Daily Archives: February 10, 2004

figured out value of orkut

Social Computing

Brian Dear wrote about an “orkut moment” he had recently, which led me to the realization that in most cases, orkut is a good way to just see what people look like. My account is still active, so I just looked him up (knowing he is a member) and now I know what he looks like. Of course there are obnoxious people like me who post pictures that are only representative of themselves. Here is what I have used for my orkut picture.

I had planned on changing that to a photo of my kayak in the spring.

More on BCL literal definition

dotNET

Sam Gentile did a presentation at VTdotNET in September that really took the time and care to explain the many terms that define the .NET programming that we do. Although one of the very minor points of his talk, in there he happens to clarify the BCL vs. FCL, which I talked about in this post and discussed a bit with Ian Griffiths from Developmentor (in the comments) as well as Kit George from the BCL Team at MS via email. There really is a lot of misinformation and confusion about these definitions which don’t really impact too many people, but I just somehow got curious.

Here are just some basics that may be totally redundant to some, but may have never been really clear to others.

BCL=Base Class Libraries which are part of the ECMA specification for Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). The CLR is Microsoft’s an implementation of that. Rotor and Mono are other examples of implementations.

In .NET, Microsoft has taken the BCL and added to it all kinds of goodies like WinForms, Data, etc. This is called the FCL (Framework Class Library).

Really – how many gazillions of times have you seen this already?

I am going on and on about this because I have heard many people say “the BCL is ALL of the classes in .NET“.

I even happen to have a copy of Addison Wesley’s Common Language Infrastructure Annotated Standards, but the real definition of the specs is downloadable from the ECMA site (above) if you are curious. I actually have done so, but must now stop the insanity and get back to the programming work I have to do this afternoon!

If you care to understand any of it – where the class libraries come from, what people mean when they say BCL, BCI, ECMA etc etc, I highly recommend checking out Sam’s deck (this page and find the sept 2003 presentation) or even requesting him to come to your (U.S. or Canadian) User Group via INETA. If you view the powerpoints, be sure to turn on your speakers. (heh)

DevDays – speaker training and last day of discount!

dotNET

Steve Smith and I had to miss the DevDays (web track) speaker training last night because of the Vermont .NET User group meeting. But I know we will have plenty of opportunity to make that up.

Today is the last day for the DevDays discount. If you wait until tomorrow, you will have to spend $24 dollars MORE (well it is an additional 33%…) to attend the day and get not only lots of great training but WHIDBEY bits!!!!! (and more) My point is really the whole days is so damned cheap to attend – $75 with the discount and still only $99 without.

The user group meeting was awesome – Steve is a phenomenal presenter – I learned a ton. But I have to write more about that later.