Trivial question - Visual C# .Net vs Visual Studio .Net

Robert wrote:

As someone points out, this is super depressing that an experienced
C++ developer can't afford a copy of VS.net. ....

I'm a bit tired of seeing threads and chains of posts like this, so I put up
this weblog entry to deal with it:

http://weblogs.asp.net/jtobler/posts/35599.aspx

John Tobler

Nov 22 '05 #9

Robert wrote:

As someone points out, this is super depressing that an experienced
C++ developer can't afford a copy of VS.net. ....

I'm a bit tired of seeing threads and chains of posts like this, so I put up
this weblog entry to deal with it:

http://weblogs.asp.net/jtobler/posts/35599.aspx

John Tobler

Nov 22 '05 #10

From your blog you wrote:

You can use Notepad or any better editor to write the code. In fact, I strongly recommend >learning to write .NET code *without* using Visual
Studio.NET so you *really* learn what's >going on

That premise is so bogus. How about paraphrasing it like this. To learn to
drive a car, I'd really suggest you remove the engine so you can learn how
the car moves. Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do
web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page. Nuff
said. The point of tools like VS is to abstract this tedium out of the
programmers hands so s/he can concentrate on what matters most - developing
products.

The point is this: tools are for a programmer's benefit. At the end of the
day, your paycheck is based on your productivity, not on how much you know
about what goes on underneath the hood. How can that knowledge help you be
more productive if you have to write out boiler plate code for yourself. You
can't because you are wasting your time re-inventing a finely tuned wheel.
What's the good of this knowledge if you let the environment write the code
for you? So you haven't really gained anything for the company who pays you
your check.

Now if you are in the business of writing IDE's, then that is an entirely
different kettle of fish because you wouldn't be a 'learner' in the first
place. If a tool increases your productivity, you need to learn how to use
it. VS studio increases programmer productivity. Learn how to use it to
increase your productivity. I actually have programmers still using notepad
taking forever to write simple apps on company time. I actually have
programmers writing html in aspx pages. I actually have these same
programmers complaining that I make them look bad because I crank out
projects too fast. Now, that there, aint right. You can tell this is a
thorny issue for me, can't you?
--
-----------
Got TidBits?
Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
"John Tobler" <jt*****@edmin.com> wrote in message
news:eN**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl... Robert wrote:
As someone points out, this is super depressing that an experienced
C++ developer can't afford a copy of VS.net. ....
I'm a bit tired of seeing threads and chains of posts like this, so I put

up this weblog entry to deal with it:

http://weblogs.asp.net/jtobler/posts/35599.aspx

John Tobler

Nov 22 '05 #11

From your blog you wrote:

You can use Notepad or any better editor to write the code. In fact, I strongly recommend >learning to write .NET code *without* using Visual
Studio.NET so you *really* learn what's >going on

That premise is so bogus. How about paraphrasing it like this. To learn to
drive a car, I'd really suggest you remove the engine so you can learn how
the car moves. Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do
web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page. Nuff
said. The point of tools like VS is to abstract this tedium out of the
programmers hands so s/he can concentrate on what matters most - developing
products.

The point is this: tools are for a programmer's benefit. At the end of the
day, your paycheck is based on your productivity, not on how much you know
about what goes on underneath the hood. How can that knowledge help you be
more productive if you have to write out boiler plate code for yourself. You
can't because you are wasting your time re-inventing a finely tuned wheel.
What's the good of this knowledge if you let the environment write the code
for you? So you haven't really gained anything for the company who pays you
your check.

Now if you are in the business of writing IDE's, then that is an entirely
different kettle of fish because you wouldn't be a 'learner' in the first
place. If a tool increases your productivity, you need to learn how to use
it. VS studio increases programmer productivity. Learn how to use it to
increase your productivity. I actually have programmers still using notepad
taking forever to write simple apps on company time. I actually have
programmers writing html in aspx pages. I actually have these same
programmers complaining that I make them look bad because I crank out
projects too fast. Now, that there, aint right. You can tell this is a
thorny issue for me, can't you?
--
-----------
Got TidBits?
Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
"John Tobler" <jt*****@edmin.com> wrote in message
news:eN**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl... Robert wrote:
As someone points out, this is super depressing that an experienced
C++ developer can't afford a copy of VS.net. ....
I'm a bit tired of seeing threads and chains of posts like this, so I put

up this weblog entry to deal with it:

http://weblogs.asp.net/jtobler/posts/35599.aspx

John Tobler

Nov 22 '05 #12

Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:

From your blog you wrote:
You can use Notepad or any better editor to write the code. In fact, I strongly recommend >learning to write .NET code *without* using Visual
Studio.NET so you *really* learn what's >going on

That premise is so bogus. How about paraphrasing it like this. To learn to
drive a car, I'd really suggest you remove the engine so you can learn how
the car moves.

That one's going a bit far, but:
Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do
web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page.
Absolutely! Anyone who tries to develop a web app but doesn't know HTML
to start with is at a *serious* disadvantage.
Nuff
said. The point of tools like VS is to abstract this tedium out of the
programmers hands so s/he can concentrate on what matters most - developing
products.

The point is this: tools are for a programmer's benefit. At the end of the
day, your paycheck is based on your productivity, not on how much you know
about what goes on underneath the hood. How can that knowledge help you be
more productive if you have to write out boiler plate code for yourself.
You write the boiler plate code to start with, then *maybe* you let the
tool do it at a later date, once you understand what it will be doing
for you. (You may, like me, choose to end up writing all your GUI code
by hand anyway, just to get more maintainable code in the long run.)
You
can't because you are wasting your time re-inventing a finely tuned wheel.
What's the good of this knowledge if you let the environment write the code
for you? So you haven't really gained anything for the company who pays you
your check.
Again, I couldn't disagree more. If all you know how to do is drag
things around on the form designer, you're utterly stuck as soon as
anything goes wrong. People who run before they can walk are the reason
I wrote this page:

http://www.pobox.com/~skeet/java/learning.html

Now it's not too bad to use the IDE as a basic editor to give you
autocompletion etc, but I believe it's well worth at least being *able*
to write a simple GUI yourself if you're later going to let the IDE do
that kind of work for you.
Now if you are in the business of writing IDE's, then that is an entirely
different kettle of fish because you wouldn't be a 'learner' in the first
place. If a tool increases your productivity, you need to learn how to use
it. VS studio increases programmer productivity. Learn how to use it to
increase your productivity. I actually have programmers still using notepad
taking forever to write simple apps on company time. I actually have
programmers writing html in aspx pages. I actually have these same
programmers complaining that I make them look bad because I crank out
projects too fast. Now, that there, aint right. You can tell this is a
thorny issue for me, can't you?

For a very long time I used a simple text editor (not Notepad, I'm
pleased to say) when writing Java. I still *do* use it for C# and Java
when I can't be bothered to fire up VS.NET or Eclipse. I only started
using Eclipse for its refactoring support, really - and now I've become
used to autocomplete, organize imports (which I really hope we get in
the next version of VS.NET) etc. While I'm more productive now than I
was before, that's in no way due to it writing huge chunks of code for
me - if I let an IDE do that, I know for sure that I'll spend more time
trying to get it to do *exactly* what I want than I would if I wrote
the code in the first place, and it would be harder code to maintain
afterwards.

It sounds like you basically have some slow programmers - it's
perfectly possible to code accurately and fast outside an IDE.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

Nov 22 '05 #13

Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:

From your blog you wrote:
You can use Notepad or any better editor to write the code. In fact, I strongly recommend >learning to write .NET code *without* using Visual
Studio.NET so you *really* learn what's >going on

That premise is so bogus. How about paraphrasing it like this. To learn to
drive a car, I'd really suggest you remove the engine so you can learn how
the car moves.

That one's going a bit far, but:
Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do
web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page.
Absolutely! Anyone who tries to develop a web app but doesn't know HTML
to start with is at a *serious* disadvantage.
Nuff
said. The point of tools like VS is to abstract this tedium out of the
programmers hands so s/he can concentrate on what matters most - developing
products.

