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For discussing anything related to a software developer's life but is not for programming questions. Got a programming question?

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GeneralRe: I don't say that very often... Pin
GuyThiebaut25-Dec-18 23:33
professionalGuyThiebaut25-Dec-18 23:33 
GeneralRe: I don't say that very often... Pin
Super Lloyd25-Dec-18 23:49
Super Lloyd25-Dec-18 23:49 
GeneralRe: I don't say that very often... Pin
SteveHolle26-Dec-18 10:44
SteveHolle26-Dec-18 10:44 
GeneralRe: I don't say that very often... Pin
Michael Martin25-Dec-18 23:41
professionalMichael Martin25-Dec-18 23:41 
GeneralCommit Strip OTD Pin
OriginalGriff25-Dec-18 20:12
mveOriginalGriff25-Dec-18 20:12 
JokeRe: Commit Strip OTD Pin
Daniel Pfeffer25-Dec-18 21:23
professionalDaniel Pfeffer25-Dec-18 21:23 
GeneralRe: Commit Strip OTD Pin
Super Lloyd25-Dec-18 22:48
Super Lloyd25-Dec-18 22:48 
GeneralI Was Incredibly Wrong PinPopular
SawmillTurtle25-Dec-18 16:45
SawmillTurtle25-Dec-18 16:45 
Soooo, I don't know if any of you remember, but I showed up a couple of weeks back and started a discussion here in which I blasted Microsoft and talked about my refusal to use their products whenever possible. Many of you pointed out how I was missing out by ignoring Visual Studio, which you lauded as a superb IDE.

Since then I've found that you are all absolutely right. I was initially hesitant to just give in and switch my IDE because people told me I was wrong. Made me seem kinda wishy-washy. What broke the camel's back for me and made me switch from SharpDevelop to VS was SharpDevelop's inability to find one single file.

I was attempting to follow the directions found here but ran into trouble as MSBuild kept returning an error of "Cannot find AxImp.exe". AxImp was precisely where it needed to be for the system to find it, there didn't seem to be anything in the PATH variable to cause the problem and, seeing as I've never worked with this type of thing before, I had no idea what this meant or how to fix it. Some suggested editing the registry, some suggested installing the Windows SDK.

What I did instead was install Visual Studio. Building under VS returned no AxImp errors, either because it actually knows how to find the necessary file or because the installation itself installed whatever I needed to get things going.

So now I had VS and I couldn't very well go back. I mean, I didn't know if the AxImp error would still pop up if I tried to go back to SD, and I didn't feel it was worth the trouble. I had an IDE that was giving me none of the problems that SD did.

No offense if anyone here volunteers their time writing SharpDevelop source code, but it really was slowing me down. Here's a question: If you're writing a program visually, drawing buttons and drop down menus and whatnot, what do you expect a visual IDE to do well? I would expect it to do exactly what common sense says: handle the code in the Designer.cs files and keep track of changes.

I lost count of the number of times that SD actually wrote those changes incorrectly. There is an ironic multi-line comment in each and every one of those cs files that says:

/// <summary>
/// This method is required for Windows Forms designer support.
/// Do not change the method contents inside the source code editor. The Forms designer might
/// not be able to load this method if it was changed manually.
/// </summary>
private void InitializeComponent()


I say it is ironic because SD actually corrupted the code at this very place many times. That "private void InitializeComponent()" line would simply disappear, written over by something else (or sometimes nothing) and then the editor would complain that it couldn't load designer support because there was an error in the underlying code. That isn't my fault, is it? So I'd have to stop everything that I was doing and try and figure out what changes were made incorrectly and what the changes were SUPPOSED to be. This process could take from a couple of minutes to upwards of a half an hour, depending on the severity.

VS doesn't do that. It hasn't done that to me. Not once. And I expected it to be bulky and slow. It is a massive program, far larger than SD, and SD was unbearably slow. To my amazement, it actually turned out to be faster! I can now edit at speeds I'd only wished for but a month ago. It has amazing features that I don't have to jump through hoops to access. SD could do a lot of the extra things that VS does natively, but it was sometimes a chore making it happen.

What I've found, overall, is that I made an irrational judgment. I've never moved past the Microsoft of the 90s, when their Windows OS was an unstable train wreck and their unethical business practices landed them in an anti-trust lawsuit. For the longest time, I've refused to acknowledge that they have gotten better. That their operating system has vastly improved. That their products are often quite good. One could argue that the Xbox One was another of those train wrecks, but that's a discussion best left on video game forums.

And then there was the Zune...

Visual Studio is a sleek, polished and impressive IDE, and the one that I should have been using all along. Is it perfect? No, but where will you find flawless software? If you find an absolutely perfect piece of software with no design flaws that shines as a paragon of programming excellence, you're running TempleOS.

Thank you all for your very blunt but extraordinarily helpful advice. I was wrong, and I can admit that. All I can do is try to be better in the future.

-Turtle
GeneralRe: I Was Incredibly Wrong Pin
Brisingr Aerowing25-Dec-18 17:15
professionalBrisingr Aerowing25-Dec-18 17:15 
GeneralRe: I Was Incredibly Wrong Pin
Super Lloyd25-Dec-18 18:27
Super Lloyd25-Dec-18 18:27 
PraiseRe: I Was Incredibly Wrong Pin
Ravi Bhavnani25-Dec-18 19:29
professionalRavi Bhavnani25-Dec-18 19:29 
GeneralRe: I Was Incredibly Wrong Pin
Roger Wright25-Dec-18 21:33
professionalRoger Wright25-Dec-18 21:33 
GeneralRe: I Was Incredibly Wrong Pin
peterkmx25-Dec-18 22:09
professionalpeterkmx25-Dec-18 22:09 
GeneralRe: I Was Incredibly Wrong Pin
David O'Neil26-Dec-18 9:17
professionalDavid O'Neil26-Dec-18 9:17 
GeneralRe: I Was Incredibly Wrong Pin
Mark_Wallace26-Dec-18 19:59
Mark_Wallace26-Dec-18 19:59 
GeneralRe: I Was Incredibly Wrong Pin
Kirk Hawley28-Dec-18 6:06
professionalKirk Hawley28-Dec-18 6:06 
GeneralRe: I Was Incredibly Wrong Pin
Mark_Wallace28-Dec-18 8:25
Mark_Wallace28-Dec-18 8:25 
GeneralSeason's greetings Pin
User 5924124-Dec-18 12:40
User 5924124-Dec-18 12:40 
GeneralRe: Season's greetings Pin
Slacker00724-Dec-18 15:04
professionalSlacker00724-Dec-18 15:04 
GeneralRe: Season's greetings Pin
RickZeeland24-Dec-18 21:06
mveRickZeeland24-Dec-18 21:06 
GeneralRe: Season's greetings Pin
OriginalGriff24-Dec-18 21:29
mveOriginalGriff24-Dec-18 21:29 
PraiseRe: Season's greetings Pin
RickZeeland25-Dec-18 1:47
mveRickZeeland25-Dec-18 1:47 
GeneralRe: Season's greetings Pin
OriginalGriff25-Dec-18 1:58
mveOriginalGriff25-Dec-18 1:58 
GeneralRe: Season's greetings Pin
Mark_Wallace24-Dec-18 22:55
Mark_Wallace24-Dec-18 22:55 
GeneralRe: Season's greetings Pin
Jörgen Andersson25-Dec-18 10:47
professionalJörgen Andersson25-Dec-18 10:47 

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