Nuwan Online - Nuwan Weerasinghe’s Web Log

Why Client Server Computing is like Teenage Sex

1. It is on everybody’s mind all the time.
2. Everyone is talking about it all the time.
3. Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it.
4. Almost no one is really doing it.
The few who are doing it are:

doing it poorly;

sure it will be better next time;

not practicing it safely

Today I managed to get through 70-229 for MCSD.NET. So I have done done this exam according to my time schedule.(I wanted to do 2 exams before the end of this month). It was heavily crowded at the examination center since the microsoft free offer for the second shy is due to finish by tomorrow. I was given the exam almost 2 hrs late than my original scheduled time. But All Went Well.

This is why people say Google is the best search engine.

Its not only fast, its accurate and shows only truth.

Type ” failure ” in google n search

See what the ” first ” match is ……….

1. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.
2. Product is tested. 20 bugs are found.
3. Programmer fixes 10 of the bugs and explains to the testing department that the other 10 aren’t really bugs.
4. Testing department finds that five of the fixes didn’t work and discovers 15 new bugs.
5. Repeat three times steps 3 and 4.
5 .Due to marketing pressure and an extremely premature product announcement based on overly- optimistic programming schedule, the product is released.
6.Users find 137 new bugs.
7.Original programmer, having cashed his royalty check, is nowhere to be found.
8.Newly-assembled programming team fixes almost all of the 137 bugs, but introduce 456 new ones.
9.Original programmer sends underpaid testing department a postcard from Fiji. Entire testing department quits.
10.Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs.
11.New CEO is brought in by board of directors. He hires a programmer to redo program from scratch.
12.Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free…

LAST WEEKThe August 3rd .NET User Group meeting was once again good, in the sense that it was very relavent to my
work in .NET. Unluckily not many people were present for the meeting, but nevertheless Prasanna (MVP) did a presentation on Code Refactoring. The presentation was good since he did an actual demo on a test C# project on how to go about refactoring your code. But for me the message of the Day was

if( Refactoring == true) && (UnitTests == true)
{
//Yes You can Refactor
}

else
{
//Problems if you play around with you program logic.
}

So the rule of Thumb is -To refactor Have your Unit tests inplace.

The Other plus was to know that a Refactoring tool Resharper exists for the.NET framework. Since Refactoring is a missing piece in VS.NET Resharper is helpful but also I got to know that this feature is there in VS 2005.NET. Resharper is only for Visual C#.

THIS WEEK Tuesday there was an Islandwide Bus strike. But I was the lucky one to get a lift
from Mt-Laviniya to Kollpity from some unknown guy( Later I found that he’s the Cargo Manager for Korean AirLines in Sri-Lanka Mr- S Sahabandu). It was indeed a chaotic morning.

It was also the Indian Oil Cup Final between Sri-Lanka and India. We managed to win with some brave cricket.
It was always good to see our players give a good fight. Defeat is not a problem for me, but defeat without a respectable fight is too bad. Any way WE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON

It has taken me some time since I did my first two exams (Web Application & Windows Application) around the same time last year. Since Microsoft is planning to Restructure their whole exams I wanted to be on the safer side of the things by finishing the rest of the exams quickly. Please find more details on the proposed MS Examination changes here.

So the Good news is that I got through the Web Services Exam today and am hoping to finish of 70-229 in this month as well.

When I downloaded this software last week I had very little or no idea what it does for me. Today I found time to try it and went through the documentation provided with it. NDoc is a Code Documentation Generator for .NET. What it does is it generates class library documentation from the comments and documentation which programmers have already put in their code.

You can generate all these comments into a XML file and store in your project directory.Once all such XML files are ready (NDoc docementation says how…………) build your project. This will create all the XML files with your code.

The interesting part comes next. Since I want you’ll to feel it yourself ,try this. You can download NDoc free. But try documenting……………………..Happy coding.

Programming is such a complex business these days that no one language, platform or even a paradigm can solve all problems which needs an automated solution. Structured and Object Oriented Paradigms have evolved over the years with great language support.

But there are instances where these techniques are not quite good enough, for example take a situation where you need to code heuristics of a human professional. This is a unique situation requiring a different programming technique.
This is where Logic Programming comes.Prolog and LISP are the two predominant languages in this arena. This blog entry is all about Visual Prolog by PDC. You will find a wealth of information here. Also sice I’m a .NET developer this is what really interested me. Visual Prolog is in my view a Hybrid which captures the best in both worlds. (Logic & OOP) I will do more work on this and hopefully publish the proceedings in the comming days,months here. Till then Happy Coding…….I’m leaving to Kandy.

I’m pretty sure that all those guys who were there for the AJAX presentation by Merill Fernando (MVP ) at the Latest .NET Forum meeting have more than enough reasons to be excited about future web development projects. For me, If I had known this technology six months ago, It would have made a definite impact on the performance of the application which I was working on. AJAX will optimize server calls by sending only the Data Content and by Not Refreshing the whole page.

However the most pleasing thing for me is that none of the technologies surrounding AJAX are not new but they are being used here in a manner to optimize the power of these technologies by combining them into one. The AJAX class Libraries are free for download from here.

I ‘ve found paper titled “Ajax: A New Approach to Web Application” in which AJAX was first introduced by Jesse James Garrett.

This very recent article on ComputerWorld is a Good Starting point for beginners or any enthusiats on Ajax.

World was suppose to be a safer place after the 50 year cold war period. But terrorism was not identified as a global security issue utill the 911 attacks. Long before 911, thousands of innocent Sri-Lankans perished in streets, buses, trains, temples, mosques in the hands of the Tamil Tiger Terrorists. But the western world was either Dumb, Blind or both. They nurtured terrorism in their backyards (they are still doing it) only to find themselves in the current situation.

For the Britishers, our heart felt sympathies goes for those who lost their loved one’s and for those who were injured and to their families. We Sri-Lankans Know all too well of the feelings running through your minds. Killing Innocent people is Terrorism and all western governments should understand this. So Please Stop providing Safe house for Asian Terror groups such as the LTTE in the Western World where they raise the money to blast Buses, Trains in Colombo.Terrorism is not just our problem anymore.

We shall unite forces to defeat this menace once and for ever. No matter what the cause for terrorinsm, they shall be defeated.