Monthly Archives: August 2008

Developing with SQL Server 2008, deploying on SQL Server 2005

Posted on Sunday, 31 August, 2008 by Colin Mackay

I received the following by email today: Hi Colin! I found your blog after googling for a bit about SQL Server. I had a question for you… As someone fairly new to .NET development, would it be easier to stick … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The try-catch-return-false-throw-catch-return-false-throw-fail anti-pattern

Posted on Friday, 29 August, 2008 by Colin Mackay

I recently came across a wonderful anti-pattern. Well, anti-patterns are not wonderful, but the mind just boggles at the sheer bloody lunacy of this particular anti-pattern. I’m not going to show you the original code, but I’ll show a general … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Scottish Developers August Newsletter

Posted on Monday, 25 August, 2008 by Colin Mackay

Welcome I hope you’ve all managed to have a great summer as we enter into our Autumn schedule. The big news in the Microsoft world this month is that SQL Server 2008 was released to manufacturing (RTM) and Visual Studio … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Friday was my last day…

Posted on Saturday, 16 August, 2008 by Colin Mackay

Friday was my last day at Barbon Insurance Group Ltd. A company named after the guy that invented Fire Insurance, Nicholas Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon. I kid you not! (Incidentally, the change of name to BIGL, for short, had nothing to do … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Posted on Tuesday, 12 August, 2008 by Colin Mackay

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is here and can be downloaded. Details of the downloads are here, and information on what SP1 brings is here. The big items for me are the Entity Framework and the performance improvements in LINQ. However, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Curious calculation

Posted on Monday, 11 August, 2008 by Colin Mackay

Last weekend I had to replace two tyres on my car as they were wearing down. It cost £85.50 each to replace them. I was told that usually the back wheels wear away at half the rate of the front … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 2 Comments

Mixins in .NET (again)

Posted on Sunday, 10 August, 2008 by Colin Mackay

A while ago I wrote about Mixins in C# 3.0, at the time I was saying that you can get some of the functionality, but not all, from some of the new language features in C#3.0. The solution is a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Advert for SQL Bits III

Posted on Saturday, 9 August, 2008 by Colin Mackay

SQL Bits III will be held on 13th September 2008. Technorati Tags: SQL Bits,SQL Bits III

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Google Maps are borked

Posted on Friday, 8 August, 2008 by Colin Mackay

I don’t know what is up with Google Maps, but when I looked at them earlier today they seem to be borked. Roads are incorrectly designated and rail tracks seem to be misaligned. For example, if you know the Glasgow … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Crazy Extension Methods Redux (with Oxygene)

Posted on Thursday, 7 August, 2008 by Colin Mackay

Back in April I blogged about a crazy thing you can do with extension methods in C#3.0. At the time I was adamant that it was a bad idea. I still think it is a bad idea, however, my thoughts … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments