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This week's poll, and the serendipitous arrival of a new Joel on Software article[^], sparked some thoughts about how I got into this whole programming thing.
In mid-January, 1995, I got my first job in the software biz, as an Associate QA Engineer at Symantec[^]. I think I impressed my eventual boss not with my half-page résumé, but with the spell checker program that I brought with me to show that I did, in fact, know C++.
Once I was there, my boss gave me a crash course in Win32 stuff, but I was pretty much on my own as far as learning. (Remember this was 1995*, no public 'net yet, certainly no awesome resources like CP, and even back then I had come to the conclusion that Usenet sucked.) After much self-teaching, book-reading, and article-writing, I can say it's been quite a journey. Not always good or enjoyable, but then what is?
The traditional 10 year anniversary gift is, if I'm not mistaken, a 21" widescreen LCD monitor. The collection plate will be passed around now... 
*Gawd I feel so old when I say things like that, or "this was before the net" or "this was before cell phones" or even the dreaded "this was before Google"
--Mike--
LINKS~! Ericahist | 1ClickPicGrabber | CP SearchBar v2.0.2 | C++ Forum FAQ | You Are Dumb
Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.
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Nice to know something about you mike. Hey I enjoy reading your articles, your articles taught me to program using COM.
God bless you.
I just saw this entry in your blog from your article. Carry on.
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I got this nice pullover sweatshirt that I can wear when I'm bike riding in the chilly mornings, and it has a handy little sunglasses holder on the front, along with a big tag making sure you don't miss said holder:
What's this? A little loop of fabric is patented? Why yes, number 5,584,074[^] in fact.
So a couple inches of fabric and some stitches that do this with my sunglasses:
warrant patent protection?
I especially like claim number 1(b):a first of said ends being attached to said shirt at said seam at a first point, and a second of said ends being attached to said shirt at said seam at a second point spaced a predetermined distance which is less than said strip length along said seam from said first point, which said predetermined distance defines substantially the widest width of said loop means. 
And we thought software patents were silly... 
--Mike--
LINKS~! Ericahist | 1ClickPicGrabber | CP SearchBar v2.0.2 | C++ Forum FAQ | You Are Dumb
Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.
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So, whilst doing some actual work with VC 7 over the past weeks, I've come up with two new things I hate. Second is the resource editor. First is what I'll be bitching aboutcommenting on here: solutions.
"Solution"... ick. I haven't encountered solutions since my high school chemistry class. Let the marketdroids play with Windows and Office and the other stuff that has to appeal to non-techy people. They can talk about Office 20XX being "the solution" for whoever's troubles. But keep marketing-speak out of my IDE, for two reasons. 1) It's a horrible replacement for the old term "workspace", and 2) I feel like I'm a marketdroid when I say "solution" to someone else. :shiver: 
But if it were just as bad as having to do a mental s/solution/workspace/g during my day, it wouldn't be hateful. The real offender is the new project system. I already stumbled over this back in my early days of using VC 7 (read about it here[^]). The way it works is:- A solution contains a number of projects
- A project contains a number of configurations
- A solution configuration is a list of projects and project configurations
This is, by itself, not bad, aside from the overloaded use of "configuration." However, it gets better:- At any point, there is a current solution configuration
- At any point, there is a "StartUp Project"
You select the current solution configuration using the combobox in the Standard toolbar. This is the list of projects and build targets that gets built when you hit F7. The StartUp project is the project that gets run (and built, if necessary) when you hit F5.
Where it gets hateful is that while the preset solution configurations and the preset project configurations have the same names, they are not the same things. You could set the MyApp Debug solution configuration to build MyStaticLib|ReleaseMinSize and MyApp|DebugUnicode if you wanted to. And with the similar names, it's easy to misunderstand the purposes of the Project|Project Dependencies and Build|Configuration Manager dialogs.
So, assuming that you've correctly processed how the solution/project configs work, you're in for more fun if you have multiple binaries in your solution. To change which one gets debugged by F5, you have to set one as the StartUp project. How do you do this? A simple combo box like the solution config? Hah hah, of course not, foolish mortal. You have to go to the Solution Explorer pane (aka FileView from VC 6), scroll around and/or collapse tree branches until you find the node for the right project, right-click it, and pick Set as StartUp Project. Simple!  And how do you know if you have the right project set as the StartUp project? Again, you have to scroll around in the Solution Explorer pane and look for the one node whose text is bold. That's the only way VC indicates what F5 will do.
