Operating Systems, Software
Weaving the Post Factual Internet
I live in Santa Cruz, CA. When I left home this morning to drive over the hill to San Jose, I was surrounded by fog. Winding along the highway up into the Santa Cruz mountains, I rose above the mist into the sunlight. Green redwoods towered above the road. I looked back over my shoulder at the low lying gray clouds that obscured the California coast....
Software Development
The War of the Virtual Bills
As programmers, it is our karma to witness constant change. The wheel of life keeps turning, and we turn with it. Each creaky, joyful, revolution represents a new phase, a new song to sing. This revolution of the wheel is called the War of the Virtual Worlds. One spoke points toward Bill the Great, and his .NET virtual world, and another points...
Software Development
Start Your DirectX Engines
The DirectX 9 SDK now ships with the DirectX Sample Application Framework. With the sample framework, optimized DirectX initialization and management code are delivered free at the click of a button. I’m enthusiastic about the sample framework because developers will be able to begin work on DirectX games and simulations without re-engineering support...
Source Code
Creating Custom NAnt Tasks
This article is the fourth in a series of articles on the build tool called NAnt. It describes how to use C# to create custom NAnt tasks. The information provided here builds on the previous articles, which can be found here, here and here. In particular, see the last two articles. The source code for this article, and for the last two articles, is...
Source Code
Using NAnt to Update .NET Config Files, Part 02
This article completes the two part series on using NAnt to alter .NET config files. The previous article in this series demonstrated how to use NAnt properties, how to use multiple NAnt build files in a single project, and how to use xmlpeek and xmlpoke. This article will show how to pass data back and forth between NAnt files, how to reuse NAnt code,...
Source Code
Using NAnt to Update .NET Config Files, Part 01
This is the first of a two part article on updating Microsoft app.config or web.config files with the open source tool called NAnt. This is a relatively advanced article designed to teach you some of the powerful features found in the NAnt build tool. A previous article presented the reader with a basic introduction to the free build tool called NAnt....
Programming Languages, Software Development
Nick Shreds TRex’s Blog Post
Steve Teixeira, now a supplicant, er, sorry, employee for Microsoft — yes, sadly, it is true, he’s shaken the Delphi dust off his boots and drunk deeply from the MS Kool-Aid Stand — responded to my recent CodeFez article about MS not quite getting it in the area of OOPishness. The first thing I want to say to Steve is "Hey,...
Programming Languages
Ranking Languages: Fear and Your Career
We all worry about our careers, and wonder about our future. But trying to find our way in the career marketplace is not always easy. When we want to study for the future, where should we focus our attention? Is learning a language with big marketing clout like C# or Java necessarily better than learning "small fry" scripting languages like...
Operating Systems
Virtual Madness
I was going to write an article about virtual machines and performance. In particular, I intended to say that the Java VM and the Microsoft .NET virtual machines represented an extra level of code between applications and the operating system. I want my machine to run as quickly as possible, and I feel that having all these virtual machines between...
Software Development
More Developer Economics
My CodeFez colleague, Nick, just posted an interesting editorial on the economics of developer tools, particularly with regard to Borland. Nick points out that businesses are justified in maximizing profits versus, say, maximizing revenue or expanding market share. While this may be true (and I don’t claim to be any more of an economist...
