Thanks for the correction. I still think of Interbase as an off-shoot of Paradox, which at the time, seemed to me the most wonderful database. (He, he, that hints at "Get off my lawn, youngster!") having previously used B-tree Filer (by TurboPower) because dBase was horrible.
Your second point, when using Linq or Linq-to-SQL, if you have a complex SQL statement (i.e. it creates a temporary table) it balks and refuses to accept it, claiming the temporary table is illegal. I had to re-write a stored procedure so that parameters and results are returned to VS and afterwards change it back so that it uses the temporary table in order for it to work. I had better experiences with Entity Framework, but then, I haven't yet done any serious work with it.
Then, working with two or three servers (development, sandbox and production) is a nightmare. The dataset gets thrown out of kilter and refuses to load in VS (not work, it does compile and work) making further development harder. If I change the body of ConnectionString (not the Name or other attributes, just the server name and log-in parameters in the connection string) the dataset refuses to load in the development environment, until the conn string is returned to the original condition. Maybe, I'm doing something wrong, but this weekend I had to unzip my backup to get a dataset to show up in VS 2010 after changing only the server, the user and password being the same and other parameters remaining untouched. Moving from VS 2008, to VS 2010, to Eclipse to whatever, maybe I'm assuming things I shouldn't in VS, but it seems to me that a the contents of a connection string should not drive the behavior of the IDE.
Quite frankly, I don't miss much C/C++, I do like C# and I specially like the new Razor syntax; it promises a lot of flexibility and compactness. I have done some VB.NET programming and the verbosity kills your productivity (IMHO) while Razor stays out of the way. But again, I'm still in the testing grounds and not producing anything yet, but so far. I like it.
For WP7, specifically; I haven't touched it. But as I said, between MVC 3, Razor and EF; I'm inclined to give it a shot, perhaps it would be worthwhile. Would I mind only.NET development? No, if it fits the project being developed and if it helps it along instead of hindering it.
Let me tell you a good one. In.NET 4 (yes the bleeding edge!) and previous incarnations, if you put a DatePicker in your forms (.aspx, WinForms. etc.) and the target is say, Spanish, when you tab from one DatePicker to another, the cursor goes to the month (remember, in Spanish we are talking about dd/mmm/yyyy) instead of the day field; if you try to put in 31 in the day field (first one) when the month is, say, September, it will not let you. So this makes it clear that internally the framework is still working with MONTH first, even when it doesn't make sense. One would think a multi-national company as MS could get this right after so many years, but no; we still have to struggle with small shit like this day in and day out. So much for internationalization.
We're talking about British Petroleum here, not your average Joe Sixpack, so they can afford whatever is necessary to keep the data safe.
And why would you want SSN on everyone? If it is a preliminary meeting, you are not going to card everyone and make sure their SSN and DOB are correct, are you?
Recently there had been several stories about MS / WP7 and many comments are, kind of knee-jerk reactions against MS.
Before someone screams astroturfing, let me say that I use whatever tool is right for the job. Mostly I do data-driven applications (WinForms, PHP, MVC, Java, whatever) against the database server that will deliver the most bang for the buck (my client's buck, not mine) so I have used Firebird (the OS incarnation of Paradox), SqlLite, MySQL, Postgress, MS SQL and (gasp!) even Oracle!
Now, I don't think MS gets, even now, how that works. Calling stored procedures in MS-SQL from any VisualStudio framework is a royal pain in the ass. They tout DRY but I can't think why you have to jump through loops to get stored procedures to work in their frameworks; I have many complex queries in SQL to list records, why would I want to repeat the same SQL statements in an MVC app and in a WinForms app against the same database? The surest way to achieve DRY is to use stored procedures and let each app handle only the presentation of the data.
Having ranted against MS, I kind of like MVC 3 and the new Entity Framework, not quite up to speed on it, but so far I kind of like it and that has predisposed me towards looking at WP7 and see what has MS learned from past failures, which last year I would not have thought about at all.
Now, in a site supposedly rife with developers of all kinds, shouldn't we be more open about investigating and then adopting or rejecting new technology?
Please don't construct this as an advertisement for WP7, I'm simply saying, maybe one should look at it before dismissing it out of hand. I did some work in Symbian and (the pain!) Objective-C, so I don't think my eyes will pop-out if I look at WP7.
