LINKBLOG for December 30, 2007

And so the year comes to a close (on this blog at least), including a good rant. And a question:

is a link-blog allowed to be opinionated, or should it just keep it's mouth shut and pass only the interesting stuff under your attention?

Have a good Year Change, or whatever it's called in your place; let's see each other next year!

• Netscape Navigator is dead - Brent Strange
  This news comes from multiple sources. Was obvious that this browser would be EOL'd one day or the next but still it is kind of sad. This guy remembers having used version 4.7 (I think) for a substantial amount of time. Goodbye Navigator!


• Three unexpected weapons in the battle against “blogger’s block” - Blogging Expertise
  For those bloggers that feel blocked every now and then, and who isn't?
  via Trevor Green


• Rituals for Results - J.D. Meier
  ' Routines help build efficiency and effectiveness. Consistent action over time is the key to real results '


• Doug has a dream - Don Box
  plans for an Emacs.NET seem to be on the way, YATE (Yet-Another-Text-Editor) or some cool new stuff?


• Some cool features in Visual Studio 2008 - Mahesh Chand
  


• C# 3.0 - Partial Methods - Scott Dorman
  


• Breaking changes in LINQ to SQL in release version of dot net framework 3.5 - Vikram Lakhotia
  


• The Sad State Of Programmers Part 3: General Tips - SQL Server Code...
  


• Did it with .NET - Twelve Days of Refactor! X-mas, Day Ten: Refactoring in XML Literals
  Day 9: Expand Lambda Expression


• What is a name, besides identity? - Derik Whittaker
  ' Over the past 2-3 days there has been an uproar over at the altnetconf list. Oops, I meant the cli_dev list. This uproar is because of a single action. Changing the name of the list. '
  Yeah. I give up on them. Spent 10 minutes figuring out where this alt.net mailing list had gone to. Seemed they were having dinner in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe or something. The old list 404-ed without any warning.
  So reading Derik's post, we find out they changed from Yahoo over to the Google group alt.net, while introducing a new Yahoo group.
  O well, read more here and here if you're really still interested. Also, it seems they still are not clear on this themselves
  
  The only thing I'd like to add is that they did a good job loosing the people watching from the side, not being actually a member of the group, in not announcing this all over the place (maybe just what they wanted?). But then again that's just me. Maybe should have looked better.
  


• Strongly typed custom configuration sections using XML serialization - Benzi K. Ahamed
  This article demonstrates a simple approach to get strongly typed configuration objects to use in your code using XML serialization


• *** Sandcastle Conceptual Help: Quick Start - Paul Selormey
  Very helpful article explaining how to make a User Manual with conceptual help with Sandcastle (warning: you will need at least the October 2007 CTP for this)

LINKBLOG for December 29, 2007

• Foundations of Programming - pt 7 (sorta) - ActiveRecord - Karl Seguin
  


• Are you a problem solver or a developer? - Raymond Lewallen
  ' I had this conversation with some friends on Twitter about a month ago and have been thinkinng about it ever since. We are all professionals, but professional what? '


• Make Your Application Reversible to Support Undo and Redo - Henrik Jonsson
  ' How to make your existing and new application support in-memory transactions, multi-level and multi-document undo/redo using generics and C# 3.0 extension methods and lambda expressions '


• A Study In Equality - Marc Clifton
  ' Understanding value and ref types for equality tests and as keys in collections '


• Security Vulnerability Research & Defense - Microsoft
  Microsoft launched a new blog with the intention to share as much of that information as possible here because we believe that helping you understand vulnerabilities, workarounds, and mitigations will help you more effectively secure your organization


• What exactly do you save with Dynamic Languages? - Jonathan Holland
  ' A properly designed application using a static language such as Java or C# might easily hit the 500k LoC mark, but with proper design and abstraction, the actual code base can easily be split into manageable 10k LoC assemblies '


• Test Smarter, Not Harder - Scott Sehlhorst
  


• Durability Is in the Eye of the Beholder - PatHelland
  ' So, I occasionally ponder the D in ACID transactions and wonder what it REALLY means '


• Neither Gathering Nor Eliciting, It is Discovering Requirements - Abhijit Nadgouda
  ' (...) to identify the real problems a discussion between the client and the software developers is required '


• Developing at the speed of thought - 'Tony'
  ' Spending more time typing than thinking likely means that there’s not enough thought behind the code being written '
  via Reginald Braithwaite


• Bloglines DOESN'T suck. The dynamics and power of WOM and blogging - Dana Epp
  Had some issues over here with Bloglines over the past months as well, but I'm also sticking with Bloglines for the time being ' So in just 24 hours, both Bloglines and Wordpress are on it... OVER the HOLIDAYS!. That's the power of word of mouth and blogging. '


• Application Generation: Where Should The Metadata Go?
  via Steve Pietrek


• Are Helper Classes Evil? - Nick Malik
  Old one, brought to attention by Beware: Types Suffixed with 'Helper' - D. P. Bullington


