* Posts by Mark Rendle

225 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Aug 2006

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Get stuck in to Visual Studio 2008

Mark Rendle
Boffin

@var madness

Anon, Robert: the most important thing about the var keyword in C# is that it can only be used when declaring and initializing in a single statement. So you can't say

var x;

x = 1;

You have to say

var x = 1;

which will declare x as an int for the life of the variable: you can't assign a string value to it later. As Keith says, it's not particularly useful when dealing with ints, strings and so on, and in my code I still use the type name for those. And when you're creating a new instance, it's still easier (IMO) to specify the type and let Intellisense fill in the "new" bit.

But it is necessary for the anonymous types and LINQ stuff, and it's also pretty useful when you're getting an object back from a method and you don't want to type the whole namespace-qualified class name. I really like being able to say

var cn = Server.GetConnection();

var cmd = cn.CreateCommand();

...

var dr = cmd.ExecuteReader();

It's also important to note that Intellisense knows what type the variable is and provides the methods/properties just as if you'd specified the type name.

HTH.

Mark Rendle
Happy

Good review

I've been using VS2008 Team System Dev Edition since it hit MSDN, and it improves on 2005 in almost every way, although not necessarily that much. C# 3.0 and LINQ are definitely the best things about it, and Team Build in TFS is a lot better (read: usable).

As you say, though, the stuff I really want remains "H1 2008":

ADO.NET Entity Framework, which will do the things I need that LINQ to SQL doesn't;

Parallel FX, especially the Parallel LINQ which will make multi-core support a breeze;

ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions, especially the MVC Framework;

SQL 2008 and the Sync Framework, so I can stop faffing about with SQL 2000's appalling merge replication;

Windows Server 2008, although (waiting upon waiting) that'll be of even more interest when they add ASP.NET support to the Core Web Server.

There's also the vague promise of Rosario, the assertedly much-more-improved Team System, although my cup runneth over so much I haven't even downloaded the CTP for that yet.

Nvidia 'nveils nForce 7 chipsets

Mark Rendle
Paris Hilton

Re: 3 x 8800 GTX

Ash, try running Crysis at 2560x1600, maximum detail.

Chris, you need an 1100W PSU.

CrossfireX is much better.

Opera hits Microsoft with EC complaint

Mark Rendle
Gates Halo

The answer

Everybody should create their websites using ASP.NET, which will render browser-specific HTML. Better yet, do everything in Silverlight.

Mark Rendle
IT Angle

Seriously, though

Is there a document available that catalogues the W3C standards which aren't supported in IE7?

Mark Rendle

@Niall Tracey

I've got no problem with people using contractions in writing; it's people mindlessly writing down the noises they make when they talk with no thought for whether the resulting sentence means anything.

If you really are an English teacher, you're obviously part of the problem. 'Hey kids, as long as it would sound like "you're" if I read it out loud, who cares how you write it, yeah? Right on!"

Ckougnt.

Mark Rendle
Flame

RE: I'd of

Does Firefox also have a grammar-checking plug-in that would have replaced the fucking abomination that is "I'd of" with the correct and actually-sense-making "I'd have", thus saving Anonymous Coward the immense effort of not being a cretin?

On a more general note, to those who are complaining about Windows Update being tied to Internet Explorer: you should upgrade to Vista, in which Windows Update is a standalone application.

Also, Opera should shut up. If their browser had had better support for standards before it got to version 9, maybe they'd have a larger market share. One of my abiding memories from my time as a web developer is writing browser-detect redirects to send Opera users to special versions of pages which didn't use any DOM-based Javascript.

Flash-based iPlayer is go

Mark Rendle

RE: Windoze(!)

Hilarious. How you ever stop laughing long enough to rebuild your kernel is a mystery.

Mark Rendle
Gates Halo

It should be specifically disabled for Linux

Fine, make it work on Macs for techno-illiterates who don't know any better, but people who use Linux on the desktop are all unwashed hippies who probably don't pay their license fee anyway.

