A common statement that comes up in forums and other discussions about software is "the vendor should have put feature X into their product". There is no clear line where vendor responsibility "ends".
A question came up in comp.databases.pick that asked how we could use a pre-defined set of values in a D3 query. For example: SORT CUSTOMERS WITH STATE "AZ" "CA" "NM" "OR" … but getting the state codes dynamically. Sure, we can do that, using shell variables.
In this world of "Open Source" it’s amazing how many software offerings completely die because the one author on the planet that cared about the code has lost interest and no one else seems willing to maintain it. The concepts behind OSS go beyond software toward philosphy and changes in the way we work. And unless people subscribe to these principles I don’t think the model can continue to work effectively, if at all.
People frequently ask about PrintWizard, how it works, what they can do with it, etc. As time permits I’ll start posting some info here about how to use it. Unfortunately this won’t start at the beginning like a tutorial. I’m just going to post some nice tips as I happen to think about them. In this first tip I’ll show you one way to populate a form - and how to use an image as a form overlay rather than using pre-printed forms.
This news is all over the place but I know it will be of interest to Nebula colleagues: From Microsoft:
"We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously. Microsoft recently published a set of Interoperability Principles. Thinking about IE8’s behavior with these principles in mind, interpreting web content in the most standards compliant way possible is a better thing to do."
– IEBlog (Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager, Internet Explorer)
There is a lot of debate about whether Microsoft has seen the light, whether they’re finally listening to web developers, or whether they’re just responding to their recent legal loss in the EU. I’m not interested in debating motivations, that’s happening in lots of blogs and forums. I’m just passing on the info.
In my last blog entry I mentioned a couple tools I use for tracking time. Today a forum posting mentioned the difficulty of doing accurate project estimates. I’ve made mistakes on both sides of the estimation game, and documented a couple of them here. I’ve been doing this for years but I confess I still need to work on some of these points.
Whether using Windows, Linux, or Mac, we all tend to customize our desktop and use our favorite tools. Have you ever been curious about what other people use? Ever wonder what life saver you’re missing that someone else uses daily? Well, here are a few tools that I use every day.
Almost two years ago I wrote a blog entry titled "Why mv.NET?" But every couple of days we still see the same question phrased differently: "How do I connect to/from MV?" My immediate response is still to include mv.NET in your list of options. Here is an explanation why.
I found a couple articles regarding performance and scalability for ASP.NET, and ASP.NET with AJAX. I think these are a good read for anyone doing development with these tools.
For developers who use ASP.NET, DesignBais, and other tools, it’s important to design the look and feel of a website before too much front-end work is done.