Sorry about the short and not quite friendly reply this morning. I was kind of in a hurry to get to the first of several meetings, respond to emails, etc. You know, the business of making a living.
I quite agree with you, China and the USA are imperialistic powers. Every nation that has military or economic power, tends to exert it in ways that further their own interests. That is human nature and there is not much we can do about it.
Now, as I pointed out in other posts to this thread, I rather see the USA keep its leadership because they at least pay lip service to basic human rights (agreed, not always) and to democratic ways (yes, not always.)
China in the other hand, thinks its people are cattle to be corraled and made productive, one way or another. The rest of us, non-Chinese, are less than cattle to them. The poorest Chinese peasant will look down on anyone not Chinese, because they are some kind of master race and the rest of the world is composed entirely of barbarians.
Given the above, one has to recognize that China (named so after the Quin [pronounced sheen] dynasty, which first unified the kingdoms) has been a political state for longer than any other country. The USA is just a bit more than 200 years old, Germany less than 200 and so forth.
While there are marked differences between North and South Chinese, they have always struggled to control ALL of China. Not this stuff of the Confederate States against the damn yankees or the panamanians wanting independence from Colombia. No sir, it's all or nothing. Taiwan was part of China before 1895 (when the Japanese got it by force) and came to be part of China again after the end of WWII (1945); the struggle between communists and the nationalists ripped the two apart, but both claimed to be the legitimate government of China, all of China.
Eventually, Taiwan will be part of continental China again, whether under a democratic (or almost democratic regime) or under the communists, is a question to be decided yet. So you see, there is no extra-territorial claim; it is simple one group staying in one island claiming to be the rightful government of all of China against a larger group in the continent claiming the same exact thing.
Tibet is a different thing entirely, having struggled against China for, literally, centuries. But it has also struggled against British troops trying to ascertain dominance over the territory, so it is not only the Chinese.
Chinese think that Tibet is part of the greater Chinese territory. Before you scream imperialism, let us remember that they have not made any claims against Indian, Pakistani, Korean or Vietnamese territory; it is simple that they have conquered and lost Tibet some many times, that they feel it is a rebel part of their territory.
Quite unlike the Americans sizing half of México in a purely expansionist drive, not even in dreams had the USA any right to such territories as it didn't have any rights to any territory in America; lest we forget, it was Britishers fighting native Americans to disposes them of their rightful lands.
But again, I rather see the USA maintain its leadership with all its warts and defects than see the Chinese exert their power.
The subsequent Han Dynasty ruled China between 206 BC and 220 AD, and created a lasting Han cultural identity among its populace that extends to the present day. [See].
Also see a map of the Han territory about 2,000 years ago.
The difference with Jews is that the Chinese have occupied those territories without interruption and today most Chinese think of themselves as Han descendants.
When was the last time China conquered or acquired by conquest any land?
China holds today the territory it had about 200 years before Christ. Please cite any examples of China holding territory gained thru war in the last 200 years.
Now, the USA has acquired land by military power recently in comparison: half of Mexico (1845), Puerto Rico (1898), Guam (1898), Hawaii (1898) or made "protectorates" or installed "friendly regimes" in Chile (1973), Iraq (1963, 1973 and 1983), Guatemala (1993), Venezuela (2002), etc. etc.
So that the comment doesn't become redundant, I'll link to it.
Not only is the USA slipping behind China, it is slipping behind other developed nations.
I'm not an American so I can't vote in your elections but you CAN.
Vote for more education and stricter measurements for advancing children to the next grade.
You might find it funny that a non-American urges you to strengthen your country, but I rather deal with the USA (with all its warts) than with China as the global super-power.
So don' t hide your head in the sand and do something about it now!
Right, perhaps we need some citations from 2006 and 2008 or maybe read some books from 15 years ago to find that indeed the ol' US of A is falling behind instead of anecdotes of a cheating driving school.
I'm NOT an American, but I have lived and worked in the USA and one of my daughters went to school there and I'll tell you, children are promoted even if they should have to take remedial classes or flunk, so spare the anecdotes and give us some hard statistics to prove the USA is not falling behind.
