The .NET framework is huge, but not so huge that it does everything for everyone; there are things that they in Redmond miss or don’t do for whatever reason but is still generally applicable to many developers. So, dear reader, I present to you a new series of posts on stuff I find missing in [...] Read more »

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The .NET framework is huge, but not so huge that it does everything for everyone; there are things that they in Redmond miss or don’t do for whatever reason but is still generally applicable to many developers. So, dear reader, I present to you a new series of posts on stuff I find missing in [...] Read more »

Posted in .NET, Missing .NET, Software | No Comments »

The .NET framework is huge, but not so huge that it does everything for everyone; there are things that they in Redmond miss or don’t do for whatever reason but is still generally applicable to many developers. So, dear reader, I present to you a new series of posts on stuff I find missing in [...] Read more »

Posted in .NET, Missing .NET, Software | 2 Comments »

The more I use WPF, the more I’m impressed and confounded by it. Impressed because it is really well-designed, thoughtful, and quite rich right out of the gate; I’m confounded by the things it’s lacking. I realize they had to ship something sooner than later, but some of the things Microsoft left out seem pretty trivial to implement given what I know about WPF. One of these is an auto-completing TextBox (It was even late to the Windows forms party, but still…). The most famous example is the address ComboBox in the browser. Start typing to see that the computer remembers what you typed previously. Auto-complete is everywhere in the OS, and you can see it on the web in spots too, now: Compose a message in Facebook and you’ll see your contact list drop down and filter out as you type. Read more »

Posted in .NET, Missing .NET, Software | 3 Comments »

One of the sad, unfortunate truths about Windows Forms development is that you don’t get to use it. That’s right: LINQ, WCF, WPF, maybe even generics, iterators, and the awesomest Winforms control ever, ToolStrip. All of it may be off limits to you, dear WinForms developer, because real people don’t know what the .NET framework is, and don’t care that your app depends on it; nor are they willing to sit through a 24 MB download, apparently. That last one seems really weird to me, a broadband user for 8 years, but, the numbers don’t lie: your users don’t have the framework on their computers. Now, there is hope with Vista — if Microsoft could just advertise it better so everyone’s perception of it isn’t that it sucks balls; it has .NET 3.0 installed by default, but .NET 3.5? Still a separate download. Read more »

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