Category: Etc

One thing I often lament is the fairly poor collection support in the .NET framework.  Sure, we have the workhorse classes like ArrayList and Hashtable, but we’re missing lots of other things.  I big thing missing is a Set abstraction.  I use Sets fairly frequently and I miss not having them built-in.

Thankfully, Jason Smith has implemented some Set collections in c# and made them available as source.  I’ll have to go through these and turn them into CodeSmith templates so I can have strongly-typed Set goodness!

While Mike and I were preparing for a training session this weekend, it occured to me that the XmlDocument is turning into the Voldemorte of the System.Xml namespace.  No one really recommends you use it, in fact, most tell you to avoid it if you can.  It’s really a pretty evil class, and I’ve had to brow-beat more people than I can count out of the XML-is-slow mindset.  XmlReader and XPathNavigator are your friends.  Use them.

Henceforthe, XmlDocument shall be the class-that-shall-not-be-named, especially once System.Xml 2.0 hits the streets.

One of the first electronic computers, the Colossus Mk2, has been rebuilt using vintage parts.  It was a code breaking machine, used to decipher German messages and provide critical intelligence during the late part of World War II.  From the article:

He [Mr. Sale] argues that the original Colossus was so powerful, it would take current computers the same amount of time to break codes.

The machines were so successful that by the end of the war, 63 million characters of German messages had been decrypted.

I don’t think I buy the first bit; modern computers are quite a bit faster than the original ENIAC and other computers of that era, but hey, what do I know.

Mandy pointed me to a great photoblog, joe’s nyc, today.  He, like many others, is protesting the possible ban on photography in NYC subways. Bans and limitations on public photography seem to be a common theme lately and it really disturbs me. Preventing photographers from taking photos of folks in public places doesn’t make anyone more secure and removes a basic right to capture a moment and share it with others.  It’s all quite ridiculous.

The fine folks over at Way of the Rodent have released an awesome selection of paper print-cut-and-fold templates for some old school video arcade cabinets from the 1980’s.  Now you too can have a mini version of the cabinet for Pac-Man, Tempest, or Defender sitting on your desk!  I made a little Pac-Man in about 10 minutes.  Mental note: buy some glue sticks.  Tape is too hard to work with.