yag's status report - June 13, 2002

[Yair Alan Griver [MS]]

Status Report - June 13, 2002


Another week gone by. I catch a plane tomorrow to NY for VSLive! I'll be
doing a couple of presentations there. Any of you who are attending, please
stop by and say hello.



I haven't gotten any feedback on the MSDN walkthroughs, so I'll let the
question stand for one more week. What types of walkthroughs would you be
interested in? What improvements would you make?



The highlights for the week:


1. I hope to get the RC1 version of the VB community website at the end of
next week (when I return from VSLive!). The middle tier and back ends are
running, along with a (not really pretty) front end. Guess what the work
this week will focus on? <g>



2. Lots of work on getting people online and more user group support. Lots
of great feedback on the newsgroups this week.



3. Work on the next version of VB .NET



4. Work on rolling out community awareness and feedback to the worldwide
subs. Continuing to work with many others on a plan now so that we can do it
properly.



5. More chats planned - we're into August now (with a few weeks in July
being finalized). If you have any topics you'd like covered, let me know!
This past week's chat (on the datagrid) was incredibly well attended. The
transcript should be online soon at http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats.



-yag


Upcoming chats (http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats):

Forms and the Windows Forms Designer

Tuesday, June 18, 2002, 1:00 - 2:00 P.M. Pacific time (21:00 - 22:00 GMT)

Join us for a discussion of developing Windows applications using Windows
Forms and the power of the Windows Forms Designer.





Web Forms General Discussion

Tuesday, June 25, 2002, 1:00 - 2:00 P.M. Pacific time (21:00 - 22:00 GMT)

Join Microsoft experts in an online chat about WebForms. Any and all
questions are welcome; from basic to advanced!



Windows Forms Custom Control Development

Tuesday, July 2, 2002, 1:00 - 2:00 P.M. Pacific time (21:00 - 22:00 GMT)

Recently, MSDN featured a number of whitepapers on Windows Forms control
development. "Developing Custom Windows Controls Using Visual Basic .NET"
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...-us/dndotnet/h
tml/custcntrlsampover.asp ) is an overview with links to a number of
specific walkthroughs. In this chat we'll discuss these whitepapers and some
of the issues involved in developing controls.



Building International Applications Using Visual Basic .NET

Tuesday, August 6, 2002, 1:00 - 2:00 P.M. Pacific time (21:00 - 22:00 GMT)

Planning and executing the development of an internationalized application
can be difficult without the right preparation. Come talk with the experts
about any questions you have regarding internalization.



White Papers
Exception Management Application Block

The Exception Management Application Block provides a simple yet extensible
framework for handling exceptions. With a single line of application code
you can easily log exception information to the Event Log or extend it by
creating your own components that log exception details to other data
sources or notify operators, without affecting your application code. The
Exception Management Application Block can easily be used as a building
block in your own .NET application.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...us/dnbda/html/
emab-rm.asp

Updated Data Access Application Block
The Data Access Application Block is a .NET component that contains
optimized data access code that will help you call stored procedures and
issue SQL text commands against a SQL Server database. It returns
SqlDataReader, DataSet, and XmlReader objects. You can use it as a building
block in your own .NET application to reduce the amount of custom code you
need to create, test, and maintain. The download provides full C# and Visual
Basic .NET source code and comprehensive documentation.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...us/dnbda/html/
daab-rm.asp




--

Yair Alan Griver
Lead PM/Evangelist
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

[Roy]

Can you make you "reports" more compact - no need to leave 5 blank lines between each paragraph?! You may also eliminate few of them
(paragraphs). This will save some space for DevX.com servers, so somehow your report will be useful at last.

