Wednesday, January 16, 2008

.Net Source code now available

You could always get the .NET Framework Library Source code with Lutz Roeder's .NET Reflectorand Reflector.FileDisassembler but now Microsoft went and licensed it to us. They also included comments and made it easy to debug into it, which is really cool.

The source is Reference Licensed, which means you can read it, but you can't use it. So unlike Delphi's VCL/RTL source code, you can't make an enhancement in the framework and recompile and ship. Nor can you build on the code in new and creative ways.

Interestingly, they changed the Reference License to specifically exclude anyone working from the Mono project to look at the source code (or to forfeit their legal ability to contribute if they do). But if the .NET Framework clone is for the windows platform, you can look all you want. Under the unmodified license, if you looked at the code, you couldn't build similar functionality on any platform. Now they only prohibit it on non-Windows platforms. So I wonder . . . If someone looked at the code to work on a Windows port of Mono, it would seem that would be permitted under the license. Then someone could take the new inspired code, and use that in a non-Windows port of the Windows port of Mono. Hmmm . . . I am not a lawyer, nor have a read the license, but it is an interesting proposition.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

What to Expect in Delphi Unicode Support

Allen Bauer has a series of great blog posts (with more to come now doubt) outlining some of the technical details of what to expect with the new changes to support Unicode in the upcoming Tiburon version of Delphi.

So what is the reaction? Some people are grumpy that some of their code might break. Delphi has a long history of backwards compatibility. I am sure CodeGear will do what they can to make as much code as possible work, but this looks like it might cause some problems if you ever made assumptions about the size of a Char (which was generally discouraged) or used a string to store non-text (Which I am VERY guilty of. They are just so dang useful!) Personally I am really looking forward to Unicode in Delphi, even if there are a few growing pains.

On-line backup hosts

OK, we all know we need to back up our data.  And we have all been told to have an off-line location for all of our data as well.  More than likely, the business we work at does just that.

But at home? Not a chance.

Heck, we are lucky to have a backup anywhere.  Maybe your lucky enough to have several computers with large hard drives and you can copy your data between them.  Or, if you are really geeky, you have an external hard drive that you can pass around. That's a good start -- but what about the off site part?  Could be that is just too much trouble. But there are answers.

Several web sites are now offering off-site backup for home users, and for not much money either. Here are some solutions:

Mozy (a user group favorite): 2 gig free, $5 a month for "Unlimited space".  Might not be unlimited, but still a good deal.

IDrive: also offers 2 gig free.  You can map a drive to it (Vista is not supported), and "Unlimited Space -- 150 gig" for $50 a year (slightly cheaper than Mozy).  IDrive also supports versioning.

Carbonite: No free space, but everything else is comparable.

Of course, this blog is mainly read by developers, we want to backup our code, and there are lots of options for that.

If you don't care if someone else sees your code, things are easy and free.  The hardest consideration is do you want to store your code in Subversion, CSV, or something else.

SourceForge: the original.  Uses CVS and Subversion

Google Code: a new kid on the block, but very popular with many open source .Net projects. Uses Subversion.

Tigris: these guys make Subversion -- and offer space.  They also list a number of hosting site.

CodePlex: Microsoft sponsored site for open source projects.  You will find the AJAX Toolkit, and the Patterns and Practices stuff there.  I believe they use Team Systems for source control. Interestingly, you will also see many other open source libraries with listings there, but the code is actually on Google Code (because CodePlex doesn't support Subversion).

Commercial Hosting.  Lots of options here as well, and lots of price ranges.  Just Google "subversion hosting" and you will see a ton of options.  Price is one consideration, but also look for bug tracking while you are there.  Here are a few options:

SvnRepository: Starts at $4 month, includes 500MB and Trac for bug reporting.

CVSDude: Starts at $5 month, includes 100MB.  They also have Trac and Bugzilla, but you have to pay more.

OK, there are a few options, but not a definitive list by any stretch.  If I left something out, please leave a comment and I'll update the post.

Monday, January 14, 2008

ReSharper 4.0 -- getting closer

Looks like JetBrain's are trying to keep to their promise of an EAP by the end of January.

They have released a short feature list and hints that things are close now.

http://blogs.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2008/01/resharper-40-general-preview/

Here is hoping for my favorite tool.

(note to Code Rush -- really, I haven't tried your tool, I'm sure it has Mark Miller's awesomeness all over it.  Heck, I would get it for the "Create Skin File" refactoring -- I just haven't tried it yet)

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Meeting PostMortem

Hi all,

We had a nice meeting last Thursday where Mike Chrisman proved he could write a C# program using Notepad++, and a NAnt script from memory while being heckled.  Proving one thing: he is braver then I.

He posted a blog on the topic as well.

While he was not able to convince everyone that the benefits of a one step build outweighed the work of creating the script, everyone seemed to agree that it would be a good idea to use with teams.  But heck, we haven't been able to get everyone in our group to agree on anything, so why start now.  :)

Next month

We talk about what to cover next month as well, and it looks like we will cover various web debugging tools.  Here are a list of tools that I will show off (these are just tools that I use)

  • FireBug, which is one of the best html/css/javascript debuggers that I know (works only with FireFox). 
  • YSlow
  • IE Developer Toolbar, which tries to be FireBug for IE -- and almost gets there. 
  • NotePad++: because NotePad isn't enough anymore
  • Web Developer Toolbar: Not like FireBug, but interesting none the less.
  • CSS Vista: a tool to compare css between IE and FireFox
  • GreaseMonkey  -- this one is stretching it, so maybe.

My final tip for the day: in either FireFox or IE, did you know that Ctrl-R reloads the entire page?  I didn't until last week.

ReSharper 4.0 Roadmap

Looks like the good folks at JetBrains are hard at work on ReSharper 4.0.  The have now published the ReSharper 4.0 Roadmap.

For the brave: they should have a EAP sometime this January (2008), with the released product coming early this year.

Here is the full slated feature list (hopefully they get to everything):

  • Support for both Visual Studio 2005 and 2008
  • Comprehensive support for C# 3.0 language features, including:
    • New code analysis, context actions and quick-fixes
    • New refactorings (such as Convert to Extension Method, Convert to Automatic Property, Convert Anonymous Type to Named)
    • Updated IntelliSense
  • Many more intelligence and productivity features
    • Full set of refactorings available for VB.NET
    • New quickfixes and context actions for XAML files
    • Referenced assemblies are now taken into account in null-reference analysis thanks to external annotations. ReSharper is packaged with annotations for the .NET Framework assemblies
    • Code Cleanup — a tool for ensuring compliance with code guidelines and enhancing code structure
    • Complete Statement — a feature that will complete language constructs and get you ready to write the next statement
    • Many other enhancements and new features throughout the product