by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
10/10/2009 3:23:00 PM
Join us for the 6th Desert Code Camp on November 7th, 2009.
I will be presenting the following 3 sessions:
Reactive Programming - Implementing IObservable(Of T)
The Reactive Exentensions (aka the Rx Framework) might be the most important change to the .Net Framework since Generics!
In this session I will show you how IObservable(Of T) and IObserver(Of T) can enable remarkable changes in the way you think about programming.
I will introduce you to how IObservable is the mathem ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
6/29/2009 7:59:00 AM
Who is the “typical VB.NET developer”? Is there one? There are millions of VB.NET developers in the world, and they each have their own unique story. Here’s mine: · How long have you been using VB? Since V1. In 1992, I was looking for a replacement to QBasic when developing a Point of Sale Application for Windows. · What industry do you work in? Software Development. We are very diversified in our client base, touching Medical Records, Financial Services, Home Automation, Facto ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
6/23/2009 2:12:00 PM
I do lots of work with collections and one thing I tend to frequently is log all the information I can about a certain Request under certain conditions. I found myself needing to serialize or save all the Request.ServerVariables. Now, we could walk through the items, blah, blah, blah, this ends up being much easier with an Extension Method: Public Module NameValueCollectionExtension
<Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension()> _
Public Function ToXElement( ByVal self A ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
6/19/2009 10:30:00 AM
Lisa Feigenbaum from the .NET Managed Languages Group about Visual Basic .NET. Does VB.NET have a future ? Does Microsoft love C# more than VB.NET? Listen and find out . Of course it does… As Lisa says, it’s not in Microsoft’s best interest to stop moving VB.NET forward. Yes, there is a bias about VB in general, but 99.9% of this comes from VB perception and not VB.NET. VB.NET is completely different and people do not realize it’s only related by SOME (not nearly all) syntax. ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
6/15/2009 2:23:00 PM
I was looking for a way to create some Repeating Strings easily and I got tired of typing. You may notice that the String() constructor will allow you to create single repeating characters, but it does not let you create repeating Strings. For example, creating this is simple: Dim zeros As New String ( "0" , 10)
which results in a String of ten zeros or “0000000000”.
This is a great way to make String with a single repeating character. So how to I repeat whole stri ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
4/9/2009 10:05:00 AM
I found this today from Paul Welter… Easier way to page Linq queries.
Here is the Proper VB Equivalent Snippet:
Imports System.Collections.Generic
Imports System.Linq
Imports System.Text
Public Module PageQuery
''' <summary>
''' Easily get Pages for an IQueryable(Of T)
''' </summary>
''' <typeparam name="T">any IQueryable supported Type</typeparam>
''' <param name="query">The Query we are Paginating</param&g ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
3/30/2009 10:39:00 PM
My most recent article is up at Visual Studio Magazine Online.
I choose to pick the tools that apply directly to a problem I need to solve and use those new capabilities to enhance my productivity. Even more power and flexibility comes when we can take several of these capabilities and combine them for a unique solution to a problem.
We're going to look specifically at three pieces of the framework that can be combined to provide a new technique. This technique helps in writing more respo ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
5/20/2008 3:38:00 PM
Reading in the Industry blogs, official samples and documentation provided with MS SQL Server 2005+, Visual Studio 2008 and Linq to Sql and the Entity Framework, you will get the impression that we have a tremendous ability to efficiently decipher how to interact with a Database. Additionally, Industry leaders have led us down a path of Code Generators, Designers and the separation of UI Design from functional Object code; read "Astoria" and/or "MVC" here...
Didn't CASE do this sort of ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
5/1/2008 1:12:00 PM
I needed to find out exactly what was being submitted by DataContext.SubmitChanges and didn't want to use SQL Profiler. I ran across this post by Kris Vandermotten and have converted the code to VB for anyone else who may need it. This is now always in my Utility.vb file that gets attached to most of my projects.