Best regards.
ps. I didn't read it anyway

"Yair Alan Griver [MS]" <yag@microsoft.com> wrote in message news:3d0955e6$1@10.1.10.29...
> Status Report - June 13, 2002
>
>
> Another week gone by. I catch a plane tomorrow to NY for VSLive! I'll be
> doing a couple of presentations there. Any of you who are attending, please
> stop by and say hello.
>
>
>
> I haven't gotten any feedback on the MSDN walkthroughs, so I'll let the
> question stand for one more week. What types of walkthroughs would you be
> interested in? What improvements would you make?
>
>
>
> The highlights for the week:
>
>
> 1. I hope to get the RC1 version of the VB community website at the end of
> next week (when I return from VSLive!). The middle tier and back ends are
> running, along with a (not really pretty) front end. Guess what the work
> this week will focus on? <g>
>
>
>
> 2. Lots of work on getting people online and more user group support. Lots
> of great feedback on the newsgroups this week.
>
>
>
> 3. Work on the next version of VB .NET
>
>
>
> 4. Work on rolling out community awareness and feedback to the worldwide
> subs. Continuing to work with many others on a plan now so that we can do it
> properly.
>
>
>
> 5. More chats planned - we're into August now (with a few weeks in July
> being finalized). If you have any topics you'd like covered, let me know!
> This past week's chat (on the datagrid) was incredibly well attended. The
> transcript should be online soon at http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats.
>
>
>
> -yag
>
>
> Upcoming chats (http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats):
>
> Forms and the Windows Forms Designer
>
> Tuesday, June 18, 2002, 1:00 - 2:00 P.M. Pacific time (21:00 - 22:00 GMT)
>
> Join us for a discussion of developing Windows applications using Windows
> Forms and the power of the Windows Forms Designer.
>
>
>
>
>
> Web Forms General Discussion
>
> Tuesday, June 25, 2002, 1:00 - 2:00 P.M. Pacific time (21:00 - 22:00 GMT)
>
> Join Microsoft experts in an online chat about WebForms. Any and all
> questions are welcome; from basic to advanced!
>
>
>
> Windows Forms Custom Control Development
>
> Tuesday, July 2, 2002, 1:00 - 2:00 P.M. Pacific time (21:00 - 22:00 GMT)
>
> Recently, MSDN featured a number of whitepapers on Windows Forms control
> development. "Developing Custom Windows Controls Using Visual Basic .NET"
> (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...-us/dndotnet/h
> tml/custcntrlsampover.asp ) is an overview with links to a number of
> specific walkthroughs. In this chat we'll discuss these whitepapers and some
> of the issues involved in developing controls.
>
>
>
> Building International Applications Using Visual Basic .NET
>
> Tuesday, August 6, 2002, 1:00 - 2:00 P.M. Pacific time (21:00 - 22:00 GMT)
>
> Planning and executing the development of an internationalized application
> can be difficult without the right preparation. Come talk with the experts
> about any questions you have regarding internalization.
>
>
>
> White Papers
> Exception Management Application Block
>
> The Exception Management Application Block provides a simple yet extensible
> framework for handling exceptions. With a single line of application code
> you can easily log exception information to the Event Log or extend it by
> creating your own components that log exception details to other data
> sources or notify operators, without affecting your application code. The
> Exception Management Application Block can easily be used as a building
> block in your own .NET application.
>
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...us/dnbda/html/
> emab-rm.asp
>
> Updated Data Access Application Block
> The Data Access Application Block is a .NET component that contains
> optimized data access code that will help you call stored procedures and
> issue SQL text commands against a SQL Server database. It returns
> SqlDataReader, DataSet, and XmlReader objects. You can use it as a building
> block in your own .NET application to reduce the amount of custom code you
> need to create, test, and maintain. The download provides full C# and Visual
> Basic .NET source code and comprehensive documentation.
>
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...us/dnbda/html/
> daab-rm.asp
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Yair Alan Griver
> Lead PM/Evangelist
> Microsoft Corporation
>
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
>
>
>

[Patrick Troughton]

"Yair Alan Griver [MS]" <yag@microsoft.com> wrote:
>Status Report - June 13, 2002
>
>3. Work on the next version of VB .NET
>

I've been hearing some disturbing rumors that MS is trying to dumb down
VB.NET and render it useless. I'd hate to see MS repeat the disaster of the
now infamous Beta 2 Rollbacks. Do you care to share any of your thoughts
on
this matter?

/Pat

[Yair Alan Griver [MSFT]]

Sure. There's a big difference between making something more RAD and dumbing
it down. If you find that you do something a lot and create a class or a
function to do it for you and call that instead, you aren't dumbing down
your application, you're just making it easier, right? We have no (none,
zero) plans to dumb anything down... Is that clear enough? <g>

yag (in NYC - getting set for VSLive!)

"Patrick Troughton" <Patrick@Troughton.com> wrote in message
news:3d09f354$1@10.1.10.29...
>
> "Yair Alan Griver [MS]" <yag@microsoft.com> wrote:
> >Status Report - June 13, 2002
> >
> >3. Work on the next version of VB .NET
> >
>
> I've been hearing some disturbing rumors that MS is trying to dumb down
> VB.NET and render it useless. I'd hate to see MS repeat the disaster of
the
> now infamous Beta 2 Rollbacks. Do you care to share any of your thoughts
> on
> this matter?
>
> /Pat
>

[ASPSmith Training]

Just make sure you include the following:
1) XML Comment support using the exact same structure as is currently used
by C#. This is a deciding factor for many people I know to go with C#, and
since it has nothing whatsoever to do with the language but is simply an
add-on to the compiler, there's really no reason why every .NET language
should have this support.

