

}

//wrote it without thinking
///is it correct?

i thought the same thing, but that would give you 32 for 2*6.

Coffeehouse - Developer Interview Questions

A1C Stephen Collins — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:29:12 GMT

I have a "Technical Interview" with a large Manhattan-based software company on Tuesday and I need you guys' help.

For those of you who do the hiring at your company:
- What are the toughest questions you ask of your interviewees?
- What are the questions that get the most blank stares?
- What is the one thing an interviewee can do to get/lose the job right off the bat?

And for those of you who have been through plenty of interviews:
- What's the toughest question you've had to answer during an interview?
- Is there any question in particular that you dread being asked?

If I get this job it will be my big break. I think I'm ready, but any extra help will definitely be appreciated.

Tech Off - ControlBox mod API

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:46:34 GMT

Ion Todirel wrote:

you could set FormBorderStyle to None and do your own custom drawing, also resizing and movement

no offense, but that's insane in my case. i'm just looking to draw/interact in the non-client area.

this looks promising.

Tech Off - ControlBox mod API

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:29:20 GMT

W3bbo wrote:

It's fairly trivial, take a look in the Sandbox board for a posting by Maurits which paints the current date/time to the titlebar.

That said, modiying the title bar does bar your program from getting "Designed for Windows" certification.

btw, this doesn't actually modify anything. it's a single transparent window w/ the some text in it. it's not intended to do what i'm suggesting.

Tech Off - ControlBox mod API

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:21:05 GMT

as cool as that is, it's not exactly what i'm looking for.
is this how everyone does it? just like his example, but following the window around? i thought there was some way to modify the window itself...

Tech Off - ControlBox mod API

A1C Stephen Collins — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:45:18 GMT

Here's my post to the Scripts forum.

Anyone here know how to do this?

Tech Off - Inter-Dependent DLLs

A1C Stephen Collins — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:48:47 GMT

This is more of a design question than anything else.

I am building a framework for my company consisting of 8 (or more) assemblies.
I have a couple of ones consisting of common functions, and methods to access things around the company, info about the various domains, machines, etc.
I also have a single assembly for my data access layer, and two others dependent on this for business objects, one for each "system" in our company (one's a FoxPro based collection of .DBF files, the other is SQL Server.) I have another assembly of interfaces/base types that tie business objects together from the two systems, defining common attributes/functionality of both.
To map it out:
                           SqlObjects
                         /                  \
DataAccess --                          -- Interfaces
                         \                 /
                          FoxObjects

(SqlObjects and FoxObjects depend on both DataAcess and Interfaces, DataAccess and Interfaces both depend on nothing.)

My question is:
Is this practice a bad idea? Making those data assemblies co-dependent like that? For some reason I feel like it's going to come back to bite me...

Tech Off - Sick of working as a phone monkey, I wanna code!

A1C Stephen Collins — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:55:24 GMT

TrainingTime wrote:

14 years later I'm still coding and run my own company.

you RUN your company and still code? that gives me hope for starting my own company in the future!

and for rabid_lunatic, as much as a fan of C# as i am, i'd say go with java. i honestly think there is little chance for C# to have any libraries that can target any phones, but you can look (Mono:ARM looks promising...)
C# is a great language, but if you want to be universal, go with java.

Tech Off - Your Favorite Enterprise Deployment Method

A1C Stephen Collins — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:44:58 GMT

To those Enterprise developers out there:
What's your favorite deployment method?
Build to a network location?
Installers?
(Am I crazy to be a fan of) ClickOnce?

Tech Off - Hardware, Hardware, and more Hardware

A1C Stephen Collins — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:58:40 GMT

and these just work? no configuration neccessary?