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How to obfuscate Mandelbrot code.

A quick look at the article Using generics for calculations make me think that generics in C# (or Java) will not ever be used for anything else but container classes.

Believe it or not,MHT are based on a standard. Check out http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/MhtBuilder.asp

Yeah. It's called "httpmail" and uses WebDAV. More information can be found here and here.

Maybe they'll add an extension for Mozilla/Thunderbird one of these days.

WTL indeed started life as VC++ sample code (some four or five years ago), but it is somewhat more than that now. It's a fairly widespread tool, particularly where developers are looking for something more lightweight than MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes). MS has assigned a full-time developer to the project.

There is a WTL mailing list where one can obtain more information (also acessible through the Gmane mail-to-nntp gateway at gamne.comp.windows.wtl), and a WTL area on CodeProject, in addition to the SourceForge WTL page.

I'm a moderator of the Yahoo group, and a developer on the SourceForge project, so I may be a little biased, but I find it to be an extremely useful tool for Windows development.

Good old Peter Blum - quality validators. While on the subject of .net improvements, don't forget to update the machine.config file so that .net doesn't detect uplevel browsers as downlevel and start outputting HTML 3.2. You can find a fairly good browsercaps file here: http://www.codeproject.com/aspnet/browsercaps.asp though there may be better resources around.

For CSS - I can recommend (In no particular order):
http://thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/css/
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/
http://www.positioniseverything.net/
http://www.s7u.co.uk/
http://alistapart.com/topics/css/

For CSS inspiration, go here: http://www.csszengarden.com/

But I would go for a book:
Designing with Web Standards, Jeffrey Zeldman (ISBN: 0735712018). Possibly also the Eric Meyer on CSS books too.

Enjoy.

It sux0r, but at least it features Andrew Koenig

Many people say you cannot run ASP.NET forms on Apache, yes you can. I do it and many people do it. I found a short little tutorial for you guys. here Here is the announcement from the Apache team that they would be supporting ASP.NET on Apache here OMG, Microsoft actually helped Covalent and the Apache teams get ASP.NET working on Apache 2. Read it This is more Oracle anti-MS rhetoric to get more money in their pockets.

SetThreadContext ebp eip CreateProcess CREATE_SUSPENDED WriteProcessMemory

If you run winders you can try this. It should allow you to minimize any window to the system tray.

ToDoList 3.6.4

Lightweight and simple, it does what I want and not much more. Has a nice feature that lets you automatically export to an HTML file, so you can easily publish it for others to read.

On Windows, try ToDoList. Now that I'm using it, I don't know how I managed to keep track of my tasks before.

For all of you Windows users, check out this OS ToDo list :
http://www.codeproject.com/tools/ToDoList2.asp

Very simple to use and the author is very responsive to suggestions.

Jim
qtextender.com

... Visual Basic is significantly more productive. Often I've written the same code, once in C++ calling the Windows API and once in Visual Basic, and C++ always took three or four times as much work. Why? Memory management.

I have experience writing for both platforms, and I prefer C++, despite VB's garbage collection. VB certainly makes it easier to do some things, but that's mainly because it offers an abstraction for all the Win32/COM red tape (dig through the MSDN to find which of the eleven or so Close...(), Delete...(), Free...() functions you need for this thing, and Release() all those COM pointers in every conceivable exit point).

C++ itself provides the means to relieve the programmer of much of this menial work, though. Microsoft doesn't take advantage of C++'s capabilities, but that's probably because C++ hadn't evolved enough when much of the Win32 code base was written.

In my recent work, which has all been C++ on Win32, I almost never have to manually delete anything. The Boost Smart Pointer Library has been tremendously useful, both for internal program logic and for taming the Win32 memory management nightmare. The reference-counting boost::shared_ptr template class and its relatives can be used to automatically free memory allocated with new when the last pointer is destroyed. What's more, you can specify a templatized deleter, so that a shared_ptr can manage COM objects, GDI objects, file handles, memory allocated in any of the dozen or so Windows APIs (GlobalAlloc(), VirtualAlloc(), HeapAlloc(), ThrashDiskAndThenCrashAlloc(), etc.)

It's possible to augment the API in such a way as to boost productivity without breaking backward compatibility. The .NET framework is a huge misstep, in my opinion, because it needlessly throws away a decade's worth of existing code. We were going to use it in a recent product, but we decided to go with MFC instead, because it couldn't link with our existing C++ code (well, it could, but huge marshalling bugs that have gone unfixed for years made it completely unusable).

Look here. Scroll down to the implementation of factorial with templates.

