Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2021

Interesting article on a meeting between a few Java "champion-ers" and MS's .net team.

Quote/Gist:
> Business is business, so if Java developers can reasonably
> expect to profit from interoperating with .Net, then many
> will probably at least be willing to listen.

The author ("Rick Ross is the founder of JavaLobby and president of Usermagnet...") goes on to gush about .net like he was fed some MS brownies, talking about how impressive and intelligent the MS employees were (which I don't doubt for a second -- see my paper "Brillant Ideas Run Through a Profit Maximization Machine" aka "Brillant Peoples' Work Can't Wash Off PR Stink"), hinting that he'd like Java to pick up some of the features of C# ("Oh, my!"), and talking about some lame excuse that MS created J# so that Visual Studio.NET could be used in classroom. Last part sounds a little bogus to me -- I don't doubt that's part of the story, but all of it? In my experience with the J# beta, you're given just enough rope to hang... You've got nearly all of Java 1.1.4 (not unlike what you can do on Mac Classic with Java) and you've got all of .net in a Java-friendly object model. If you want some "advanced" functionality (ie, what's not in 1.1.4) you'd readily pull from .net classes, I think. Once you've discovered .net's usefulness, you might as well use C#, right? ;^)

I think one of the best points made in the article regards MS's attempts to officially standardize .net and C#. He points out that it'd take a company with pretty blamed deep pockets to actually implement the standards (aka "porting Windows OS to your platform" (that's me talking there)), so expect .net to tie you to Windows just like visual studio products have in the past. Busting walls with lip service doesn't amount to much.

'=========================================
' Begin ye ole Form1 code (has a Command Button called
' Command1 and a Textbox with multiline set to true called
' Text1)
'=========================================

Option Explicit

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim strFilename, strXMLFile
Dim oXML As MSXML2.DOMDocument
Dim bitFileExists As Integer
Dim lstElements As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList
Dim tmpElement As Variant

' find xml file path
strFilename = "temp.xml"
strXMLFile = App.Path & "\" & strFilename

' standard "create xml object" code
'Set oXML = server.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")
Set oXML = New MSXML2.DOMDocument
oXML.async = False

' check file exists
bitFileExists = oXML.Load(strXMLFile)

If Not bitFileExists Then
Text1.Text = Text1.Text & ("Error: " & strFilename & " does not exist")
GoTo errHand
End If

If oXML.parseError.errorCode <> 0 Then
Text1.Text = Text1.Text & ("There is a parsing error on your file (" & _
strFilename & ") " & oXML.parseError.reason)
Text1.Text = Text1.Text & ("Line: " & oXML.parseError.Line & _
" Position: " & oXML.parseError.linepos)
GoTo errHand
End If

Set lstElements = oXML.getElementsByTagName("issue")

For Each tmpElement In lstElements

Text1.Text = Text1.Text & ("Issue Name: " & tmpElement.childnodes(0).Text) & vbNewLine

Next

Exit Sub
errHand:
Text1.Text = Text1.Text & "Error"
End Sub

This is something I've been meaning to blog for a while (no matter how skimpy the readership)...

.NET is nothing special. You've been able to do everything that's "new and unique" about .NET for some time, though obviously not using C# or the exact syntax of VB.NET. There are a few improvements of importance that vary depending on who you ask and what they program (like replacing dlls without having to stop the server), but conceptually .NET is doing very little new. COM, RMI, CORBA have all had the same ideas and, as pointed out in the above link, there was nothing stopping people from creating a web service in the pre-.NET world. Even without a VB SOAP toolkit, it wouldn't take you longer than getting familiar with the SOAP specification at w3c.org before you were rolling your own.