Imports System.Diagnostics
Imports System.Globalization
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Text
''' <summary>
''' Implements a <see cref=" ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
3/31/2008 12:23:00 AM
In my previous post, I was sort of happy to see an update for WebProfile for use in VS08. The thing is, I really dislike the error you get in the build with this approach, I just can't use that in a production environment. So... I did some more digging and came across this solution by Jon Galloway . You should read his article for a full explanation of what is going on.
His samples are in C# which is great, but there are some caveats to doing it in VB.
Here is the same co ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
3/28/2008 3:50:00 AM
Joe Wrobel fills an important hole for people developing web applications in VS08 Files can be downloaded from the Web Profile Builder project page. If you use Web Application Projects, you have probably run into the issue of not being able to access the Profile at design time. Web Profile Builder for Web Application Projects - Joe Wrobel
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
10/22/2007 2:36:00 PM
As Nick points out, there is a disturbing situation going on in a forum where there are no posted rules. So I would like to correct what nick says as VB guys CAN'T be zealots, without being punished by the overlords.
VB guys can be Zealots too - Nick's .NET Travels
I am also a zealot when it comes to VB, I love the language and have written some great applications with it. I literally BASED MY CAREER on VB.
If I were to refer to the treatment as being brought down by "Jackbo ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
6/5/2007 11:21:00 AM
Amanda Silver gave some great insight into what we are going to see for VB in VS 2008 (aka Orcas).
With LINQ and XML we finally get some embedded Object Mapping for the most common Database requirements for building applications. To date I have relied on Code Generation for building the CRUD code and business rule stubs to tramsform our Database Schema into Object for Type Safety. The biggest hassle with this has been that we needed to create templates that were not always op ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
4/23/2007 12:29:00 AM
I really love it when someone inspires me to actually THINK about how to do something better, I remember a problem I specifically had in a project last year when I need to use FindControl to get something on a MasterPage from a SubPage.
I came up with a solution, but it was nothing noteworthy...
My friend J. Michael Palermo, IV posted a recent entry about doing this in C# (as well as VB , but somehow I only saw the C# version before I started into the conversion process). The ide ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
10/30/2006 11:05:00 AM
I will be speaking again on System.Transactions November 1, 2006 for AZGroups .
What is special about THIS presentation is that I will be revealing a Virtual Resource Manager completely written in VB.NET. While the iDesign C# code now available from MSDN is great (as well as the basis of mine...) It is not available in Visual Basic.
Yes, you can always just use it, but that doesn't let you dig into how it works, or why it is important unless you want to do it in C#. This can ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
9/28/2006 4:08:00 PM
What is an Anonymous Delegate?
I have recently been converting these and talking about them quite alot.
This is a technique not currently implemented in VB, but is used in C# (and other languages) to write some inline code in which I do not want to create classes and handlers to perform some simple operation. Typically this is used in Generics when iterating over a collection, or to execute some specific functionality when an event occurs.
These are similar to "Closures" in other lan ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
9/17/2005 10:22:00 AM
The LINQ Project is probably the most exciting announcement of PDC for me.
I have been using an O/R Mapper for quite some time and I couldn't imagine designing a new application without using one.
We all heard about ObjectSpaces way back on 2002 and how it would bring object orientation to relational database UIs. Then we all wondered what happened to it when they decided to pull it from the 2.0 Framework. Well, the ideas of ObjectSpaces were rolled into an even more ambitious ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
2/1/2005 1:33:00 PM
First off, let me state, I really like the Enterprise Library . In fact I put off development of one of my new applications specifically to build it around the EntLib. Great job by the EntLib team getting this out the door!
The concept behind it is fantastic, It's implementation is pretty good too.
I would like to see some people come out with a few articles on how to use these libraries, there are alot of missing pieces in the documentation.
For this to really be accepted an ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
1/20/2005 3:03:00 PM
As I embark on the beginning of yet another project (they are endless you know...)
