Programming

[andrewducker]

Well, the subject line has probably gotten rid of most of you, and this next line will almost certainly get rid of the rest.

I'm learning C#.

Right, now I've got this journal to myself (and boy, does it feel spacious without anyone else here), I'll explain why (to myself, obviously).

I've been meaning to get back into programming again, but the little bits of dabbling I've done have largely been hampered by the fact that I've not really had any projects I've been that interested in. Not only that, but I'm very, very bored of doing low level work - writing yet another bit of code to deal with files, or fiddling about with endless calls to do the simplest interaction with the outside world just doesn't interest me any more.

Also, having been programming in COBOL for the last 9 months, and having always been envious of the Visual Studio IDE when I was working in VFP (it's a fantastic IDE and does all sorts of things that are just smooooth), I thought I should work with something in that.

I can't be arsed doing garbage collection, and I wanted something that would allow me to easily write/read web services. Which leaves C#, which (by sheer coincidence) has the nicest IDE of the entire of VS.NET.

I've been working my way through Visual Studio.NET Step by Step, which has so far been very good. I've only spent a few hours on it so far, and am about 40 pages in, but the power of the system is already very apparent. The fact that I can great a GUI interface by dragging and dropping a few textboxes onto a form, then go into the code behind the form, alter the position of the items in the code-based declaration and then go back to the screen to find it's automatically updated itself is something I would have killed for a few years ago.

The XML commenting system, the collapsible procedure view, the fact that the compiler messages are actually useful and the intellisense basically make this the best environment I've ever worked in. Erin's away for the weekend and I have to say I'm looking forward to spending most of it in front of the computer, typing away.

Comments

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

I've always used passthroughs when I've been doing Access apps. I'd never put my data on an access db though choice and since you end up coding everything anyway, this means I'd never start an Access app (in fact haven't for a good few years and nobody has been trying to make me. Maintained a few.

And yes, never assume people are competent until they prove it. You should see the mess here cos some bright spark decided not to enforce any foreign keys. Indexes, yes (well there are now) but no referential integrity. makes is a pain in the backside to workou what teh relationships are!

[thepaintedone.livejournal.com]

Most of my DB career I've been dragging legacy Access systems kicking and screaming out of the 'Build your own CD database' level of competence (aka flat file hell). I'd dearly love to put a SQL back end into the five systems I have now, but the cash isnt there.

I have coded a couple of stand alone Access systems. The huge advantage of Access is how cheap it is. For the cost of a single Developer edition of Office you can deploy an Access app to as many people as you want, license free, using runtime deployment. This works out miles cheaper than a SQL solution. Provided you lay out the data well, and pay carefull attention to concurant users, it can do quite a good job as well. I'd still give my eye teeth for a SQL server though :o)

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

Been there, done that, deepest sympathy. Advice from the trenches - quote a month for SQL conversion and either do that or refuse.

Two words on cost: MSDN Subscription

Actually that doesn't help users (unless they have their own dev dept). Estimate maintenance costs for a year (@£550/day) and scare them.

[applause] thank you, thank you......

(apologies, still pissed from celebrating my birthday...)