Those two things, in combination, replace the simple and obvious "current project" notion in VC 6. What does F7 build? Your current project. What does F5 run? Your current project. 
This is yet another concept relating to projects/solutions that is almost, but not quite, completely unlike the others. Result: much confusion.
--Mike--
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----
"That probably would've sounded more commanding if I wasn't wearing my yummy sushi pajamas."
-- Buffy
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The whole configuration/solution/project thing becomes actually useful when your projects no longer have one-to-one dependency, but are like "Debug OEM build with feature X", "Debug Retail build with library Y" etc. and you need to have precise control with which lib, option etc, the whole thing is linked.
I agree that the way MS exposed these settings is somewhat cumbersome though.
Sometimes I use "Batch build" to setup quick and dirty build sequence. It (exposed via toolbar icon or shortcut) works quite well when I need to rebuild some projects and do not want to mess with configurations.
What I am missing though is "build startup project", I presume there might be some obscure thing to do this (like writing a macro in VB  ), but I never needed to venture so far.
From your s/solution/workspace/g remark I assume you are using "The Editor"  , if this is the case, do you, by any chance, know, if there is some support/tool/script that allows invoking MSDN on <cword>? I found some undocumented COM interface for MSDN Help 2 engine, but using this will need to write some sort of COM out proc server wrapper, which I want to avoid.
Richard
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Richard Musil wrote:
From your s/solution/workspace/g remark I assume you are using "The Editor"
vi? Alas no, I was using a Perl regex there, not an editor command. I haven't used vi since about 1995.
--
I'm Michael Dunn and I approve this post.
Vote Trogdor in oh-four!
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In this post, I'll list the worst "features" VC 7 has foisted on me. If anyone knows how to fix/workaround anything I mention here, please respond. You will be making my life easier, and I will send you cookies.
The IDE looks like VB
There, I've said it. Now that that's out of the way...
No way to turn off the whacky toolbars/menus
In VC 7 the toolbars are all flat (I have a distaste for flat UI elements in general, but that's for another rant...) and the colors don't obey your system settings. Hooray for following the user's preferences!
Plus, when you mouse over a toolbar or menu item, the icon hops up and down to say "hey! look at me! I'm 3-D!" I care about none of this. Fluff like that belongs in apps you sell to non-techy users like Office, or media players where a "hook" is necessary to distinguish yourself from the competition, or in Longhorn. Having weirdly-colored hopping UI elements is basically MS showing off how many graphic designers they have. I want to turn it off like I could in VC 6.
The MSDN viewer is hateful
This also has the "we're showing-off our GDI-fu" UI. But what's really hateful is the awful keyboard navigation. I do as much as I can with the keyboard. Using the new MSDN viewer with the keyboard is horribly broken and complicated.
First off, there are the hateful keyboard shorcuts - what kind of "shortcut" is Ctrl+Alt+F2? 
And second, the mnemonics don't work. In the VC 6 viewer, if I'm reading a page and want to set the focus to the Index tab, I hit Alt+N and it works. In the VC 7 viewer, if I'm reading a page and I want to set focus to the Index, I can hit Ctrl+Alt+F2 (which is too hard for me to hit easily) or... well, nothing else. The Index page has a label that reads Look for: however hitting Alt+L does nothing but beep at me.
VC 7 failed miserably in converting VC 6 projects
At work we use VSS, and our code base has about 15 different VC projects, built in various ways. I took on the work of converting these to VC 7 and hit various walls along the way, including:- VC 7 didn't preserve some settings like "what kind of CRT to use"
- VC 7 couldn't keep its own source control settings straight. In one dialog it would act like VSS wasn't installed, yet in the options dialog it clearly said VSS was installed.
- During the project conversion, the above VSS problems resulted in a totally incomprehensible dialog, which I think was asking me to tell it where some projects were in the repository. Unfortunately, the dialog was pre-filled with the right locations so I didn't know what else I could do to make it find the projects.
Due to all those problems I gave up and rebuilt the projects manually.
F4 behavior changed for the worse
When you are moving through a list of build errors, you still hit F4/Shift+F4, however the caret now stays in the Output window. You have to hit Enter to move the caret to the text editor. This is dumb since, as far as I know, you cannot change code from the Output window.
