SQL Server 2005 Express Beta 2
In hopes of getting hold of the Pub database I needed in my previous tutorial I decided to give the SQL Server 2005 Express Beta 2 a shot. Going through the installation instructions I notice that the .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package Beta 1 is required.

So now I have, more or less against my will, upgraded to .NET 2.0. And I still don't know if I got the Pub database as this SQL engine, much like it's predecessor, MSDE, lacks an admin interface - which is what I was looking for in this version. I'll re-do the tutorial tomorrow, I guess I'll find out then if the database is included or not.

So, let's see if I have any readers, shall we; is there any freely available tools for administrating an MS SQL server?
- posted by Martin @ 22:25 3 comments

 
A more hands-on approach
Since I have grown tired of just reading about coding C# instead of actually coding C# I sat down tonight and started off with these walkthroughs from MSDN. More specifically the Windows Forms section as that is the part I need to learn most urgently. At least that how it feels right now.

I couldn't get the Simple Data Access in a Windows Form walkthrough to work though since I only have the MSDE SQL server installed on this machine wich means that I don't have the "Pub" sample database they use in the example.

I downloaded the MySQL ODBC connector, as I run MySQL on this machine, but even though I set up the connector properly the Fill() method didn't work as it should with the odbcDataAdapter object so after some hacking around I gave up. I'm a bit too tired to find these kind of problems amusing right now.

I should probably read up on Creating a Distributed Application as well.
- posted by Martin @ 23:41 0 comments

 
Back in action
Hi all.

Didn't do much reading or C# related at all at my parents place so I'm going to try and catch up now that I'm back. Vacation is over though so it'll be somewhat less time left of the day to do C#.

I just discovered Channel 9 and lo and behold, the most recent post is Daniel Fernandez - Your first C# application.

Daniel Fernandez demonstrates and discusses Visual C# Express Edition -- for beginning programmers.

Looks interesting, hopefully I'll get a chance to check it out later tonight.

Update: Well, the video was for the C# Express 2005 IDE and it was quite basic, even by my standards so I skipped it half-way through. I don't want to confuse things more than needed by learning an IDE that I won't be using.
- posted by Martin @ 16:51 0 comments

 
I'm off for a while
I'll be off for a visit at my parents in the south of Sweden. They only have modem connection to the Net so I won't be updating for a week. I will bring with me the Professional C# book I am reading though and if the weather sucks, which wouldn't surprise me, I'll read as much as I can.

- posted by Martin @ 22:47 0 comments

 
GUI, OOP and a fileserver
Not a whole lot done today either. I've spent the majority of the day trying to get my old fileserver to behave. Ended up with me getting a "new" box that was phased out from work and I've spent the rest of the day installing W2k3 Server on it. It hasn't been pretty though with malfunctioning system drives and other less than fun issues. Blah.

Still, in between the profanity and the waiting I have been planning out the GUI for the application in my head. Not that I'm running an application in my head... You know what I mean. As one of my hobbies are interior decorating I have no problems visualizing the GUI in my head, down to the tabs and the look of the interface buttons.

No, the real fun starts when I try to convert this into something resembling Object Oriented Programming. Since I am incorporating pretty elaborated search functions methods, that grabs all its data from the SQL server, into the GUI, do I need to inherit the GUI classes from some SQL class (or object)? Or is it enough if I put the search functions methods in another class, in another namespace and then call upon this object / class / method in my GUI methods?

Brain. Hurts.

I'm going to spend some more time on this damn server and then I'll go to bed and dream of GUIs and OOP.
- posted by Martin @ 22:37 0 comments

 
Linux .NET article on Ars Technica
The latest issue of Ars Technicas Linux.Ars has some examples of .NET development in Linux using the Mono platform. I have a friend who is also learning C# but he's going the Mono route, should be fun to see how far we can take interoperability between Win32 and Linux.
- posted by Martin @ 12:15 0 comments

 
Celebrity Deathmatch!
Bink.nu reported that TheServerSide.NET has news about the J2EE/.NET comparison that Sun posted recently. Microsoft has recreated the tests but has, of course, shown "that in many, but not all cases, .NET exceeded the Java benchmarks".

On a somewhat related note... The other day when I was out for a beer or two my friend who initiated the excursion asked me why I wanted to learn C# when there is Java (he is a project manager for a large firm that uses a lot of Java). I told him that if I have to learn a new language from scratch I wanted to learn the best one there is. It seems as if I was right about my choice.
- posted by Martin @ 10:55 2 comments

 
Progress
Not much done the past few days. I have been reading Professional C#, 2nd Edition from Wrox. It was recommended to me by the guys over at webForum (a swedish site for coding et al). I haven't gotten more than to the start of chapter 3 but so far I like it.

