Links for 19-Nov

Anonymous types in C# 3.0

Seven hard lessons from writing software

When to choose WinForms vs WPF vs ... -- round-up of old and new .Net UI frameworks

An anniversary of note

Twenty years ago this month -- I didn't record the actual day -- we disposed of our TV, because the programs were getting to be so dire, and we switched the thing on so little that it was costing us £5 or more per program (more because we forgot half the few things we even planned to watch).

What amazes me is from hearing all the media reviews -- and the occasional glimpse in solo hotel rooms, when I don't have any internet access -- is that things have become so much worse over those intervening years. Very definitely, “57 channels and nothing on…”

So -- Kill your TV!

[Now playing - Chill]

Links for 16-Nov

Parsing integers efficiently -- using no types wider than we are parsing for

Writing testable code is managing complexity 

Why programming is hopeless and futile -- stumbling around in failure space

ASP.Net Ajax, control hierarchy gotcha

Links for 15-Nov

Why does the bad code I see never have anything as beautiful as really evil 'C'?

Free programming tips that are worth every penny.

Design is inevitable. But mind your metaphors while doing so.

Links for 14-Nov

Loading WCF configuration from different files on the client side.

Unexpected Security Exception in ASP.Net -- scope your impersonations carefully.

Android and Google's non-JVM Java.

Re-throwing exceptions in Python.

XP style widgets with wxRuby on Windows.

Nil illegitimis…

Just back from another session at the dentist of pre-work for getting last year's root-canal tooth crowned.

The gum is almost healed now that the temporary is holding the tooth together, but it's not yet ready for the rest of the work. So this was a session of tooth-filing. Not filling, filing. So I have been being ground down…

Over the last few years fillings that have meshed locally when I bite on the affected area, with my mouth full of cotton wool padding had managed to throw the global articulation off so that I could only bite on one side at a time. Since the root canal last year, I also had a tooth that was known to be cracked and I didn't want to put pressure on (even though it felt misshapen), which threw load onto the other side, and eventually caused cracking that led to Septembers' root canal.

Now, after an hour of biting onto articulating paper, and drilling to remove bits of fillings, I can now not only bite evenly on both sides, but, once more, bring my front teeth together (from the default slight underbite) to do things like tear sellotape!

W00t!!

Links for 13-Nov

Planning Fallacy -- Reality, it turns out, usually delivers results somewhat worse than the "worst case".

Seven Rules of Unobtrusive Javascript

Programming conventions as signals -- think Contract Bridge

Vector Buttons, Feed Icons, Fonts

A dedicated follower of fashion

For my 800th post, following the latest craze:

This blog's DOM (just before this post) as a graph
Isn't it complicated!

What do the colors mean?

blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

The applet is at http://www.aharef.info/2006/05/websites_as_graphs.htm for generating your own.

H/t Devil's Kitchen.

[Now playing - Chill]

Links for 12-Nov

Managed Code preloader for Silverlight

Pattern matching and useful anamorphisms in Ruby

Functional Javascript 1.0.2 release 

Can I has DLR LOLCODE naow? 

A problem with an excessively coupled design -- Server 2008 headless.

Links for 9-Nov

A Silverlight physics engine -- cool.

Silverlight video search 

IronPython -- using with and COM -- playing nicely together.

IronPython 2α6 released.

Links for 8-Nov

Rhino Mocks + Extension Methods + MVC == Crazy Delicious

Idioms for composing games in Etoys

Category Theory for the Java Programer -- but it works for C# too

Some screenreaders ignore display:none 

Really Simple Anamorphisms in Ruby

The Eee-PC -- neat big boy's toy : a "no moving parts" mini-laptop

Links for 6-Nov

Visual Studio 2008 RTM and licensing announcement -- very interesting news about licensing changes

Memory leak debugging in JRuby -- you have to put out the garbage for it to be collected

Bram's Law -- oh so true.

More on the breakdown of the naive noun/verb OOP model 

AD FS documentation update on MSDN

Links for 5-Nov

3 hot uses for HttpContext.Current.Items “They” won’t tell you about

Mob Rules (The Law of Fives)

A cautionary tale of globalization -- what is "i".ToUpper() ?

DOM Compatibility tables updated

Don't Click Here : The art of Hyperlinking

JRuby 1.1 β 1 released, and is now faster than MRI -- and also 1.0.2 is out too (though it still has some easy bugs to fix)

Import CPython modules into IronPython

Links for 2-Nov

Content and presentation -- web typography and the separation of concerns

The new ASP.Net MVC model -- developer's notes 

Are your web pages POSH? -- Hints and tips for clean and accessible design

Using ASP.Net objects and not literal strings -- no magic constants

CSS diagnostic tools 

Just a little experiment

Custom captcha honeypot

Seeing whether this will attract any bots.