March 2005 - Posts - CodeBetter.Com Link Blog

To SP or not to SP in SQL Server

The topic of using or not using SPs does not reach the level of religious fervor in many quarters. I became aware of the debate back in November 2003 when Rob Howard, then a Microsoft Program Manager and now the founder of Telligent systems, posted a lengthy blog entry on why all SQL Server developers should be using SPs. Frans Bouma, a Microsoft MVP and developer of LLBLGen Pro, an O/R mapper, posted his rebuttal. There have been a number of discussions since then, often shedding more heat than light.

This comes from Red-Gate, I think they may know a thing or two about SQL.

Posted Mar 31 2005, 09:47 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

How to Buy Microsoft Developer Products:

With the release of Visual Studio 2005, five new MSDN Premium subscriptions will be introduced for Visual Studio 2005: one for the Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite, one for each of the Visual Studio 2005 Team Editions for Software Developers, Architects, and Testers, and one for Visual Studio 2005 Professional. Each of these new MSDN Premium subscriptions for Visual Studio 2005 includes the prior benefits of MSDN Universal.

Upon release of these new subscriptions, MSDN Universal and MSDN Enterprise will no longer be offered for sale and qualifying MSDN Universal and MSDN Enterprise subscribers will be upgraded, at no additional cost, to one of the higher value MSDN Premium subscriptions for the Visual Studio Team System role-based products.

This is important stuff… If you don’t already have an MSDN Universal subscription, you gotta get one now, to be grandfathered in!

Posted Mar 30 2005, 11:41 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

The Gotdotnet Blues

This song is dedicated first to the amazing Gotdotnet customers – thanks for the emails, the debug help, calling us on stuff, and loving the site in spite of yourselves and itself. We’re bringing the goodness back I promise.

When I say we’re up all night with Gotdotnet I mean: Jeff S., Chad S., Sachin R, Clayton R., Mark M., the MSCOMHELP and datacenter crews. Big thanks to all of you!

Posted Mar 30 2005, 11:31 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Go water cool your pc and stop whining about performance

From [Alex Papadimoulis (the man behind the WTF)] A Word from the \Wise\: Don't Use Exceptions

1. Modern computers are fast. Really fast. Really, really, really, really, really fast.
2. Long division is hard. Really hard.
3. Throwing one exception won't affect performance.
4. Throwing ten exceptions (nested or otherwise) won't affect performance.
5. Throwing one hundred exceptions (nested or otherwise) probably won't affect performance.
6. Throwing one thousand nested exceptions will most definitely cause your application to perform slowly.
7. The call stack actually supports 1000 levels of recursion
8. Some people don't believe Lessons #1, #3, and #4.
9. An individual's Title does not automatically mean they have any clue what they're talking about.
10. If some one ever says "because it's faster," think of Lesson #1 and #9 and laugh.

Hopefully soon the world will get it soon about this performance stuff. Most of us don’t need to worry about this stuff that leads to coding worse, and probably doesn’t affect performance anyhow.

Posted Mar 30 2005, 11:21 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Aaron B. Hockley's DroppedPackets » Why Does my SharePoint Experience Suck?

Aaron B. Hockley’s DroppedPackets » Why Does my SharePoint Experience Suck?

I don’t know how many of my readers are also tasked with SharePoint support, but it’s a part of my world. A big, ugly part. I support one SharePoint 2001 server and one running SharePoint 2003. Both products seem quite half-baked to me.

I’m with you brother.

