If you are working with Team System and it’s Source Control… maybe you will come across a situation in which you work on your office computer and in the middle of work it just burns down with your files checked out.

We’ve had this situation last week and my colleague to which this had happended planned to continue working on another computer in the office… all was well, he did not loose allot of his work… the only problem was his previous computer had files checked out… what to do? what would you do with SourceSafe vulgaris?

Well with SourceSafe vulgaris you would not have this problem… because the files are not tied to a workspace (don’t get me wrong… the idea of a workspace is great) but to a user and just by logging on the system with your account would enable you to do a Undo Checkout.

How do you do this with Team System? You see the files are checked out to you, only in a different workspace… and obviously you cannot access the changes being done (if they were not shelved) as they are on the computer that is dead like a turkey….


Well… it’s quite simple… from another computer just delete the workspace which was on the other computer and you are set. Files are again ready to be checked out, you and with your new workspace you can continue working on your project.


Hope this tip helps someone!

Cheers!

In previous months we have been evaluating Expression Web as a tool to replace Dreamweaver in my company.

While Dreamweaver is a great tool it still misses good support for ASP.NET and general .NET tools and features (e.g.SourceSafe, Master pages, Controls…) which criples down our design department when they need to work with us - the development department on a project.

To aid of this, for some time our designers had Visual Studio installed… but really this was not a solution… it’s too big, too slow and has too many features for what they want.

Now (actually not now, but now it came into play) we’ve came accross Expression Web which we’ve hoped will solve some of these problems… and it really did… to some point.


Before ranting about the bad thing(s), there are some obvious advantages and good things about Expression web like the painless integration with .NET (ASP.NET) features and good HTML editing features (believe me… when our designers are happy with it… it really means it’s good not that bad).


But one BIG shortcoming of the tool… How can a tool which is used for professional work not have Source Control integration? I mean… in this day and age… when we have great source control tools and even Microsoft has a not so bad one (Team System Source Control)… come one people… How do you think that professional teams will work together? By making backups on shares?

This can be bypassed by using the Source Control client and checking out items and then editing them in EW, but that is not really what we want, is it?

Hope they do something about this… this was one of my main selling points to management and it came up short on it… come on people!

With the Eclipse Day coming along (hmm… maybe I could organise a Visual Studio Day), I’ve been thinking a bit on the differences between it and Visual Studio.

Ok, before I say something, check out: http://softdevnet.blog.hr/


As I see it, Microsoft made a mistake by trying to give people too much… think default-wizard-like-approach to developing applications.


I see Eclipse as a Studio only, and Visual Studio as a Visual Studio… what do I mean with this bold statement?

In Visual Studio you have allot of added value tools (think wizards, designers, etc…)… while this sounds good for beginner to intermediate users, for the advanced ones… I think it only criples us out… why? again you ask

Well if you are a team leader trying to incorporate more advanced things better practices (think NHibernate, Unit testing or something similar which is great and not so well supported in Visual Studio) you will get more resistance from your fellow developers (ok, Morts probably) in a way that they think… If we have this which is so well integrated, why would we chose something other? hold on to your hats, I know there is a perfectly good way to convince them… but still, you have to convince them.

As for Eclipse (one disclaimer… I haven’t used it… I saw some videos about it to get at least a superfical grip on it), I think it’s only a Studio… that meaning that you have an editor which is good (I still don’t think good as Visual Studio + Refactor + Resharper… simply a god-like experience) and nothing more… good practices come from the Team and not from the default practices of the Studio… which gives you for bigger and better projects a better starting point.. at least when all the developers on the project are not on the same *level*


Please correct me if I am wrong… I will forward this to my friend Brane at Siemens to see what he says (the Eclipse side of the story :))…


Can’t wait for Eclipse day… maybe I could bring my laptop to show them the real god-like-development-mode


…in case you were wondering, this isn’t a marketing post… I just feel so good while developing with Visual Studio + Refactor + Resharper


Cheers!

While talking to a developer today, and without hiding my enthusiasm for the new framework I was asked what is my favorite thing about it?

It’s easy I said… It seems, they took all other *big* MVC frameworks, dissected them, took the good ideas, tried to come up with a good solution to bad ones… and for everything other… they made extensibility model… and that’s the thing I like best

And while I still don’t know how good it will be (until I get my hands on it), for starters… this sounds like a formula for success


Cheers guys! Just keep on with it, and give me a download!

