@ Head

No, seriously !!  In case you haven't been paying attention, the Japanese company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha with support from the Japanese government is planning on killing over 440 minke whales this year for "scientific research".  That's more than one a day and two on Sundays !!  But it doesn't stop there.  Now they plan on killing hump back whales that are internationally listed as endangered.

Ouch !    Mary Jo Foley writes in  "The 'Dirty Little Secret' About Longhorn "  that

"But given how late (.Net Framework 2.0) is, and how new it would be (Microsoft Chairman) Bill Gates realized it would be foolish to build important pieces of Longhorn on top of .Net"

Scoble does a good job at backing up what Mary Jo said.    One thing he says :

"4) The "don't rewrite from scratch" Joel Spolsky rule. It's a good rule to follow if you want to ship anytime soon. Since existing versions of Windows were built in C++, rewriting pieces of them in C# or VB.NET would mean breaking this rule and potentially lengthening development time."

Of course I still find this incredibly ironic.  Microsoft insists on re-using it's own source code, and even given the ease with which they can step into Managed C++, they still preserve their existing code rather than go through the time and expense of shifting to .NET.  Yet for their customers, millions of VB developers, they abandon them and leave them no choice.  Funny how there's one rule for Microsoft's source code and yet another for their customers.

something said today triggered an odd memory in Mitch, so he tracked this film clip down... Microsoft Studs.  It's a mid 90's classic.

One of the really cool new features of VB.NEt 2005 is it's Application Framework which allows you to easily wire up to major Application Events.  One problem i found with it though is that code is often hidden, and you have to go via the project properties to get at it.  It feels a bit like someone hiding the Sub Main, and makes it not obvious as to what happens when the project loads etc.

So today, I noticed on Rob Copeland (who also has comments turned off, what up with that)'s blog a mention of a conversation he had with  Paul Kuklinski and Jay Schmelzer about this very issue.  

<twilight zone music>

Could this be in relation to the conversation I had with them a week or two ago ?

</twilight zone music>

Way cool in any case to hear it will be fixed

In the meantime, here's the work around I use:

- In Solution Explorer, click on the show all files button.  IF you are happy with that view, you're done

- If you want to make it more obvious for those who don't like that view, simply drag ApplicationEvents.vb out of the "Project" folder into the root folder for your project.  Note when you uncheck the "Show All Files", the ApplicationEvents.vb file may still hide. This seems to be a caching problem with the associated hide/show code and Solution Explorer, BUT it will show all the time next time you open the solution.

Now if we can only get them to give us the *option* to show the references node all the time as well

Avalon and Indigo Beta 1 RC is now available, but WTF is Beta 1 RC ??  I thought RC meant Release Candidate.  Beta comes from the greek, second letter of the alphabet :

 `Alpha Test' was the unit, module, or component test
phase; `Beta Test' was initial system test.

So how the hell do we get a Release Candidate being an early system test ? 

 I wonder if they meant RC 1 ?? 

Wooo hooo  RC 1, if that's what they meant, then way cool !!  But Beta 1, uhm, ... déjà vu ?

So who's VB blogs are your favourite blogs ??

Last night I stumbled onto this movie.. Baraka.  It's an oldie, made in 1992, but didn't seem dated at all.  It's the kind of thing you really need to put time aside for, and let yourself be absorbed into the visual images.. if you do, you'll find it incredibly moving.

I thought it brilliant cinematography, and I loved the content.  I'd rate this as a "classic" must see. Original, moving, thought provoking... 

A couple of months ago I subscribed to the Developer Chats feed from Microsoft.   It's got to be one of the most stupid, badly designed, not thought out feed ever.  Here we are talking about scheduling chats, so you'd expect the feed to include a date, a time and a link to enter the chat room, right ?  Well not according to who-ever put that together at Microsoft.

What's really scary though is this actually went live !!  It means either who ever put that useless feed together didn't report to anyone, which is scary in itself, or those they reported to didn't even look at it.. still scary !!

Fortunately, for an example of how it should be done, we don't have to go far at all... matter of a fact, even in the same company.  Jana Carter puts together great chat notifications, the way they should be, just as if you are inviting someone to join the chat.  

It's great to see some people at Microsoft "get it" , even though others seem completely clueless.

So I was reading Andrew Coates blog entry about the keyboard hanging in VS.NET 2005 Beta 2 and I went to reply to it so as to point him to Bill Vaughn's blog entry on the subject.... you know the typical smart a*s post saying "well if you subscribe to Bill Vaughn's blog you would have known that already"

Alas, my sick sense of humour was thwarted as Andrew doesn't have "his ears on".    Maybe comments to his blogs have just been too brutal in the past ?? Or maybe he's use to a blog being something everyone needs to sign in with passport... nah, surely not.  Seems weird not to have comments turned on what ever the reason.. 