What's so important, if that's the right word, is the vigor with which Microsoft is pushing the methodolgies that underlie web services and other forms of distributed computing down your throat. Ashes to ashes and dumb terms to dumb terms, we're starting to come full circle in the world of computing with respect to where the power lies. Just like UNIX has done for years, we're using centralized processing power and centralized services in .NET to power our new web apps. Now, of course, however, we've got nearly every computer in the world at our disposal. Somewhat like the SETI@home program is for ole ssl.berkeley, .NET will allow us to use any Joe Corp's business logic from anywhere in the world!!!! (please pronounce the italicized text in a Conan O'Brien "In the Year 2000" voice).

The biggest difference here, of course, is that these distributed services won't be free. And we'll quite possibly be "beholden" (quotes just b/c that's a 50 cent word for "sold-out to" -- more of a 50 crown word, as it's a bit on the dated side) to Microsoft for the quick, out of the box solution for collecting on that business logic. So the glue holding the new distributed computing world together, in the mind of someone named Gates or Ballmer or Smith or something, comes [at an oh so reasonable cost] from our good friends at Microsoft.

As I've said to coworkers, family, and friends for a while, it's not that Microsoft has bad ideas. They have great ideas (cut out the y2k voice already!), they just tend to run them through this "profit maximization machine". Is that wrong? Is it incredible to believe a company in Americas, whose gov't at the very least implicitly endorses capitalism as the national religion, is trying to make money? Probably not. ;^)

Anyhow, bottom line, .NET is more important b/c of the amount of press and propaganda it gives to distributing computing using WSDL (see here and here) and SOAP than it is any mind-bending advances in technology. Matured solutions to an old but still juvenile in its implementations tech? Something like that.

Boy that came out more of a ramble than I'd hoped.

title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude.	descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
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Friday, December 28, 2001
Crazy Apple Rumors Site -- fun stuff. Wednesday Feature: Crazy Apple Help Desk Q: I recently stuck a sandwich in the Mezzanine slot of my original iMac but it doesn't seem to be working. I've tried rebooting, but my Mac still doesn't have access to any sandwich-related services. What am I doing wrong? A: Most likely the sandwich you attempted to use contained braunschweiger or some other meat product of European origin. European meat products require a different voltage than your iMac uses. Replace the sandwich with one containing American ham or turkey. A laugh riot, no? posted by ruffin at 12/28/2001 10:22:00 AM

Interesting article on a meeting between a few Java "champion-ers" and MS's .net team. Quote/Gist: > Business is business, so if Java developers can reasonably > expect to profit from interoperating with .Net, then many > will probably at least be willing to listen. The author ("Rick Ross is the founder of JavaLobby and president of Usermagnet...") goes on to gush about .net like he was fed some MS brownies, talking about how impressive and intelligent the MS employees were (which I don't doubt for a second -- see my paper "Brillant Ideas Run Through a Profit Maximization Machine" aka "Brillant Peoples' Work Can't Wash Off PR Stink"), hinting that he'd like Java to pick up some of the features of C# ("Oh, my!"), and talking about some lame excuse that MS created J# so that Visual Studio.NET could be used in classroom. Last part sounds a little bogus to me -- I don't doubt that's part of the story, but all of it? In my experience with the J# beta, you're given just enough rope to hang... You've got nearly all of Java 1.1.4 (not unlike what you can do on Mac Classic with Java) and you've got all of .net in a Java-friendly object model. If you want some "advanced" functionality (ie, what's not in 1.1.4) you'd readily pull from .net classes, I think. Once you've discovered .net's usefulness, you might as well use C#, right? ;^) I think one of the best points made in the article regards MS's attempts to officially standardize .net and C#. He points out that it'd take a company with pretty blamed deep pockets to actually implement the standards (aka "porting Windows OS to your platform" (that's me talking there)), so expect .net to tie you to Windows just like visual studio products have in the past. Busting walls with lip service doesn't amount to much. posted by ruffin at 12/28/2001 10:19:00 AM

Monday, December 24, 2001
Next step in XML and VB6 (Why?!! ;^D) -- XPath posted by ruffin at 12/24/2001 03:16:00 PM

Google might not be a fancy site, but they've got at least one graphic desinger there... posted by ruffin at 12/24/2001 01:11:00 PM