• Software Development in the Real World: The Ultimate Guide To Not Choking Under Pressure
  Some interesting point. Especialliy this one on learning from your own mistakes resounded with me ' 3. Do Not Get Caught Up On What You Do Well '


• ASP.NET MVC: Using Helper Classes And Services - Rob Conery
  


• Important Blog Posts, Part 2 - Matt Blodgett
  


• Back To Basics: Integers - Justin Etheredge
  Justin is going loose on the mathematical logic behind something as simple as integers
  via Christopher Steen


• LINQ to SQL vs. DBA's - Dennis van der Stelt
  ' Why is it that in Oracle world, it's much more custom to have a database administrator (DBA) on your project than when you're working with SQL-Server? '


• The applicability of DSL - Oren Eini
  ' A complex DSL is a programming language, and at the point, you would probably want to use a programming language to work with rather than a DSL '


• An Inalienable Right to Privacy - Jeff Atwood
  If Jeff quotes Bruce Schneier, it deserves a place here
  ' The default strategy of privacy through obscurity may have worked by default in the hodepodge, sporadically digital worlds of the 80's and 90's. Not any more '

LINKBLOG for December 27, 2007

• Code Size is - not - the Enemy - Patrick Smacchia
  the Code Size discussion continues, even on Christmas day


• Codebase size isn't the enemy - Frans Bouma's blog
  In response to Jeff Atwood who responded to Steve Yegge Frans says it's not the size of the codebase: it's the clones!


• Twelve Days of Refactor! X-mas, Day Seven: Create Backing Store - Dustin Campbell
  And day six and five


• Multi threading challenge: can you spot a bug? - Oren Eini
  


• Encapsulate What Varies - Steve Rowe
  ' It took a lot longer than I expected but this is first installment of my Design Principles To Live By series: Encapsulate Variation '


• I Want A BVT Blocking Bug For The Holidays - The Braidy Tester
  


• Did you know... How to reuse the same editor window when opening files? - Sara Ford
  A typical one, but I hate having all these unused code windows open all the time


• Test Smarter, Not Harder - Part 1 - Scott Sehlhorst
  ' In this article we focus on a method to minimize the cost of quality. Regardless of the method you use for calculating the cost of poor quality, minimizing the cost of assuring good quality is relevant to you '


• 36 Startup Tips: From Software Engineering to PR and More! - Alex Iskold
  Lots of best-of and rehashed lists at the closing of the year


• 303 Insanely Interesting Links From 2007 -- Jarkko Laine
  Massive this-was-2007-in-blog-posts


• How to start and keep your wiki alive - Thibaut
  ' Do you happen to think “I did this last month, how did it work already” ? '
  via Mike Gunderloy


• Modern Logo - Jeff Atwood
  


• More Voting Machine News - Bruce Schneier
  Will we ever rid ourselves of these machines, or do they just stay forever, being insecure?

LINKBLOG for December 24, 2007

• Size Is The Enemy - Jeff Atwood
  Jeff once agains explains Steve Yegge's latest post: ' One of the most fundamental and truly effective pieces of advice you can give a software development team-- any software development team-- is to write less code, by any means necessar '


• What is Brownfield? - IglooCoder
  ' Recently I have been searching for a term that is capable of describing the opposite of greenfield. One of the terms that is often used to describe code that exists is 'legacy' '


• Twelve Days of Refactor! X-mas, Day Four: Rename Works In Query Expressions! - Dustin Campbell
  and part 3: Name Anonymous Type


• API Archaeology - Charles Miller
  ' Occasionally in Java, you come across an API that makes you sit up and go “What were they thinking? '


• Are You Experienced? - Jason Grundy
  ' Experienced people know when to push back…but equally they know when to stop pushing '


• What Is Test Automation? - Steve Rowe
  ' Windows Vista offers per-application volume (...) Testing this manually is easy. Just play a sound, lower the volume, and listen. Now try automating it '


• Read what matters - AideRSS
  Heard so much about AideRSS that I decided to check it out. Wow, this is really RSS reading taken to another level. Import your OPML. Done. All kinds of views, filter levels (e.g. only 'best from this blog') etc. Reccomended


• Mozilla Weaves Web Platform for User Data - ReadWriteWeb
  If they get the privacy and security thing right, this could be an interesting idea ' Mozilla today announced Weave, a new web platform that will store users' browser metadata in a cloud environment for access anywhere


• "I don't know" is an answer we should hear more often - William Ryan
  ' Some day, these guys are going to reflect back on their time here and when they realize how much BS they pulled out of their butts, they are going to cringe with shame '
  Unfortunately guys like that won't do that last thing...


• Back to .NET remoting: TypeFilterLevel - Alex Thissen
  Another example to show that .NET has come a long way since 2002 ' I have gotten used to the WCF configuration, where it is possible to mix and match code and declarative configuration '


• Christmas present - BlogEngine.NET 1.3 released - Mads Kristensen