Codeguru Update eNewsletter – March 11th, 2008

CodeGuru content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

==========================================================
CodeGuru Newsletter
March 11, 2008
http://www.CodeGuru.com


This newsletter is part of the Developer.com, EarthWeb, and
internet.com networks.
Jupitermedia Corporation


___________________________ Sponsors
________________________________
Business
Objects
_____________________________________________________________________
==========================================================


TOPICS:



–> Editorial
–> Recently Published
Books


–> New on CodeGuru:

        ==>
Animation
               
– Animation in VB (Part 2)
        ==>
Data
               
– Programming with LINQ to SQL
       
==>
Profiling
               
– Fix Performance Problems Fast: Advanced VSTS Profiler
Use
        ==>
Reviews
               
– A Visual Basic Programmer’s Review of REALbasic 2008 Release
1
        ==>
Templates
               
– Templated Visitor Base Class



–> Discussion Groups — HOT
Threads 
        – Problem
Creating a new Member Function
(VC++)
        – Reading a File
(C++)
        – VU Meter (VC++)


–> Highlighted new articles on
Developer.com 
        1.
Screen Rotation in Qualcomm Brew
       
2. Consuming RSS Feeds with Ruby
       
3. Math for Java Game Programmers, Getting Started


/——————————————————————-
Matching
Crystal Reports with your needs
Explore the differences between Crystal
Reports Basic
included with VS 2008 and the full Crystal Reports 2008,
so
you can match your application requirements to the
right reporting solution.
Access article now
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,j0r5,hhdy,aqxl,3qs9
————————————————————–adv.-/


==========================================================
Comments
from the
Editor
==========================================================


Last week, I was able to attend MIX 08 in Las Vegas. If
you are doing web development with Microsoft technology, you likely would have
found this conference very enjoyable. There were several announcements, a few
releases, and a lot of sessions showing what can be done with Web applications going forward.


One thing that was different about MIX 08 is that nearly
all of the good sessions were to be posted online within 24 hours. If you go to
upt_www.VisitMix.com, you can find a number of videos, including they keynote
sessions. At that site, you’ll also find a lot of the items that were released, including:

  • Silverlight 2 Beta 1
  • Silverlight 2 Beta 1 SDK
  • Silverlight 2 Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008
  • ASP.NET MVC Preview 2
  • ASP.NET server controls for Silverlight
  • Internet Explorer 8 Beta
  • Expression Studio Beta
  • Expression Media 2 for MAC
  • Internet Explorer Virtual Machines
  • Expression Blend 2.5 Preview
  • Deep Zoom Composer

You should note that most of these are Microsoft “betas”
or previews. In the world that Microsoft lives in, the word beta seems to mean
simply a pre-release of a product that is still being created. As such, beta 1
of Silverlight 2 does not contain all the features that will be in Silverlight
2. In fact, several things shown in the keynote and several things mentioned as
being a part of Silverlight 2 are not in beta 1. This includes an Ad project
that will be in the Visual Studio tools, many of the new controls, and most of
the support for Silverlight on mobile. There are a number of the controls and
some of the other new features, so beta 1 is definitely worthy of being
reviewed. Be aware, however, that beta 1 of Silverlight 2 is only for
non-commercial use. Beta 2, due out in the second quarter, should have a commercial license.


Although Silverlight Beta 1 was a big release, so was
the beta of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8. This release of IE 8 is aimed at
developers. A future beta will be aimed at the masses. As such, you should be
able to use this beta to begin looking at your web sites to make sure they work.
In fact, one of the things Microsoft has done in IE 8 is to step back and work
to support the standards better. This is something that wasn’t really done in IE 7, so some pages that were written to IE 7 might break.


There are two new features in IE 8 that are worth an
early look. These are Activities and WebSlices. Activities seem like smart tags
in that they are a little button that pops up and gives the user of a site links
and access to services. The activities can relate to or use the text highlighted
on a page. Examples of activities that you can launch from the activities
control include Blogging the current item to Live Spaces, finding eBay items,
finding sites that are about the highlighted term, finding news about the
highlighted term, mapping an address that is highlighted, and more.


The other new big feature in IE 8 is WebSlices.
WebSlices are small views of a web page or part of a web page. As a developer,
you can set up a slice on a page on your site. People then can add this “slice”
to their favorites bar to get easy access to this visual summary of a page.


I’m hardly scratching the surface of what was announced
at MIX and what is coming. Stay tuned for more. One caution I would like to
share. There are a number of books that are being released on Silverlight 2. If
the publish date is this month or earlier, there is a good chance that the book
doesn’t contain many of the key new features of Silverlight 2. In the two book
items I’ve looked at so far on Silverlight 2, they lacked coverage of the new
controls (like the basic text control). Additionally, features will be added in
Beta 2 that are not currently in beta 1, so what is published today is going to
be out of date within a matter of a few months.


Until next week…


Brad!
—————————
Bradley
L. Jones
www.CodeGuru.com
—————————


=========================================================
Recently
Published Books
=========================================================


For those of you keeping up by reading books. The
following are just a few of the new books that have been recently released. If
you’ve read any of these, feel free to write a review to be posted on CodeGuru. See the submission guidelines at:


https://www.codeguru.com/review-guidelines.php


–> Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date
(Paperback)
      By Christian Wenz for
O’Reilly
      212 pages for $34.99

      http://books.internet.com/books/0596519982

      This book has “2” in the title, but doesn’t
really cover the cool new features of Silverlight 2. It covers what was in an
early 1.1 beta and thus lacks important new things such as any coverage of the
new controls that were added.


–> Domain Specific
Modeling
      Enabling Full Code
Generation
      By Kelly and Tolvanen fro
Wiley
      428 pages for $84.95

      http://books.internet.com/books/0470036664


–> Microsoft XNA Game Studio 2.0: Learn
Programming Now!
      By Rob Miles for
Microsoft Press
      320 pages for $29.99

      http://books.internet.com/books/0735625220


=========================================================
New
& Updated Articles on
CodeGuru
==========================================================


Following are short descriptions of new articles on
CodeGuru. If you are interested in submitting your own article
for inclusion on the site, then you will find guidelines located at


http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,fka1,909i,aqxl,3qs9


This week’s CodeGuru posts:


==> Animation


– Animation in VB (Part
2)
    By Richard Newcombe
This time, you look at
animating bitmap images and write a simple platform game. You also find out how
to load images directly into memory without setting up a picturebox in design
time.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,h1so,b317,aqxl,3qs9


==> Data


– Programming with LINQ to
SQL
    By Paul Kimmel
You can use LINQ to SQL to
define an Object Relational Mapping between SQL tables and then query those
tables with LINQ.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,3y3r,4qhm,aqxl,3qs9


==> Profiling


– Fix Performance Problems Fast: Advanced VSTS
Profiler Use
    By Nick Wienholt
For large and
complex applications, dealing with the amount of data collected can be
difficult. See how the Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Developer Edition
Profiler can do an excellent job of finding performance problems by simply
pointing it at an application and allowing it to collect data.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,bzuq,dilr,aqxl,3qs9


==> Reviews


– A Visual Basic Programmer’s Review of
REALbasic 2008
Release 1
    By
OldMan
Are you unhappy that Microsoft didn’t upgrade Visual Basic to version
7? Learn about an alternative package that may make you smile again.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,kipd,4clr,aqxl,3qs9


==> Templates


– Templated Visitor Base
Class
    By JohnW@Wessex
Discover a templated visitor
pattern base class designed to get around problems that some compilers that have
with certain aspects of modern template techniques, particularly typelists and
meta-programming.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,lzwn,lc2o,aqxl,3qs9


==========================================================
Discussion
Groups
==========================================================


Check out the CodeGuru discussion forums at:


http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,bcr8,cx5j,aqxl,3qs9


Forums include Visual C++, General C++, Visual Basic,
Java, General Technology, C#, ASP.NET, XML, Help Wanted, and much, much, more!


… HOT THREADS …


Some of the current threads with the most activity are:


==> Problem Creating a new Member Function
(VC++)
        http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,a2j6,1jyx,aqxl,3qs9


==> Reading a File
(C++)
        http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,cj6j,3l0d,aqxl,3qs9


==> VU Meter
(VC++)
        http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,ewdv,bwsy,aqxl,3qs9


==========================================================
New
Articles on
Developer.com
==========================================================


Below are some of the new articles that have been posted to Developer.com (http://www.developer.com).


1. Screen Rotation in Qualcomm
Brew
    By Ray Rischpater –
Learn how to support
screen rotation in your applications on handsets running Qualcomm Brew.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,5122,5ngz,aqxl,3qs9


2. Consuming RSS Feeds with
Ruby
    By W. Jason Gilmore –
Integrate your
favorite RSS feeds into your web site by  using Ruby’s powerful RSS
module.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,8f5h,5h67,aqxl,3qs9


3. Math for Java Game Programmers, Getting
Started
    By Richard G. Baldwin –
Examine two
sample programs and a sample game-programming math library intended to
provide aspiring game programmers with the mathematical skills required for game
programming.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,3uey,1,8msh,4p4o,aqxl,3qs9


==========================================================

More by Author

Get the Free Newsletter!

Subscribe to Developer Insider for top news, trends & analysis

Must Read