Remember 11/15/2001 2:58:42 PM when I whine about SAX and VB6? Well, just as I expected (and if I'd hadn't've been so laz... ur, *busy*, I woulda figured out), it's easier than that. Sheesh. Cut and paste and hack that code a touch (it was written for "classic" ASP) and you're ready to go. Below is what it looks like after being slightly edited for my test XML file and smacked into a VB6 app. This should work for any XML file with elements named "issue" where each "issue" element has text for each of its first child elements. It's pretty easy to change the "issue" bit to suit your examples. ;^) Sorry for the loss of whitespace, but I'm not switching all the tabs into & n b s p ; 's (whitespace added with pre tags -- duh! -- 11/18/2003) (Note: I'm working on an even easier, more abstracted/generic example app that writes and edits XML that actually includes useful comments. I'll try and post a link to that once I'm through): '========================================= ' Begin ye ole Form1 code (has a Command Button called ' Command1 and a Textbox with multiline set to true called ' Text1) '========================================= Option Explicit Private Sub Command1_Click() Dim strFilename, strXMLFile Dim oXML As MSXML2.DOMDocument Dim bitFileExists As Integer Dim lstElements As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList Dim tmpElement As Variant ' find xml file path strFilename = "temp.xml" strXMLFile = App.Path & "\" & strFilename ' standard "create xml object" code 'Set oXML = server.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM") Set oXML = New MSXML2.DOMDocument oXML.async = False ' check file exists bitFileExists = oXML.Load(strXMLFile) If Not bitFileExists Then Text1.Text = Text1.Text & ("Error: " & strFilename & " does not exist") GoTo errHand End If If oXML.parseError.errorCode <> 0 Then Text1.Text = Text1.Text & ("There is a parsing error on your file (" & _ strFilename & ") " & oXML.parseError.reason) Text1.Text = Text1.Text & ("Line: " & oXML.parseError.Line & _ " Position: " & oXML.parseError.linepos) GoTo errHand End If Set lstElements = oXML.getElementsByTagName("issue") For Each tmpElement In lstElements Text1.Text = Text1.Text & ("Issue Name: " & tmpElement.childnodes(0).Text) & vbNewLine Next Exit Sub errHand: Text1.Text = Text1.Text & "Error" End Sub posted by ruffin at 12/24/2001 12:00:00 PM

Wednesday, December 19, 2001
Once a week I dual post, I guess. Quote below is from the Apple Java development list. Morale: Thread management is a good thing to understand. ===== Message: 10 Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 10:06:51 -0500 To: java-dev@lists.apple.com From: Matthew Kuperus Heun I went from a single thread on a dual CPU machine to 383 threads on a dual CPU machine. The run time was cut in half, almost exactly. This shows that up to ~400 threads, there is little penalty due to thread scheduling. ===== Harkening back to my first "released" (and actually used by others) Java app, I didn't understand threads at all. The UI and the logic were in the same thread, and everytime someone hit "GO!", the UI would freeze until everthing was finished. Got a couple of complaints on that one. ;^) posted by ruffin at 12/19/2001 11:44:00 AM

Now here's an interesting one. Using asp.net to make images. Looks like .net is using that tag that says what's being returned is not html but an octet stream that's a jpeg. You can't view source in IE and view source in Mozilla just asks what app should be opening the [incorrectly extensioned] image. Certainly interesting. Here's the page source and one of the examples in action. Both on aspalliance.com. posted by ruffin at 12/19/2001 10:53:00 AM