There are already some visual programming IDE's that are supposed to work at this gross chunked (fit them together like pipes) component level. I've noticed that they cluster around the B2B integration tool space.

Here are some examples. M$FT uses their acquired Visio engine in their biztalk server to model dataflow. BEA Systems does something very similar in their Weblogic Workshop IDE. Go to page 8 in this white paper of theirs.

Is this true programming? IMHO, its as much programming as writing a shell script.

Is "Linux x86 assembly" any different to any other kind of "x86 assembly"?

Given that most Linux-based assemblers use AT&T syntax and most other x86 assemblers use Intel syntax, yes. This page summarizes some of the most significant differences (operand order, operand prefixes, etc.).

There's also the small matter of talking to the host OS. The difference between x86 assembly coding on Linux and x86 assembly coding on Win32 is comparable to the difference between 6502 assembly coding on the Apple II and 6502 assembly coding on the Commodore 64. Just as JSR $FDED does one thing on the Apple II (print the character in the accumulator) and does something completely different on the Commodore (crash?), making Linux calls to Windows is not likely to work too well.

Fortran is far from dead, look Fortran is even part of the .NET Framework...

What is your TopCoder handle?

Guess. I'll give you a clue: it's quite similar to my handle here.

Clearly you are another clueless droid that thinks he knows what TopCoder is all about. I've learned a lot from the solutions that many of the top TopCoders have put forth to earn them their ratings.

Yes, absolutely. By golly, you're right. That must be why I get paid all that money to develop software. Because I'm yet another clueless droid.

If you want to see an example of my work, check out the .NET framework. Or a number of Sierra products. Or heck, even, if you want, you can read my article here:

Code Project - Bip Buffer

1. Code Project
2. SQL Server Central
3. .NET Weblogs, SQL Junkies
4. ASP.NET forums
5. 4 Guys from Rolla
6. ASP Alliance mailing lists
7. CodeGuru discussion forums
8. TopXML discussion forums - this is mostly about Microsoft XML technologies
9. .NET Junkies
10. SQL Team .

• CheckedListBox checked items come unchecked
• ListView flickers when adding items and resizing the main form with a docked ListView
• Tab pages aren't themed in XP

• CheckedListBox checked items come unchecked
• ListView flickers when adding items and resizing the main form with a docked ListView
• Tab pages aren't themed in XP

• CheckedListBox checked items come unchecked
• ListView flickers when adding items and resizing the main form with a docked ListView
• Tab pages aren't themed in XP

Pro Developer: Creating Your Dream Project

Pro Developer: Throwing Money Out the Window

Pro Developer: Improving Your Career In Any Economy

Pro Developer: This is Business

Pro Developer: Delivering Quality Software

Pro Developer: Creating Your Dream Project

Pro Developer: Throwing Money Out the Window

Pro Developer: Improving Your Career In Any Economy

Pro Developer: This is Business

Pro Developer: Delivering Quality Software

Pro Developer: Creating Your Dream Project

Pro Developer: Throwing Money Out the Window

Pro Developer: Improving Your Career In Any Economy

Pro Developer: This is Business

Pro Developer: Delivering Quality Software

Pro Developer: Creating Your Dream Project

Pro Developer: Throwing Money Out the Window

Pro Developer: Improving Your Career In Any Economy

Pro Developer: This is Business

Pro Developer: Delivering Quality Software

Pro Developer: Creating Your Dream Project

Pro Developer: Throwing Money Out the Window

Pro Developer: Improving Your Career In Any Economy

Pro Developer: This is Business

Pro Developer: Delivering Quality Software

Pro Developer: Creating Your Dream Project

Pro Developer: Throwing Money Out the Window

Pro Developer: Improving Your Career In Any Economy

Pro Developer: This is Business

Pro Developer: Delivering Quality Software

...you're a SICK, SICK, CANIBAL, and -

*cough*

If you're interested in seeing some of his work before throwing down cash, check out his his articles over at CodeProject.

Try dotNETSender; it's a GUI front end for the NET SEND command, it's simple (works pretty much like the old winpopup of 9X), and takes just a little configuring. It's perfect if you have a small network without any Exchange-based messaging servers. From my expierience, expecting non-power users to adapt to using the command line (net send in particular) is a futile hope. This makes it glaringly easy for quick workgroup messaging, and it pops right up in their screen; no way to miss it.

All you need is the .Net framework (which you can get through Windows Update or on Microsoft's site) and the "demo" program the author lists here. The source (in C#) is even available for you budding .Net coders; best of all, it costs nothing.

ok, so maybe the robot is pretty cool - but the rest...