The point is this: tools are for a programmer's benefit. At the end of the
day, your paycheck is based on your productivity, not on how much you know
about what goes on underneath the hood. How can that knowledge help you be
more productive if you have to write out boiler plate code for yourself.
You write the boiler plate code to start with, then *maybe* you let the
tool do it at a later date, once you understand what it will be doing
for you. (You may, like me, choose to end up writing all your GUI code
by hand anyway, just to get more maintainable code in the long run.)
You
can't because you are wasting your time re-inventing a finely tuned wheel.
What's the good of this knowledge if you let the environment write the code
for you? So you haven't really gained anything for the company who pays you
your check.
Again, I couldn't disagree more. If all you know how to do is drag
things around on the form designer, you're utterly stuck as soon as
anything goes wrong. People who run before they can walk are the reason
I wrote this page:

http://www.pobox.com/~skeet/java/learning.html

Now it's not too bad to use the IDE as a basic editor to give you
autocompletion etc, but I believe it's well worth at least being *able*
to write a simple GUI yourself if you're later going to let the IDE do
that kind of work for you.
Now if you are in the business of writing IDE's, then that is an entirely
different kettle of fish because you wouldn't be a 'learner' in the first
place. If a tool increases your productivity, you need to learn how to use
it. VS studio increases programmer productivity. Learn how to use it to
increase your productivity. I actually have programmers still using notepad
taking forever to write simple apps on company time. I actually have
programmers writing html in aspx pages. I actually have these same
programmers complaining that I make them look bad because I crank out
projects too fast. Now, that there, aint right. You can tell this is a
thorny issue for me, can't you?

Nov 22 '05 #14

> > Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do

web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page. Absolutely not. Learning html is pointless. Absolutely pointless. I don't
know HTML. I could care less about it, its wasted effort. I do know how to
introduce a line break and a line feed - basic stuff - that's all you really
need to know. Why learn dead technology? There is nothing to be gained by
learning it outside of a mind exercise. It's not a tool you can use to solve
any problem with so it shouldn't be in your bag of toys. The whole point of
asp.net is to insulate the programmer from this drudgery. Don't confuse html
with asp.net. Control writers need to know html because in that case, it can
be used as a tool to solve performance and optmization bottlenecks which
occur when rendering objects clientside. A programmer absolutely does not
need to know it. Can it give an advantage if you know it? I have yet to see
that because the ASP.NET model abstracts this process. It's a completely
different ballgame from ASP classic. Different rules apply.

Let me ask you this: Do you write your own controls before you use what VS
has to offer because it helps you 'understand' controls properly?
Rhetorical, because you may indeed have done it, but would you recommend
that method to a worker bee out there?

You write the boiler plate code to start with, then *maybe* you let the
tool do it at a later date, once you understand what it will be doing
for you. (You may, like me, choose to end up writing all your GUI code
by hand anyway, just to get more maintainable code in the long run.)
That is actually an activity you can do on your own free time. A company
should not pay you for these services. I don't see how you writing your own
GUI code makes it more maintainable in the long run.
Again, I couldn't disagree more. If all you know how to do is drag
things around on the form designer, you're utterly stuck as soon as
anything goes wrong. why would I be stuck? what good would html knowledge do for me to get me out
of that sticky situation? The point is, this level of programming is
obsolete. Do you come from the same school recommending programmers learn
assembly? I bet a buck you do. Do it on your own time, it doesn't help you
write more efficient code in the long or the short run and a company
shouldn't foot that bill. The point of G5 languages is to insulate the
developer from gutter work, so they can concentrate on implementing business
logic. Same thing for ASP.NET and HTML. Otherwise we can all go back to
writing assembler.

It sounds like you basically have some slow programmers - it's
perfectly possible to code accurately and fast outside an IDE.
It could well be the case. But the argument thrown at me is 'I own the code.
I wrote it.' What have you gained from that? It took you took weeks to
adjust a button on a form because you had to muck with html and styles now
your project is late. But oh, you still own the code. But you haven't earned
your paycheck because a company paying for that kind of productivity will
not be around tomorrow. If you have the knowledge to learn a high level
language, picking up HTML is a snap. It isn't even considered a language,
because it lacks control structures. Again, the point of learning stuff is
that it can help you solve problems later. Show me an example where learning
HTML can help me solve a problem later, that I could not have otherwise
figured out or fixed in a timely fashion.

waiting...

I don't want to sound hash but this is a painful issue for me. It really is.
I walk over to a developers desk and she is using Visual Studio as a
glorified notepad. Now why did that company invest thousands of dollars in a
product like that when all it is good for is a word editor? You tell me.
--
-----------
Got TidBits?
Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
"Jon Skeet [C# MVP]" <sk***@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:MP************************@msnews.microsoft.c om... Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:
From your blog you wrote:
You can use Notepad or any better editor to write the code. In fact, I

strongly recommend >learning to write .NET code *without* using Visual
Studio.NET so you *really* learn what's >going on

That premise is so bogus. How about paraphrasing it like this. To learn

to drive a car, I'd really suggest you remove the engine so you can learn how the car moves.

That one's going a bit far, but:
Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do
web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page.

Absolutely! Anyone who tries to develop a web app but doesn't know HTML
to start with is at a *serious* disadvantage.
Nuff
said. The point of tools like VS is to abstract this tedium out of the
programmers hands so s/he can concentrate on what matters most - developing products.

The point is this: tools are for a programmer's benefit. At the end of the day, your paycheck is based on your productivity, not on how much you know about what goes on underneath the hood. How can that knowledge help you be more productive if you have to write out boiler plate code for yourself.

You write the boiler plate code to start with, then *maybe* you let the
tool do it at a later date, once you understand what it will be doing
for you. (You may, like me, choose to end up writing all your GUI code
by hand anyway, just to get more maintainable code in the long run.)
You
can't because you are wasting your time re-inventing a finely tuned wheel. What's the good of this knowledge if you let the environment write the code for you? So you haven't really gained anything for the company who pays you your check.

Again, I couldn't disagree more. If all you know how to do is drag
things around on the form designer, you're utterly stuck as soon as
anything goes wrong. People who run before they can walk are the reason
I wrote this page:

http://www.pobox.com/~skeet/java/learning.html

Now it's not too bad to use the IDE as a basic editor to give you
autocompletion etc, but I believe it's well worth at least being *able*
to write a simple GUI yourself if you're later going to let the IDE do
that kind of work for you.
Now if you are in the business of writing IDE's, then that is an entirely different kettle of fish because you wouldn't be a 'learner' in the first place. If a tool increases your productivity, you need to learn how to use it. VS studio increases programmer productivity. Learn how to use it to
increase your productivity. I actually have programmers still using notepad taking forever to write simple apps on company time. I actually have
programmers writing html in aspx pages. I actually have these same
programmers complaining that I make them look bad because I crank out
projects too fast. Now, that there, aint right. You can tell this is a
thorny issue for me, can't you?

For a very long time I used a simple text editor (not Notepad, I'm
pleased to say) when writing Java. I still *do* use it for C# and Java
when I can't be bothered to fire up VS.NET or Eclipse. I only started
using Eclipse for its refactoring support, really - and now I've become
used to autocomplete, organize imports (which I really hope we get in
the next version of VS.NET) etc. While I'm more productive now than I
was before, that's in no way due to it writing huge chunks of code for
me - if I let an IDE do that, I know for sure that I'll spend more time
trying to get it to do *exactly* what I want than I would if I wrote
the code in the first place, and it would be harder code to maintain
afterwards.

It sounds like you basically have some slow programmers - it's
perfectly possible to code accurately and fast outside an IDE.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

Nov 22 '05 #15

> > Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do

web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page. Absolutely not. Learning html is pointless. Absolutely pointless. I don't
know HTML. I could care less about it, its wasted effort. I do know how to
introduce a line break and a line feed - basic stuff - that's all you really
need to know. Why learn dead technology? There is nothing to be gained by
learning it outside of a mind exercise. It's not a tool you can use to solve
any problem with so it shouldn't be in your bag of toys. The whole point of
asp.net is to insulate the programmer from this drudgery. Don't confuse html
with asp.net. Control writers need to know html because in that case, it can
be used as a tool to solve performance and optmization bottlenecks which
occur when rendering objects clientside. A programmer absolutely does not
need to know it. Can it give an advantage if you know it? I have yet to see
that because the ASP.NET model abstracts this process. It's a completely
different ballgame from ASP classic. Different rules apply.

Let me ask you this: Do you write your own controls before you use what VS
has to offer because it helps you 'understand' controls properly?
Rhetorical, because you may indeed have done it, but would you recommend
that method to a worker bee out there?

You write the boiler plate code to start with, then *maybe* you let the
tool do it at a later date, once you understand what it will be doing
for you. (You may, like me, choose to end up writing all your GUI code
by hand anyway, just to get more maintainable code in the long run.)
That is actually an activity you can do on your own free time. A company
should not pay you for these services. I don't see how you writing your own
GUI code makes it more maintainable in the long run.
Again, I couldn't disagree more. If all you know how to do is drag
things around on the form designer, you're utterly stuck as soon as
anything goes wrong. why would I be stuck? what good would html knowledge do for me to get me out
of that sticky situation? The point is, this level of programming is
obsolete. Do you come from the same school recommending programmers learn
assembly? I bet a buck you do. Do it on your own time, it doesn't help you
write more efficient code in the long or the short run and a company
shouldn't foot that bill. The point of G5 languages is to insulate the
developer from gutter work, so they can concentrate on implementing business
logic. Same thing for ASP.NET and HTML. Otherwise we can all go back to
writing assembler.

