I use Inno Setup as an installer for all my windows-based projects. Often-times I want to build the installer when I build the project from within Visual Studio but only when I build the “Release” configuration.

Here is the post-build script that will accomplish this:

c:
cd\
IF Release==$(ConfigurationName) "C:\Program Files\Inno Setup 5\Compil32.exe" /cc <PATH_TO_ISS_FILE>


batch files · inno-setup · post-build · Programming · visual studio

I’ve always wanted to write an end-of-the-year summary post that would explain some of the lessons I learned during that year. For one reason or another I’ve never done this and I figured that it was time to start. So to make up for my slacking I assembled a list of some of the lessons I’ve learned over the last 8 years.

• Never under any circumstances store a password in plain-text.
• Do not insert unfiltered strings into a query. Ever.
• Users aren’t stupid. They are clever. Like foxes. Like foxes with augmented AI Skynet brains. They will do things you would never think of in 1 x 10^1000 years.
• Develop and test on the same platform / permissions level that your app will run under. Trust me, this will save you serious future debugging time.
• And on that note: Test, test, test, test.
• Regular expressions work 90% of the time but you only really need them 10% of the time.
• If something doesn’t feel right it probably isn’t. If you can fix it fast do it, otherwise root out code smell and refactor in your down-time.
• XXXX technology isn’t always the answer. Be pragmatic. Solve problems as easily as possible. We exist to reduce and handle complexity in non-complex ways.
• Open source is a good thing.
• Contribute to or start an open source project. Extra XP and a good resume bullet.
• Did I mention test, test, test, test.
• Only re-invent what you absolutely have to. Would you rather spend a week implementing and testing your own GridView or install a commercial control in a day?
• It’s not the hours you put in, it’s what you do with them. Refactor your own development process. If you spend 1/2 a day doing something, odds are you can improve that time.
• “It works on my machine” is ok if, and only if, you are coding for your machine.
• Nobody makes bug-free software. Learn from the bugs you make now and you’ll make newer more interesting ones.
• Oh, and Test, test, test, test.

The items on the list above are definitely not things I knew coming into software development. They are all things I’ve had to learn the hard way, usually by falling completely on my face. The first two especially.

We all make mistakes, it’s part of learning. All I hope is that this list prevents someone from making the same mistakes I made so they can go on and make their own, newer, more complicated, and more interesting mistakes.

be-a-better-programmer · best practices · learning · Programming

I know exactly why I got into programming. I’m not so sure when it happened but I do know why.

I was always obsessed with understanding how things worked. I had to know. Everything had to be taken apart and then put back together, whenever my dad or mom would throw out some piece of computer hardware or other machinery I would ask to see it before they did.

Then I would retreat to my room and take whatever it was apart and see how it did what it did. Even if I didn’t really understand what was going on with whatever I was taking apart in the end it was still fun and exciting. Transformers were, of course, my favorite toys.

I think it was late 1995 / early 1996 when my dad bought me a copy of Visual Basic 4.0 at one of our local computer shows. I remember being really excited because I would finally figure out how programs like WordPerfect, xTree, Windows, and Commander Keen really worked.

Unfortunately my copy of Visual Basic never really showed me how Windows or Commander Keen worked but it kept me occupied for that whole summer and opened me up to a whole world of new things to figure out.

I know exactly why I got into programming. I’m not so sure when it happened but at least I know why.

Programming

Think of it as a hi-tech version of Woody Allen’s statement that life is what happens to you while you’re out doing something else. 

The above excerpt was written by Jeff Johson, the creator of the Xtree file management software in his quasi-blog post title “An Unapologetic History of XTree” written in 1991, six years after Xtree 1.0 was released.

Jeff was the lead developer on the Xtree software project that originally started out as an in-house tool but would soon become one of the most popular applications ever released for the DOS operating system.

What set Xtree apart from every other application was how it showed you where your files were located.

Among the subjects discussed were how the program would represent the DOS directory structure on-screen, and what the screen might look like. I drew a picture of this outline on a white board. It looked like a tree that needed water. It was a swell picture but no one thought it could be done. Impossible, they said.

Famous last words.  

Xtree was the first application to use what we now call the Tree View it was created and shipped a full ten years before Microsoft would patent the idea and claim it as theirs. Although never officially credited, Jeff Johnson created of one of the most widely used UI components since the button.

Sadly, Executive Systems, the makers of Xtree, were aquired by Central Point Software in 1993. Symantec bought Central Point Software in 1994 and stopped all production of Xtree in 1995.

Jeff never recieved any compensation from Microsoft when they added file manager to Windows and, in 1992 he contracted the flu and his health began to decline. Although he has not gotten any better he does plan to work on another file manager when his health improves.

His article is a must-read for anyone that used Xtree and a strongly suggested read for anyone that develops software professionaly. Next time you open folder view in Windows Explorer, think of Jeff Johnson and all the talented people at Executive Systems.

I know I will.

Programming · tree-view-control · xtree

So Jquery is going to become part of Asp.net MVC. First off, congrats to the Jquery team. They’ve put out a really awesome product. Second, congrats to Microsoft for catching every .Net developer completely by surprise, proving, again, that they are listening to the community.

I never really got into the microsoft javascript libraries that shipped with the ajax control toolkit because I found that I could do things much faster using external javascript libraries .

It will be interesting to see what Microsoft contributes back to the Jquery community in later updates to the ASP MVC product.

.NET · asp.net · jquery · MVC · Programming