Daily Archives: April 1, 2005

A must read WSE2 article

This is my bookmark to an article I really want to read, but I want to do it away from email, i.m. and the phone. It is a topic that I get stuck on because I basically understand it, but not enough to deal with more detailed questions..

Routing Secured SOAP Messages Through Multiple SOAP Intermediaries Using WSE 2.0

It’s written by William Tay, who is one of my WSE2 pals – though I think I ask him many  more questions on i.m. about WSE2 than he asks me! Hmmm, I wonder why? 🙂 (Because he understands this stuff at a much deeper level than me, that’s why!!)

http://www.AcehAid.org

springing

tons of snow melted in the last day. My whole front garden is uncovered as well as a bit of dog poop that has ummm, “landed”, over the winter (and then got covered over with snow) thanks to our two newfoundland doggies.

There were so many robins and finches bouncing about today, too!

http://www.AcehAid.org

More keyword patents?

I am just not sure how to react to this! These changes could push more VB programmers to C#. But also, buried in this press release was a hint that Microsoft is going to actually try to patent these new keywords. Give me a freakin’ break!

With the upcoming release of beta 2 of Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0, Microsoft is today announcing changes to the Visual Basic language that is part of Visual Studio. Continuing to focus on making Visual Basic the most productive language on the .NET platform, Microsoft is adding new keywords to the language.

The new “The” keyword assists programmers in identifying particular data objects or computing resources. This keyword will identify any default resources, such as printers, directories, or databases. This allows code constructs such as:

If The Database.IsDown OrElse The Database.IsTooSlow Then

    The Database.IsProbablyOracle

End If

“We think developers can definitely benefit from this. They won’t have to worry about locations of default resources,” according to Victor Silver, PR Manager for Visual Basic.

The new “A” keyword allows access to generics. Generics are a previously announced feature of .NET 2.0 that allow programmers to work without knowing anything about what they are working with.

VB Guru, Rockford Lhotka was hoping for additional keywords. When contacted for his comments on these changes, he said “I think they should have included “an” as well as “a”, because the current decision leads to “a awkward situation for some words”.

Past president of the highly influential Northern Colorado .NET SIG, Kathleen Dollard responded, “It’s a good first step, but I was really hoping they’d include adverbs”

Jeffrey Rochstar, author of several prominent books on .NET says, “I’m happy to see these additions for VB, but since they cut ‘that’ at the last minute, it seems that C# still has the advantage with ‘this’.”

These changes may be in response to pressure by the newly-formed Joint Organization of Keyword Enthusiasts. This group has been pushing for a full English sentence structure. There manifesto states that Visual Basic should be significantly more verbose. A spokesman said “Duh! Without periods, they still aren’t sentences,” and went on to say, “I think the backward compatibility problems presented by punctuation like semi-colons are solvable.”

According to Visual Basic Language Progression Manager, A.J. Thejays, the keywords are being added to the language to “enhance the ability of Visual Basic developers to create code in a more natural language. Adding “the” and “a” brings them closer to actual English sentences.” Thejays continues explaining that a great number of Visual Basic developers come, not from the Computer Science bacground, but with degrees in many Liberal Arts programs. “These are people who are used to communicating in proper English. We think that this be beneficial to the coding experience.”

Microsoft has not announced a timeframe for the new keywords, nor whether to the Visual Studio IDE will introduce a new color for the new class of keywords. Apparently, Microsoft has also applied for patents.

No one from Microsoft was available for additional comment because of Microsoft’s scheduled company-wide day of silence on April 1.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Theoretical Probability in 7th Grade?

Boy am I out of the loop! I hung out with my friends four children last night while she was having surgery and her hubby was at the hospital too. We had a blast. The girls range from age 4 to 12. While the 12 year old was doing her homework, she asked my opinion on one of her questions she was working on. She was doing theoretical probability! In 7th grade! She had questions like “if you drew 12 cards from a deck of cards, how many clubs do you think you would get, and why”. “If all of the diamonds were removed from the deck and you drew 12 cards again, how many clubs do you think you would get and why?” I don’t remember what I was doing in math in 7th grade (a million years ago…) – but I sure don’t recall it being that!

http://www.AcehAid.org