It sounds like you basically have some slow programmers - it's
perfectly possible to code accurately and fast outside an IDE.
It could well be the case. But the argument thrown at me is 'I own the code.
I wrote it.' What have you gained from that? It took you took weeks to
adjust a button on a form because you had to muck with html and styles now
your project is late. But oh, you still own the code. But you haven't earned
your paycheck because a company paying for that kind of productivity will
not be around tomorrow. If you have the knowledge to learn a high level
language, picking up HTML is a snap. It isn't even considered a language,
because it lacks control structures. Again, the point of learning stuff is
that it can help you solve problems later. Show me an example where learning
HTML can help me solve a problem later, that I could not have otherwise
figured out or fixed in a timely fashion.

waiting...

I don't want to sound hash but this is a painful issue for me. It really is.
I walk over to a developers desk and she is using Visual Studio as a
glorified notepad. Now why did that company invest thousands of dollars in a
product like that when all it is good for is a word editor? You tell me.
--
-----------
Got TidBits?
Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
"Jon Skeet [C# MVP]" <sk***@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:MP************************@msnews.microsoft.c om... Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:
From your blog you wrote:
You can use Notepad or any better editor to write the code. In fact, I

strongly recommend >learning to write .NET code *without* using Visual
Studio.NET so you *really* learn what's >going on

That premise is so bogus. How about paraphrasing it like this. To learn

to drive a car, I'd really suggest you remove the engine so you can learn how the car moves.

That one's going a bit far, but:
Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do
web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page.

Absolutely! Anyone who tries to develop a web app but doesn't know HTML
to start with is at a *serious* disadvantage.
Nuff
said. The point of tools like VS is to abstract this tedium out of the
programmers hands so s/he can concentrate on what matters most - developing products.

The point is this: tools are for a programmer's benefit. At the end of the day, your paycheck is based on your productivity, not on how much you know about what goes on underneath the hood. How can that knowledge help you be more productive if you have to write out boiler plate code for yourself.

You write the boiler plate code to start with, then *maybe* you let the
tool do it at a later date, once you understand what it will be doing
for you. (You may, like me, choose to end up writing all your GUI code
by hand anyway, just to get more maintainable code in the long run.)
You
can't because you are wasting your time re-inventing a finely tuned wheel. What's the good of this knowledge if you let the environment write the code for you? So you haven't really gained anything for the company who pays you your check.

Again, I couldn't disagree more. If all you know how to do is drag
things around on the form designer, you're utterly stuck as soon as
anything goes wrong. People who run before they can walk are the reason
I wrote this page:

http://www.pobox.com/~skeet/java/learning.html

Now it's not too bad to use the IDE as a basic editor to give you
autocompletion etc, but I believe it's well worth at least being *able*
to write a simple GUI yourself if you're later going to let the IDE do
that kind of work for you.
Now if you are in the business of writing IDE's, then that is an entirely different kettle of fish because you wouldn't be a 'learner' in the first place. If a tool increases your productivity, you need to learn how to use it. VS studio increases programmer productivity. Learn how to use it to
increase your productivity. I actually have programmers still using notepad taking forever to write simple apps on company time. I actually have
programmers writing html in aspx pages. I actually have these same
programmers complaining that I make them look bad because I crank out
projects too fast. Now, that there, aint right. You can tell this is a
thorny issue for me, can't you?

For a very long time I used a simple text editor (not Notepad, I'm
pleased to say) when writing Java. I still *do* use it for C# and Java
when I can't be bothered to fire up VS.NET or Eclipse. I only started
using Eclipse for its refactoring support, really - and now I've become
used to autocomplete, organize imports (which I really hope we get in
the next version of VS.NET) etc. While I'm more productive now than I
was before, that's in no way due to it writing huge chunks of code for
me - if I let an IDE do that, I know for sure that I'll spend more time
trying to get it to do *exactly* what I want than I would if I wrote
the code in the first place, and it would be harder code to maintain
afterwards.

It sounds like you basically have some slow programmers - it's
perfectly possible to code accurately and fast outside an IDE.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

Nov 22 '05 #16

Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:

Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do
web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page.

Absolutely not. Learning html is pointless. Absolutely pointless. I don't
know HTML. I could care less about it, its wasted effort.
How do you know it would be wasted? You've got nothing to compare your
current situation with.
I do know how to
introduce a line break and a line feed - basic stuff - that's all you really
need to know. Why learn dead technology?
So that you can analyse what's been produced automatically, and improve
it, debug it etc. It means you have better ideas of the capabilities of
browsers for layout, etc. It gives you a clearer picture of what's
possible, so you could then (if you wish) try to express that to
VS.NET.
There is nothing to be gained by
learning it outside of a mind exercise. It's not a tool you can use to solve
any problem with so it shouldn't be in your bag of toys.
And yet I use it to solve problems very often. If the page I was
working on didn't look how I wanted it to look (or only looked correct
in Mozilla, not IE) then I could look at the HTML and figure out what's
wrong.
The whole point of
asp.net is to insulate the programmer from this drudgery.
The main point of ASP.NET, to my mind, is to enable clear separation of
presentation from business logic, to allow rich use of the framework in
both places (although as little as possible in the presentation logic).
That doesn't mean that the guys developing the presentation shouldn't
know HTML.
Don't confuse html
with asp.net. Control writers need to know html because in that case, it can
be used as a tool to solve performance and optmization bottlenecks which
occur when rendering objects clientside. A programmer absolutely does not
need to know it.
I still couldn't disagree more.
Can it give an advantage if you know it? I have yet to see
that because the ASP.NET model abstracts this process. It's a completely
different ballgame from ASP classic. Different rules apply.
It's a different ballgame, but that doesn't mean it's useless to know
HTML.
Let me ask you this: Do you write your own controls before you use what VS
has to offer because it helps you 'understand' controls properly?
I haven't written my own controls yet, but I would if .NET didn't
happen to provide one that I wanted.
Rhetorical, because you may indeed have done it, but would you recommend
that method to a worker bee out there?
No - but I'd recommend understanding the event model and the code that
VS.NET generates.
You write the boiler plate code to start with, then *maybe* you let the
tool do it at a later date, once you understand what it will be doing
for you. (You may, like me, choose to end up writing all your GUI code
by hand anyway, just to get more maintainable code in the long run.)

That is actually an activity you can do on your own free time. A company
should not pay you for these services.

Why not? It's improving their product by making it more maintainable. I
might just as well say that you should go through every line of code in
a debugger in your own time if you want to do it - it's not something
*I* need to do, so why should any company pay you to do it?
I don't see how you writing your own
GUI code makes it more maintainable in the long run.
The code VS.NET produces is much less readable than hand-written, well-
commented, well-structured code.

Again, I couldn't disagree more. If all you know how to do is drag
things around on the form designer, you're utterly stuck as soon as
anything goes wrong. why would I be stuck? what good would html knowledge do for me to get me out
of that sticky situation?
It would help you to work out why the presentation wasn't what it
should be!
The point is, this level of programming is obsolete.
I beg to differ, and I believe that being able to understand what
VS.NET produces makes me more useful to my company and thus more
employable too.
Do you come from the same school recommending programmers learn
assembly? I bet a buck you do.
You owe me a buck. I think it's beneficial to have *some* idea what
goes on at a processor level, but there's no need to know any
particular instruction set unless you're getting down to performance
details the like of which I haven't required.
Do it on your own time, it doesn't help you
write more efficient code in the long or the short run and a company
shouldn't foot that bill. The point of G5 languages is to insulate the
developer from gutter work, so they can concentrate on implementing business
logic. Same thing for ASP.NET and HTML. Otherwise we can all go back to
writing assembler.
I've certainly never heard HTML likened to assembly code before now.
It sounds like you basically have some slow programmers - it's
perfectly possible to code accurately and fast outside an IDE.

It could well be the case. But the argument thrown at me is 'I own the code.
I wrote it.'

That's another fault, and one which doesn't have anything to whether or
not using an IDE is absolutely necessary, or whether knowing HTML is
useful. Being proud of the code you produce is useful, but either
making it such that no-one else is capable of maintaining it *or* just
insisting on being the only one to maintain it is bad. That overly
proud attitude can be held by those who don't know HTML just as well as
by those who do know HTML though.
What have you gained from that? It took you took weeks to
adjust a button on a form because you had to muck with html and styles now
your project is late.
Again, that's a straw man.
But oh, you still own the code. But you haven't earned
your paycheck because a company paying for that kind of productivity will
not be around tomorrow. If you have the knowledge to learn a high level
language, picking up HTML is a snap. It isn't even considered a language,
because it lacks control structures. Again, the point of learning stuff is
that it can help you solve problems later. Show me an example where learning
HTML can help me solve a problem later, that I could not have otherwise
figured out or fixed in a timely fashion.

waiting...
Gosh, you gave me a whole blank line in which to intimately know the
problems that confront you every day? Thanks... (Fortunately I'd
already answered it earlier in this post, of course.)