...has been working to replace the remote controls lying around the home with one device, such as a cellphone or a personal digital assistant. Eventually, he said, appliances could be equipped with technology to receive the commands.
your mean the philips pronto and X10?

...is working on a glove that could translate sign language into digitized letters...
you mean this?

Those included a rebuilt task bar that could sort onscreen files, and a program that acted like a magnifying glass for Web sites. A program called Fabric would allow a user to drag windows to the side of the computer screen, where they would turn into small icons.
what? an onscreen magnifying glass?
and dockable applications? er OSX?

There are several sites that I look at regularly for different programming things.

When I did windows development Code Project was a lifesaver, nowadays that's been replaced by the venerable Perl Monk

For online books I'd browse through The Assayer, and for zany reference nothing beats How Much Is Inside .. Stuff!

[KDE] Windows respond to mouse overs after the time I specified, right number of desktops with the correct visibility of other apps, themability also a big plus. Don't know if XP has themability or to what degree but I don't consider it a major function.

All of that is available in Windows. Get TweakUI from the Power Toys page and you can enable X-Mouse if you like focus-follows-mouse functionality (personally, I don't like it, but to each his own). You can also theme XP with StyleXP from TGTSoft (or if you don't want to pay, you can find the uxtheme.dll hack on google -- search for "uxtheme.dll SP1", no quotes). Tons of themes are available.

However I do prefer the KMenus method for listing large numbers of programs as a heirarchy, when Windows tries to list 3 full columns at once it's much too slow especially since you probably already know the location of the item you're looking for.

That's just organization. There's nothing stopping you from organizing your Program Files menu on the Start Menu in Windows. KDE has a nice organization because it comes with a lot of apps to begin with. Windows on the other hand tends to rely on separate software, and each installer wants to have its own top-level menu. Don't let it. Some apps play nice, like all of Microsoft Games Studio's games -- they all install under "Microsoft Games" rather than having one menu for each game. So, organize the menu if you don't like the default.

Also KDE gets points for multiple desktops, yes I know that you can get programs for Windows to mimic that but it doesn't work as well, most notably it simply hide apps so that cycling through apps in one desktop gives you apps for all desktops. The file manager for windows is generally nicer but the combination of file manager and CLI built in for KDE should give it the advantage there but I'll call it a tie.

Try the Virtual Desktop Manager, again from Power Toys. It does multiple desktops correctly, though it does have some other issues. Also, I guess I'm not familiar with KDE's file manager/CLI (I assume you mean Konqueror?), but remember that the Konqueror design is essentially Explorer/Internet Explorer's design -- it's really little more than a container for other objects. There's a Power Toy to open a command prompt from a folder, or you could try something like this instead, a command prompt explorer bar to put a CLI directly in the explorer window. Is that what you mean KDE does?

Sure, right out of the box KDE is more configurable and has a little more functionality (virtual desktops, mostly). But with a little work and using only that which is built into Windows or Power Toys provided by Microsoft directly (ie, not replacing your shell with something like LiteStep, or paying for something like StarDock's WindowBlinds) you can make Windows (XP) do everything that made you choose KDE over Windows. The only thing Windows can't do is run on top of Linux :).

CodeProject is anothe great site for programming tutorials. It features a host of great material on VC++ and MFC. It also has a good user community, and discussion boards relating to all kinds of topics (still mostly C/C++ and VC++/MFC).

I used to go to CodeGuru all the time until I found CodeProject

This post to me is the classic "open-source is better than Windows because <blank>", where half the time, the poster hasn't completely investigated all of the claims he/she makes. I may be called a troll, but I've done development on both Linux and Windows (predominantly Windows), but I'd like to clear up some of the "comparisons" made by the poster.

COMPILERS:

MS:
Killed most compilers for their platform (except the oddball ones) by squashing them with their own. Visual C++ generates pretty tight code, but you're just screwed if you run into a bug with it. Oh, and it costs lots of money. Most compilers commercial. Mingw/cygwin exists but not supported well (MSDN support bitterly hates both).

True, Microsoft has pretty much killed the competition, although your claim that it "costs a lot of money" is a little off centre. You can download the .NET Framework, which includes everything you need to build Win32 applications (everything but the IDE) for free off of MSDN. If you decide to splurge, you can buy Visual C++ Standard for the massive sum of $89.99.

DEBUGGERS/DIAGNOSTICS:

MS:
Um...ntinternals put out regmon and filemon. Apparently MS puts out WinDBG for free, though I haven't used it and apparently it isn't too popular. No free high level debuggers. Few diagnostic programs for already compiled code.