Forget WP7, I just closed VS 2010 after four and a half hours of fighting with it; simple run-of-the-mill WinForms app, for some reason one table out of dozen in the dataset will not give me a list of parameters of GetData on the auto-complete.
Clearly, something is wrong but I can't figure out what. Finally I decided I would have to re-do some work and unzipped a back-up from last week, same thing.
If I figure what it is I might get a Nobel Prize on Occult Sciences!
Yes, VS 2010 is nicer and much better that its previous incarnations but somehow still one gets erratic behavior and no clue as to what is causing it.
I just cleaned up my son-in-law's Acer computer of all sort of shit, purportedly put in by the manufacturer to "help" the consumer get a great experience with their product.
Mostly useless stuff taking up RAM and processor cycles and delivering usage information to Acer "parteners" (God Bless you Peter Sellers!)
Nowadays, you have to either live with the bloatware or be knowledgeable enough to know what you can remove safely. Starting with the horrible Norton / Symantec shit...
A couple of weeks ago a cleaned a Sony (my daughter's) and it wasn't as bad; I haven't seen a recent HP but my guess is that everyone is jumping on the easy "partners" money, so this shit is here to stay.
Perhaps you know about it, but if not, there was a great digest of this kind of stuff way back in the early 90s; I hear today is a Google group but have not checked them out.
I'm sorry if I misunderstood your comment. I read it as meaning "It happened years ago, so it doesn't matter". I don't mean to be controversial, I think that is necessary for American citizens (I'm not one) to pressure their government to stop such practices.
Now, if you want proof of it happening now and define now as Saturday, February 26th 2011, no, I don't have any proof.
If you mean "happening" as in the very recent past, yes, we have proof. Even Mr. Bush gloating about authorizing waterboarding of suspects in an interview with The Times of London (registration may be required), but you can get the gist of the interview or read about it somewhere else.
If half-drowning a man repeatedly doesn't qualify as torture, well then I don't have point to make. If it qualifies as torture and we have an open and public confession from the one who authorized it, why is the man still at large?
There is proof, from the mentioned open confession of Mr. Bush, photographs and videos of Abu Ghraib and the leaked cables which indicate that torture continued to be systematically used in Iraq years after the investigation of the incidents at Abu Ghraib.
So, we have proof of it happening quite recently, do you have proof that it stopped happening?
the US does this every day to many hundrerds, if nog thousands of people.
Citation? Evidence? Anything?
But you are right, I was posting in another thread about Batista and other dictators supported by the USG (even employing Marines to seat a "president" at gun-point in Dominican Republic) and got the threads mixed.
So, maybe it doesn't happen today in Guatemala, but it does happen today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo and perhaps other places we don't know about; because it stopped in Guatemala every thing is all right...
According to your logic we should have let the Nazis off after the war because they were no longer torturing and killing people.
No, no, no. Such people must be brought to justice and face the music for they crimes, if they were American or Guatemalan, it does't matter.
I hope that you do some research and assuming that you are an American, you will do everything in your power to bring to justice those involved and not just play " Really? I didn't know." Now you know.
You forgot to provide examples of US support for the removal of Batista and Pinochet or to deny USG and US Corporations in installing them in the first place.
Also please provide said examples for General Videla (Argentina), Anastasio Somoza (Guatemala), Trujillo and Belaguer (Dominican Republic), this last one installed at gun-point by US Marines...And that is only in Latin America, if we throw in Asia and Africa, whew! you would have a lot of work.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank for the pointer, I'll look it up.
Thanks for the correction. I still think of Interbase as an off-shoot of Paradox, which at the time, seemed to me the most wonderful database. (He, he, that hints at "Get off my lawn, youngster!") having previously used B-tree Filer (by TurboPower) because dBase was horrible.
Your second point, when using Linq or Linq-to-SQL, if you have a complex SQL statement (i.e. it creates a temporary table) it balks and refuses to accept it, claiming the temporary table is illegal. I had to re-write a stored procedure so that parameters and results are returned to VS and afterwards change it back so that it uses the temporary table in order for it to work. I had better experiences with Entity Framework, but then, I haven't yet done any serious work with it.