I'll give you an example where having learned GUI coding from theory
rather than from dragging and dropping would have helped though - you
would never have needed to ask the question about threading earlier,
because you'd have learned that theory when doing the background
reading in the first place.
I don't want to sound hash but this is a painful issue for me. It really is.
I walk over to a developers desk and she is using Visual Studio as a
glorified notepad. Now why did that company invest thousands of dollars in a
product like that when all it is good for is a word editor? You tell me.

So you've got some bad apples in your team. That's not my problem, nor
is it a good idea to throw the baby out with the bath-water and claim
that knowing how to do things by hand is useless. If you had a
programmer who insisted on doing everything in VB.NET (if the rest of
you were using C#) and happened to take a long time to do it as well,
would you claim that VB.NET was obsolete and useless too?

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

Nov 22 '05 #17

Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:

Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do
web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page.

Absolutely not. Learning html is pointless. Absolutely pointless. I don't
know HTML. I could care less about it, its wasted effort.
How do you know it would be wasted? You've got nothing to compare your
current situation with.
I do know how to
introduce a line break and a line feed - basic stuff - that's all you really
need to know. Why learn dead technology?
So that you can analyse what's been produced automatically, and improve
it, debug it etc. It means you have better ideas of the capabilities of
browsers for layout, etc. It gives you a clearer picture of what's
possible, so you could then (if you wish) try to express that to
VS.NET.
There is nothing to be gained by
learning it outside of a mind exercise. It's not a tool you can use to solve
any problem with so it shouldn't be in your bag of toys.
And yet I use it to solve problems very often. If the page I was
working on didn't look how I wanted it to look (or only looked correct
in Mozilla, not IE) then I could look at the HTML and figure out what's
wrong.
The whole point of
asp.net is to insulate the programmer from this drudgery.
The main point of ASP.NET, to my mind, is to enable clear separation of
presentation from business logic, to allow rich use of the framework in
both places (although as little as possible in the presentation logic).
That doesn't mean that the guys developing the presentation shouldn't
know HTML.
Don't confuse html
with asp.net. Control writers need to know html because in that case, it can
be used as a tool to solve performance and optmization bottlenecks which
occur when rendering objects clientside. A programmer absolutely does not
need to know it.
I still couldn't disagree more.
Can it give an advantage if you know it? I have yet to see
that because the ASP.NET model abstracts this process. It's a completely
different ballgame from ASP classic. Different rules apply.
It's a different ballgame, but that doesn't mean it's useless to know
HTML.
Let me ask you this: Do you write your own controls before you use what VS
has to offer because it helps you 'understand' controls properly?
I haven't written my own controls yet, but I would if .NET didn't
happen to provide one that I wanted.
Rhetorical, because you may indeed have done it, but would you recommend
that method to a worker bee out there?
No - but I'd recommend understanding the event model and the code that
VS.NET generates.
You write the boiler plate code to start with, then *maybe* you let the
tool do it at a later date, once you understand what it will be doing
for you. (You may, like me, choose to end up writing all your GUI code
by hand anyway, just to get more maintainable code in the long run.)

That is actually an activity you can do on your own free time. A company
should not pay you for these services.

Why not? It's improving their product by making it more maintainable. I
might just as well say that you should go through every line of code in
a debugger in your own time if you want to do it - it's not something
*I* need to do, so why should any company pay you to do it?
I don't see how you writing your own
GUI code makes it more maintainable in the long run.
The code VS.NET produces is much less readable than hand-written, well-
commented, well-structured code.

Again, I couldn't disagree more. If all you know how to do is drag
things around on the form designer, you're utterly stuck as soon as
anything goes wrong. why would I be stuck? what good would html knowledge do for me to get me out
of that sticky situation?
It would help you to work out why the presentation wasn't what it
should be!
The point is, this level of programming is obsolete.
I beg to differ, and I believe that being able to understand what
VS.NET produces makes me more useful to my company and thus more
employable too.
Do you come from the same school recommending programmers learn
assembly? I bet a buck you do.
You owe me a buck. I think it's beneficial to have *some* idea what
goes on at a processor level, but there's no need to know any
particular instruction set unless you're getting down to performance
details the like of which I haven't required.
Do it on your own time, it doesn't help you
write more efficient code in the long or the short run and a company
shouldn't foot that bill. The point of G5 languages is to insulate the
developer from gutter work, so they can concentrate on implementing business
logic. Same thing for ASP.NET and HTML. Otherwise we can all go back to
writing assembler.
I've certainly never heard HTML likened to assembly code before now.
It sounds like you basically have some slow programmers - it's
perfectly possible to code accurately and fast outside an IDE.

It could well be the case. But the argument thrown at me is 'I own the code.
I wrote it.'

That's another fault, and one which doesn't have anything to whether or
not using an IDE is absolutely necessary, or whether knowing HTML is
useful. Being proud of the code you produce is useful, but either
making it such that no-one else is capable of maintaining it *or* just
insisting on being the only one to maintain it is bad. That overly
proud attitude can be held by those who don't know HTML just as well as
by those who do know HTML though.
What have you gained from that? It took you took weeks to
adjust a button on a form because you had to muck with html and styles now
your project is late.
Again, that's a straw man.
But oh, you still own the code. But you haven't earned
your paycheck because a company paying for that kind of productivity will
not be around tomorrow. If you have the knowledge to learn a high level
language, picking up HTML is a snap. It isn't even considered a language,
because it lacks control structures. Again, the point of learning stuff is
that it can help you solve problems later. Show me an example where learning
HTML can help me solve a problem later, that I could not have otherwise
figured out or fixed in a timely fashion.

waiting...
Gosh, you gave me a whole blank line in which to intimately know the
problems that confront you every day? Thanks... (Fortunately I'd
already answered it earlier in this post, of course.)

I'll give you an example where having learned GUI coding from theory
rather than from dragging and dropping would have helped though - you
would never have needed to ask the question about threading earlier,
because you'd have learned that theory when doing the background
reading in the first place.
I don't want to sound hash but this is a painful issue for me. It really is.
I walk over to a developers desk and she is using Visual Studio as a
glorified notepad. Now why did that company invest thousands of dollars in a
product like that when all it is good for is a word editor? You tell me.

Nov 22 '05 #18

> it, debug it etc. It means you have better ideas of the capabilities of

browsers for layout, etc. It gives you a clearer picture of what's
possible, so you could then (if you wish) try to express that to
VS.NET.
wrong, because asp.net makes it that you don't have to play with this type
of grunge code anymore. why are you still trying to hold on to it.
And yet I use it to solve problems very often. If the page I was
working on didn't look how I wanted it to look (or only looked correct
in Mozilla, not IE) then I could look at the HTML and figure out what's
wrong.
got a point there. i'll give you that.
That doesn't mean that the guys developing the presentation shouldn't
know HTML.
You don't have a good argument here. Knowing it just for knowing it sake is
not productive.
Why not? It's improving their product by making it more maintainable. I certainly not. you never have to muck with wizard code most of the time so
that kills the question of maintainability.
You owe me a buck. I think it's beneficial to have *some* idea what
goes on at a processor level, but there's no need to know any
particular instruction set unless you're getting down to performance
details the like of which I haven't required. An idea is good. You are pushing the learn HTML completely. Now that aint
*some* idea is it?

That's another fault, and one which doesn't have anything to whether or
not using an IDE is absolutely necessary, or whether knowing HTML is
useful. Being proud of the code you produce is useful, but either
making it such that no-one else is capable of maintaining it *or* just
insisting on being the only one to maintain it is bad. That overly
proud attitude can be held by those who don't know HTML just as well as
by those who do know HTML though. You lost me on that left turn here.
Gosh, you gave me a whole blank line in which to intimately know the
problems that confront you every day? Thanks... (Fortunately I'd
already answered it earlier in this post, of course.)
well I'm sorry that I had to spill my beans but this stuff is really
frustrating to me and it doesn't help to see those same attitudes being
pushed by you either. It causes problems, problems that I have to deal with,
problems of productivity and wasted effort.

