Should i call it Ramani's blog

Thursday, April 29, 2004



Edit Plus? Should have been Edit Plus+++++++++++++

If you are not sure of what I am talking about don’t go any further, you don’t belong to that category of people who use this little yet a powerful tool. This is a small piece of software of about 2mb in size but incorporates all that a software developer needs. Hey!! Don’t think I trying to market this software that’s not the intention, I am just trying to popularize this software, Good things should be shared right! It’s got loads of features like Syntax Highlighting, Grouping files as projects and lot more, you name it you will see it there! It even has a spell check (you need to download the dictionary separately). The best feature as far as I am concerned is creating your own language templates, Syntax files and Auto Completion features. Try downloading this small piece of software and use it. I have developed my own C# auto complete and Syntax files to be used with EditPlus.

I can hear you saying big deal these features are available in many software. I know I know but what is the memory space that software occupies, how quick the software loads? What is the installation file size?
I am sure they are resource intense! Try EditPlus you wont require any thing else.

More info here http://www.EditPlus.Com. Don't forget to check "user files" section in the website.



Are you crazy about?

Do you like crazy advertisement I refer TV commercials here? I do, if you do as well then proceed further. I happen to trip on this web site which has loads of interesting TV commercials, but the sad thing is its not in English, its in some other language which I couldn't get a grasp on. Doesn't matter if its English or Greek/Latin or some other alien language all it matters is the creative thinking the directors have put in. I now have a local copy of most of the TV commercials. Man I am telling you they are awesome. Do check them out

Beware! PG or 18+ Content inside. http://www.bromamania.net



Some Tech Comparisons

I thought i shouldnt be writing only personal stuff here, so i decided to share some tech knowledge of mine.
i found this on the web, good article, go through it.

What are the advantages of C# over VB.NET and vice versa?

The choice between C# and VB.NET is largely one of subjective preference. Some people like C#'s terse syntax, others like VB.NET's natural language, case-insensitive approach. Both have access to the same framework libraries. Both will perform largely equivalently (with a few small differences which are unlikely to affect most people, assuming VB.NET is used with Option Strict on). Learning the .NET framework itself is a much bigger issue than learning either of the languages, and it's perfectly possible to become fluent in both - so don't worry too much about which to plump for. There are, however, a few actual differences which may affect your decision:

VB.NET Advantages

  1. Support for optional parameters - very handy for some COM interoperability

  2. Support for late binding with Option Strict off - type safety at compile time goes out of the window, but legacy libraries which don't have strongly typed interfaces become easier to use.
  3. Support for named indexers (aka properties with parameters).
  4. Various legacy VB functions (provided in the Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace, and can be used by other languages with a reference to the Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll). Many of these can be harmful to performance if used unwisely, however, and many people believe they should be avoided for the most part.
  5. The with construct: it's a matter of debate as to whether this is an advantage or not, but it's certainly a difference.
  6. Simpler (in expression - perhaps more complicated in understanding) event handling, where a method can declare that it handles an event, rather than the handler having to be set up in code.
  7. The ability to implement interfaces with methods of different names. (Arguably this makes it harder to find the implementation of an interface, however.)
  8. Catch ... When ... clauses, which allow exceptions to be filtered based on runtime expressions rather than just by type.
  9. The VB.NET part of Visual Studio .NET compiles your code in the background. While this is considered an advantage for small projects, people creating very large projects have found that the IDE slows down considerably as the project gets larger.

C# Advantages

  1. XML documentation generated from source code comments. (This is coming in VB.NET with Whidbey (the code name for the next version of Visual Studio and .NET), and there are tools which will do it with existing VB.NET code already.)
  2. Operator overloading - again, coming to VB.NET in Whidbey.
    Language support for unsigned types (you can use them from VB.NET, but they aren't in the language itself). Again, support for these is coming to VB.NET in Whidbey.
  3. The using statement, which makes unmanaged resource disposal simple.
  4. Explicit interface implementation, where an interface which is already implemented in a base class can be reimplemented separately in a derived class. Arguably this makes the class harder to understand, in the same way that member hiding normally does.
  5. Unsafe code. This allows pointer arithmetic etc, and can improve performance in some situations. However, it is not to be used lightly, as a lot of the normal safety of C# is lost (as the name implies). Note that unsafe code is still managed code, i.e. it is compiled to IL, JITted, and run within the CLR.

Despite the fact that the above list appears to favour VB.NET (if you don't mind waiting for Whidbey), many people prefer C#'s terse syntax enough to make them use C# instead.


Credits : http://blogs.msdn.com/csharpfaq/archive/2004/03/11/87816.aspx



F#
Most of you would know what C# (C-Sharp) is?
if you are not not sure what I am talking about, please take some time and glance through
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/language.asp.
Let me come to the point. we have heard of C#? How about F#?

Check this out
F#
Combining the safety and productivity of ML and Caml with the libraries,
tools and cross-language working of .NET

F# is an implementation of the core of the Caml programming language for the .NET Framework, along with cross-language extensions. The aim is to have it work together seamlessly with C#, Visual Basic, SML.NET and other .NET programming languages. In particular it is the first ML language where all the types and values in an ML program can be accessed from some significant languages (e.g. C#) in a predictable and friendly way.

More info.... http://research.microsoft.com/projects/ilx/fsharp.aspx



Microsoft on Sourceforge

In early April Microsoft quietly released its first open source project, WIX, on Sourceforge. WIX, according to the project page, "The Windows Installer XML (WiX) is a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. The toolset supports a command line environment that developers may integrate into their build processes to build MSI and MSM setup packages."

While this is not a huge release of source code, it is an interesting step as Microsoft perhaps begins to explore the open source community. There are some interesting blog entries on the project leader's weblog, found here. The project was released under a non-modified Common Public License.

There is applicability to web developers using the .Net platform, as Microsoft's own internal groups, including the msn.com division, are using the toolset to build installation packages for web applications.

More interesting is this foray into open source and especially the use of Sourceforge, considered the predominant open source development portal. Perhaps the new experience of working with a community of seasoned open source developers, especially those interested in seeing more open source solution built for or ported to Windows (and the opposite as well! Think .net on Linux - see the Mono Project).

The controls the group has placed on contributed code has drawn some criticism, however, I have worked on open source projects intended for commercial consumption with very strict conditions on source control, so the care and concern given to implementing modified code to the project should not seem shocking.