Again, spoken like someone who barely has any actual experience in the realm. WinDBG is an extremely powerful kernel/user mode debugger, and in my experience works just as well as anything else on the Win32 platform for debugging user mode code. The Visual Studio integrated debugger is also great. As far as diagnostic programs, there are quite a few, such as NuMega DevPartner Studio, or Rational's DevelopmentStudio. Windows NT-based operating systems also ship with Performance Monitor which is an often unused tool which allows you to monitor many application specific diagnostics. For disassembly, there's IDA, which is without a doubt the ultimate disassembler for Windows.

DEVELOPER SUPPORT:

MS:
Guess at what's going on underneath the covers, most of the time. No source to look at. Some newsgroups, mostly for higher level problems. Can purchase extremely expensive (though usually effective) MSDN incidents.

There are many Windows developer sites, namely sites like CodeProject, CodeGuru, and let's not forget: MSDN. MSDN has thousands of articles, and full API documentation. You can also read back-issues of MSDN Magazine. Provided you can't find your answers on the aforementioned sites, there's always Google Groups ... which in the past has had the answer to nearly every Win32-related question I've ever had. So you can see that saying developer support for Microsoft platforms is weak is quite an understatement.

SAMPLE CODE:

Many many source examples listed on the sites above ...

APIS:

Windows:
The most godawful APIs in the world. Win32 is so full of cruft, poor conventions, inconsistent conventions, and unnecessarily complicated *crap* that it's amazing. Most advanced MFC programmers end up having to interact with Win32 as well to do certain things that MFC can't do. Has some great snippits on MSDN, along the lines of "Do not use this argument, as it represents a security risk and has been obsoleted. Some developers may wish to use this argument for backwards compatibility with Microsoft CSPs."

By the tone of this paragraph, I take it that the main area of exposure the developer has had to Microsoft APIs is with the CryptoAPI, which IMO is one of the worst APIs Microsoft has ever released. One of the advantages of having a sole API provider is that there is a uniformity across all areas of the system, so that if I need to figure out how to use a new API set, it always looks familiar.

MFC programmers need to interact with the API at some point. If you think that MFC will protect you from the API, then you are sorely mistaken. Many Windows programmers jump into development by learning MFC, without learning how API works underneath, and subsequently end up writing shit applications. I personally would not touch MFC with a 10-foot pole (try WTL instead).

Ultimately, I prefer development for the Windows platform, but only because it was what I was trained on. I do realize that Linux has excellent development tools. What I hate to see is Linux zealots bashing Microsoft without actually knowing anything or having a lot of experience with the Microsoft Platform.

With Open Source, the answer is always out there, usually. It isn't always so when trying to navigate a vendors website. With Open Source,if Red Hat, SuSE or say Debian doesn't have an answer for your problem, someone else usually does!


This is mostly true for Windows as well. When I need an answer to a problem, I never visit microsoft.com first but use Google/Groups instead.

There are millions of Windows users and communities out there. For example, CodeProject is a very popular windows developer site.

CBT hooks are extremely useful. For those who may be interested, here is some example code

Repeated trips to the server are fine when you've got a broadband connection

No they're not. The Code Project uses DHTML for their message boards. It used to only work for IE and with Mozilla it needed to reload the page for each message, with a second or so delay. (on a cable connection) Now that it works in Mozilla too, it's instantaneous. This is MUCH more pleasant.

I often find CodeGuru and Codeproject useful for sample code, expecially for Windows development.

However, I usually just end up searching with Google to find the information. Links turn up so often to Codeproject and CodeGuru, that I often go there first now.

Finally, if you're getting into .NET development, the Windows Forms FAQ is a useful resource.

If you're going for windows programming at all, of course you need a few sites:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/.
http://www.codeproject.com/
http://www.codeguru.com/

I recently discovered another site which has saved me alot of trouble, though I doubt a linuxweenie would ever need it: WinForms FAQ

• MSDN of course. But using the Web for it makes me want to bang my head against the wall. The context sensitive help in Visual Studio is much faster. Both the web site search and the Help Viewer search SUCK. Use Google instead.
• Code Project has very helpful sections.

• But for arcane Win32 API calls you can't beat Google Groups. The Microsoft MVPs hang out in the developer groups and give useful information from time to time. (And wrong information sometimes too.)

  The only downside to Usenet is when you find the only post with the same problem as you is from 1996 and received 0 replies.

My sources for programming info and help/support:

CodeGuru and CodeProject - both EXCELLENT sources of information, especially for MFC stuff. CodeProject also has lots on C#.