I'll give you an example where having learned GUI coding from theory
rather than from dragging and dropping would have helped though - you
would never have needed to ask the question about threading earlier,
because you'd have learned that theory when doing the background
reading in the first place.
Is that a cheap shot? a sucker punch? It sure feels like that to me. I ask
the questions I do...oh well, I'm letting this one go. It aint worth it.
So you've got some bad apples in your team. I don't. I won't admit to it.
that knowing how to do things by hand is useless. If you had a
programmer who insisted on doing everything in VB.NET (if the rest of
you were using C#) and happened to take a long time to do it as well,
would you claim that VB.NET was obsolete and useless too?
As a manager I would. It is saying to me you need to try a different
environment to get productivity up.
You know it is about profit and loss at the end of the day. Nothing else
matters to the business but that.
Again, that's a straw man. It's not a straw, I suffere thru it everyday. How can it be a straw?
might just as well say that you should go through every line of code in
a debugger in your own time if you want to do it
THAT"S A CHEAP SHOT!!!
We already dealt with that thread already. Why bring it up now. I've learned
GUnit and made repairs to my approach to debugging. You don't need to rub it
in.

--
-----------
Got TidBits?
Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
"Jon Skeet [C# MVP]" <sk***@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:MP************************@msnews.microsoft.c om... Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:
> Or how about this: I really recommend you learn HTML to do
> web programming so you understand how things work inside a web page.
Absolutely not. Learning html is pointless. Absolutely pointless. I don't know HTML. I could care less about it, its wasted effort.

How do you know it would be wasted? You've got nothing to compare your
current situation with.
I do know how to
introduce a line break and a line feed - basic stuff - that's all you really need to know. Why learn dead technology?

So that you can analyse what's been produced automatically, and improve
it, debug it etc. It means you have better ideas of the capabilities of
browsers for layout, etc. It gives you a clearer picture of what's
possible, so you could then (if you wish) try to express that to
VS.NET.
There is nothing to be gained by
learning it outside of a mind exercise. It's not a tool you can use to solve any problem with so it shouldn't be in your bag of toys.

And yet I use it to solve problems very often. If the page I was
working on didn't look how I wanted it to look (or only looked correct
in Mozilla, not IE) then I could look at the HTML and figure out what's
wrong.
The whole point of
asp.net is to insulate the programmer from this drudgery.

The main point of ASP.NET, to my mind, is to enable clear separation of
presentation from business logic, to allow rich use of the framework in
both places (although as little as possible in the presentation logic).
That doesn't mean that the guys developing the presentation shouldn't
know HTML.
Don't confuse html
with asp.net. Control writers need to know html because in that case, it can be used as a tool to solve performance and optmization bottlenecks which
occur when rendering objects clientside. A programmer absolutely does not need to know it.

I still couldn't disagree more.
Can it give an advantage if you know it? I have yet to see
that because the ASP.NET model abstracts this process. It's a completely
different ballgame from ASP classic. Different rules apply.

It's a different ballgame, but that doesn't mean it's useless to know
HTML.
Let me ask you this: Do you write your own controls before you use what VS has to offer because it helps you 'understand' controls properly?

I haven't written my own controls yet, but I would if .NET didn't
happen to provide one that I wanted.
Rhetorical, because you may indeed have done it, but would you recommend
that method to a worker bee out there?

No - but I'd recommend understanding the event model and the code that
VS.NET generates.
You write the boiler plate code to start with, then *maybe* you let the tool do it at a later date, once you understand what it will be doing
for you. (You may, like me, choose to end up writing all your GUI code
by hand anyway, just to get more maintainable code in the long run.)

That is actually an activity you can do on your own free time. A company
should not pay you for these services.

Why not? It's improving their product by making it more maintainable. I
might just as well say that you should go through every line of code in
a debugger in your own time if you want to do it - it's not something
*I* need to do, so why should any company pay you to do it?
I don't see how you writing your own
GUI code makes it more maintainable in the long run.

The code VS.NET produces is much less readable than hand-written, well-
commented, well-structured code.
Again, I couldn't disagree more. If all you know how to do is drag
things around on the form designer, you're utterly stuck as soon as
anything goes wrong.
why would I be stuck? what good would html knowledge do for me to get me out of that sticky situation?

It would help you to work out why the presentation wasn't what it
should be!
The point is, this level of programming is obsolete.

I beg to differ, and I believe that being able to understand what
VS.NET produces makes me more useful to my company and thus more
employable too.
Do you come from the same school recommending programmers learn
assembly? I bet a buck you do.

You owe me a buck. I think it's beneficial to have *some* idea what
goes on at a processor level, but there's no need to know any
particular instruction set unless you're getting down to performance
details the like of which I haven't required.
Do it on your own time, it doesn't help you
write more efficient code in the long or the short run and a company
shouldn't foot that bill. The point of G5 languages is to insulate the
developer from gutter work, so they can concentrate on implementing business logic. Same thing for ASP.NET and HTML. Otherwise we can all go back to
writing assembler.

I've certainly never heard HTML likened to assembly code before now.
It sounds like you basically have some slow programmers - it's
perfectly possible to code accurately and fast outside an IDE.

It could well be the case. But the argument thrown at me is 'I own the code. I wrote it.'

That's another fault, and one which doesn't have anything to whether or
not using an IDE is absolutely necessary, or whether knowing HTML is
useful. Being proud of the code you produce is useful, but either
making it such that no-one else is capable of maintaining it *or* just
insisting on being the only one to maintain it is bad. That overly
proud attitude can be held by those who don't know HTML just as well as
by those who do know HTML though.
What have you gained from that? It took you took weeks to
adjust a button on a form because you had to muck with html and styles now your project is late.

Again, that's a straw man.
But oh, you still own the code. But you haven't earned
your paycheck because a company paying for that kind of productivity will not be around tomorrow. If you have the knowledge to learn a high level
language, picking up HTML is a snap. It isn't even considered a language, because it lacks control structures. Again, the point of learning stuff is that it can help you solve problems later. Show me an example where learning HTML can help me solve a problem later, that I could not have otherwise
figured out or fixed in a timely fashion.

waiting...

Gosh, you gave me a whole blank line in which to intimately know the
problems that confront you every day? Thanks... (Fortunately I'd
already answered it earlier in this post, of course.)

I'll give you an example where having learned GUI coding from theory
rather than from dragging and dropping would have helped though - you
would never have needed to ask the question about threading earlier,
because you'd have learned that theory when doing the background
reading in the first place.
I don't want to sound hash but this is a painful issue for me. It really is. I walk over to a developers desk and she is using Visual Studio as a
glorified notepad. Now why did that company invest thousands of dollars in a product like that when all it is good for is a word editor? You tell me.

So you've got some bad apples in your team. That's not my problem, nor
is it a good idea to throw the baby out with the bath-water and claim
that knowing how to do things by hand is useless. If you had a
programmer who insisted on doing everything in VB.NET (if the rest of
you were using C#) and happened to take a long time to do it as well,
would you claim that VB.NET was obsolete and useless too?

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

Nov 22 '05 #19

Alan Pretre

"Alvin Bruney" <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote in
message news:ez**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

Learning html is pointless. Absolutely pointless. I don't
know HTML. I could care less about it, its wasted effort. I do know how to
introduce a line break and a line feed - basic stuff - that's all you really need to know. Why learn dead technology?

Well for example how are you going to set focus to a control in ASP.NET?
Fiddling with HTML and jscript on the client side is the only way right
now...

And just try to nest a table into a cell of another table in VS.NET's web
designer.

-- Alan

Nov 22 '05 #20

No, you don't need html for that. You need javascript. You absolutely need
to learn Javascript. Javascript knows how to talk html so you don't have to.

And just try to nest a table into a cell of another table in VS.NET's web
designer.
You can do this from the itemdatabound in codebehind.

Sure you can do it with html, but you don't need to now because .net has
provided more options which are easier and require less programming effort.
I'd rather use attributes and server side event handles to impose my will on
the browser than having to muck with HTML clientside to do it. There are
solid reasons why microsoft is scraping the HTML standard.

regards
--
-----------
Got TidBits?
Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
"Alan Pretre" <no@spam> wrote in message
news:uA**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl... "Alvin Bruney" <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote in
message news:ez**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
Learning html is pointless. Absolutely pointless. I don't
know HTML. I could care less about it, its wasted effort. I do know how to introduce a line break and a line feed - basic stuff - that's all you

really
need to know. Why learn dead technology?

Well for example how are you going to set focus to a control in ASP.NET?
Fiddling with HTML and jscript on the client side is the only way right
now...

And just try to nest a table into a cell of another table in VS.NET's web
designer.

-- Alan

Nov 22 '05 #21

Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:

it, debug it etc. It means you have better ideas of the capabilities of
browsers for layout, etc. It gives you a clearer picture of what's
possible, so you could then (if you wish) try to express that to
VS.NET.
wrong, because asp.net makes it that you don't have to play with this type
of grunge code anymore. why are you still trying to hold on to it.

It's still producing HTML. If you have no idea of what HTML is capable
of, you're at a disadvantage to those who *do* know what it can do.