Then, working with two or three servers (development, sandbox and production) is a nightmare. The dataset gets thrown out of kilter and refuses to load in VS (not work, it does compile and work) making further development harder. If I change the body of ConnectionString (not the Name or other attributes, just the server name and log-in parameters in the connection string) the dataset refuses to load in the development environment, until the conn string is returned to the original condition. Maybe, I'm doing something wrong, but this weekend I had to unzip my backup to get a dataset to show up in VS 2010 after changing only the server, the user and password being the same and other parameters remaining untouched. Moving from VS 2008, to VS 2010, to Eclipse to whatever, maybe I'm assuming things I shouldn't in VS, but it seems to me that a the contents of a connection string should not drive the behavior of the IDE.
Quite frankly, I don't miss much C/C++, I do like C# and I specially like the new Razor syntax; it promises a lot of flexibility and compactness. I have done some VB .NET programming and the verbosity kills your productivity (IMHO) while Razor stays out of the way. But again, I'm still in the testing grounds and not producing anything yet, but so far. I like it.
For WP7, specifically; I haven't touched it. But as I said, between MVC 3, Razor and EF; I'm inclined to give it a shot, perhaps it would be worthwhile. Would I mind only .NET development? No, if it fits the project being developed and if it helps it along instead of hindering it.
Let me tell you a good one. In .NET 4 (yes the bleeding edge!) and previous incarnations, if you put a DatePicker in your forms (.aspx, WinForms. etc.) and the target is say, Spanish, when you tab from one DatePicker to another, the cursor goes to the month (remember, in Spanish we are talking about dd/mmm/yyyy) instead of the day field; if you try to put in 31 in the day field (first one) when the month is, say, September, it will not let you. So this makes it clear that internally the framework is still working with MONTH first, even when it doesn't make sense. One would think a multi-national company as MS could get this right after so many years, but no; we still have to struggle with small shit like this day in and day out. So much for internationalization.
Sorry pal, eh?
We're talking about British Petroleum here, not your average Joe Sixpack, so they can afford whatever is necessary to keep the data safe.
And why would you want SSN on everyone? If it is a preliminary meeting, you are not going to card everyone and make sure their SSN and DOB are correct, are you?
Slightly off-topic
Recently there had been several stories about MS / WP7 and many comments are, kind of knee-jerk reactions against MS.
Before someone screams astroturfing, let me say that I use whatever tool is right for the job. Mostly I do data-driven applications (WinForms, PHP, MVC, Java, whatever) against the database server that will deliver the most bang for the buck (my client's buck, not mine) so I have used Firebird (the OS incarnation of Paradox), SqlLite, MySQL, Postgress, MS SQL and (gasp!) even Oracle!
Now, I don't think MS gets, even now, how that works. Calling stored procedures in MS-SQL from any VisualStudio framework is a royal pain in the ass. They tout DRY but I can't think why you have to jump through loops to get stored procedures to work in their frameworks; I have many complex queries in SQL to list records, why would I want to repeat the same SQL statements in an MVC app and in a WinForms app against the same database? The surest way to achieve DRY is to use stored procedures and let each app handle only the presentation of the data.
Having ranted against MS, I kind of like MVC 3 and the new Entity Framework, not quite up to speed on it, but so far I kind of like it and that has predisposed me towards looking at WP7 and see what has MS learned from past failures, which last year I would not have thought about at all.
Now, in a site supposedly rife with developers of all kinds, shouldn't we be more open about investigating and then adopting or rejecting new technology?
Please don't construct this as an advertisement for WP7, I'm simply saying, maybe one should look at it before dismissing it out of hand. I did some work in Symbian and (the pain!) Objective-C, so I don't think my eyes will pop-out if I look at WP7.
Right! I see why NO ONE in their right minds would link to that blog!
Jesus! Hire a freaking designer,
Sorry about the short and not quite friendly reply this morning. I was kind of in a hurry to get to the first of several meetings, respond to emails, etc. You know, the business of making a living.
I quite agree with you, China and the USA are imperialistic powers. Every nation that has military or economic power, tends to exert it in ways that further their own interests. That is human nature and there is not much we can do about it.
Now, as I pointed out in other posts to this thread, I rather see the USA keep its leadership because they at least pay lip service to basic human rights (agreed, not always) and to democratic ways (yes, not always.)
