Blame is a Harsh Mistress

I've got a few nits that just keep happening with the various CodeRush and DX bits of the whole DevExpress suite. It's still useful software, but it and I are still negotiating on behavior.

• The CodeRush training window won't stay docked consistently across Visual Studio restarts.
• Many of the templates for code entry seem wrong to me and I have to learn which ones to turn off.
• All too frequently I'll see both MS intellisense and CodeRush suggestion popups at the same time as I type.
• Over and over again I find that a form left open in my IDE is marked dirty when I start up an editing session even though I haven't touched it. Saving and diffing the file against source safe shows no unexpected changes.

Most of the above seems related to my keyboarding style versus DevExpress and I'm trying to adapt, but after a few weeks there is still too much noise going on in the experience. The tools are cool, but there's a definite need for some QA and polish, IMO.

Technorati Tags: software, devexpress, coderush, refactor!, visualstudio, programming

Late last week I hit a need to write some code using logic I hadn't even thought of in probably 20 years. I'm writing a differator for some structured XML data and I need to do a match-merge operation on named elements in a collection. Back in the days when sequential file processing was the norm for batch operations (disk files were often logically viewed as tape files) this was old hat and I never even had to think about how to do it. Then VSAM, ISAM, and assorted database engines led to random access, and even when we would sort an input transaction file we were likely not to bother trying to read a master file sequentially if most records would be skipped.

Anyway, the logic to do this isn't at all difficult, but the last time I wrote such code from scratch I was using assembly language on DOS/VSE. This time around it's VB.NET against an XML DOM with ordered collections of nodes.

Technorati Tags: programming, software, algorithms

Moans and groans and the sound of shuffling feet are today's sounds. Too much walking and stooping and bending over to pick up trash at yesterday's clean up event left me tired but satisfied yesterday, but today I am moving very very slowly.

Yet another reminder that I need to be in better shape.

Pardon any updates that show up in RSS to some old posts, I updated them to correct the capitalization of BlackBerry. As Smalltalkers know, getting capitalization of names right is just good manners, and BlackBerry is what I see on the various RIM sites.

I'm a long time licensed user of NetNewsWire, and stuck with it when it was acquired by NewsGator. I had tried some online web based news readers but never got into them, and until I got my BlackBerry, I had no real reason to look at any other RSS news reader.

There is a large subset of my RSS subscriptions that are low priority and great to read in little snatches of time here and there, so I decided to see if there was a news reader for the BlackBerry. It turns out there are multiple options. I decided to try NewsGator Go! since it was free and from the same outfit that supplies my excellent Mac based reader.

I set up NewNewsWire to sync feeds with the NewsGator site, and downloaded and installed NewsGator Go! on my BlackBerry. I now have seamless synching between all three readers--Mac, BlackBerry, and Web--and I'm considering looking at their PC based news reader.

In terms of usability, NewsGator Go! feels like BlackBerry application. Menus work as expected and it is easy to navigate. The tree view of feeds and folders is clear, article abstracts are readable, and I can dive into an article that I want to read or access links with just a couple of clicks from my BlackBerry.

If there's something I want to save for later, I can easily clip the article and it is moved to the clippings folder for future reference on either my BlackBerry or NetNewsWire.

It appears possible to set up feeds on the Mac and PC that do not sync with the central service, but I haven't investigated that feature yet.

My only complaint with NewsGator Go! is that the folder level count of unread articles doesn't update to reflect articles I've read in a predictable manner during a reading session.

If I was assigning a letter grade, I'd have to give NewsGator Go! a solid 'A'.

Tags: Blackberry, NewsGator, Reviews, NewsGator Go!, software

Last week it was the ice cream truck and this week it's general street noise. It's kinda like Neil Diamond's Beautiful Noise:

What a beautiful noise
Comin' up from the park
It's the song of the kids
And it plays until dark

Yesterday was our first really warm and clear Friday of the season, and the park by the rec center was full of people. I had the windows open all over the house and I could hear kids, radios, people having spontaneous parties on their porches, and other happy sounds of the city as people get out after a long winter.

I know suburbanites might not enjoy such sounds, or maybe even find them annoying, but it's a good part of life here and it rarely disturbs me.

Today is Corryville Cleanup day and I'll be heading out in about an hour to help with the annual neighborhood beautification project. I'll be up on Bellevue with some neighbors. We're going to get rained on, but it doesn't look too bad.

Tags: Cincinnati, Corryville, urban life

My friend and former coworker Peter Suk liked to say that, and it's so true.

So many bugs we see in our own code and in other code are caused by dangling state. Niklaus Wirth's Algorithms+Data Structures = Programs should note that Programs + State = Observed Behavior. I'm dealing with weird bugs in other people's software (OPS). In each case, there must be some bit of sticky state, perhaps for a premature optimization, that I can't see from my side of the interface which causes the bugs.

Frustrating.

We should optimize no code before its time.

We should cache no state before it's needed.

Technorati Tags: programming, bugs, optimization, quotes

It's still a bit too cold for ice cream trucks to be out in my opinion, but they are out and rolling in our neighborhood. The music is a bit loud, and kids don't seem to be out in droves when they come around, but that will change as things heat up. Summer is coming to Cincinnati.

Tags: Cincinnati

I have to admit it, the folks at RIM did this right. Like the old Palm, the iPod, and the Mac, the BlackBerry seems to be the best device for the space it occupies. The interface is intuitive and manageable, and the form factor is big enough to make it useful for reading some information from email or web. As a phone, it works as well as anything else I've tried.

My old XV6700 Windows Mobile "brick" just never felt this easy to use, and because of that it never got used as much. I tried to use it for entry and appointment management, and it was almost adequate for those functions, but a Palm Pilot would have done a better job for less money.

I'm exploring software and sites that some have recommended, and I'm finding some winners and some losers along the way. It looks as if there's a big mobile ecosphere out there. Now I know why BlackBerry users are always fiddling with their devices :)

Tags: Blackberry, design, quality, usability

Pocketmac is unable to sync notes or tasks. At best it hangs the sync, at worst it wipes out data on my BlackBerry. It also lacks a complete device backup feature. I've had to install the Windows desktop manager for BlackBerry over on my office laptop. I'm annoyed.

I've set both sync programs to view the BlackBerry as primary and I plan on it being "the truth" at all times, with the PC and Mac calendars as just backup and aides.

Tags: Mac, quality, software, Blackberry