And yet I use it to solve problems very often. If the page I was
working on didn't look how I wanted it to look (or only looked correct
in Mozilla, not IE) then I could look at the HTML and figure out what's
wrong.

got a point there. i'll give you that.
That doesn't mean that the guys developing the presentation shouldn't
know HTML.

You don't have a good argument here. Knowing it just for knowing it sake is
not productive.

I never said it was just for the sake of knowing it though, did I? I
presented what I believe the benefits to be.

Why not? It's improving their product by making it more maintainable. I

certainly not. you never have to muck with wizard code most of the time so
that kills the question of maintainability.

In my experience, most wizard code needs fixing up eventually, and you
have a much better chance of that if you've got well-documented,
readable code - which you don't get from the wizard.

You owe me a buck. I think it's beneficial to have *some* idea what
goes on at a processor level, but there's no need to know any
particular instruction set unless you're getting down to performance
details the like of which I haven't required. An idea is good. You are pushing the learn HTML completely. Now that aint
*some* idea is it?
You're the first one to mention "completely" here, AFAICR. I'm not
saying you need to know every last bit - but being able to code up
reasonable pages with some tables etc helps.
That's another fault, and one which doesn't have anything to whether or
not using an IDE is absolutely necessary, or whether knowing HTML is
useful. Being proud of the code you produce is useful, but either
making it such that no-one else is capable of maintaining it *or* just
insisting on being the only one to maintain it is bad. That overly
proud attitude can be held by those who don't know HTML just as well as
by those who do know HTML though. You lost me on that left turn here.
I'm saying that you're placing the blame for excessive code pride on
the doorstep of something unrelated.
Gosh, you gave me a whole blank line in which to intimately know the
problems that confront you every day? Thanks... (Fortunately I'd
already answered it earlier in this post, of course.)

well I'm sorry that I had to spill my beans but this stuff is really
frustrating to me and it doesn't help to see those same attitudes being
pushed by you either. It causes problems, problems that I have to deal with,
problems of productivity and wasted effort.

No, the attitude I'm pushing doesn't cause problems. Having more
knowledge doesn't cause problems. Just because the people you're having
problems share some of my attitudes but are *also* causing problems
doesn't mean it's the attitude that's at fault.

I'll give you an example where having learned GUI coding from theory
rather than from dragging and dropping would have helped though - you
would never have needed to ask the question about threading earlier,
because you'd have learned that theory when doing the background
reading in the first place.

Is that a cheap shot? a sucker punch? It sure feels like that to me. I ask
the questions I do...oh well, I'm letting this one go. It aint worth it.

No, it's not a cheap shot at all - it's just an example of an advantage
you might have had if you'd learned GUI coding from the basics rather
than from a wizard.

So you've got some bad apples in your team.

I don't. I won't admit to it.

Well, I'd call someone who "took weeks to adjust a button on a form
because you had to muck with html and styles" a bad apple on a
development team. There's no need for that whatever tool they're using.

that knowing how to do things by hand is useless. If you had a
programmer who insisted on doing everything in VB.NET (if the rest of
you were using C#) and happened to take a long time to do it as well,
would you claim that VB.NET was obsolete and useless too?

As a manager I would. It is saying to me you need to try a different
environment to get productivity up.
You know it is about profit and loss at the end of the day. Nothing else
matters to the business but that.

But don't you see that VB.NET wouldn't be made obsolete by that
decision? It wouldn't be appropriate for that particular environment,
but it certainly wouldn't make it obsolete.

Again, that's a straw man.

It's not a straw, I suffere thru it everyday. How can it be a straw?

It's a straw man in the same manner as your earlier argument - you're
claiming that it's the knowledge of HTML that made someone take weeks
to move a button. That's a bogus link, IMO.

might just as well say that you should go through every line of code in
a debugger in your own time if you want to do it

THAT"S A CHEAP SHOT!!!

It really wasn't intended to be.
We already dealt with that thread already. Why bring it up now. I've learned
GUnit and made repairs to my approach to debugging. You don't need to rub it
in.

I brought it up to demonstrate that what is valued by one person isn't
always valued by another. I value learning new skills by dealing with
simple situations first and learning a reasonable amount about the
underlying technology; you value (or at least *did* value) much more
intensive debugging than I do. I don't see why either shouldn't be done
on the company time.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

Nov 22 '05 #22

> It's still producing HTML. If you have no idea of what HTML is capable

of, you're at a disadvantage to those who *do* know what it can do.
That's the point I am making, you gain no advantages. Ok, so they know HTML
and I don't. Big deal. If you are still coding HTML you are wasting your
time. My tidbits website was done in html by the way from red core to black
sky. Guess who wrote the code? Microsoft Office. Have I mucked with the
code? No. Did I look at it? Yes, to put a scroll on a div tag. Did I need to
know HTML for that? No, I only needed to know what a div tag is and how to
attach scrolling which I know from javascript. Do I understand what is going
on under the hood. No. It works. I could care less if it was written in
greek. Office takes care of that so I can concentrate on presenting my
ideas. That is the whole point of productivity. Your entire shift is that
knowing HTML would have made it easier or more productive for me to put up
this website. You're grasping here. Seriously, you are grasping and it aint
looking good.
It's a straw man in the same manner as your earlier argument - you're
claiming that it's the knowledge of HTML that made someone take weeks
to move a button. That's a bogus link, IMO.
It's not a straw. You are dead wrong. Can't you see that the knowledge of
HTML is interferring with productivity. Can't you see that without that
knowledge, a better decision would have been made. It's pretty clear here.

--
-----------
Got TidBits?
Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
"Jon Skeet [C# MVP]" <sk***@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:MP************************@msnews.microsoft.c om... Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:
it, debug it etc. It means you have better ideas of the capabilities of browsers for layout, etc. It gives you a clearer picture of what's
possible, so you could then (if you wish) try to express that to
VS.NET.

wrong, because asp.net makes it that you don't have to play with this type
of grunge code anymore. why are you still trying to hold on to it.

It's still producing HTML. If you have no idea of what HTML is capable
of, you're at a disadvantage to those who *do* know what it can do.
And yet I use it to solve problems very often. If the page I was
working on didn't look how I wanted it to look (or only looked correct
in Mozilla, not IE) then I could look at the HTML and figure out what's wrong.

got a point there. i'll give you that.
That doesn't mean that the guys developing the presentation shouldn't
know HTML.

You don't have a good argument here. Knowing it just for knowing it sake is
not productive.

I never said it was just for the sake of knowing it though, did I? I
presented what I believe the benefits to be.
Why not? It's improving their product by making it more maintainable. I
certainly not. you never have to muck with wizard code most of the time so
that kills the question of maintainability.

In my experience, most wizard code needs fixing up eventually, and you
have a much better chance of that if you've got well-documented,
readable code - which you don't get from the wizard.
You owe me a buck. I think it's beneficial to have *some* idea what
goes on at a processor level, but there's no need to know any
particular instruction set unless you're getting down to performance
details the like of which I haven't required.
An idea is good. You are pushing the learn HTML completely. Now that aint *some* idea is it?

You're the first one to mention "completely" here, AFAICR. I'm not
saying you need to know every last bit - but being able to code up
reasonable pages with some tables etc helps.
That's another fault, and one which doesn't have anything to whether
or not using an IDE is absolutely necessary, or whether knowing HTML is
useful. Being proud of the code you produce is useful, but either
making it such that no-one else is capable of maintaining it *or* just
insisting on being the only one to maintain it is bad. That overly
proud attitude can be held by those who don't know HTML just as well as by those who do know HTML though.
You lost me on that left turn here.

I'm saying that you're placing the blame for excessive code pride on
the doorstep of something unrelated.
Gosh, you gave me a whole blank line in which to intimately know the
problems that confront you every day? Thanks... (Fortunately I'd
already answered it earlier in this post, of course.)

well I'm sorry that I had to spill my beans but this stuff is really
frustrating to me and it doesn't help to see those same attitudes being
pushed by you either. It causes problems, problems that I have to deal with, problems of productivity and wasted effort.

No, the attitude I'm pushing doesn't cause problems. Having more
knowledge doesn't cause problems. Just because the people you're having
problems share some of my attitudes but are *also* causing problems
doesn't mean it's the attitude that's at fault.
I'll give you an example where having learned GUI coding from theory
rather than from dragging and dropping would have helped though - you
would never have needed to ask the question about threading earlier,
because you'd have learned that theory when doing the background
reading in the first place.

Is that a cheap shot? a sucker punch? It sure feels like that to me. I ask
the questions I do...oh well, I'm letting this one go. It aint worth it.

No, it's not a cheap shot at all - it's just an example of an advantage
you might have had if you'd learned GUI coding from the basics rather
than from a wizard.
So you've got some bad apples in your team.

