TechShorts

Resources for Packaging and Deploying .NET Compact Framework-based applications Jono Shares some sources for packaging and deploying .NET CF apps.

I have been working with the State Pattern for several months now.  It is a great way to control an application in a Kung Fu sort of way.  It has a very hands off director feel to it. I am planning on writing up a full doc on my take on the pattern and an implimentation of it, based off of the MyXaml MxStateMachine.  I like the looks of MyXaml but it seems too declarative for me.  I plan to impliment a code generation process to build the State Machine.

Blizzard Entertainment - World of Warcraft I have been waiting for over three years for WOW to come out. Is it worth the wait? Am I going to rush and play it? Should I? After all these years are online dungeons even relevant? UPDATE:   My wife bought me the game for Christmas, but she said I can't open it until Christmas!  But we are going to Flint, MI for Christmas so I won't be able to play it until New Years Eve, when we get back.  Oh the humanity of it all!

Scott Peterson is found guilty.  Finally, maybe this will become a non-issue now.  I'm sick of hearing about this case, Who Cares!  There are far worse attrocities going on in the world, who cares about this cheap ass punk? Arafat is dead.  Finally!  He did nothing but cause problems.  Maybe now the Palestinians can get some solid leadership. The election is a solid win. What ever are the reporters going to harp on now?  I'm sure they will find something, the bastards.

The December 2004 issue of MSDN contains an article on developing CF apps. Part of the article advocates the disposing of forms as soon as you are done using them in order to conserve memory. I disagree with this. I have found that caching forms improves the performance of a CF application. It takes a long time to load a form in CF so why should I make the user wait every time he has to reopen the same form? If the speed of creating forms was not an issue then I would be OK with disposing of them when done. There is a Form Stack code block floating around the web that I have been using successfully to cache forms. This works up to a point but it has limitations as well. I am working on a hashtable cache for forms and will extend it to include panels. I think that performance would be even more improved if instead of caching entire forms we cache the panels.

The Period Matrix table, Pd_Matrix, is used in calculating accounting period formulas. These formulas include current month, quarter or years activity or balance. These formulas can also be created using standard SQL functions but not all functions are common between SQL Server and MS Access. The Period Matrix has the advantage in that it can be used in any DBMS and it also can be used in table pivoting and folding.

Pivoting a table on multiple columns with a crosstab query gets messy really fast.  To eliminate the need for complicated Multiple Value Field Queries you can use the lowly IIF() function and the obscure CHOOSE() function to pivot a table.

CrossTab Queries CrossTab queries are an easy way in MS Access to pivot tables. They are limited in that you can only pivot on one field and can only aggregate one field.

So says my bossman at least.  And such is the attiutude of a lot of programmers. But it is not All That Matters.  It is a side affect of doing things right and an accident when you do things wrong.  There is more to building software, lots more, and it is unfortunate that some people will never see beyond the short sided goals of "Making it Work." It kills me to here people I work with say that.  Sometimes I feel that I am the only person innovating, or even just trying to improve my work practices.  I have to fight to make them use source control much less follow any kind of standard development procedure. I try to lead by example but that does not work.  I give up.

I know that no socialistic form of government will ever last very long.  I know this because, no matter how good the intentions some one will always take advantage of the system.  There will always be some one to take advantage of some one elses generosity.  How do I know this?  Because of the Coffee Leaches! We have a pretty nice coffee bar in our office.  We have fresh beans, good quaility beans, and a grinder.  One of the people I work with could be considered a Coffee Snob, but he is a super nice guy.  He has no problem going out of his way to help out others.  And he loves coffee.  He is the one behind the coffee bar and the reason it is so top notch. But we also have Coffee Leaches.  The ones who always leave just enough coffee in the bottom of the pot so they can, in their little minds, justify not making the next pot.  They do not contribute to the effort to make the coffee or in any other way support it. Their efforts have proven to me that the Leaches will always create the c

Respectful - Of your parents Resourceful - Think for yourself Responsable - Be a man, take the blame

A big problem I have with people who consider themselves programmers is that they spend most of their time chasing the technology.  They spend more time whack-a-mole code hacking and no time trying to learn the basics, like source control, methodologies or algorithms. I personally lack in these areas because I do not come from a Computer Science background, but I strive to overcome this.  My favorite computer books deal with ways of thinking about and doing programming, not just code cookbooks.  I observe my programming habits and change them to be better.  I make the effort that I don't see these others making. I see the chase in people I work with and friends of mine.  I see it in people that think they are doing a great job just because the project they are working on compiles, runs and the client likes the pretty interface.  Unfortunately they have taken so many short cuts in building their monolithic bag-o-crap that the slightest requirements change pops the poop bag leaving a

The Period Matrix table, Pd_Matrix, is used in calculating accounting period formulas. These formulas include current month, quarter or years activity or balance. These formulas can also be created using standard SQL functions but not all functions are common between SQL Server and MS Access. The Period Matrix has the advantage in that it can be used in any DBMS and it also can be used in table pivoting and folding. The table listed below is for use with the Activity table and not the Balance table. Either a separate matrix table will have to be created or an additional field would have to be added for calculating account formulas with the Balance table. Pd_Type Pd_ID Pd_Name pd_1 pd_2 pd_3 pd_4 pd_5 pd_6 pd_7 pd_8 pd_9 pd_10 pd_11 pd_12 annual 1 YR 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 month 1 JAN 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 month 2 FEB 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 month 3 MAR 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 month 4 APR 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 month 5 MAY 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 month 6 JUN 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0