It’s interesting to see what people say about the event, interested?

http://live.mscommunity.net/blogs/tbronzin/archive/2007/10/02/codecamp-2007-great-ineta-community-success.aspx

http://cs.rthand.com/blogs/blog_with_righthand/archive/2007/09/27/Speaking-at-CodeCamp-in-Zagreb_2C00_-Croatia.aspx

http://blogs.solidq.com/EN/dsarka/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=871e778d%2D7617%2D45b7%2Da6ce%2D7b8215ed5aea&ID=100

http://live.mscommunity.net/blogs/mc/archive/2007/10/10/codecamp-zagreb.aspx

http://darkojo.bloger.hr/post/codecamp–vikend-za-geekove/410208.aspx

http://blog.roub.net/2007/08/croation_code_camp_sponsorship.html


and with a cheery on top

http://blogs.technet.com/grahamtwatson/archive/2007/10/12/community-done-right.aspx

When reading some of my favorite blogs ver the past couple of days I ‘ve been reading about what ALT.NET is, what is stands for - and most importantly waht it doesn’t stand for.

http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2007/10/08/alternative-rock.aspx

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2007/10/11/alt-net-isn-t-completely-baked-and-there-s-nothing-new-here.aspx

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2007/10/11/alt-net-recap-it-s-the-values-stupid.aspx

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2007/10/11/alt-net-recap-not-invented-here-um-are-you-kidding-me.aspx


I don’t understand what all the fuss is… these people have been talking about this for ages over their blogs, sessions on events and stuff… so definetly now calling it somehow finally (if you can call it like that) is not strange.


It’s not that they are re-inventing the wheel or something… they are simply talking and trying to gather around them people which love, believe and share the sense for common values. If you just look at their blog posts, over and over again they are sending the messages of the values they believe in… nothing more nothing less (in my opinion, you can have your own of course :))

I simply refuse to believe it’s the alternative (as something conotated as side way) - it’s the same, in my opinion even better ways that these guys are talking about… and it’s all about the values.



On a side note… how do you feel about organizing ALT.NET event?

I would be interested in doing one in Croatia (or this region for that matter) if we can gather up the interested audience.

Check these out:

http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2007/10/11/ryo-altnetconf.aspx

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeffrey.palermo/archive/2007/10/11/when-will-you-plan-an-altnetconf.aspx



Are you from Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Serbia and you are interested in sharing these kind of values? Drop me a note, maybe we can get together somewhere



Cheers!

As mention in the post title… Mark wrote a post on how to alias the Imports with VB.NET (here: http://weblogs.asp.net/marksmith/archive/2007/10/11/imports-alias.aspx), well how would you do it in C#?




Hope this helps someone

Do you know any obscure bits like these?



Cheers!

Then check out my Flickr account with over 100 pics currently available from our three great photographers.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vladanstrigo/collections/72157602353446506/


A big thanks to:

• Davor Smojver
• Ante Maljkovic
• Ivica Munitic

for taking the pics at the event!

Cheers!

Let me mention again that it’s great to see that Microsoft is working on this… I am trilled about it! Really!

Ok, now a few more details… first off, I’ve talked to Scott Guthrie after his talk on ALT.NET and he told me they will publish more info in the coming weeks, so stay tunned for it…

As for the resources available now, these mostly consist of blog posts and some videos shot by Soctt Hanselman:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ScottGuMVCPresentationAndScottHaScreencastFromALTNETConference.aspx


Without me pasting the same blog posts links, you can find them in the post from Scott (my intention was to do it, but I am lazy :))

I am going to continue watching the videos, talk to you later!

Cheers!

Finally!

Too bad I am not there… personally I would rather be there then on TechEd.

Ok.. back to the subject… Earlier this year on the MVP summit in Seattle Scott Guthrie announced that they might (finallly :)) build a real MVC framework.

Well… seems they were woring hard on it and now finally Scott is ready to go public with some of the concepts as Jeffrey mentiones here:

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeffrey.palermo/archive/2007/10/05/altnetconf-scott-guthrie-announces-asp-net-mvc-framework-at-alt-net-conf.aspx


By the things he is saying it will be pretty good… I just hope someone will make a video of Scott’s presentation so I can view it

Can’t wait for Scott to publish some more details himself!

… and I am telling you this by raising my right hand :)

Check this out:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-317659265568822821

this guy is funyyy

Wow! That’s all I can say…

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx


Can you imagine how great this will be for debugging, learning code, learning ways to code (although this is doubtfull :)), learning how a given functionality works in detail (although this can already be done with Reflector, but still not as many details as the original code)…. Wow!

Go check it out.


Cheers!