I don't. I won't admit to it.

Well, I'd call someone who "took weeks to adjust a button on a form
because you had to muck with html and styles" a bad apple on a
development team. There's no need for that whatever tool they're using.
that knowing how to do things by hand is useless. If you had a
programmer who insisted on doing everything in VB.NET (if the rest of
you were using C#) and happened to take a long time to do it as well,
would you claim that VB.NET was obsolete and useless too?

As a manager I would. It is saying to me you need to try a different
environment to get productivity up.
You know it is about profit and loss at the end of the day. Nothing else
matters to the business but that.

But don't you see that VB.NET wouldn't be made obsolete by that
decision? It wouldn't be appropriate for that particular environment,
but it certainly wouldn't make it obsolete.
Again, that's a straw man.

It's not a straw, I suffere thru it everyday. How can it be a straw?

It's a straw man in the same manner as your earlier argument - you're
claiming that it's the knowledge of HTML that made someone take weeks
to move a button. That's a bogus link, IMO.
might just as well say that you should go through every line of code in a debugger in your own time if you want to do it

THAT"S A CHEAP SHOT!!!

It really wasn't intended to be.
We already dealt with that thread already. Why bring it up now. I've learned GUnit and made repairs to my approach to debugging. You don't need to rub it in.

I brought it up to demonstrate that what is valued by one person isn't
always valued by another. I value learning new skills by dealing with
simple situations first and learning a reasonable amount about the
underlying technology; you value (or at least *did* value) much more
intensive debugging than I do. I don't see why either shouldn't be done
on the company time.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

Nov 22 '05 #23

Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:

It's still producing HTML. If you have no idea of what HTML is capable
of, you're at a disadvantage to those who *do* know what it can do.
That's the point I am making, you gain no advantages. Ok, so they know HTML
and I don't.

They know what it can *do*, not just what it is in itself.
Big deal. If you are still coding HTML you are wasting your
time. My tidbits website was done in html by the way from red core to black
sky. Guess who wrote the code? Microsoft Office. Have I mucked with the
code? No. Did I look at it? Yes, to put a scroll on a div tag.
I've just had a look at the front page. It's *really* messy HTML (as
office tends to produce). Someone with fairly basic HTML and maybe CSS
skilils could have written the same page in a way which took a lot less
bandwidth and was more easily maintainable. This is nothing you've done
wrong in Office, by the way - it just doesn't create nice HTML.

I often need to update my website with small changes. I tend to do that
directly, by using SSH to go in and edit the file in situ. This is
significantly quicker than having to FTP it over to the Unix box, etc.

I do larger amounts of work in Eclipse, using its scp plugin to upload
it and generally synchronize, but just launching Eclipse (or Office)
takes longer than some of the changes I need to make. Would I be able
to do that as quickly if I had masses of autogenerated HTML to wade
through? Not a chance.
Did I need to
know HTML for that? No, I only needed to know what a div tag is and how to
attach scrolling which I know from javascript. Do I understand what is going
on under the hood. No. It works. I could care less if it was written in
greek. Office takes care of that so I can concentrate on presenting my
ideas. That is the whole point of productivity. Your entire shift is that
knowing HTML would have made it easier or more productive for me to put up
this website. You're grasping here. Seriously, you are grasping and it aint
looking good.

I care about bandwidth - I care about people on narrow-band
connections. Your front page must take about 8 seconds to load on a
dial-up connection, when it really, really didn't have to - you've just
lost users. Now, that may not matter for a site like tidbits, but I'd
*certainly* care about it if that were my company's front page. I'd
also care if my company website were sucking up large amounts of
unnecessary bandwidth - admittedly most websites' bandwidth
requirements will be dominated by large downloads and pictures, but
pages which are much larger than they need to be really don't help.

It's a straw man in the same manner as your earlier argument - you're
claiming that it's the knowledge of HTML that made someone take weeks
to move a button. That's a bogus link, IMO.

It's not a straw. You are dead wrong. Can't you see that the knowledge of
HTML is interferring with productivity. Can't you see that without that
knowledge, a better decision would have been made. It's pretty clear here.

I really don't think it is. Having more knowledge should never be a
disadvantage. Are you seriously suggesting that you'd rather have
someone with *less* experience rather than more? That doesn't make
sense to me - unless that means they have other faults which make that
knowledge a problem (e.g. they insist on doing things a particular way
which harms the business). That's not the fault of the extra knowledge,
it's the fault of the person abusing that knowledge.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

Nov 22 '05 #24

> I've just had a look at the front page. It's *really* messy HTML (as

office tends to produce). Someone with fairly basic HTML and maybe CSS
skilils could have written the same page in a way which took a lot less
bandwidth and was more easily maintainable. This is nothing you've done
wrong in Office, by the way - it just doesn't create nice HTML.
Yes you have a very good point there. very good indeed. best thing i heard
all week. It's messy. Hell, it scared me and then i blamed it on HTML. :-)
The bandwidth point is good in a class room but it's pointless in a
practical world. There's dsl and cable and satellite. These things are
non-issues. But I suppose it's still an academic point and i'll give it to
you.
dial-up connection, when it really, really didn't have to - you've just
lost users. It's time to get dsl, is what i say to them. if all you can afford is dial
up, then you aren't part of my target audience.

That's not the fault of the extra knowledge, it's the fault of the person abusing that knowledge. well said. it's abuse of knowledge and i need to be careful here with what i
say but it drives me up a wall and straight to the toilet to puke when i see
developers using and swearing by primitive tools all because they 'own the
code'. That's using knowledge in the reverse. Its rather obvious now that i
have issues with this because i keep having to fight with 'developers' about
going the more productive way. it's not right. and i've largely given up. i
let them do what they want to do and have late projects. I swear i am
telling the truth when this developer decides to build a button control
using GDI instead of dragging and dropping a button on a form. I'm not
making this up. It probably doesn't happen in your world, but it's rotten
here. and you need to be sympathetic to it.
--
-----------
Got TidBits?
Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
"Jon Skeet [C# MVP]" <sk***@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:MP************************@msnews.microsoft.c om... Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:
It's still producing HTML. If you have no idea of what HTML is capable
of, you're at a disadvantage to those who *do* know what it can do.
That's the point I am making, you gain no advantages. Ok, so they know HTML
and I don't.

They know what it can *do*, not just what it is in itself.
Big deal. If you are still coding HTML you are wasting your
time. My tidbits website was done in html by the way from red core to black sky. Guess who wrote the code? Microsoft Office. Have I mucked with the
code? No. Did I look at it? Yes, to put a scroll on a div tag.

I've just had a look at the front page. It's *really* messy HTML (as
office tends to produce). Someone with fairly basic HTML and maybe CSS
skilils could have written the same page in a way which took a lot less
bandwidth and was more easily maintainable. This is nothing you've done
wrong in Office, by the way - it just doesn't create nice HTML.

I often need to update my website with small changes. I tend to do that
directly, by using SSH to go in and edit the file in situ. This is
significantly quicker than having to FTP it over to the Unix box, etc.

I do larger amounts of work in Eclipse, using its scp plugin to upload
it and generally synchronize, but just launching Eclipse (or Office)
takes longer than some of the changes I need to make. Would I be able
to do that as quickly if I had masses of autogenerated HTML to wade
through? Not a chance.
Did I need to
know HTML for that? No, I only needed to know what a div tag is and how to attach scrolling which I know from javascript. Do I understand what is going on under the hood. No. It works. I could care less if it was written in
greek. Office takes care of that so I can concentrate on presenting my
ideas. That is the whole point of productivity. Your entire shift is that knowing HTML would have made it easier or more productive for me to put up this website. You're grasping here. Seriously, you are grasping and it aint looking good.

I care about bandwidth - I care about people on narrow-band
connections. Your front page must take about 8 seconds to load on a
dial-up connection, when it really, really didn't have to - you've just
lost users. Now, that may not matter for a site like tidbits, but I'd
*certainly* care about it if that were my company's front page. I'd
also care if my company website were sucking up large amounts of
unnecessary bandwidth - admittedly most websites' bandwidth
requirements will be dominated by large downloads and pictures, but
pages which are much larger than they need to be really don't help.
It's a straw man in the same manner as your earlier argument - you're
claiming that it's the knowledge of HTML that made someone take weeks
to move a button. That's a bogus link, IMO.

