Developers are designers, too!

Microsoft lately has been advertising the divorce of the UI from the underlying development and code.

I think this a very erroneous and poor way to market their latest suites of technology; namely, XAML (presentation markup) & Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). In the presentations/training that I've attended, it was reiterated over and over that developers don't know how make UI's or lay things out that a user would want to see.

I believe UI's haven't been as imaginative or laid out well because the development tools for UI's haven't been that flexible or good.

By moving the "good" UI tools out of the Dev tools, developers will now have load up yet another environment to do their jobs, or the default way of laying things out will continue. Companies won't find it worth their while to hire a graphic designer for every tool or project. In fact, very few of the projects will ever go through a professional designer's hands.

I think it's nice that Microsoft wants to give a tool to the designer that they can do fantastic things with. But they should include at least a useable set of design manipulation tools to the developers who understand the process and logic of the program/application. They should actually allow the developers to prove they have no idea how to lay things out before they assume developers aren't capable of doing it.

LINQ to SQL Row Add/Remove

I was trying to add and remove records to my database tables. I couldn't find anything that designated that these kinds of changes be made to the database.

Then I found this blog that cataloged the changes in methods from Beta 2 to the RTM version:

http://chakkaradeep.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/linq-to-sql-beta-2-to-rtm-changes/

I should have been able to figure it out quickly myself, but sometimes it's the obvious things that you need a sign for.

LINQ Tips

Composite Key

I was looking for the syntax for a composite key join. I could only find it for 3 tables that were chained to gether by mutiple columns. Here's the join syntax for two tables that have 2 columns in column:

var vResult =

from t1 in table1

join t2 in table2 on
new {t1.Key1, t1.Key2} equals

new{t2.Key1, t2.Key2}

select
new {t1.Column3, t2.Column4};

Interesting Syntax

I also found the syntax for a "shaped" return of data. Here's some pseudo:

var vResult =

from t1 in table1

join t2 in table2 join t1.Key1 equals t2.Key1 into Shape

select {t1.Key1, Shape};

I hope these help someone, as I was looking around for a little bit to find these simple nuggets of truth.

.Net Framework v1.1 sp1 Install Error

I was trying to install the .Net Framework 1.1 service pack 1 (sp1) and kept getting an error (code 80070002). Unfortunately the fix described by the code doesn't work.

I went looking around on the net and found this post from someone who was trying to get the service pack to play a particular game.

Here's the link I came across that has a pretty well document procedure for installing the service pack:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?p=733941

WCF IEnumerable Problem

I was working on a WCF service/client application when I decided to make a change to one of my service contract operations.

I changed a property type in one of my data contract data members from List<CustomObject> to IEnumerable<CustomObject> Of course I was making several changes at the time, and didn't realize until a fair amount of time later that this would not serialize correctly.

I have a theory that adding "[ServiceKnownType(typeof(CustomObject))]" right after the ServiceContract declaration will allow the service/client to serialize and deserialize correctly, but I'll have to wait test it out when I have time.

If anyone gets a chance to test it out before I can, please, comment below and let me know how it worked for you.

An Interesting Article…

I hope not to need this advice any time soon, but I came across a good link to this article:

"Bloggers beware: You're liable to commit libel" by Steve Tobak

It describes your rights as a "publisher" and what kind of burden of proof would have to be presented if you publish defamatory statements.

It's a nice simplified synopsis of the laws surrounding libel suits.