PeterKellner.net

Not sure how many times I’ve pressed the “Show All Files” menu choice on a Visual Studio 2008 Project and nothing happens.  Well, I think I have finally found the pattern.

My guess is that you actually have to be clicked on the solution itself for the Show All Files to work.  I think I’m usually on a directory inside the project and it doesn’t work. That is, I may be inside the /bin directory and expect that if I click “Show All Files” that I will see all the files in the bin directory (like the .config files).

Microsoft’s big developer conference (PDC http://microsoftpdc.com/) happens about every other year when Microsoft has big announcements.  Turns out, there was one last year, and for the first time ever, they are having a second one in row this year.  Reason is because of large announcements from Microsoft including Windows 7.

The conference is Tuesday through Friday.  On Monday, there are special invents, usually full day in nature.  I’ve been asked to participate in the Windows 7 Bootcamp on Monday showing some of the new technology that is available from Microsoft.

The Scrum developer training is happening a week from Monday and I just got a notification that they are offering a 2 for 1 deal.  Pretty amazing.  I know this is a new class and they want to get as much feedback as they can so I assume that is why they are making this offer.

If you are a developer and have heard a lot about SCRUM, Sprints, Agile, etc., this is a great opportunity to learn the hands on part of how to make the most out of being on an agile team.

I blogged some more details previously at the URL:  http://peterkellner.net/2009/10/14/scrum-training-course-mountainview-richard-hundhausen/

and you can read more about the course here:

Not sure why this was hard, but I wanted to make a trivial command file to deploy my database (or any change to it).  For those of you that don’t know the DataDude project, I have to say it’s one of the coolest tools that has come out the Microsoft Visual Studio Team for a while.  Basically, in a nutshell, what it does is split’s your database into hundreds of little files.  One for each table, key, foreign key, user, role, etc.  Then, since it is a standard VS2008 project, you can keep those files and the project under source control.  The big benefit is that multiple team members can change files and check them in, and everyone’s schema is kept up to date.

OK, so we all want to be somewhat popular, and it seems that my last article, “To Brace Or Not to Brace”, seems to have gotten a lot of attention, so, here goes my opinion on the popular semi-colon argument.  First, I’m not against any languages in particular, but I have found that I do better in ones that have semi-colons.  One of the features I really like is the ability to move my line returns anyplace I want, and to indent as I see fit.  Though the semi-colon does not guarantee I can do this, it certainly makes life easier.

In my last post, I found a use for inverting if statements.  That is, I postulated that it is better to have an explicit else when it’s impossible for that code to be executed.  The argument for just falling through the loop with no else is that why have unnecessary code.

My argument is intent.  I personally like to make the intent of my code as clear as possible and having the extra else provides that for me.

Now, for the braces discussion.  That is, is it OK to do this:

if (myObject1==null) err = "bad1";
if (myObject2==null) err = "bad2";
if (myObject3==null) err = "bad3";
if (myObject4==null) err = "bad4";
if (myObject5==null) err = "bad5";

or should you be required by coding standards to do this:

Well, now I know.  Here is an example of some code I just wrote:

if (doDeficitCalc)

{

    throw 

        new ApplicationException("Need to implement deficit weight rating");

}

else

{

    // Linear interpolation from top of range to bottom for speed

    double x1 = rateBreakList[0];

    double x2 = rateBreakList[rateBreakList.Count - 1];

    double y1 = rateList[0];

    double y2 = rateList[rateList.Count - 1];

    double frac = weight/(x2 - x1);

    double yResult = y1 + (frac*(y2 - y1));

    retWeight = yResult;

}

ReSharper correctly warns me that the else statement is redundant as shown below:

Several years ago, I was invited to a special showing of what was going to be the new SqlServer 2008 database in San Francisco.  I had expected a sales demo but was hugely surprised by the quality of the presenter and his deep understanding of issues facing real developers like us.  Over the years, I’ve gotten to know this presenter (Richard Hundhausen) and the other work he’s been involved in.

This is just going to be a short post, but I bet it’s something I do a large number of times so I thought I’d blog it.  Say you get back from something like a web service an array of objects.

Words can’t begin to describe this years 4th Silicon Valley Code Camp.  The energy of the speakers, volunteers and organizers was just awesome.  Just some brief stats, then some pictures, then I’ll paste the twitter stream, which you can also see by searching #svcc.

• 1000+ Attendees Saturday
• 600+ Attendees Sunday
• 2200 Water Bottles
• 350 Full Size Pizza’s
• 750 Eric’s Deli Sandwiches

And the first of about 15 pages of the Twitter Stream for #svcc

We’ve got a huge session line up (147) and a huge attendance (1700+), awesome weather predicted and tons of food coming.  We just printed our final schedule and are ready to go.  Just to print a couple thousand labels tonight, make sure we have not forgot anything, and it’s off to V4 of Silicon Valley Code Camp!