Misc

  • Article

Non-technical stuff:

  • I passed 70-291 on my second attempt. I barely failed the first time (the exam report said so: "BARELY failed, sucker!") and managed to handily pass today. At the end of the day, it was procrastination mixed in with too much prior studying of the material. I had gotten sick of the material and put off reviewing it and paid the price. Won't do that again.
  • It has been 40 years since Star Trek debuted. After I threw my Battlestar Galactica lunch box on the counter, which re-runs did I tune in to? Not Star Trek. I was more of a Welcome Back Kotter / Alice / What's Happening / the After-School Special / Brady Bunch/ Cartoon kid. The Brady Bunch rocked when Jim Backus made an appearance. Spock? Meh.
  • The new Super Mario for the Nintendo DS is great. Just thought I'd throw that in. Mario Kart DS has a great retro feel if you are old enough to have played the original on the SNES. Network play is great.

Technical stuff:

  • Minty Fesh Documentor. I have been thinking about making this an MMC snap-in using the 3.0 MMC framework. This would involve repackaging the open-source transform engine into a library function and writing a bunch of GUI code (not my forte). On the plus side, it would make it more friendly. Unless I butcher the GUI...
  • Shell Extension. I am still mulling this one. Sounds like fun excercise but potentially less useful as a tool. Who uses the BTS shell extension?
  • Iron Python 1.0. You can pick this up on codeplex. I have the two O'Reilly python books on my shelf but haven't played with it in a few years. I may dust them off and give Iron Python a try. 

Other issues:

  • Why are some XML configuration files overly complex? If you want to declare procedural rules for your application, does it have to be in XML? I'd rather use the equivalent of a <script> element and write the logic using my favorite scripting language. Developers assume that abstracting procedural logic into XML is easier for non-programmers than simply using script but at the end of the day, any non-trivial logic will be written by a developer anyway. So let the devs have their c#/python/java/turbo pascal.

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