Entries categorized 'Programming' ↓

Why I Use TextMate

I have been using TextMate from MacroMates for the past couple years for Ruby and Rails development on the Mac, and very happy with it. I occasionally do Ruby work on Windows and have settled on E Text Editor , which is basically a clone of TextMate, including its bundling capabilities. The features of both of these text editors has been beyond my needs and offer some really nice, simple features. There has been a bit of a holy war going on lately on the internet about developers moving...

Easy Dynamic Style Sheets in HMTL Pages using ASP.NET

One of my current projects consists of a lot of existing static HTML documents that I need to work with and integrate with ASP.NET. The idea is to change as few of the static HTML files as possible as they are fine the way they are but allow new ASP.NET applications to add some dynamic dimensions to somewhat older systems. The Problem A particular task I faced was to be able to take a regular link statement from HTML like this: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/shared/styles/style...

When Refactoring Code is a Waste of Time

We hear this all the time, a developer going in and finding some code someone else wrote and they start hacking at it to make it look more like their coding style than the original and they label it "refactored" Sometimes we need to look at someone else's code or even our own to resolve a bug and at times it is necessary or efficient to rewrite part of the code to better assist in solving the problem. This brings client value, a bug has been fixed. We may have code we wrote a long...

Data Structures and Algorithms: Annotated Reference with Examples eBook Available

I came across another free eBook which looks great for those interested in the details of algorithms, called Data Structures and Algorithms by Granville Barnett and Luca Del Tongo and is hosted on DotNetSlackers . The book is a free PDF download. As a long-time developer this is the type of information we learned in college and don't get a lot of coverage today. I feel this is fundamental to good programming and really understanding how things in our line of work functions. I am looking forward to...

Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt Here on Vista 64

One of the first things I do when setting up a new system is to add the ability to right click on any folder and have a new command prompt with all of the Visual Studio environment variables setup properly. I have used the one referenced by Scott Hanselman for Visual Studio 2005 but with Visual Studio 2008 and Vista 64 installed I had to make a few tweaks to the file and making it available. The new command file looks like this: ; ; "CMD Prompt Here" PowerToy ; ; Copyright 1996 Microsoft Corporation...

Small Contributions Back to Open Source

I have been running GraffitiCMS from Telligent for a few months now and everything has run pretty smoothly with some small exceptions which Telligent has fixed in their latest release. Graffiti can't do everything people want so they have opened up their product to extension developers to create some nifty plug-ins to extend Graffiti. I have been using a few of them and found myself either finding a couple bugs in the tools or needing to further extend their functionality. I have either been given...

Karl Seguin Giving Away Foundations of Programming Ebook

Karl Sequin is giving away what appears to be a great fundamental of programming book called Foundations of Programming . Karl says: I'm excited to finally release the official, and completely free, Foundations of Programming E-book. This essentially contains all 9 Foundation parts including a conclusion and some typical book fluff (table of content, acknowledgement and so on). A number of spelling errors were corrected, along with some small technical changes and clarifications - largely based on...

Mixed Feelings on Tools like Resharper, CodeRush and Refactor Pro

Microsoft Visual Studio provides great extensibility for developers to create tools for fellow developers to use. Many of these add-ins are made to help developers gain productivity. I have been using a couple of these tools with similar features; I have been a long-time user of the Visual Studio add-in tools CodeRush and Refactor Pro from DevExpress, and really like what the tools can do for my productivity. I've used the tool long enough to have a love-hate relationship with it. If I have a small...

How I Got Started in Software Development

Following up from Matt Blodgett's post who was responding to Mike Eaton's challenge about how we got started in software development and answer some questions about my background. How old were you when you started programming? I was 16, a sophomore in high school. How did you get started in programming? I got started at a time when desktop computers where finally coming to school systems in little bits. I attended a small high school in rural CT (1981-1985) and we had one Radio Shack TRS-80 which...

The Long Tail of Learning

I believe in continuous self-improvement, whether it be in the technology I use, personal relationships or any aspect of life. It's easy to become stagnate if care is not taken. Developers are pretty much divided into two categories, those that look to improve themselves and those that don't. Those that don't are the stereotyped "5:01" developer who end their work day and don't think about their work until the next work day. I am definitely into learning as much as I can, almost to the...

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