So Andrew.... What up with that ?

Seriously cool !!    *Some* of the TechEd 2005 sessions will be live webcasts.

(via Susan Bradley's blog)

This (and here) just really pisses me off.  How the f' does anyone claim killing  more than 400 minke whales a year is for scientific research ?? F'ing lying pieces of shit.  They could at least have the honesty, the courage, the decency to say it was for a cultural heritage thing, but to friggin lie cause they are so embarrassed over what they do is just sick, despicable.

hopefully y'all seen snippets in VB.NET 2005 by now.   In Vb you can get to snippets via the context menu in the code editor, but the easiest way is to type:

? + TAB

Just hit the ? key then  the TAB key and the snippet list will appear inline for you.  I think of it as ? is for help in writing the code such as expanding a property declaration. 

Also, if you know part of the shortcut for the snippet (eg prop or vbprop) you can type part of it, ? and TAB to get a filtered list.  eg: vb? +TAB will only show items who's shortcut starts with vb.  If you are sure of the snippet shortcut, then type the whole name, eg vbprop and hit tab that snippet will be inserted for you

So remember ? and TAB if you want to see the snippet list

Oh, and don't forget to try out the free snippet editor on the gotdotnet workspaces !

One of the many little improvements you'll find in Vb.NET 2005, is an improved debugging experience for With blocks.  Prior to this, say in VB.NET 2003, if you hovered over a member inside a with block, you'd get the type declaration in the tooltip, not it's current value.  Cory  thought this a significant enough reason not to use With blocks, but I never actually shared that point of view as I tend to rely more on using the locals window or the watch windows.  But the good news is that is no longer an issue, now we can all happily enjoy the goodness With blocks bring with them !!

I was chatitng with Rob Teixeira in email today, and he mentioned he blogged about default isntances the other week.  Now when I looked for Rob's blog I didn't have him in my list.  He had stopped blogging for about  a year it seems.  Of course now I have found his blog I've added it to my feed list.  Oh, and me adding him to my list has absolutley nothing to do with those flattering words he said   

 Seriously Rob's another cool VB developer.  Add hm to your list

Oh and don't let him stop blogging !! <g>

So if you are confused over the use of Default Instances in VB.NET 2005, I have put together this easy to learn flash card for you.

usage	result
Form1.Show	SUX !!
My.Forms.Form1.Show	ROCKS !!!

I think I got my first hate mail today    it was cleverly disguised as SPAM.   Even ended up in my spam folder.  it said "loose those large legs"

I couldn't believe it.  I mean what had I ever done to them.  I didn't even know this person and here they are threatening me, too loose my legs !!  it's obvious they know me, know that I'm a tall guy so I have large legs.  Immediately thoughts of them chopping my legs off with an axe, or maybe a chainsaw... no wait maybe they'd tie me to the railway tracks so as a train cuts my legs off... Oh dear....

And i just don't understand why.  Sure I believe that we should bring back the stockades for spammers, put them in the village square and let all the villagers throw rotten tomatoes at them, but surely that doesn't warrant chopping my legs off.

Of course I always believe the best defence is a strong offence, and considering it is firewood season, time to sharpen up my ol' trusty axe and chainsaw.  So if you see any legless spammers, rest assured knowing I got them before they got me.. after all it is self defence

Mitch runs some tests on Quick Console.  Obviously the "Quick" is misleading.  With honesty in marketing (as if) and product naming, it probably should be called "Slow Console".. somehow I don't think marketing would like that   Maybe it should jsut be called "IDE Console Window" ... Hmm ... well something other than "Quick"

BTW: I was surprised when Micth found it to only be 3x as slow as an ordinary console window.  I remember trying it on an earlier beta and it just sucked.  Is 3x different that apparent ? I don't know but when I last looked at it I would have say ball park figure of 10X slower.  Then again these things can be funny on VPC sometimes.

As to it's purpose, well I think it's designed to be much like the output window and hence you could refer to the output after you have finished your run.

must be a slow news day, <g>  No seriously, I'm interested in hearing how people name their private fields  such as a backing field for a property.

Do you use:

(1)  m_PascalCasing

(2)  m_camelCasing

(3)  mPascalCasing

(4)  mcamelCasing

(5) _PascalCasing

(6) _camelCasing

(7) other ???

I use (1).   The reasons is easy if I use a process of elimination. 

5 & 6 are out. See http://msmvps.com/bill/archive/2004/06/02/7466.aspx for reasons

2 is out because it is easy to confuse with m_hungarianPascalCasing

4 is out because it is easy to confuse with mhungarianPascalCasing

3 is not too bad, but still looks a tad hungarian

and then there was 1

Waht do you use ?

a must read if you are itnerested in VB's back ground compiler !