Still waiting for the penguin icon to grow horns...

Daring Register raid snatches key government URL

Mark Rendle

Strategy Boutique?

Although you seem to have stopped doing that particular t-shirt.

Transformers director blames MS for HD DVD/Blu-ray format war

Mark Rendle
Paris Hilton

VoD special features

Whilst it's true that VoD doesn't currently have the same special features that you get from buying a DVD, that's not a technical limitation. FilmFlex on Virgin Media already have free featurettes for available films, albeit as a form of advertising. But it's not hard to imagine a design-your-own package for downloads or on-demand, where you choose the extras you want and the price (and necessary bandwidth) is set accordingly.

The only question is what my wife's going to wrap up and put under the Xmas tree when all my movies, music and games are downloaded.

Bloody code!

Mark Rendle
Heart

Completely agree

Clean, maintainable code is one of my hobby-horses at the moment, as we complete the final point release of many years' worth of old and largely impenetrable code and start again in C#. I'm compiling a document of best practices, and single exit points are NOT in it.

Striving to make all methods fit on a single page is far more important, and that's often easier to achieve if you do have multiple exit points. If you do achieve it, then you can see all the exit points without scrolling. And when you have a function which returns null or -1 to indicate no value, it's much easier to understand:

public int GetSomething()

{

foreach(something)

if(something)

return something;

return -1;

}

instead of

public int GetSomething()

{

int retval = -1;

foreach(something)

if(something)

{

retval = something;

break;

}

return retval;

}

The second example is longer, less easy to understand, and includes a break statement which almost certainly violates the same imaginary principle that gives rise to the single exit point myth.

Biometrics won't fix data loss problems

Mark Rendle
Flame

Unbelievable

It beggars belief that this government don't understand that, by *losing* 25 million citizens' personal information, they have forfeited any rights they might conceivably have had to even consider thinking about collecting and storing even more personal information. Which is to say: Gordon, get f**ked.

Blu-ray discs outsell HD DVDs almost 3:1 in Europe

Mark Rendle

Obsolete anyway

I'd be amazed if either format establishes itself comparably to DVD before physical media becomes the exception and downloadable/on-demand the norm. I've already taken the Peep Show box sets off my Xmas list because it's available on 4oD, through cable or internet.

Why is the iPlayer a multi million pound disaster?

Mark Rendle

@Cyfaill

"Conservatively speaking there are 30 plus million Linux users on the desktop now."

You can substantiate that, can you? More than 30 million Linux *users*, rather than 30 million recorded downloads of Linux? I'd take your bet regarding the dominant desktop operating system in just over six years, too.

Furthermore, iPlayer is specifically limited to UK residents. I doubt Linux is the primary desktop operating system for more than a handful of them, and I'm sure they're all quite happily downloading their visual entertainment from secret bittorrent trackers that can only be accessed by the raw IP address anyway.

Reg: Can we have angel/devil icons for that stupid penguin, please?

Inland Revenue boss quits over 'major ops failure'

Mark Rendle
Black Helicopters

Not yet

There's still a few more things Darling Alistair needs to take the fall for before he hands over to Ed Balls. It'll happen a month or so before or after the Spring 2008 Budget, either giving enough time for Ed to take the credit for some (illusionary) tax cuts, or to let the upset die down when there aren't any (illusionary or otherwise).

BitMicro pumps solid state drives to 1.6TB

Mark Rendle

@RegisterCommentSystemDeveloper

Seems like some kind of threaded, reply-to functionality might be useful.

Databases still open to basic attack

Mark Rendle
Stop

It's kind of handy having open ports on firewalls, though.

Look out for a study soon showing that millions of companys have left their HTTP ports open.

Eurostar cancels 29 Feb 2008

Mark Rendle
Boffin

North and South

@Mark Aggleton,

Like northerners* ever go to Paris. Or indeed, past t' working men's club at t' foot of t' road. Not that any of them actually work, of course.