Some of the leading Patterns & Practices available for VB:
Microsoft Patterns & Practices
Visual Basic Design Patterns VB 6.0 and VB.NET
Professional Design Patterns in VB .NET
Design Patterns in VB.NET: Building Adaptable Applications
Is it just me, or do all these look really convoluted when compared to some of the Open Source patterns (i.e. java) that are out there.&nb ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
11/29/2004 10:52:00 AM
The TIOBE Programming Community Index for November shows that VB is still more popular than C# by a Very Wide margin, though you wouldn't know that if you listen to Microsoft and most of the DotNet community.
It's not that I am against using C# at all, it's just that when it comes to real world popularity C# still has a long way to go to gain on the installed base of developers that actually use the language.
Despite Microsoft pushing the language on everyone as a “more efficient an ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
7/15/2004 1:51:00 AM
Have I made my point yet? I don't think I really have... Here is a great list that Rockford Lhotka just put together showing several things that are a boost to my development productivity, I think I have used every one of these.
A customer asked me for a list of things VB can do that C# can't. "Can't" isn't meaningful
of course, since C# can technically do anything, just like VB can technically do anything.
Neither language can really do anything that the other can't, because ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
7/13/2004 12:59:00 PM
For some reason unknown to me, Server.URLEncode() doesn't work as I expected it to in VB.NET.
I have a piece of code that writes out some script using what is in a textbox...
It's not something I do often, but in this case it is from some legacy code, but it needed to be updated because it was causing some odd behavior that I didn't like.
I have this old paging system that I was using prior to my XSLTPager .
It was something I did for custom paging in a Datagrid and it wrote out the ja ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
7/13/2004 1:35:00 AM
Why does this just crack me up? Every language has some things that are unique and they ALL borrow from each other. Language bias is just rediculous and I'll just keep pointing it out until it sinks in... If you are productive in VB, forget C# unless you have a really good reason to make the switch, spend your time wisely becoming more prolific in the language you already know! VB isn't going away for a long, long time.
Eric Gunnerson has just blogged about using the /o+ compiler swit ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
7/12/2004 4:41:00 PM
Update : somehow I missed these threads when I posted...
A well-deserved smack back to some C# zealotry Why VB.Net Is Better Than C# Language wars (sigh)
I really share Eric's sentiments here, but I however, will comment...
Sorry if whoever's doing this reads my blog, but personally I think a lot of the stuff on your list is really silly.
C-Sharpener For VB - Why Switch? [Via HumanCompiler - Erik Porter (MS MVP) Blog ]
On a point by point basis, why thi ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
7/8/2004 11:43:00 AM
I have made some changes to XMLHelper and rolled it to version 1.1
The most significant is to allow getXmlDocument and getXPathDocument to accept multiple resultsets from SQL Server as a single XML Document.
The reason this is useful is so that you can create a Stored Procedure with your entire XML Structure using multiple Select statements.
for example, consider this Stored Procedure:
CREATE PROCEDURE report_MailingLabels_XML
(
@LocationID varchar (9),
@DateOfReport datetim ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
7/3/2004 12:21:00 AM
I know this is a really old (a year ago) post, but I started reading Phil's blog again since he came back, btw: welcome back Phil.
Phil makes a good point here and during the past year it's only gotten worse. There is a really easy way to resolve this. Expert VB.NET developers need to release WELL WRITTEN Code and Programs to the public the same way they did with VB3, 4, 5 and 6. The incredible shortage of quality code for people to follow is amazing, most of the good stuff that is be ... [ read more ]
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by
H. Steele Price, IV via
Steele Price - VB
on
7/1/2004 3:48:00 PM
I'm going to be keeping a Visual Basic Bloggers OPML file that will be updated as much as possible to include all the “active” bloggers posting mainly (or at least heavily) about VB. I am not making a distinction right now whether these people are inside or outside of Microsoft, I may implement a folder hierarchy if there is a need to in the future.
I will probably mirror it as a blogroll at Scripting News later.
This OPML will directly import into most RSS Reade ... [ read more ]
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