Wednesday, December 12, 2001
This is something I've been meaning to blog for a while (no matter how skimpy the readership)... .NET is nothing special. You've been able to do everything that's "new and unique" about .NET for some time, though obviously not using C# or the exact syntax of VB.NET. There are a few improvements of importance that vary depending on who you ask and what they program (like replacing dlls without having to stop the server), but conceptually .NET is doing very little new. COM, RMI, CORBA have all had the same ideas and, as pointed out in the above link, there was nothing stopping people from creating a web service in the pre-.NET world. Even without a VB SOAP toolkit, it wouldn't take you longer than getting familiar with the SOAP specification at w3c.org before you were rolling your own. What's so important, if that's the right word, is the vigor with which Microsoft is pushing the methodolgies that underlie web services and other forms of distributed computing down your throat. Ashes to ashes and dumb terms to dumb terms, we're starting to come full circle in the world of computing with respect to where the power lies. Just like UNIX has done for years, we're using centralized processing power and centralized services in .NET to power our new web apps. Now, of course, however, we've got nearly every computer in the world at our disposal. Somewhat like the SETI@home program is for ole ssl.berkeley, .NET will allow us to use any Joe Corp's business logic from anywhere in the world!!!! (please pronounce the italicized text in a Conan O'Brien "In the Year 2000" voice). The biggest difference here, of course, is that these distributed services won't be free. And we'll quite possibly be "beholden" (quotes just b/c that's a 50 cent word for "sold-out to" -- more of a 50 crown word, as it's a bit on the dated side) to Microsoft for the quick, out of the box solution for collecting on that business logic. So the glue holding the new distributed computing world together, in the mind of someone named Gates or Ballmer or Smith or something, comes [at an oh so reasonable cost] from our good friends at Microsoft. As I've said to coworkers, family, and friends for a while, it's not that Microsoft has bad ideas. They have great ideas (cut out the y2k voice already!), they just tend to run them through this "profit maximization machine". Is that wrong? Is it incredible to believe a company in Americas, whose gov't at the very least implicitly endorses capitalism as the national religion, is trying to make money? Probably not. ;^) Anyhow, bottom line, .NET is more important b/c of the amount of press and propaganda it gives to distributing computing using WSDL (see here and here) and SOAP than it is any mind-bending advances in technology. Matured solutions to an old but still juvenile in its implementations tech? Something like that. Boy that came out more of a ramble than I'd hoped. posted by ruffin at 12/12/2001 05:54:00 PM

If you're a web programmer who mainly finds yourself using Windows, you could do a lot worse than using HTML-Kit as your text editor of choice. It's free, easy to extend (I've written about 4-5 plugins myself for it and downloaded many more), and has built-in integration with HTML TIDY; just right click your code and you'll have a context menu firing Tidy right up. The "Find" dialog needs a ton of work, but other than that little issue, Html-Kit beats the socks off of Ultra-Edit when doing web work (not hex editing, java coding, etc, but web work most certainly). Just my 2¢. (That's a cent symbol, if you're not using Windows with ye ole American font. Since we were talking Windows programs anyhow, I figured that'd be okay.) posted by ruffin at 12/12/2001 05:28:00 PM

Wednesday, December 05, 2001
schmoe_AIMer_1:: there was a comment from some SuSE (german linux distro) lead programmer recently about how you almost never got patches from japanese or chinese programmers that were using linux schmoe_AIMer_1:: it's not that they're not using it schmoe_AIMer_2:: That's what I meant by "Don't hack, just use" schmoe_AIMer_2:: "not contributing to the common codebase in a Free-esque manner" schmoe_AIMer_1:: i don't think they don't hack, though schmoe_AIMer_1:: i think they just have their own system interally schmoe_AIMer_2:: Again, to me I meant hack as in positive contributions. schmoe_AIMer_1:: ok schmoe_AIMer_2:: I realize you can hack at home, but if you're hacking Free software and it doesn't get back to the Free world, you have a tree that fell in the woods. schmoe_AIMer_1:: blog it schmoe_AIMer_2:: Yeah, then you can read it. :) posted by ruffin at 12/05/2001 09:45:00 AM

Tuesday, December 04, 2001
Quoted from /. As soon as virus writers learn how to spell correctly and learn proper grammar, I think we're going to be in some serious trouble. posted by ruffin at 12/04/2001 06:06:00 PM

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