Richard's Rant - All Comments

re: Windows Mobile: You Lost me at 6.5 (Rant)

Bbeattie — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:44:40 GMT

Now that's tellin em Rich -great rant. Glad I got the iPhone now, I was tossing up getting wm device!

re: Links for Friday 17 April 2009

Mango — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:04:41 GMT

Could this be the return of the rant? ;-)

re: Is Quicken the most biggest rip off ever?

Bowen Denning — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 15:04:35 GMT

One accounting program that (whilst probably being far too simple for your needs) is well worth checking out is http://buxfer.com.

re: Is Quicken the most biggest rip off ever?

David — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:51:19 GMT

Not as powerfull and feature-full as Money or Quicken, but open source: http://www.codelathe.com/mmex/

I haven't used it myself, though.

re: Coldest Ride Ever!

Gordo — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:02:45 GMT

Try starting work later ... it works for me as I only lost two finger tips, not my entire face ;)

re: Is UML A Good Thing in an Agile World?

Gordo — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:00:08 GMT

Hmmm, like all things, I don't believe there is a one size fits all. I love the use of UML at the front-end of the solution process to help bridge the gap between the business (who can usually easily understand the UML nomenclature) and the developers. After that, I am more than happy to take on whatever flavour of Rapid/Agile methodology the developer prefers.

Utopia would allow for me to sit with the business, have them describe their business processes according to a set series of questions and compile their answers as they go using voice recognisiton software, into a prototype app there and then. But we are a long, long way from that Utopia ;)

re: Is UML A Good Thing in an Agile World?

Richard van den Hurk — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:41:49 GMT

Very good point and I guess UML is still one method amongst many that can be used to architect a solution. In todays highly visual world though, quick prototype software where the end user can interact with a framework is a lot more advantageous. It provides much more accurate feedback which are checked at each reiteration of the development. I guess the ultimate is a framework where the UML can directly be translated to a UI front end which the user can evaluate.

re: Coldest Ride Ever!

Richard van den Hurk — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:29:11 GMT

Howdy Richard. Nice little blog. Just started mine at www.openpsyche.com. It was bloody cold and has been for the last few weeks. They reckon the coldest week in 25 years. Is this global warming or cooling???

Good pick dude...

re: Why would I buy a Mac?

Mango — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:40:28 GMT

I think it the same reason yahoo's go out and buy BMW's they still perform the same tasks as a Honda Civic but it's the perception of somehow being 'more exclusive' that will drive people to pay that little bit extra so they can have something different from everyone else.

I'm defiantly the type that looks for a PC that will give me the most 'bang for buck' but if I had a spare few grand lying around I probably would shell out the extra to get something 'shiny'.

re: Microsoft's Bid for Yahoo

Rob Mills — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 04:35:44 GMT

I'd have to agree with your comment about Microsoft being desperate for buying yahoo. Instead of earning a larger market share by offering something to the market they're trying to buy the market share. Even if they have a most of the internet after this purchase I think we'll see their part start to fall again. Google just really understands the web.

re: Links for Wednesday 6 February

El Gordo — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:37:24 GMT

Did you notice who the spokesman was for the company? Alan Bond ... now there's a name that should strike fear into the hearts of large scale financial dealings!

re: Microsoft's Bid for Yahoo

Sausage — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:04:22 GMT

I dunno. Credible alternatives have always existed. I see Microsoft's current malaise as a result of their inability to execute, their dearth of innovation, and being run by marketing guys rather than technology guys.

Their copycat culture ensures that they will never produce an iPhone when it matters, instead Windows Mobile 7 will have iPhone competitive features in a couple of years time when it's released. Uh but the iPhone has those features already, and has done for 9 months now. Doh. If only they could delay those iPhone purchases for another 2 years with some well placed FUD.

If they buy Yahoo, what are they going to do with all that embarrassing Linux, BSD, PHP, MySQL tech? Another expensive and time consuming rewrite like they did with Hotmail, and MSN TV (nee WebTV)?

When will the Xbox start making money, instead of losing them billions?

If they didn't have their Windows and Office monopolies, what would they have left that was profitable?

Their outrageous wasteful spend on diversifying into every market they can just in case they lose their cash cows only quickens their death. Why not use these wasted billions in actually improving Windows, so people would want to upgrade? But then why spend money on a product that is automatically sold whenever anyone buys a PC, whether they want the damn thing or not?

Why did they leave IE6 untouched for 5 long years? It's not like it was perfect. It's support for web standards, CSS2, HTML4, was mediocre at best. But that cobbled together C++ sat in SourceSafe untouched for 5 years. Why? Because after killing the competition off, why would they spend money on building a better browser?

Microsoft is not interested in building products that people actually want to buy. They are only interested in building products that people have no choice but to buy, unfettered by competition. Boring, hard to use products that barely work. That's why Microsoft are slipping down the slope to obscurity. And thank god, it's about f**king time.

re: Links for Thursday 31 January 2008

El Gordo — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:33:47 GMT

RedBubble is another good self-promoting photo sale site ... sort of like a cross between iStockPhoto and Flickr - but Australian!

re: Why the Entertainment Industries have their heads up their collective bums

El Gordo — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:31:56 GMT

Right on sister ... gets up my nose that the stations also start something but don't finish it (especially regarding anything remotely SciFi) or shift it to a timeslot that's offensive even to a Jolt-Cola Caffeine Junkie Insomniac and then wonder why their ratings never rise because we're to jaded to commit to their irregular programming!

re: Links for Friday 18 January 2008

MARK GORDON — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:14:47 GMT

Hi There, Thanks for the blog and links ... My comment is regarding the dal link in your blog ...

I'm wondering how anyone, who is not just pumping visual studio, can really consider this a proper way to construct a data access layer or even call this a true data access layer?

This code sample below is right from scott g's blog.

Imports NorthwindTableAdapters

Partial Class SuppliersTest2

Inherits System.Web.UI.Page

Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load

Dim suppliersAdapter As New SuppliersTableAdapter

GridView1.DataSource = suppliersAdapter.GetAllSuppliers()

GridView1.DataBind()

End Sub

End Class

Here is the problem with it.

1) The table adapter is tied directly to sql therefore consuming an oracle database for example requires multiple table adapters and a bunch of code over head to support it in this case directly in the UI.

2) The data and subsequent business layer is intermingled in the User interface, this is a horrible design practice for large applications and does nothing but create a maintenance nightmare!

This is the problem I have with Visual Studio in general it leads to hard to maintain applications.

When I build my applications I have a true data access class which can access SQL, Oracle, or Access tables depending on the client's needs. Just by changing out the dal I can access any backend without touching the UI and Biz Objects.

The business objects are separate from the data access layer and user interface therefore the biz objects are reusable across multiple back ends and web forms, win forms and to some extent web services.

The UI then interacts with either properties on the biz object or the record set object passed forward from the biz object.

I know that was a quick summary but I'm sure you understand basic N-Tier design standards.

Microsoft is way to smart not to know this is occurring. It seems in my honest opinion Microsoft is trying to build tools to stop N-TIER design or make it very difficult. This mean basically SQL Server will be tied it Visual Studio Applications. They are trying not only to force people to use VS but also have to license SQL Server.

MSFT'S decision is not what is best for the programming community or our clients, It seems to be a financial one. ... In fact they maybe misleading us that the VS is the correct way and MSFT is basically building tools and wizards that do nothing more then cement VS application into SQL Server.

Could it be we are watching a monopoly in the making and everyone is going along with it.

My two cents for what it is worth.

Mark