Vb.Net Appreciation course

Working with VB6 after a couple of years away makes me appreciate VB.Net -- and lately I've tried to migrate my dotNet knowledge to C# and I find it seems to be a lot more long-winded that VB.Net, you can do everything of course, and you're right down there with the framework, but some things seem to take an awful lot of typing...

The Pattern has landed

I've been very quiet, trying to absorb the MVC/MVP patterns. Last Saturday I finally wrote my first MVP example program, actually it was copied almost directly from Steve Knight's Hacking Hat example http://www.hackinghat.com/index.php/windows/mvp-aka-mvc-in-vbnet
I say almost as there are some nice features of VB.Net that you dont have in sad old VB6 -- constructors are very useful for instance. Nevertheless, I might very well post the code to my website as a help to anyone else out there insane enough to try it in VB6.
If you want to see a longer and more complex example at http://codefornothing.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/mvp-implementation-details/
but it uses Excel as well which I havent got my head around that yet -- when I do I'll have a shot at translating Jeremy Miller's BYOC stuff from C# to VB.Net to VB6 (sheesh!)

Programming Patterns and Parenthood

Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented ...

To my embarassment I learn that there is a new Edition of Craig Larman's book, the last edition of which I have owned and struggled with for years, not making much progress, I struggle to grasp (pun partly intended) patterns and the particularly the groups of patterns such as GRASP which are covered in the book, although I keep getting pointed back at it by blog references, I came across mention of this time via Moserware: What Does It Take To Become A Grandmaster Developer? and a link to David Hayden's site GRASP - A Methodical Approach to Basic Object-Oriented Design ...- here is the time to pay tribute to D. Hayden, how does he do it, I know in person other programmers with young families who somehow manage to keep on top of all this techie stuff and still have time to have a normal human life...it's beyond me, you make the time when the situation demands it I suppose

On being a semi-retired, semi professional programmer

-- wanting to be more than mediocre, discouraged by the no-good, and downright bad programs -- due to low standards of the 'monkey could do that' Visual Basic non-programming culture, and the extremely poor quality example code that used to be available ...in the patterns world they talk about 'bad smells' in programs -- most VB programs stink!

This guy Jeremy is a hero!

I wonder is he in Microsoft's book? Must look it up. Following on in my quest for the Elixir for Old Code, his Build your own CAB is great reading. Heavy going, but inspiring
http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/tags/Build+your+own+CAB/default.aspx

Techludd

I went to TechLudd: The Irish Start-Up Monthly Networking Event

last Thursday evening. Due to poor planning (thats me:-) I couldnt stay long, having another engagement, but I quite liked the setup. There was free drinks and a couple of verging-on-invisible non-presentations by dotmobi and Locle.com. Even there I heard some carping about dotBomb 2.0 and that we were all participating in such a vacuous love-in on the evening. Maybe, but a vibrant and resilient network of people who dont run for cover when the going gets tough would be nice to see, so let's try it and find out.

Start up infrastructure

Or the lack thereof. Ideally of course, such an infrastructure should pay for itself -- I dont know if aspiring entrepeneurs would be willing to pay to be told that they are completely barking up the wrong tree, but if it ended up saving them a fortune, years of effort and heart-break?
Anyway, on a more positive note, this is one exampleof what I had in mind: 2008 Startup School