One of the more interesting features of C# is the indexer. This article explains how it enables you to treat a class like an array. Meanwhile, Capturing and processing keyboard input from the user are still important tasks in various Windows programs. Depending on which keys you want to process, there are several techniques for capturing and processing keyboard input.  The questions I get asked most about in .NET have to do with the role (or lack thereof) of COM in .NET. Yes, while its true that traditional COM components do not play an role in .NET other than as legacy components, COM+ components and services still play the important role of creating Enterprise Applications using .NET involving transactions and such. In the article, aptly titled O COM+ Where Art Thou, Rocky Lhotka, explains it.

Being a good .NET Programmer requires a fundamental understanding of Garbage Collection.

3:00:31 PM    

The problem—or opportunity—is that C++ isn't just object-oriented. It's also imperative, functional, and generic. Learning what constructs to use when is what separates the masters from the neophytes.

Yes, exactly. What a lot of people (including myself for a number of years) fail to understand about C++ is that it is a multi-paradigm language, not an OO language. That does give C++ some very impressive capabilities and flexibilities once someone masters them. I do believe, for instance, that generic programming via Templates and the STL is extremely powerful. One of the most eye-opening books I have ever read is Jim Coplien's Multi-Paradigm Design for C++. C++ is a language that supports multiple paradigms: classes, overloaded functions, templates, modules, ordinary procedural programming and others. Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++ intended it that way. Multi-paradim design looks at other useful ways of seperating what is common from what is variable (than OO). For example, we may want to select between a short and a long in an otherwise identical data structure; this is a suitable application for C++ templates - nothing object-oriented about that. Function overloading, function templates, and other C++ language features express other kinds of commonalities and variations that are broader than the object paradigm. Warning: Don't try to tackle this book if you don't have years of C++, particuarly template based Standard C++ under your belt!

 Unfortunately, because of C++'s C heritage, which it refused to repudiate, neophytes are likely to be bitten by "traps and pitfalls" that you have to have a level of mastery to avoid in the first place! I would actually recommend Stroustrup's Design and Evolution of C++ for those who find themselves asking "why?" about C++ a lot. Relative newcomers should seek Accelerated C++, which deals with C++ by treating important concepts first, rather than going feature-by-feature like a dictionary. Not-so-newcomers should seek Exceptional C++, More Exceptional C++, Effective C++, More Effective C++, Effective STL, and Modern C++ Design. That's a lot of books, so if you can only choose one, go for Modern C++ Design. [It's Like Déjà Vu All Over Again] Yes, those are the books that I would list that are teaching C++ in my prefered manner - without the C heritage and solely on Standard C++ and the STL.

2:23:13 PM    

Brad responds to stupid Peter Jackson proposal: : A mailing list I'm on (which shall remain nameless, because it's part of the shadowy underworld that actually runs this planet) alerted me to an unusually high level of stupidity. Today's example takes the form of a petition to Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.Can't you just hear "you stupid damn idiots!" buried in-between the lines there? :)[The .NET Guy]

Is there no end to stupid Political Correctness?

2:05:41 PM    

Mike Deem:: I think I need to say this in an unambiguous way as possible: 

• We (meaning the SOAP community as embodied on soapbuilders) have done a damn fine job working around and within these specifications to deliver an amazingly interoperable cross platform messaging infrastructure. It is an accomplishment that ranks very high on the all time list of truly wonderful things that have happened with computers. We should be very proud of this. [deem]

Bravo and 100% agreed. I'd like to see the arguing back and forth stop. SOAP is what the world is using, Period.

1:59:19 PM    

According to the Rotor Mailing list. Dave Stutz, will have a Rotor book:

Geoff Shilling (who leads the Rotor group), Ted Neward, Brian Jepson, and I are currently working on a book for O'Reilly that will have source code on CD and covers the CLI component model and how Rotor implements it. Here is a link to the pre-release info: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/sscliess/

1:49:11 PM    

§ The first reviews of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones [official site] do not bode well for those hoping for an improvement over the previous film...  Roger Ebert, who gave Phantom Menace 3 1/2 stars, gives this one 2 in Chicago Sun-Times:

1:44:41 PM    

Complete Online Chapter "Data Access with .NET" from Wrox Press book "Professional C# 2nd Edition". Topics covered include "Connecting to the database", "Executing Commands", "Stored Procedures", "The ADO.NET object model" and "Using XML and XML Schemas".
Article. May 6, 2002.

Ok, I admit, my friends at Wrox really screwed up the 1st edition to rush it out. But the 2nd is quite good. I was one of the technical reviewers on this one.

8:35:32 AM    

searchdotnet.info is an Internet search engine of information on Microsoft .net and related technologies. The system gathers information by inviting end users to suggest URLs of web pages to include in the search index. The suggestions are subsequently reviewed by an administrator for relevance to .net, and those accepted are crawled and indexed by an automated "web bot". Search results of searchdotnet.info are ranked by keyword matches. The index is refreshed about once a month.
Web Site. May 6, 2002.

I know its good because it finds ten pages of posts by "Sam Gentile" on .NET -))

8:33:04 AM    

Ok, its Monday ((--. I guess my fliritation with posting non-tecnical things must stop -).

The TripleASP.TableEditor control builds onto the datagrid control that ships with ASP.Net. The key function of the TableEditor control is to allow the user to edit almost any Sql Server table with just one line of code. Key features: Parameterized update queries (typed), Dynamically built data entry forms (a vertical form, including larger textboxes for larger text columns), Validation(type, size, nullable, etc), and much more.
Product Release. May 6, 2002.

8:31:35 AM    

Read a bunch of good books recently, Ken MacLeod's The Sky Road, Cosmonaut Keep and The Cassini Division, Eric Nylund's Signal to Noise, Vernor Vinge A Deepness in the Sky, Greg Bear The Forge of God and John Barnes The Merchants of Souls. I'll probably switch tracks, and start reading Ingo's .NET Remoting book this week. [Simon Fell]

All great books! I'm reading Ken MacLeod's newest Dark Light, which like last year's Cosmonaut keep, is set in his new "Engines of Light" series. I just finished Baxter's Manifold Origin, which I highly recomend.

8:14:07 AM    

Cool, Brad is migrating to Radio. Does this mean we'll loose the funky green & purple site ? [Simon Fell]

If you have color issues, you'd best take them up with my wife. :) Seriously, the migration is already done, and the site remains green and purple. There was significant work getting Radio to play nicely with ASP.net and the way I generate pages (with a page generation object that I wrote in C#). [The .NET Guy]

Wicked cool! Brad is one of my favorite persons online. We are going to have to work on Lisa though to get those ugly colors changed-)) Seiously, this is great.

5:24:47 PM