China in the other hand, thinks its people are cattle to be corraled and made productive, one way or another. The rest of us, non-Chinese, are less than cattle to them. The poorest Chinese peasant will look down on anyone not Chinese, because they are some kind of master race and the rest of the world is composed entirely of barbarians.
Given the above, one has to recognize that China (named so after the Quin [pronounced sheen] dynasty, which first unified the kingdoms) has been a political state for longer than any other country. The USA is just a bit more than 200 years old, Germany less than 200 and so forth.
While there are marked differences between North and South Chinese, they have always struggled to control ALL of China. Not this stuff of the Confederate States against the damn yankees or the panamanians wanting independence from Colombia. No sir, it's all or nothing. Taiwan was part of China before 1895 (when the Japanese got it by force) and came to be part of China again after the end of WWII (1945); the struggle between communists and the nationalists ripped the two apart, but both claimed to be the legitimate government of China, all of China.
Eventually, Taiwan will be part of continental China again, whether under a democratic (or almost democratic regime) or under the communists, is a question to be decided yet. So you see, there is no extra-territorial claim; it is simple one group staying in one island claiming to be the rightful government of all of China against a larger group in the continent claiming the same exact thing.
Tibet is a different thing entirely, having struggled against China for, literally, centuries. But it has also struggled against British troops trying to ascertain dominance over the territory, so it is not only the Chinese.
Chinese think that Tibet is part of the greater Chinese territory. Before you scream imperialism, let us remember that they have not made any claims against Indian, Pakistani, Korean or Vietnamese territory; it is simple that they have conquered and lost Tibet some many times, that they feel it is a rebel part of their territory.
Quite unlike the Americans sizing half of México in a purely expansionist drive, not even in dreams had the USA any right to such territories as it didn't have any rights to any territory in America; lest we forget, it was Britishers fighting native Americans to disposes them of their rightful lands.
But again, I rather see the USA maintain its leadership with all its warts and defects than see the Chinese exert their power.
Allow me to enlighten you.
Also see a map of the Han territory about 2,000 years ago.
The difference with Jews is that the Chinese have occupied those territories without interruption and today most Chinese think of themselves as Han descendants.
I'll risk my karma by calling you stupid.
When was the last time China conquered or acquired by conquest any land?
China holds today the territory it had about 200 years before Christ. Please cite any examples of China holding territory gained thru war in the last 200 years.
Now, the USA has acquired land by military power recently in comparison: half of Mexico (1845), Puerto Rico (1898), Guam (1898), Hawaii (1898) or made "protectorates" or installed "friendly regimes" in Chile (1973), Iraq (1963, 1973 and 1983), Guatemala (1993), Venezuela (2002), etc. etc.
So that the comment doesn't become redundant, I'll link to it.
Not only is the USA slipping behind China, it is slipping behind other developed nations.
I'm not an American so I can't vote in your elections but you CAN.
Vote for more education and stricter measurements for advancing children to the next grade.
You might find it funny that a non-American urges you to strengthen your country, but I rather deal with the USA (with all its warts) than with China as the global super-power.
So don' t hide your head in the sand and do something about it now!
Right, perhaps we need some citations from 2006 and 2008 or maybe read some books from 15 years ago to find that indeed the ol' US of A is falling behind instead of anecdotes of a cheating driving school.
I'm NOT an American, but I have lived and worked in the USA and one of my daughters went to school there and I'll tell you, children are promoted even if they should have to take remedial classes or flunk, so spare the anecdotes and give us some hard statistics to prove the USA is not falling behind.
Oh no, no suing. Air Force gentlemen are much more devious...
In the next firmware update, the Air Force bombs Tokyo instead of Libya and blame it on Sony!
See what Sony can do against that
Oh Lord!
Forget WP7, I just closed VS 2010 after four and a half hours of fighting with it; simple run-of-the-mill WinForms app, for some reason one table out of dozen in the dataset will not give me a list of parameters of GetData on the auto-complete.
Clearly, something is wrong but I can't figure out what. Finally I decided I would have to re-do some work and unzipped a back-up from last week, same thing.
If I figure what it is I might get a Nobel Prize on Occult Sciences!