2) Less namespace magic in the IDE. In VS.NET if you specify a default
namespace for a project (which I believe a new project has set by default),
it gets magically tacked onto everything in the project, but doesn't appear
anywhere in the code. So if you send a particular .vb file to someone, it
won't work as a standalone if it is using fully referenced class names
(namespace.classname), because the namespace definition is in the project
file, not the class file. This also results in the incredibly frequent
problem of people declaring namespaces in the classes themselves and then
not being able to figure out why for the project Foo with class Bar where
they have declared it like this:

Namespace Foo
Class Bar

all of their references are to Foo.Foo.Bar instead of just to Foo.Bar. Why?
Because the stupid project is magically adding an extra Foo namespace to
everything in the project.

Steve

--
Replies to this email account are automatically discarded.
Steven A Smith
Microsoft MVP, ASP.NET
http://ASPAlliance.com -- .NET Community Resource
http://ASPSmith.com -- .NET Training


"Yair Alan Griver [MSFT]" <yag@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3d0c1588@10.1.10.29...
> Sure. There's a big difference between making something more RAD and
dumbing
> it down. If you find that you do something a lot and create a class or a
> function to do it for you and call that instead, you aren't dumbing down
> your application, you're just making it easier, right? We have no (none,
> zero) plans to dumb anything down... Is that clear enough? <g>
>
> yag (in NYC - getting set for VSLive!)
>
> "Patrick Troughton" <Patrick@Troughton.com> wrote in message
> news:3d09f354$1@10.1.10.29...
> >
> > "Yair Alan Griver [MS]" <yag@microsoft.com> wrote:
> > >Status Report - June 13, 2002
> > >
> > >3. Work on the next version of VB .NET
> > >
> >
> > I've been hearing some disturbing rumors that MS is trying to dumb down
> > VB.NET and render it useless. I'd hate to see MS repeat the disaster of
> the
> > now infamous Beta 2 Rollbacks. Do you care to share any of your thoughts
> > on
> > this matter?
> >
> > /Pat
> >
>
>

[Patrick Troughton]

Obviously, you want to put on the best face possible. If you're referring
to proprietary VB.NET wrappers that isolates the programmer from the core
.NET functionality, then no, I don't see that as a good thing at all. Consider
that the Beta 2 rollbacks failed miserably to win over the .NOTters and only
succeeded in pissing off the pro-VB.NET folks. What we wanted was generics,
operator overloading and bit-shifting and instead we got AndElse and OrAlso.
We want power, not training wheels.

/Pat

"Yair Alan Griver [MSFT]" <yag@microsoft.com> wrote:
>Sure. There's a big difference between making something more RAD and dumbing
>it down. If you find that you do something a lot and create a class or a
>function to do it for you and call that instead, you aren't dumbing down
>your application, you're just making it easier, right? We have no (none,
>zero) plans to dumb anything down... Is that clear enough? <g>
>
>yag (in NYC - getting set for VSLive!)
>

[John Butler]

"Roy" <iroy55@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3d09dd80$1@10.1.10.29...
> Can you make you "reports" more compact - no need to leave 5 blank lines
between each paragraph?! You may also eliminate few of them
> (paragraphs). This will save some space for DevX.com servers, so somehow
your report will be useful at last.
>
> Best regards.
> ps. I didn't read it anyway

I'm sure some people do read it (I do)...and I think DevX can handle the odd
bit of white space.

Sheesh...talk about pedantic...

[Larry Serflaten]

"ASPSmith Training" <ssmith@mvps.org> wrote
> Just make sure you include the following:
>
> 2) Less namespace magic in the IDE. In VS.NET if you specify a default
> namespace for a project (which I believe a new project has set by default),
> it gets magically tacked onto everything in the project, but doesn't appear
> anywhere in the code.

It is available if you open the Properties box for the project. That magic
name is sitting the the Root Namespace textbox. But I agree, something like
that should be on the New Project dialog box as well, so that it can be easily
seen and adjusted when the project is created.

LFS

[Roy]

When someone says "Sheesh ..." I always add "Kabob": at least it sounds tasty.

Roy

"John Butler" <nospamjrbutler@btinternet.com> wrote in message news:3d0e74bc@10.1.10.29...
>
> "Roy" <iroy55@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3d09dd80$1@10.1.10.29...
> > Can you make you "reports" more compact - no need to leave 5 blank lines
> between each paragraph?! You may also eliminate few of them
> > (paragraphs). This will save some space for DevX.com servers, so somehow
> your report will be useful at last.
> >
> > Best regards.
> > ps. I didn't read it anyway
>
> I'm sure some people do read it (I do)...and I think DevX can handle the odd
> bit of white space.
>
> Sheesh...talk about pedantic...
>
>
>
>

[John Butler]

"Roy" <iroy55@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3d0f2fe6@10.1.10.29...
> When someone says "Sheesh ..." I always add "Kabob": at least it sounds
tasty.

He he..you win the prize for most obscure comeback line in this forum.

:-)