Rory Blythe had a great
post today on developing a PocketPC application in Visual Studio 2005. Rory made a 20 minute video tutorial on developing and deploying a simple application using the compact framework. This tutorial was great for someone like me who has not had a chance to develop PocketPC applications yet. His tutorial sparked a lot of interest in the compact framework especially since the application was able to run in an emulator....no need to actually own a PocketPC. One of the coolest parts of the tutorial was that he went through the debugging procedure too. So far he has received a lot of good comments which hopefully means more of these tutorials will be on the way. Being able to watch what was going on was a great help and change rather then reading tutorials out of the MSDN or other articles. Check it out...
I started reading
Code Complete, Second Edition
about a week ago and have not been able to put it down. Most
computer books I pick up are always trying to sell you an idea, they
are always skewed in a way to convince you that this language or tool
is the best there is. This book took a different approach which
kept me into it. For me,
Code Complete, Second Edition
has become a great resource for best practices, different approaches to
problem solving, and thinking logically. Anyone can learn the
syntax of a language or the libraries, but not everyone puts the time
into the logic as they should. Parts of the book reminded me of
an "Object-Oriented Programming Techniques" class I took in college or
a "Data Structures" class, but the majority of the book has introduced
me to new ideas that never would have crossed my mind.
Amazon.com's description of the book listed some of the main topics it
covers. Topics include design, applying good techniques to
construction,
eliminating errors, planning, managing construction activities, and
relating personal character to superior software. This new edition
features fully updated information on programming techniques, including
the emergence of Web-style programming, and integrated coverage of
object-oriented design.
With the coming release of Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0, everyone
is in a rush to download the betas and start learning the new tools. I
know because I am one of them. I have been learning the new tools
so that I can hit the ground running as soon as they are
released. However, learning the tool is not going to help you
become a better programmer. I recommend browsing through at least
the index of this book next time you are at Borders and I am sure you
will want to dig into it more.
I am not saying to not learn the new tools. The purpose of this
post is to remind us that going back to a standard set of guidelines
can always benefit us even though they are not as interesting as a blog
on new technologies.
Quake III Arena source code has been released at Quakecon 2005. The source code can be downloaded here. It was cool seeing Quake II ported to .NET but after seeing Doom ported to an iPod here. I think there is now a new challenge. If I start missing extended periods of work, you know where I am.