Yes, VS 2010 is nicer and much better that its previous incarnations but somehow still one gets erratic behavior and no clue as to what is causing it.
Your UID shows that you should know better; typically cars have all parts available for at least 10 years after production.
Is it old age or plain stupidity showing on your comment?
If you can't make a proper car analogy, don't use it.
Caveat emptor!
I just cleaned up my son-in-law's Acer computer of all sort of shit, purportedly put in by the manufacturer to "help" the consumer get a great experience with their product.
Mostly useless stuff taking up RAM and processor cycles and delivering usage information to Acer "parteners" (God Bless you Peter Sellers!)
Nowadays, you have to either live with the bloatware or be knowledgeable enough to know what you can remove safely. Starting with the horrible Norton / Symantec shit...
A couple of weeks ago a cleaned a Sony (my daughter's) and it wasn't as bad; I haven't seen a recent HP but my guess is that everyone is jumping on the easy "partners" money, so this shit is here to stay.
Whatever you were smoking then, I want some!
Perhaps you know about it, but if not, there was a great digest of this kind of stuff way back in the early 90s; I hear today is a Google group but have not checked them out.
Thanks for the laughs
Exactly my thoughts
Hopefully someone from Google is reading this thread; keep it open but allow those willing to pay a little extra security.
It won't work because many people will go for anything that is "free" or "cheaper", but at least you have an option.
You should be careful with what you post!
Did you know that postings like yours can cost lives?
Good Lord! I almost choked on my dinner when I laughed out load!
Not having someone around for a Heimlich maneuver with posts like yours is very dangerous.
Please give proper warnings before posting like this again.
Thank you
As a former corporate IT manager I find your navieté very refreshing.
Of course we learned the first time around, MS gives you perks and complimentary stuff; the long-haired hippies working in OSS, don't.
Where would you lean?
Please turn-on sarcasm detector and read again...
Right!
If all sites deny browsing to IE6 in this economy or any other, they will upgrade.
Have you tried lately to get a new VHS movie?
Right, free market pressure works...
I'm sorry if I misunderstood your comment. I read it as meaning "It happened years ago, so it doesn't matter". I don't mean to be controversial, I think that is necessary for American citizens (I'm not one) to pressure their government to stop such practices.
Now, if you want proof of it happening now and define now as Saturday, February 26th 2011, no, I don't have any proof.
If you mean "happening" as in the very recent past, yes, we have proof. Even Mr. Bush gloating about authorizing waterboarding of suspects in an interview with The Times of London (registration may be required), but you can get the gist of the interview or read about it somewhere else.
If half-drowning a man repeatedly doesn't qualify as torture, well then I don't have point to make. If it qualifies as torture and we have an open and public confession from the one who authorized it, why is the man still at large?
There is proof, from the mentioned open confession of Mr. Bush, photographs and videos of Abu Ghraib and the leaked cables which indicate that torture continued to be systematically used in Iraq years after the investigation of the incidents at Abu Ghraib.
So, we have proof of it happening quite recently, do you have proof that it stopped happening?
I was responding to Jeremi's comment:
But you are right, I was posting in another thread about Batista and other dictators supported by the USG (even employing Marines to seat a "president" at gun-point in Dominican Republic) and got the threads mixed.
So, maybe it doesn't happen today in Guatemala, but it does happen today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo and perhaps other places we don't know about; because it stopped in Guatemala every thing is all right...
According to your logic we should have let the Nazis off after the war because they were no longer torturing and killing people.
No, no, no. Such people must be brought to justice and face the music for they crimes, if they were American or Guatemalan, it does't matter.
Please see above comment, yes, we are talking about Guatemala, Central America.
I hope that you do some research and assuming that you are an American, you will do everything in your power to bring to justice those involved and not just play " Really? I didn't know." Now you know.
Citation 1, citation 2
You forgot to provide examples of US support for the removal of Batista and Pinochet or to deny USG and US Corporations in installing them in the first place.
Also please provide said examples for General Videla (Argentina), Anastasio Somoza (Guatemala), Trujillo and Belaguer (Dominican Republic), this last one installed at gun-point by US Marines...And that is only in Latin America, if we throw in Asia and Africa, whew! you would have a lot of work.