Posted Mar 29 2005, 02:17 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

WilsonORMapper v3.1.0.2 Released

[From Paul Wilson] WilsonORMapper v3.1.0.2 Released

* Fixed Case where Delete with Lazy-Loaded Many-To-Many Timed Out
* Fixed GetObjectCount to Support Oracle's return of Decimal Type
* Thanks to Jeff Lanning for substantial Performance Improvements
* Thanks to Paul Welter for Null Byte[] and Insert of keyType=None
* Continued to Improve Exception Handling and Exception Messages
* Also, see the Continued Improvements to Paul Welter's Templates

Posted Mar 29 2005, 11:49 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Microsoft marketing got it all wrong with VS 2005

[From Jeff P] Microsoft marketing got it all wrong with VS 2005

The first is that the entire Visual Studio product line has been fragmented to death. The differences between standard and pro are silly enough, but the Team System skus are even more ridiculous. Collaboration my ass. Whether it has been in a small team of two or in a giant corporation, I've always had to have all of the tools on my computer to get the job done. That includes requirement management, defect tracking software, testing software, quality tools, Visio, Office, the IDE itself, etc. The arrangment of the VS skus pretends that we all live in these discreet little spheres and never cross into other areas, especially the VSTS products. What a shame.

Posted Mar 28 2005, 02:12 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Consultant vs. Contractor: My Take

Yesterday, Steve Eichert posted a link to another blog post titled “Consulting vs. Contracting”. The post is an interesting read and it isn't too long, but I feel the author makes some wrong assumptions, indirectly knocks the “independent“ life, and kind of overall misses the boat

Posted Mar 27 2005, 11:51 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Why Microsoft makes a mistake with the MSDN subscription changes.

Though I think a lot of the uproar isn't about the fact that small ISV's or independent consultants want to use an enterprise targeting system like Team System (or as Sink put it: want to use a Boeing 747 to get to McDonalds). I think the real reason behind a lot of the negativity about the new MSDN model is fed by the fact that these developers, myself included, simply want to buy a package from Microsoft which allows them to write software, use sourcecontrol, have unit-tests, use fancy designers and do bugtracking/issue management.

Posted Mar 26 2005, 03:38 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Worst. Best Practices Book. Ever.

Next, the authors focus on "speed and efficiency" as if it's 1963 and a few CPU hours cost as much as a car. In the world of BILLIONS (1,000,000,000's) of cycles per second (Ghz), it really is ok to "waste" a few cycles on making sure your code is easier to read and maintain. You wouldn't get that impression from reading this book as a beginner:

Posted Mar 26 2005, 03:31 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Start.com - Home

©2005 Microsoft Corp - Feedback - This site is not an officially supported site. It is an incubation experiment and doesn't represent any particular strategy or policy. For other incubation experiments, see http://sandbox.msn.com. Enjoy!

This one ain’t even googled yet. Wow.

Posted Mar 25 2005, 02:06 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Windows Advice Goes CS

One of things that keeps you motivated on a project like CommunityServer is seeing others making create customizations. Steve Smith just let me know he has offically launched WindowsAdvice which is powered by CS.

Posted Mar 25 2005, 02:05 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

CommunityServer: Adding the &quot;Post Date&quot; Sort Order

[From Alex Papadimoulis] CommunityServer: Adding the “Post Date” Sort Order

I've made a handful of modifications to the Community Server software that I use as a back-end to a website of mine (TheDailyWTF.com). Since quite a few people seem to be using this software, I thought I'd share what I've done. If you find this post valuable, let me know in the comments and I'll post more in the future.

Posted Mar 25 2005, 02:03 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Stuart Celarier : Blog skin tutorial for Community Server: Part 0 - Introduction

I thought it would be a great experiment to create a custom skin for my blog that I host using Community Server. I soon discovered that the documentation hasn't caught up with the technology. There is some interesting information, but I found it to be incomplete and fragmented.

After many hours of experimentation, reading and tenacity I have achieved some understanding of the moving parts and how they fit together. There is no reason to put you through that same experience, so I've decided to present how to create a custom skin as a tutorial for your edification and amusement.

Posted Mar 24 2005, 04:37 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Trees, TreeViews, and UI

From Coding Horror

It's unfortunate that the treeview is one of the standard widgets in a usability designer's toolkit, because trees aren't usable. They're a pain in the ass. They may be necessary for developers who are forced to work in the strict, rigid world of software development, but they are unnatural, restrictive, and just plain unnecessary for average users. Where do I begin?