*For the purposes of this pointlessly inflammatory comment, "north" may be considered to start at Islington.

kthxbye.

Microsoft spoils Christmas with Xbox 360 locking feature

Mark Rendle

Re: Gotta love it

To all intents and purposes, psychology *is* a field determined almost entirely by poll results.

Sony sees red over PSP

Mark Rendle
Go

@ Anonymous Coward

As opposed to cut-down N64 games with a stylus crowbarred in?

Apple's Leopard rejects latest version of Java

Mark Rendle
Gates Halo

Ha ha ha

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Considering Microsoft’s 'rift with the web'

Mark Rendle
Gates Halo

Re: Lock in and .NET

>> I have never seen a non-windows pc running a .net app

I have. Thus your entire argument, for want of a better word, is refuted. You may go.

Early Visual Studio 2008 to bolster Vista?

Mark Rendle
Gates Halo

Re: Yawn

That's fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

Of course, for those of us who do target "just" Windows (i.e. the ones at whom this article is aimed), this is a very welcome announcement. VS2008 is a massive, massive improvement on VS2005 in almost every way, and the C# 3.0 compiler enhancements (which will still produce .NET 2.0 assemblies) can't come soon enough for me.

Plus, the Professional edition of VS2008 includes the integrated unit testing, instead of it being limited to the Team System edition.

Will Bungie jump from Microsoft?

Mark Rendle

Re: Before horse cart / egg chicken

Hush now.

Apple iPod Nano third-generation

Mark Rendle

Still waiting

I guess maybe one more generation until I can get the Touch interface and big screen with a 160Gb hard disk... oh, sod it. I'm buying an Archos 605.

Science and religion collide for galactic conference

Mark Rendle

Re: Christianity

You know nothing. Shut up.

Google sued for 'crimes against humanity'

Mark Rendle

Not funny

There's something wrong with a legal system that lets an obviously-sick person file lawsuits in the first place.

Virtualization standards becoming a reality

Mark Rendle

The comments go from strength to strength

One utterly pointless MS bash, then an immediate descent into surreal nonsense followed by yet another post from me complaining about the comments.

Dell, Alienware price up Samsung solid-state drive options

Mark Rendle

Write speed

Andy, the reason your flash drives have a low write speed is at least partly due to the USB interface. The Samsung SSDs use PATA (with SATA coming soon), and give a write speed of 40MB/sec, which is pretty damn fast.

Oyster card evolves into OnePulse

Mark Rendle

Headline confused me

Been playing too much Pokémon...

Discovery of musician on YouTube triggers loss of faith in American Dream and interests

Mark Rendle

Crosshair cursor?

That kind of CSS abuse is a far greater danger to the web than Disney deceptions.

Dell's Linux sleight of hand

Mark Rendle

Dell is for everyone. Linux isn't. Get over it.

Come on! Most of Dell's customers have probably never heard of the IdeaStorm forum (or Linux, for that matter), and if you run a poll like "Should we offer PCs with Linux pre-installed", who is actually going to vote "No"?

Several members of my extended family have bought Dells this year and although regular readers might find this hard to believe, most of them wouldn't know the difference between Vista and Ubuntu until they booted it up and couldn't find Internet Explorer. Haha, aren't they stupid. Well, no, actually, they're just not particularly bothered, they just want to do their work and maybe play some games. If they ended up in the Ubuntu section of the Dell site they'd definitely be lost, and Dell are absolutely right to make sure they realise it.

As for Linux costing extra, since Dell probably pay hardly anything for the millions of Windows licenses they buy every year, I wouldn't be surprised if the man-hours involved in installing Red Hat or Ubuntu on a handful of customised machines far outweighs the time taken to dump XP or Vista images onto hard disks.

And your analogising of Linux's incompatibility issues with Vista's is vaguely humorous but nowhere near the truth.

