When we began work on the Infovark user interface, we decided to base it on HTML and JavaScript. Both Gordon and I are very comfortable with web development, so it was a natural choice. We also felt this would give us the most flexibility to run on different platforms with different screen sizes. For better or worse, HTML and JavaScript have together become the lingua franca of interactive design.
Both have their drawbacks, of course. HTML and JavaScript have evolved over time. They each have quirks, particularly with regard to the Document Object Model (DOM). Fortunately there are a wide variety of JavaScript libraries that help programmers working with HTML and JavaScript.
After doing a little research, we settled on on JQuery. JQuery makes us love JavaScript again. It’s a simple, small library that works across all major browsers. It deals with all the inconsistencies that emerge from the last decade of tinkering with web standards. Most importantly, it helps us get things done.
Microsoft has decided that they love JQuery, too. John Resig, the progenitor of the JQuery project, announced in September that jQuery will be distributed with Visual Studio. Two prominent Microsoft bloggers, Scott Guthrie and Scott Hanselman, also discussed the news.
Momentum around the project continues to build. The JQuery blog just posted news about the JQuery 1.3 release and the JQuery Foundation. Most exciting of all (from our perspective as developers) is the release of revamped JQuery API documentation.
Congratulations to the JQuery team! It’s come a long way in three short years.
Jeremy Miller writes, “if you’re writing ADO.Net code by hand, you’re stealing from your employer or client,” in his How to Design your Data Connectivity Strategy post last month on CodeBetter.com.
When we first started laying the groundwork for Infovark, we assumed that our back end would be a full-fledged Enterprise Content Management system. It was only later, once we realized that Infovark required a separate object persistence layer on the client side, that we began thinking about data storage.
Now, there were dozens of object-relational mapping tools available. From our perspective, though, they all shared a common flaw: We didn’t know how to use any of them.
Gordon and I got started in web development back in the “classic ASP” days. We knew how to work with ADO.NET. We had battled with object-relational impedance before, and had the scars to prove it.
So after gazing longingly at ActiveRecord and NHibernate, we decided to roll our own data access layer.
Months later, after much refactoring, we finally have a reasonably solid platform on which to build our application. It’s something we might have had in the first six weeks, had we done our homework.
But Infovark is an unusual project. We were having to learn many, many new things at the start. The thought of adding to the pile of books to read and websites to scan… especially when it was something we actually knew how to do…
What can we say? We fell prey to temptation. We promise we won’t do it again. It’s the straight and narrow from now on.
With my roots in maintenance programming, I’ve used a wide assortment of programming tools. Maintaining legacy code is not much fun. Anything that makes it easier gets added to my personal collection of productivity applications. I make a point of learning them inside and out.
I carry the tools with me from project to project. I recommend them to coworkers. I’ll use them even if my employer provides alternate tools for free. I’ll complain loudly if the company I work for won’t allow me to use them — for policy reasons, consistency reasons, or security reasons. (Most of my bosses eventually concede the point. After all, they’re interfering with my ability to get things done, which is presumably why they hired me.)
Beyond Compare by Scooter Software is one of those tools. It’s the best file comparison tool I’ve ever used. And not just me – It’s also earned praise from other programmers.
When I heard that version 3 was soon to be released, I was both excited and a bit nervous. What new features would they add? Were they going to break any behavior I relied on?
The website lists the new features, but the best new feature is the polished user interface, which makes it easier to move blocks of text and make inline edits to files.
File Comparison in Beyond Compare 3
And no, they didn’t mess up anything in the process.
I played with the beta for several weeks, and recently bought the full version. If you’re not using it already, you should try it.
We just finished our trial period for ReSharper from JetBrains. We’re buying licenses right now. It’s become indispensable to us. It’s that good.
ReSharper is like pair programming for introverts. It’s like a real-time FxCop, offering refactorings and best practices advice while you type.
Gordon had used ReSharper in its 2.0 days. I’d heard many positive things about ReSharper, but hadn’t tried it myself. The recently released 4.0 version offers support for C# 3.5, including the var keyword, object and collection initializers, and lambda expressions. Check out the in-depth review by Simon Hart if you want more details. Or just try it yourself.
