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Books Written by Brian Nantz |
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Author: |
host |
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11/17/2005 |
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This is a web log of things I have learned and hopefully can save you some time. |
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XAML in action |
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By host on
12/29/2004
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XAML is becoming a reality much soon than I had anticipated. SVG seems to be going to the wayside in favor of XAML. I really think Xamalon is stepping up to the plate. They are providing the following new tools:
-SVG 2 XAML converter
-Windows Forms Edition
-Compact Edition
-Flash Edition
This is far beyond what I would have imagined for XAML support this early in the game. I think this company is a prime target for the MS acquisition team.
If you were waiting for a graphical editor to support Avalon here it is! It is even written using Avalon and looks very promising.
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Python for .NET |
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By host on
12/28/2004
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For you python fans out there - http://www.ironpython.com/
I always thought ActiveState would be working on a Python.Net compiler, but this one looks to target both .NET and Mono!
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Christoph's Blog |
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By host on
12/17/2004
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I have finally caught up with a guy who I really respect. I met Christoph Wille at a book conference at Microsoft and we had a lot in common with our interest in Open Source. Of course he is into it far more than I am but it is nice to read his web log and see what he is up to. I love blogs they are really changing the internet.
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PDC 2005 Announced |
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By host on
12/10/2004
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Finally some details (http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc/) on the PDC 2005. I think this is going to be the best one in a while because VS.Net 2005, Sql 2005 and Indigo will be on display
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XAML tool like Portals |
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By host on
12/10/2004
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I am very excited about XAML. I have been using MyXaml in a product for a while and I know there is Xamalon and I wish them well. I think there will be a market for XAML on Windows Forms 1.1. Avalon will only be for Windows Forms 2.0. I am most excited about XAML for 2 reasons. First, skinning an application should be much simpler. Second, related to number one, allowing a user to re-arrange the controls on a form should be much simpler. Its amazing how web development and windows development are converging. ASP.NET’s server-side controls make web development much more like VB6 forms. Now Avalon is making Windows Forms more like ASPX pages. I like that because there are lots of developers who can make a good UI and lay it out pretty well and the control interaction is good. But then there is a breed of developer who is gifted in choosing just the right colors and moving the controls even just a few pixels one way or the other and Voila it is 100% better. With Avalon (like ASPX) just send the layou
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VPC Diff Utility |
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By host on
12/9/2004
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As you probably know from past posts I am a huge fan of Virtual PC. I like it better than VMWare because it supports differencing drives and other things that VMWare can not compete. However there are two things that Virtual PC must add in the next release. First, the compacting utility doesn’t work all that well but there are work-arounds for that. Secondly, I don’t think MS realized how much developers are using VPC. I think it was slated as more of an administrator’s tool. But this tool is invaluable for developers and especially testers. If there is one thing I get asked more than anything from testers it is “How can I compare two machines? One works one doesn’t and I can’t tell what’s different.” Why can’t we have a VPC diff utility that shows the differences on the file system as well as the registry!
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C# Features |
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By host on
12/8/2004
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Don’t get me wrong I think C# is the best language around. Now that the C# 2.0 is almost out we can see some of the cool new additions to the language:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ericgu/archive/2004/03/11/88374.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/04/05/C20/default.aspx
I really respect the C# team @ MS. When I was out there I talked with Anders a little after his presentation on generics. I think they put a lot of thought into what they add to the language. Get this straight! I am talking about C# features NOT Visual Studio .Net features. Yes Edit and Continue will be nice but that has nothing to do with C#. (One thing I hope MS realizes is that they while they shouldn’t ignore their VB.NET users they should not recreate the problem they had in pre .NET days. I don’t want to be back to picking the programming language based on the features of the tools and editors available for that language!)
After using C# for a while now there are a few things about it that annoy me. F
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Application Life Cycle |
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By host on
12/7/2004
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It hit me today that Applications have a lifecycle and ecology just like a living creature! This hit me as I read Chris Sells’ log entries about Internet Explorer (http://www.sellsbrothers.com/news/showTopic.aspx?ixTopic=1400 & http://www.sellsbrothers.com/news/showTopic.aspx?ixTopic=1461). An application starts out very rudimentary, but functional. Then more and more features are added until the program seems bloated and not useful because it is so slow. This obviously happened with IE. Anyone who has done web development knows that IE is such a Jeckel and Hyde. Some web pages can be wrong and missing markup tags everywhere and IE renders it fine. Then there are a few things that you have to code special just for IE and that is a pain! If Microsoft doesn’t even like their own products then how are we supposed to use them! I think this is where Open source shines! If Open Source Projects try to go head to head with MS then MS will always win. They have so many developers and can crank things out so
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Book Reviews |
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By host on
12/6/2004
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Several reviews for my books are finally popping up in the wild:
Advanced Webservice Security in the .NET Platform
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590591151/qid=1101747405/sr=8-6/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i6_xgl14/102-6074457-4426512?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Open Source .NET Development
http://weblogs.asp.net/pwilson/archive/2004/11/30/272243.aspx
http://www.huntug.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=79
http://saloon.javaranch.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=49&t=000570
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0321228103/qid=1102084273/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/102-2624373-4276130?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
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TestDriven.NET 1.0 Release! |
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By host on
12/3/2004
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http://www.testdriven.net/Portals/_default/Skins/Rocket_skin3/banner.gif
1.0 Release! TestDriven.NET not only allows you to run unit tests from anywhere in your Visual Studio solutions, but also unites many different testing frameworks (NUnit, MbUnit, csUnit)! This VS.NET add-in provides context menus, solution explorer options, and tools for integrating testing throughout all phases of development. You can run your tests in their own runner process, which gives you side-effect free testing. And best of all it has support for Visual Studio Team System.
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