Heads up everybody! Beta 3 of IE7 is now out and available. But there are some quirks about the uninstall of the previous bits. If you’ve been using Beta2, Beta2 Preview or Beta1, then check out the IE teams blog entry on uninstalling the previous versions.
I keep thinking that I’ll wait to post until I have my big news, but I keep hearing great stuff and I have to share it. The word of the day is CodePlex!
This is Microsoft’s new code sharing site. It’s new so there will be a few kinks to work out but it’s based on MS VS05 Team System! Wow! You can get to it from here. Check it out when you get a chance. I already see Atlas toolkits and IronPython and a whole lot more!
Sometimes the smallest of things can really make your day. I came across something that I’m sure everyone else knew, but somehow I had missed it. In IE 6x, you can press Control-N and it will open a new window with the same URL. This is something that my wife is always wanting to do and up until now had always had to open a new instance of IE and navigate to where she wants to go. I can’t wait to tell her what I found! It was like finding buried treasure!
It looks like a dream is about to come true. All the pieces are not yet in place, but we’ve started down the path. Just so I won’t jinx it, I’ll wait until I have just a couple more pieces of the puzzle before I’ll break the news.
Be patient! It’s well worth the wait!
Stay posted, I hope to have some really amazing news. My excitement level is off the charts. I hope it all works out.
The announcement yesterday came as a surprise, although some had already guessed. When Ozzie came in, I knew then that a direction change was coming. When Sinofsky replaced Allchin, it was again another indicator of the changes on the horizon. So, although a somewhat sad announcement, it is not necessarily bad nor is it unwise.
Bill was the genius behind blending technology with business success. However, Microsoft is not just one man, it is the living entity that he created. And just as a parent’s control and influence must ultimately ebb to allow their children to grow, Bill must do the same. He will continue to be the iconic representation of great software. He is without any doubt or argument the single greatest influence in software in history. His withdrawal is necessary for Microsoft to go to the next era. His choice of his next ‘life’s priority’ is a demonstration of who he really is.
So, although this is not really an end, all developers should stand up, thank and salute the Man himself. His demonstration of character, determination, talent and drive has generated unswerving loyalty from legions of developers such as myself. Thank you, Bill, for the computing environment we all now live in. I can’t wait to see the upcoming great accomplishments that you will achieve in this new venue.
When you get more comfortable in the VS05 IDE, you will eventually have a need to move around and rename projects. VSIDE is very good at taking care of renaming your references. However, you may rename or move a subproject and all of a sudden your ‘using’ statement cannot find it. You check and recheck, you delete and re-add your reference but you still cannot get it to resolve. Don’t panic, just close and re-open the solution. There seems to be something that gets hung up inside the IDE that does not get completely resolved.
I’ve been heads down pushing very hard to get a medium sized project off the ground so my posts are backing up. But I had to post to let you guys know that something amazing and unbelievably wonderful may be coming in my life. I don’t want to jinx it by saying too much, but everyone send me good thoughts and good luck. It would be my life’s dream come true.
I know I said I wouldn’t post until after I got settled, but I ran into yet another issue where a program was written to just get out the door or without a real architecture for some reason and now there’s issues.
No matter how many times it happens, it never pays to short your architecture to get code out the door or to resolve some perceived issue. There are always options. Did you get that last statement:
THERE ARE ALWAYS OPTIONS!
If you have to get code out the door, I can guarantee you that if you do your architecture up front, your code will still get out the door at the same time as if you would not have done your architecture and you’ll be able to maintain and debug it in the future!
Also, if you are dealing with some performance issue, be it database or object related, there are always options to work around it or design patterns to aleviate it.
So, never code yourself into a corner by not architecting your apps. Because when you do code yourself into a corner, you’re not alone. You’ve coded your clients into that corner with you. Now that mental picture should help you remember!!!! 🙂
Sorry for the empty space. I’m transitioning to a new project and I’m trying to wrap up and train to get things ready to hand off. I have a ton of things (OOA, design, practices, frameworks and more!) to talk about when I get settled so hang tight, this baby’s about to lift off!
John Howell 