Apple lobs $100 credit at iPhone buyers

Mark Rendle

@William Donelson

Funnily enough, "sheep who buy what they are told" is how the British view American consumers. The US is the original consumer culture: acquisition is the be-all and end-all of The American Dream; your advertising is unsophisticated; product placement in films and television is laughably blunt; and you actually buy American cars. Oh, and more than half of you bought the WMD story, too; it doesn't get much dumber than that.

It's true that we Brits get ripped off on prices, though. Blame the Labour government for that.

Novell fills Microsoft Silverlight hole

Mark Rendle

Complicating my life

If this actually works, it's just made the future direction of our application suite considerably more complicated...

Archos 605 Wi-Fi personal media player

Mark Rendle

Wot no?

Does "no DivX" imply "no XVid"?

Apple slashes iPhone prices

Mark Rendle

Glee

I am covered in schadenfreude.

MS tweaks Vista with minor updates

Mark Rendle

RE: Strike-through

It's the new black^H^H^H^Hackspace.

Microsoft promises less-annoying Vista OS early next year

Mark Rendle

Rubbish

Well I for one won't be upgrading, SP1 or no. Even Windows XP barely runs on my 450Mhz Pentium II system, and that's *with* a 256Mb upgrade. I'm sticking with Windows 2000; it does everything I need, and that's the point of an OS after all.

Xbox 360 Elite games console

Mark Rendle

Comparison

I'll tell you what, though: the Amiga was /way/ better than the Atari ST.

Designer breaks up trad PC design

Mark Rendle

CTOS

Those used SCSI interconnects, didn't they? Place I worked had a cold one on a shelf. Said I could have it if I wanted it. I said no because I couldn't be bothered to carry it on the train. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Halo 3 hits one million pre-orders

Mark Rendle

Confused

How did Halo ever manage to become this popular? The original was one of the dullest games I've ever played, and I've played a few.

Researchers ease LCD viewing angle woes

Mark Rendle

Re: Sony Bravia's

I just got a KDL40-V2500, which isn't even the latest generation, and the image is still viewable in brightness/contrast terms long after it becomes unwatchable due to perspective.

Customer exodus hits Virgin Media

Mark Rendle

Sky package

I wonder by what factor the lost revenue outweighs the extra money it would have cost VM to pay Sky's asking price for their basic channels? Of course, now they can't back down because they don't want to lose face. Hopefully, when the High Court tells them to stop whining and pay to play in the free market, they'll suck it up and get Sky One back. Hopefully that will happen before Battlestar Galactica Season 4 starts. I'm already missing the new season of Weeds.

(Can't get a dish: restrictive covenant. And the 20MB broadband is sweet, even if most of the bandwidth is eaten up by torrents of Sky One shows.)

Microsoft cuts Xbox 360 prices

Mark Rendle

While Sony, of course, are absolute Europhiles.

Not.

Maybe if a European company could get its act together and produce a next-gen console, we could get better treatment?

Mega-planet spotted orbiting fading star

Mark Rendle

Float?

It's probably irrational, but I can't get my head round the idea of the biggest planet yet discovered bobbing up and down in some water.

Miserable Brits declare War on Comfort

Mark Rendle

Nuke patios

Of course, if all patio heaters were electric and all electricity was from nuclear power stations, then they'd be carbon neutral and the Mayor's office could presumably be recycled, since all it seems to do is bitch about carbon emissions. Oh, and spend insane amounts of money on bendy buses which kill (carbon neutral) cyclists.

And while I'm at it, what's the projected carbon footprint of the 2012 Olympics?

DVLA turns censor on grubby number plates

Mark Rendle

MO57 GAY

That is all.

Facebook buys Firefox startup

Mark Rendle

Missed opportunity

It would have been funnier if nobody else had commented on this story.

Apple emasculates the iPhone

Mark Rendle

@Tony Chandler

"How is an iPhone a "crippled imitation of an iPod" because it doesn't do something that I have never wanted to do, nor even knew was possible to do with my last two iPods?"

Brace yourself: despite your impressive refinement of solipsism to the level of psychosis, you are not the metric for whether consumer electronics are feature-complete or not.

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