Also, (Shift+)F4 only applies to the Output window. If you want to move thru Find in Files results with the keyboard, tough luck.
VC 7 removed the ability to bind "open this include" to a key
And I have no idea why. Ctrl+Shift+G worked perfectly fine in VC 6.
Incremental search annoys me
Incremental search, which I use all the time can be case-sensitive. In VC 6, when it was in case-sensitive mode, the status bar indicated this, and you could hit Ctrl+C to toggle case-sensitivity off.
In VC 7, it still can be case-sensitive, however there is no indication that case-sensitivity is on, and you can't toggle it with Ctrl+C.
As if that isn't bad enough, when you do a Find in Files and turn case-sensitivity on there, that also sets the case-sensitivity mode for incremental search. This one problem had me convinced that incremental search was broken (maybe it didn't wrap around a file?) until I happened to make the connection in my mind.
And what's even worse, if you hit Ctrl+F for the regular find, the case-sensitive checkbox is unchecked, which makes incremental search case-insensitive again. 
The Properties window in the resource editor has this one annoying behavior
Double-clicking an item changes the value, which I find mystifying. Now I can't select, say the control ID field ("IDC_ABOUTBOX") by double-clicking the text, because that changes the ID to whatever is next alphabetically, I guess.
That's all for this rant... this is just the stuff that annoys the hell out of me on a daily basis, I have more to come.
--Mike--
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----
Ford, what's this fish doing in my ear?
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What about not being able to close a source file tab by double-clicking it or wheel-clicking it, like any decent tabbed application (Mozilla, UltraEdit, Visual C++ with WndTabs)? Or have I miss anything?
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Shmulik Flint wrote:
What about not being able to close a source file tab by double-clicking it or wheel-clicking it
That's a good one too. I recently tried out Maxthon[^] and in it you can close tabs the same way. I hate having to hunt for the little gray X in the row of tabs in VC 7.
--Mike--
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Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
I think so Brain, but if we shaved our heads, we'd look like weasels!
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Michael Dunn wrote:
The IDE looks like VB
There, I've said it. Now that that's out of the way...
It does grown on your after a while. Or maybe it just brain-washes the user 
Michael Dunn wrote:
The MSDN viewer is hateful
Don't get me started about Dynamic Help. You close the window, it comes back again. You try and turn it off from the options, it still comes back. I wouldn't mind but it never shows any useful help anyway.
Michael Dunn wrote:
F4 behavior changed for the worse
Amen. After using VS.NET for all this time, this is the one thiing that annoys me more than anything else.
Michael
CP Blog [^]
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Turns off dynamic help for good:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\Dynamic Help]
"Never Show DH on F1"="YES"
http://blogs.msdn.com/joen/archive/2004/03/15/89975.aspx
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If I've been in a pissy (pissier?) mood lately, it's because I've been forced to use Microsoft Visual Studio .Net 2003 (or VC 7.1 or just VC7 for short).
Longtime readers will know that I've been pretty sour on VC7 ever since trying out a beta of 2002. I believe the "He-Man VS.Net IDE Haters Club" came up a couple of times. I was initially repulsed by the IDE (which is a pretty common reaction), and the buggyness of 2002 kept me away. And all kidding aside, VC 6 + WndTabs[^] is so bloody good of an IDE that I had zero reason to change. Didn't care about .net, didn't care about working templates, didn't want a VB-ized IDE.
So anyway, fast-forward to 2004. At work[^] we use a static lib provided by the WMP team. Prior to 2004, we had a lib built with VC 6, and all was fine. Then a couple months ago, we got a new lib from them that was built with (you guessed it) VC7. argh
So we could no longer build our stuff with VC 6. It was VC 7 or nothing, and since our company wants to stay in business, "nothing" was quickly ruled out as an option. Now that I've actually used it for production code, I can form opinions more detailed than "the IDE sucks". I have opinions, and I will be presenting them here. Not just to bitch, but to seek solutions to what I perceive as bad problems with VC 7. I guess I could use the VS.NET IDE issues[^] forum, but what I have really aren't questions, and a blog is really the better place for ranting/venting/griping/bitching anyway.
PS: I totally understand why the new WMP lib was built with VC7. Doesn't mean I have to like it.
--Mike--
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----
I just performed the Heimlich Maneuver on SQL #1.
-- Chris Maunder
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Michael Dunn wrote:
I have opinions, and I will be presenting them here.
I'm interested in what you have to say about the IDE.
