July 2007 Entries

IronRuby: .NET Type Inheritance Via Extension Classes

A while back, I blogged some examples on how you can use .NET types within your IronRuby (IRuby) applications.  So after playing around with it a bit, I wanted to do something pretty basic, inheritance.  Here's what I tried:# Basic inheritance from a dynamic type # to a static type. class MyForm < System::Windows::Forms::Form end When you try running this through the interactive console, you get this error: System.InvalidOperationException: superclass must be a Class (DynamicType given) Nice and descriptive, huh?  Well, essentially this means that your superclass needs to be a type that IRuby can understand, that is a class-type of DynamicType.  While looking around at the source...

posted @ Tuesday, July 31, 2007 10:46 AM | Feedback (619)

Ask An Expert Live Chat On August 23, 2007

That's right, if you have a question that needs answering come check out our "Ask An Expert" live chat on August 23rd, 2007 at 5 PM PDT.  Please note that this chat is not being hosted by Microsoft and as such questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs may not be answered. To see the main announcement, check out Ryan's blog for the info.  Also there seems to be a prize give away for this chat! How cool?!  Here's the list of experts involved in the chat.  It's quite the line up! Calendar: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx ICS: http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/07_0823_msdn_aspnet.ics Hope to see...

posted @ Tuesday, July 31, 2007 9:03 AM | Feedback (611)

How Many Classes Does It Take To Fully Represent A Real World Object?

Anybody?  Let's start this conversation and see where it goes?  David, I'm really interested on what you have to say about this!

posted @ Friday, July 27, 2007 12:46 PM | Feedback (612)

Visual Studio 2008 Beta2 Downloads

Brian Harry has a great post with all the links you will need to download the latest bits for VS2K8 beta2.  Also, in this related post he lists some of the nice features they've added to TFS 2008.  One interesting thing about the "new" TFS options is the VSTS Web Access (aka TeamPlain) that they're planning to release here shortly (Yes, it works both for TFS 2005 & 2008).

posted @ Friday, July 27, 2007 12:44 PM | Feedback (611)

More IronRuby Examples!

Looks like Nick has also posted his findings on IronRuby ... what can I say, it was just released today!! Anyway...I was playing around with IronRuby earlier this evening trying to see how it handled generics...well, currently it doesn't (remember, the code is alpha...but pretty sweet!).  I created a sample C# class (cleverly) called, MyClass:using System; namespace CSharpClass { public class MyClass { // Currently this event type cannot be called from IronRuby. public EventHandler<CustomArgs> Custom; ...

posted @ Monday, July 23, 2007 10:16 PM | Feedback (612)

IronRuby Pre-Alpha Released

That's right, John Lam and ScottGu have blogged about it!  So go get it while it's hot!!!  THIS IS SOO FREAKIN' COOL!!!

posted @ Monday, July 23, 2007 2:21 PM | Feedback (611)

Using The Windows Live Writer API To Retrieve Your Blog Password

Ok, so I'm really, really, really stupid!  I like other people out there suffer from the always popular I-have-too-many-passwords (IH2MP) syndrome.  Earlier this past weekend, I was trying to administer my blog and managed to forget the editor password so I could access the website.  After several failed attempts, I searched the application folders of Windows Live Writer to see where my password was kept.  It appears that by default, Live Writer stores its configuration information under the registry.  To retrieve the configuration information correctly, you need to use their API.  Here's a sample on how you can accomplish this:using...

posted @ Sunday, July 22, 2007 2:54 PM | Feedback (617)

FlickrNSurface

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about David Anson's surface-like Silverlight application that functions like Microsoft Surface.  Well, earlier this week, I created what I call FlickrNSurface (pronounced: "flickering surface").  Essentially, it's a mashup of flickr and Anson's Silverlight application. To retrieve the images from flickr, I used FlickrNet and an interesting post back mechanism.  I will have more posts talking about the design of the application and how you can do the same thing with your Silverlight applications.  For now, take a look at it and let me know what you think! You can download the code by going here:...

posted @ Sunday, July 22, 2007 2:40 PM | Feedback (611)

Great IADNUG Meeting Last Night

I don't know about you but I think we had a great turn out for last night IADNUG meeting on Regular Expressions.  Jon von Gillern did an excellent job tackling the topic.  I particularly liked the demo presentation-style he used to demonstrate the harder parts of the presentation.  Thanks Jon for taking the time to step up in front of the group and share your finds.  That's what we're all about!  Sharing and community!  Also, thank you to all of you that signed up for the event through ClickToAttend.  Like we mentioned during the meeting, we're in the process of trying...

posted @ Thursday, July 12, 2007 1:39 PM | Feedback (611)

Is Your Project Suffering From An NCA?

A Non-Coding Architect (NCA) can be detrimental to the success of a project.  These Word/IvoryTower architects can be pretty dogmatic when it comes to standards and back-in-the-day methods.  A couple of weeks ago, I read this really great post that outlines ways you can spot out the dreaded NCA and gives you some pointers on how you can help alleviate the situation. It's a pretty good read so go check it out! Before I forget, the blog author, Frank Kelly, is a java developer so he uses some J2EE that you might not be familiar with and should check out if you...

posted @ Tuesday, July 10, 2007 3:31 PM | Feedback (616)

New Additions To The Family

No, no!  We're not expecting another child!  I just got a couple more golf clubs for my collection! ;-)  Here is the detail of the clubs: Nike Sasquatch 460 Description: The SasQuatch (SQ) 460 Driver. The SQ 460 features a distinctive yellow sole design and club head design with what company officials call the "ideal ratio" between the width of the club face and the depth of the club head. All I can say is that is club rocks!  I was lucky to buy it WAY cheaper than it says for retail and it was worth every...

posted @ Monday, July 9, 2007 11:51 AM | Feedback (612)

Is Software Development like Elmo's World?

Alright, here's one way off left field...I guess that's how you start thinking once the architecture-side dominates your life. ;-) My 15th-month old loves Sesame Street.  One of the segments of the show is called Elmo's World.  Here's a description of the show from Wikipedia: Elmo, a small red monster who speaks in third person and is perpetually 2 1/2 to 3 years old. The show also features Mr. Noodle, a human mime character, and Elmo's pet goldfish, Dorothy. The segment was first introduced the beginning of its 30th season on November 16, 1998. The segment takes place in...

posted @ Friday, July 6, 2007 12:47 PM | Feedback (621)

Heartland Developer Conference Presentation Submitted!

I submitted the title and abstract for my HDC presentation.  Here's the info: The Taming Of the Oracle: A .NET Developer's Guide to Working With Oracle In this session you will learn how you can use the Oracle Data Provider for .NET, Oracle Providers for ASP.NET, and Visual Studio tools to get the most out of your experience with Oracle.  If you're a .NET developer that needs to work with Oracle as your primary database, this is a session that will getyou up and running in time for your project. Is there anything else you guys want to find...

posted @ Friday, July 6, 2007 11:23 AM | Feedback (611)

Currently Reading List

Good To Great - Jim Collins I've been meaning to read this book for quite sometime now, so why not now? I've had lots of friends tell me that it's good and that I should read it. Any of my three readers out there, what do you think of this book? The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture - John Battelle This seemed like a pretty good read from the reviews and back cover synopsis.  Once again, readers have you read/heard anything on this book?  All in the...

posted @ Tuesday, July 3, 2007 9:53 PM | Feedback (615)