Yesterday I first got distracted by this and then a friend asked me if I wanted to grab a beer or two since it had actually stopped raining for a couple of hours. When I came home I was a bit to intoxicated to read anything at all.

Today I read some more but I got distracted once again, mostly because I'm dead tired. Even though I really like learning about C# it's kinda hard to push through operators and such. I don't want to skip these chapters either since there's always something that differs from C# and C/PHP (which is what I know now).

Chapter three is about OOP though and that's a pretty new concept for me so now is where the fun begins.
- posted by Martin @ 22:43 2 comments

 
ADO.NET 2.0 Feature Matrix
ActiveWin reported about this MSDN article providing an overview of the new features in ADO.NET 2.0.

I skimmed through it but it's way to advanced for me right now. Here's a summary for you from the page:

ADO.NET 2.0 includes a new base-class provider model, features for all providers, and changes to System.Data.SqlClient. Get an overview of these new features, examples of their use, and a chart of which features are provider-neutral and SqlClient-specific.

- posted by Martin @ 10:50 0 comments

 
The projects
The reason I took it upon me to learn C# is that the university I work for need a new application to handle foreign exchange students. This application is divided into several parts, the main ones being the web part where the students apply for the exchange and the actual application that the administrators use to manage the students. These two parts will talk to an MS SQL database.

So as you can see it's a fairly complicated project as the web part is to be run as .aspx on an IIS server meaning I'll have to learn how to code C# for the web as well.

Unfortunately I can't really disclose everything about this project as the school is paying me for this application, meaning that it is copyrighted code. I will share what I can though.

I have decided to start another project, one that I will share with you, namely my Terrarium creature. This will only be interesting for those that, like me, are about to learn C# as it will be quite basic at first. Hopefully it will grow to immense proportions, striking fear into the Terrarium community. I suppose I'll have to make one mean plant then. I think I'll call it Audrey III.
- posted by Martin @ 11:30 0 comments

 
Creating bugs
The MSDN starter turorial mentioned in my last post was quite simple, I copied and pasted the last part of it since I have written my fair share of quick/bubblesort routines already. Still, it was a decent introduction to both C# and the VS .NET IDE. It's an as good place to start as any else I would say.

With the newbie stuff behind me I decided to tackle the Big Boy Stuff™ - The Terrarium Game. For those of you as old as me, or older of course, this can be described as the logical evolution of C++ Robots, which in turn then would be the logical evolution of C Robots, originally written by Tom Poindexter way back in 1985.

For those of you that aren't nodding and smiling, here's a blurb from the official "What is..." page:

In Terrarium, developers create herbivores, carnivores, or plants and then introduce them into a peer-to-peer, networked ecosystem for a survival-of-the-fittest type competition. The game provides both a competitive medium for testing your software development and strategy skills as well as a realistic evolutionary biology/artificial intelligence model for evaluating the role that various behaviors and traits can play in the fight for survival.

Now, I never got into C Robots, I was a bit too young, but Terrarium seems a lot more advanced and after the three tutorials I'm looking forward to creating the baddest and meanest plant there is. I wonder if I can make it carnivorous?
- posted by Martin @ 11:56 0 comments

 
Hello World
The place I work for have licensed pretty much all of MS products in a way that allows me to install them at home as well so after a rather non-eventful installation of Visual Studio .NET 2k3 I'm ready to start my actual journey, into C#.

Now, I could take this journey metaphor and abuse it like there's no tomorrow. Like this:

My first destination would be Quicksort, with a short detour to Hello World. To guide me I have this handy map, courtesy of MSDN.

But I won't do that.

Instead I'll just let you know that my first stab at a C# application will be the traditional Hello World application, the geek in me won't have it any other way really, with a Quicksort routine to follow. Why? Because MSDN says so.
- posted by Martin @ 12:15 0 comments

 
MSDN - Not for everyone?
My trusty web side-kick, KlipFolio, alerted me to the fact that ActiveWin had news about the new Visual Studio 2005 Beta. Since I am about to start from scratch I figured that I could do this with the new IDE instead of the 2003 version.

I was wrong.

After trying to sign up for an MSDN account with my .NET passport for about 20 minutes I gave up hope about downloading the file. Without actually checking into the problem any closer I can't say if I was the wrong kind of subscriber or if it was just me being stupid. 8)

So I guess I'll have to make do with the 2003 version of VS .NET. Unless someone tells me how to get the 2005 Beta that is.
- posted by Martin @ 18:33 3 comments

 
Up, up and away?
Hi and stuff. Let us see if we can turn this into something useful, hopefully for you and I both, yes?

I've been bloggin for the past 8 years or so, only not anything remotely this public. My personal blog, that I share with three other guys, is perhaps read by 50 people or less on a semi-regular basis. Hopefully this one will attract a bigger audience.

With that out of the way, on to see if I can fine tune this blog to my desires...
- posted by Martin @ 18:24 0 comments