Knowing .NET

Danny Boyd has written an open letter to Microsoft challenging them on the subject of scripting languages. More specifically, he worries about the "need to produce simple, procedural, functional web-based database applications. I'm talking here about HTML forms that post or retrieve data for editing."

Don Box, where I got that link, concurs with the general sentiment and cuts to the quick with the statement "many of us underestimate how big a deal type definitions are...."

What's interesting, of course, is that to those of us who've drunk the Kool-Ade, types (roughly: what object-oriented programming calls a "class") and events seem to make thinking about programs easier. When you think about a variable, don't you think about the values it can have and the ways you can manipulate it? That's its type. It's just that there are a lot of applications where the only two types that are important are integers, strings, and dates. Three important types: integers, strings, dates, and floating point. Four! Four important types: integers, strings, dates, floating point numbers, and currency... Wait, I'll come in again...

8:53:42 PM    comment []   trackback []

I normally like to be quite specific when reviewing software, and I'm still under NDA regarding Lonestar, but I can make some general comments safely: the handwriting recognition in Lonestar is transforming the way I write. It's a combination of three things: dramatic improvements in handwriting recognition (I doubt many people could read my cursive version of the word "hemorrhage"); the ability to rapidly correct text using a variety of mechanisms (choose an alternate recognition, change individual letters, scratch out and write anew); and a writing window / area that expands as you finish a line of writing.

Writing with a pen bestows a physicality to every letter, makes every word a small unity of expression. The Wacom digitizer tip has a scratchy resistance that's remarkably like the feel of a fountain pen (albeit in an ugly plastic barrel that's too thin and lacks heft). While the keyboard is great for keeping up with a rush of thoughts, a pen is by far the superior instrument for deliberate writing. (Also, for editing -- the Tablet OS already supports the gamut of proofing marks but I'm afraid that we'll have to wait for Word 2006 or some bold entrepreneur before the momentous marrriage of the blue pencil and WYSIWYG.)

A couple months ago, I wrote an 800-word column in longhand using Microsoft Journal; about 10 separate Journal pages (the resolution of the Tablet PC and the parallax challenge of the display forces you to write two or three times larger than how you would on paper). Suffice it to say that transforming the result into a Word draft was a considerable task. In the past few weeks, I've written more than 10 times that length directly into Word with scarcely a bobble (by far the greatest annoyance, and one that I hope will be cleared up before Lonestar is released, is that a space is not automatically inserted between the last word on a handwritten line and the first word of a subsequent line).

Lonestar, when it becomes available, will be a user-installable patch. The alpha is tiny -- about 10MB. If you're buying a laptop, you're nuts not buying a Tablet PC.

9:49:19 AM    comment []   trackback []

These code samples show you how to build VSMacros projects, add–ins, and wizards to make your teams more productive and to bend Visual Studio .NET 2003 to the ways you like to work. via [Microsoft Download Center]

The download is all well and good, but what I love is that you just know that the original description used the phrase "bend VS.NET to your will" and was toned down. Other interesting recent MS downloads have been the Windows Media Player SDK MSDE Deployment Toolkit and an example of modifying the Today screen from the .NET CF.

8:13:25 AM    comment []   trackback []