Microsoft Developer Network is a great source of support (especially the KB) and the MSDN library holds a full reference for the Microsoft implementations of C/C++, C#, Visual Basic, et al. MSDN is also integrated into Visual Studio.NET, so I rarely feel the need to visit the website directly.

Finally, lots of programmers gather in Usenet newsgroups and on IRC. I can recommend the channel #c++ on Quakenet (irc.quakenet.org) as a great source of help for Windows programmers, so long as you follow the (rather strict) channel rules. Don't miss the #c++ n00blist of people who have failed to observe these rules ... :)

I hope this helps...

1. Newsgroups: Most microsoft technologies have a newsgroup in the microsoft.public.* hierarchy that are read not only by Microsoft employees but by dozens of regular developers who just want to help others who are having problems. I personally monitor microsoft.public.xml and microsoft.public.dotnet.xml where I answer a lot of questions and pass many of those I can't answer to the actual devs who work on the applications and APIs in question.
   
   
2. Online Communities: There are a number of strong online communities where Windows developers congregate to share information, tips and tricks. These range from Microsoft sponsored sites like GotDotNet, ASP.NET, and Windows Forms.NET that are run by MSFT employees who participate actively in these communities to independent sites like 4 Guys from Rolla, Code Project, Dev Hood, DevelopMentor and CodeGuru
   
   
3. Microsoft Websites: Few places beat MSDN as a source of information about Microsoft technologies. By the way, if you are into XML check out my Extreme XML column
   
   
4. Mailing Lists: There are number of mailing lists hosted by various parties about Microsoft technologies. The ones I've seen with the most vibrance have been the DevelopMentor mailing lists and the ASP Friends lists

www.codeguru.com - actually i don't know how good it is anymore. but about five years ago when i worked as a windows application developer i found alot of help there

I've not used CodeGuru much, so I can't really comment there. However, The Code Project seems to be rather popular, and even has some (unofficial) support through Microsoft. Another good site is WinProg.NET, the website for EFNet's #Winprog and also a site with a number of good tutorials and resources.

That said, there's really not much better than MSDN for looking up pretty much anything you want to know about developing for Windows. Of course, MSDN is more a reference than a tutorial site, so I can understand why new Windows programmers can feel lost in it. That's where sites like CodeGuru, The Code Project, et al come in.

I realize that further discussion on this topic is useless because we already know that the version of windows embedded into these cars is CE, not 98. However, for all of you wondering what it takes to embed win98, here's someone who did it:

clicka

But the real bear is the compilation error messages, which can be pages long, and ultimately completely unreadable.

There are a handful of utilities that are designed to "translate" these types of error messages, and produce something human-readable (or at least developer-readable.)

I suspect that compiler writers will eventually start using these same sort of techniques to present usable error messages for STL constructs. Hmm... might actually be interesting to do this for GCC.

COM and .NET does not automatically exclude CORBA. The desktop perhaps doesn't need CORBA (never has, never will..? I'm not an expert on CORBA, but the last time I read about it, it didn't feel very snappy/light weight). CORBA is however still a good choice for heavy weight distributed systems.

And I see nothing that will make CORBA obsolete with .NET framework. Instead, I see new implementations which utilize .NET so that you can use ONE implementation of CORBA in many languages w/o the need to reprogramming it for each language.

Also, open source is become more popular on the windows platform. Ever looked at CodeProject or Codeguru? These are two of hundreds of good open source sites. Most of its user base however, do not generally like the GPL. Odds are that they use a BSD style license (I have seen some LGPL'd code though). Anyhow, I could very well imagine that someone implements a .NETified CORBA implementation (or bridge). There are legacy systems which use CORBA, and there are situations when DCOM won't do the trick. And there are Windows platforms which ultimately have to communicate with these systems. Thus, someone will make a .NET CORBA implementation and sell it. And then someone just don't want to pay for it. Then an open source implementation is born.

One implementation to rule them all... ;)

I send you this file in order to have your advice.

MSDN. It's free, it's updated often.

If you're doing gui work, you need Programming Windows by Charles Petzold. Anyone who tells you otherwise, I would love to hear from.

If you don't mind a slow ass gui that gobbles memory and will leave you crying early in the morning, then get Programming Windows with MFC by Jeffrey Prosise.

If you require operating systems services like threads, processes, jobs/fibers, dlls, Unicode, etc., you need Programming Applications for Microsoft Windows by Jeffrey Richter. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Then (maybe before?) hit codeguru and codeproject.