Searching for my lost shaker of salt

Resharper is one of those tools that once you start using it, its addictive.  I'm not talking, “gee this is a really nice feature” addictive, but “what namespace is this class in?  Resharper will remind me” addictive.  Not to sound too much like a commercial for them, but its a really great product that everyone should try--- but be warned, I'm not kidding on the addictive part; if you can't use it at work, but may be better off not trying it.

And now version two, a beta tech preview, is out supporting both VS 2003 and VS 2005 Beta IDE's and frameworks.  Check out the details and download from here.

If you are working in a low privilege environment or will be deploying to one with Enterprise Library, read on.  By now we all know that we must either use InstallServices.bat or register the EL libraries (or use this custom installer merge module which works great too!  However, if performance counters on the destination machine are disabled there is nothing you can do to the system, you must disable instrumentation in the code of Enterprise Library.

To make the change:

1. Open the Enterprise Library solution
2. Navigate to the “Common“ project, then right click and bring up project properties
3. Select Configuration Properties | Build
4. Change the Conditional Configuration Constants like from:

DEBUG;TRACE;USEWMI;USEEVENTLOG;USEPERFORMANCECOUNTER

to

DEBUG;TRACE;

1. Recompile and distribute as needed.

See the full article on this from Tom Hollander's blog.

While I am loving all the features EL brings to the table, it is very clear to me that any development shop that is going to use it seriously should expect to maintain a custom build internally.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.mspx

No longer “longhorn”, not using an acrnym or a year, the next version of Windows will be a noun.

vis·ta (n)

1. A distant view or prospect, especially one seen through an opening, as between rows of buildings or trees.
2. An avenue or other passage affording such a view.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=vista

So, the next version of Windows is supposed to help me find a nice view in an opening between the cubicles?

And all this time I thought it was just me who has been having a harder time focusing on creative works. 

http://news.com.com/Driven+to+distraction+by+technology/2100-1022_3-5797028.html

There is always this drive to “get it done” and “get it done right”, but how often are we actually provided the quality time to think these things through?  Sometimes I get the impression that employers want those “quality“ thoughts outside of the workplace, or they would require the guys with loud and frequent telephone calls to do so somewhere outside of my ear shot.

"If you don't have that sort of free time to dream and muse and mull, then you are not being creative, by definition," said Dan Russell, a senior manager at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. “

“Russell has turned off the e-mail settings that deliver a note as soon as it is received. Instead, he pulls down unread messages twice a day. “

What a concept; not being constantly available to take someone's call or e-mail so you can actually do the work thy need! 

Its like the situation where you are at the checkout ready to make a purchase, cash in hand, and the clerk makes you wait to take a call that will most likely not result in the sale.  Hello, did you not see me?  Do you not want my money? 

Sometimes its best to keep it simple:

string dotNetPath = RuntimeEnvironment.GetRuntimeDirectory();

And next time you go and try hunting for where Windows is installed or something silly like that, remember, its all stored in the registry...

A rumor?  A myth?  Perhaps not, as noted by my friend Frank...

http://franksworld.com/blog/archive/2005/07/06/1120.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/AppBlocks/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/entlib.asp

Major items on the release:

• A memory leak was fixed in the January 2005 version of the Configuration Application Block that affected all of the application blocks. This fix was made available in Patch 1475 and is included in the June 2005 release. (hence, all patches and minor bug fixes are incorporated--- no need to install separately)
• The Configuration Application Block was modified to improve performance when reading configuration information. Because each application block uses the Configuration Application Block to obtain configuration information, any application that uses an Enterprise Library application block will benefit from these performance improvements when moved to the June 2005 release.
• Registry Storage Provider. Allows you to read and write data to the registry.

One of my first inquiries will be whether or not the alternate configuration file location hack has been incorporated.

It suddenly occurred to me after working on my laptop last night; a chapter in my life has closed.  I managed to “corrupt” my Visual Studio 2003 installation by installing VS 2005 Beta 1 directly onto the machine (and later uninstalling--- that was the ticket).  Things weren't working quite right, such as Resharper, and the IDE just didn't feel like it was working right.  So I planned to do a repair, which is just shy of a full installation (2-3 hours!!!).

While preparing for this I did a lot of house cleaning on the machine, things I installed with every intention of “getting around to them.”  That cleared up a lot of space, but then I came to one and thought “do I really need this anymore?”  The software was Delphi 5.

I was a Delphi developer ever since 1995.  Because of the connections of my employer at the time, Kallista, I was able to participate in the final beta testing of the product.  I've been with that product since day one, and it has been the center of my professional career.  I've written many enterprise financial applications with it, even real-time processing apps, dozens of projects in all.  Then about 3 years ago I slowly began getting into .NET, with small projects, then larger and larger efforts until now where its my full time “developer” focus.  The job market changed, and I found .NET development to be more interesting than the Delphi work, if for no other reason because it offered new capabilities.

It's just a piece of software, and I can reinstall it should I need to (or if any of my clients need me to), it was just an odd act to remove a piece of software that was so central to my everyday professional life for 11 years.

We had a great turn out at last night's Richmond .NET user group meeting, and I throughly enjoyed presenting!  The audience did their part keeping me on my toes and really contributed to everyone's understanding of the material.

As promised, here is the slides and files from the presentation.

Thank you again to the folks from Wintellect, Microsoft, and Jet Brains for supplying us with wonderful door prizes for our attendees.  And thank you again to Fahrenheit Technologies for providing us with a great meeting facility and free pizza and sodas!