- Nick Parker
My Blog | My Articles
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| Looks like Alyson has chopped her hair off:
WTF??!! Why?
Women reading this: NEVER CUT YOUR HAIR! I don't care how good you think you will look. Don't do it. Trimming a couple inches off the ends is fine. Chopping it off so you look like a frumpy mother is not.
--Mike--
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Laugh it up, fuzzball.
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Michael Dunn wrote:
Women reading this: NEVER CUT YOUR HAIR!
Got to disagree. I love women with short hair. And Alyson look mighty fine in that photo. I think the new hairstyle suits her. She'd been looking a little ropey in the last few times I saw her, but now she's back to near her best.
Michael
CP Blog [^]
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I'm with Dunn, keep it long! Please, my ex cut her hair short and a month later we broke up. Coincidence? I think not...
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
South Africa
Christopher Duncan wrote:
"I always knew that somewhere deep inside that likable, Save the Whales kinda guy there lurked the heart of a troublemaker..."
Crikey! ain't life grand?
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NOOO!!!! How could she do that??? It must be the lies Alexis is telling her. 
BTW, did you manage to catch her play in London? I would've given a lot to see it.
"if you vote me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" - Michael P. Butler.
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Nick Seng wrote:
BTW, did you manage to catch her play in London? I would've given a lot to see it.
No, since I'm about 6000 miles from London, I wasn't able to go.  I did see a few pictures of her and Luke Perry together though.
--Mike--
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----
Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
I think so Brain, but how will we fit the hamster inside the accordion?
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Michael Dunn wrote: Women reading this: NEVER CUT YOUR HAIR! I don't care how good you think you will look. Don't do it.
Amen to that.
Jeremy Falcon
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I was driving to work this morning and in front of me was a car that had those silly spinning hubcap things. That wouldn't be noteworthy except the car was a Toyota Camry. Not a low-rider, not a tricked-out car or anything. Just a plain, stock Camry. Not lowered, no detailing, not even a license plate frame with a catchy saying on it.
WTF?!
--Mike--
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----
"That probably would've sounded more commanding if I wasn't wearing my yummy sushi pajamas."
-- Buffy
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I was riding my bike in Venice beach a couple of weekends ago, and I had a WTF moment. (Not a coding WTF[^] though )
I was going south on the bike path. Coming north, there were two people riding Segways[^]. WTF?! They were getting no exercise of course, I guess they just wanted to show off.
After doing some checking, there is a Segway rental place[^] nearby so I guess the two people rented from there. But still... 
--Mike--
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This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
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After posting about my bike ride[^] this morning, some folks responded and asked where I went, so I figured I'd make a blog out of it. I don't usually post about personal stuff here, because I figure no one really cares, but since y'all asked...
I bought myself a bike a few weeks ago. I've had some bad luck with it, as the first time I went riding the back tire got f'ed up (turned out to be defective), and then the next time I went out I ended up getting sick and laid up for a week. But I've gone 2 weeks without a mishap now.
I live in Mar Vista, which is next door to Venice and Marina Del Rey. Basically it's on the border of rich neighborhoods that I could never afford to live in. The nice thing is that it's near the beach, and there's a bike path that runs along the beach for 20 miles or so.
What I've been doing is picking up the bike path in Marina Del Rey and riding south to this bridge that's over this river that's used for rowing/kayaking events by nearby colleges. It seems like a good distance for me because I can ride there, rest for a few minutes, and ride back home, all in about 1 hour.
Since I'm just starting out with regular riding, I'm doing that 2 days a week (Tuesday and Thursday). I get up at 6 (not hard to do since it's already light), eat and stretch and I'm out by 6:30.
On Saturdays I'll ride a bit farther. Today I took the path north (opposite direction from the bridge) through Venice and Santa Monica. This isn't quite as nice because there are always idiots walking on the bike path, but whatever. Once I get past the Santa Monica Pier, the path is less crowded and it's a nicer ride. This morning I was there at about 9:30 and the marine layer was still around, so the water looked really nice.
That path is really the only place I ride. I have a road bike, and I'm in no shape to tackle mountains yet, so I'll keep up that routine until I start feeling better. I rode on the path when I was in college, and I could do the whole trip down to Redondo and back in about 3.5 hours. Give me a few months and I might be doing those trips again on the weekends. 
--Mike--
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You cannot stop me with paramecium alone!
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