My employer of nearly 3 months is slowly moving to VB.NET. However a lot of their ‘legacy’ apps still need to be maintained and extended to support new methods, etc.
This involves VB6 and VBA. I was always in the position that VB6 was a mickey-mouse program for throwaway apps but not really suitable for real dev work - I was an elitist C++ programmer basically.
My view has shifted - you can really write large enterprise class apps in VB6. But one thing I can’t seem to shake off is the contempt the people who wrote VB6 IDE had for their users. Having used VC6 for a number of years you get used to certain things: Like if you start editing a file that isn’t checked out it will ask you if you want to start editing and then when checked out your caret is where you want it to be.
Not in VB6. You are informed that the file is locked. So you then have to right click on the file and manually check it out. But now the file closes itself and reopens with you looking at the top of the file.
Should I mention the 255 control limit? Who picked that as a number? (As an aside why is Excel 2003 limited to 1026 rows? Why 1026 and not 1024? Is that a typo?)
“Out of memory error”. I have 4gb in my machine. Why am I out of memory and why does that stop you from saving my last 15 minutes of careful debugging work? Why must you lose my break points?
And the mouse wheel doesn’t work.
This isn’t to say VC6 was all roses - far from it - but it makes you wonder if the VB6 team actually a) used it for anything b) gave a damn.
Found a solution to Eclipse problem - and it doesn’t involve Netbeans!
Get this…wait for it…You simply copy multiple version over the top of each other!
That’s right. Grab the latest J2EE version as that comes with all the bells and whistles that you will probably need. Extract it your program files directory. Then pop over to the PDT and grab the latest of that one too if you want to do PHP development. Now extract that over the top of your previous install and agree to all the messages. Start Eclipse and hey presto! you can now develop Java and PHP apps and have access to the database stuff you will also need!
Installation of eclipse add-ons to current installs is still shit.
Here’s a hint: WRITE A FUCKING INSTALLER THAN CAN INSTALL THE PREREQUISITES FOR ME. Don’t tell me that org.eclipse.ltk.core.refactoring is missing - install it for me. I don’t know where it is and it is certainly not in the DLTK section because I am trying to install the entire damn tree just to get rid of the error messages.
Once again we found ourselves in Whitby - this time with mummy bear in tow - so once again we visited Whitby’s finest Fish & Chip shop: Robertson’s of Whitby.
You could say that this review is biased as they are now friends of the family, but it is not for that reason that we go back there time and time again.
The relationship between the Bears and the Robertsons goes back to before the Bears had met. Mrs Bear was going to have a party in Whitby and was scheduled to have it at Trenchers. Unfortunately, two weeks before the party, Trenchers was no more: It had been gutted by fire. So they had to reorganise the party and of all the restaurants that they tried (and turned them away) it was Robertsons that stepped up to the plate (no pun intended, but once noticed, let stand) and hosted nearly 100 people at very short notice, closing the restaurant for the evening.
This must be the 7th or 8th time I’ve eaten there and never had a bad chip once. I’ve nearly always eaten the traditional Fish and Chips having once had the huge battered sausage, while Mrs Bear usually has the Spring Rolls with Chips. Even though my portion was listed as Medium Cod it is the size of most places Large. This isn’t just special service for us as I have had the large cod and that sticks out over the sides of the plate. The 3 spring rolls are large and (judging by the speed that Mrs Bear ate them) very nice.
Another recommendation comes from a friend who ate there with us a month or so ago: They had the ham salad and was shocked at the size of it and the amount of ham that was served. In the end she had her partner eat what she couldn’t (which he did gratefully).
Definitely worth a visit and at least you won’t be waiting for an hour and half outside the Magpie Cafe.
I purchased The Prophecy complete collection from Amazon. There are two boxed sets available, a 3 film version and a 5 film version. If you get one, get the 3 film version. The final two films have nothing to do with the first three films and while not bad films per se, they do detract from the original trilogy. The only thing they have in common is a reference to a prophecy. The first three films are great films (in my opinion of course), but the transfer of them - the first film especially - left a lot to be desired. Hopefully the 3 film edition used a different transfer and are substantially better.
Life continues.
Slowly getting used to the way my new employer does things. It’s a little more strict than previous places but this is the largest organisation that I’ve worked for under one roof. Using VB after a break of 5 years is a real pain but apparently it is only going to be for a short time. There are plans to rewrite (why do I cringe when I hear that word?) the apps in VB.NET. Oh joy of joys. Between now and then I can try and wheedle my way into getting C# used. Meanwhile I am learning to swim again by being thrown in at the deep end. As a plus I don’t have to get up/leave so early and I get home an hour earlier too.
While this is going on I am still working on Space. Or rather trying to get Space to work on a local VM. There is little point in pushing forward with changes when the changes are so hard to implement, and the only way to test is on a live system. That’s just folly: If something breaks then we start to lose real money. Better to make a VM and play safely in there.
That means learning Linux. Which I have now installed a dozen times. Even the book on the subject doesn’t work the way it is supposed to. Fortunately I am savvy enough to figure out my way around where the book misses out one of the hyphens in –dport.
With learning comes confidence so I went and reinstalled selecting server as the install option and doing everything manually. However with Virtual PC as my VM I kept getting the ‘i8253 too high - resetting’ all the time which made working in Vim a nightmare. So I decided to give VirtualBox a try.
Oh my God! How fast is it compared to Virtual PC!?. It just rips along. The boot is a blur, the install of the OS is twice as quick and UI is feels more responsive. As a plus I haven’t seen the i8253 bug yet.
Just finished my first week back in work and though it wasn’t a full week, does give one some confidence once again.
However, the job isn’t my ideal one - working with mess that is classic VB (could be worse might be PHP) - but it is a job all the same.
Write code.
Test in Firefox: Works. Test in Chrome: Works. Test in IE: Fails.
Edit code.
Test in IE: Fails.
Edit some more.
Test in IE: Works. Test in FireFox: Fails.
Tweak a few more lines.
Test in IE: Fails. Test in FireFox: Fails. Test in Chrome: Fails.
GIVE ME SOME STANDARDS!!!
March 26th, 2009 :: graham.reeds
Categories:
Life ::
WorkToday is my final day at work.
March 23rd, 2009 :: graham.reeds
Categories:
Leisure ::
LifeJust been to see the Little Shop of Horrors performed at the Billingham Forum.
Very good fun too, even if the music was a little loud for the vocals.
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