It's not a straw. You are dead wrong. Can't you see that the knowledge of HTML is interferring with productivity. Can't you see that without that
knowledge, a better decision would have been made. It's pretty clear

here.
I really don't think it is. Having more knowledge should never be a
disadvantage. Are you seriously suggesting that you'd rather have
someone with *less* experience rather than more? That doesn't make
sense to me - unless that means they have other faults which make that
knowledge a problem (e.g. they insist on doing things a particular way
which harms the business). That's not the fault of the extra knowledge,
it's the fault of the person abusing that knowledge.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

Nov 22 '05 #25

Alvin Bruney <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote:

I've just had a look at the front page. It's *really* messy HTML (as
office tends to produce). Someone with fairly basic HTML and maybe CSS
skilils could have written the same page in a way which took a lot less
bandwidth and was more easily maintainable. This is nothing you've done
wrong in Office, by the way - it just doesn't create nice HTML.
Yes you have a very good point there. very good indeed. best thing i heard
all week. It's messy. Hell, it scared me and then i blamed it on HTML. :-)
The bandwidth point is good in a class room but it's pointless in a
practical world. There's dsl and cable and satellite. These things are
non-issues. But I suppose it's still an academic point and i'll give it to
you.

Yes, some people have DSL and cable. Are you sure that *all* your
customers do? Bandwidth is still very important in the real world.

dial-up connection, when it really, really didn't have to - you've just
lost users. It's time to get dsl, is what i say to them. if all you can afford is dial
up, then you aren't part of my target audience.
There are many places in the UK (and the rest of the world, I'm sure)
where people can't get broadband for various reasons. Many of them are
easily able to afford broadband, but it's just not available to them.
Why alienate them?
That's not the fault of the extra knowledge,
it's the fault of the person abusing that knowledge.

well said. it's abuse of knowledge and i need to be careful here with what i
say but it drives me up a wall and straight to the toilet to puke when i see
developers using and swearing by primitive tools all because they 'own the
code'.
That's a problem with the developers, not the knowledge though - and
that's why I said you had "bad apples" in your team.
That's using knowledge in the reverse. Its rather obvious now that i
have issues with this because i keep having to fight with 'developers' about
going the more productive way. it's not right. and i've largely given up. i
let them do what they want to do and have late projects. I swear i am
telling the truth when this developer decides to build a button control
using GDI instead of dragging and dropping a button on a form. I'm not
making this up. It probably doesn't happen in your world, but it's rotten
here. and you need to be sympathetic to it.

I'm sympathetic to it, but as I said before, it's a mistake to throw
the baby out with the bathwater. Creating your own control is foolish,
but I wouldn't have particularly blamed him if he'd wanted to create
the code himself rather than get VS.NET to do it for him. I find I get
a much better degree of control *and* a much better sense of
understanding the app when I write the GUI part myself.

(In Java, where you pretty much always use a layout manager, it also
means you don't get lulled into a false sense of security.
Unfortunately .NET doesn't currently have a very rich layout engine -
I'm hoping this will change with Whidbey.)

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

Nov 22 '05 #26

Ed Courtenay

"Alvin Bruney" <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote in
message news:Oo**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

It's still producing HTML. If you have no idea of what HTML is capable
of, you're at a disadvantage to those who *do* know what it can do.
That's the point I am making, you gain no advantages. Ok, so they know

HTML and I don't. Big deal. If you are still coding HTML you are wasting your
time.

So if I'm writing XSLT transforms from XML to (X)HTML for rendering purposes
I'm wasting my time am I? How would I even begin to be able to do this
effectively if I had only a rudimentary knowledge of HTML? A deep knowledge
of HTML has been an *advantage* not the other way around.

Nov 22 '05 #27

Ed Courtenay

"Alvin Bruney" <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote in
message news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

I've just had a look at the front page. It's *really* messy HTML (as
office tends to produce). Someone with fairly basic HTML and maybe CSS
skilils could have written the same page in a way which took a lot less
bandwidth and was more easily maintainable. This is nothing you've done
wrong in Office, by the way - it just doesn't create nice HTML.

Yes you have a very good point there. very good indeed. best thing i heard
all week. It's messy. Hell, it scared me and then i blamed it on HTML. :-)
The bandwidth point is good in a class room but it's pointless in a
practical world. There's dsl and cable and satellite. These things are
non-issues. But I suppose it's still an academic point and i'll give it to
you.

Hardly, the vast majority of internet users are still accessing via 56k
dial-up modems. It's a *very* practical issue.

Nov 22 '05 #28

Chris Tacke, eMVP

> certainly not. you never have to muck with wizard code most of the time so

that kills the question of maintainability.

Sorry to be argumentative, but Studio's wizard-generated code for Form
loading is about 60% slower than hand-coding if you're using the CF.

In Studio 6, the ATL wizard puts in several known bugs that must be fixed by
hand (it may be fixed in the new versions, but should one just assume so
without checking?)

I'm sure there are other examples as well. Trusting that a Wizard generates
good code can lead to maintenace problems, performance problems and/or bugs.
Generate a few Excel VBA macros from the recorder and you'll get a good idea
as to why wizards are far from magic.

Nov 22 '05 #29

> >you never have to muck with wizard code most of the time
most of the time is the operative word here. you are talking about a small
portion of time when you actually have to. IMO
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-----------
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"Chris Tacke, eMVP" <ct****@spamfree-opennetcf.org> wrote in message
news:#P**************@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...

certainly not. you never have to muck with wizard code most of the time so that kills the question of maintainability.
Sorry to be argumentative, but Studio's wizard-generated code for Form
loading is about 60% slower than hand-coding if you're using the CF.

In Studio 6, the ATL wizard puts in several known bugs that must be fixed

by hand (it may be fixed in the new versions, but should one just assume so
without checking?)

I'm sure there are other examples as well. Trusting that a Wizard generates good code can lead to maintenace problems, performance problems and/or bugs. Generate a few Excel VBA macros from the recorder and you'll get a good idea as to why wizards are far from magic.

Nov 22 '05 #30

> Hardly, the vast majority of internet users are still accessing via 56k

dial-up modems. It's a *very* practical issue. not where i live. where did you pull that from anyway

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-----------
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"Ed Courtenay" <my***********@edcourtenay.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uz*************@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
"Alvin Bruney" <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote in
message news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
I've just had a look at the front page. It's *really* messy HTML (as
office tends to produce). Someone with fairly basic HTML and maybe CSS
skilils could have written the same page in a way which took a lot less bandwidth and was more easily maintainable. This is nothing you've done wrong in Office, by the way - it just doesn't create nice HTML.

Yes you have a very good point there. very good indeed. best thing i heard all week. It's messy. Hell, it scared me and then i blamed it on HTML. :-) The bandwidth point is good in a class room but it's pointless in a
practical world. There's dsl and cable and satellite. These things are
non-issues. But I suppose it's still an academic point and i'll give it to you.

Hardly, the vast majority of internet users are still accessing via 56k
dial-up modems. It's a *very* practical issue.

Nov 22 '05 #31

> So if I'm writing XSLT transforms from XML to (X)HTML for rendering
purposes

I'm wasting my time am I? How would I even begin to be able to do this
effectively if I had only a rudimentary knowledge of HTML? A deep knowledge of HTML has been an *advantage* not the other way around.
I haven't written transforms, that is outside of the scope of my knowledge.
If it helps you there, fine. I'll take your word for it
--
-----------
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Get it here: www.networkip.net/tidbits
"Ed Courtenay" <my***********@edcourtenay.co.uk> wrote in message
news:eC**************@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
"Alvin Bruney" <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote in
message news:Oo**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
It's still producing HTML. If you have no idea of what HTML is capable
of, you're at a disadvantage to those who *do* know what it can do.
That's the point I am making, you gain no advantages. Ok, so they know

HTML
and I don't. Big deal. If you are still coding HTML you are wasting your
time.

So if I'm writing XSLT transforms from XML to (X)HTML for rendering

purposes I'm wasting my time am I? How would I even begin to be able to do this
effectively if I had only a rudimentary knowledge of HTML? A deep knowledge of HTML has been an *advantage* not the other way around.

Nov 22 '05 #32

> That's not the fault of the extra knowledge,

it's the fault of the person abusing that knowledge.

OK, guys, I'll play moderator here, since I kind of started this thing.
Please note that you saved me a lot of writing to clarify some of the
underlying issues. Now, I have gone back and edited my little article a bit
and you can see my changes at

http://weblogs.asp.net/jtobler/posts/35600.aspx

Note, particularly:

Context: we are discussing the needs of someone who wants to learn .NET
programming.

and

Warning! When you are behind on a project with a hard deadline, forget
all of this nonsense
and make your company buy Visual Studio.NET for you.

I know that one of you has a perceived serious management problem. This
article is not about that. This article has nothing directly to do with you
or your problem. Some people will never be efficient or effective software
engineers either with or without an IDE.

There are cookbook engineers and the ones who figure out why the bridge fell
down when a cookbook engineer misused a formula.

There are code crankers and those who clean up after them; they are
different breeds of software engineer, different sorts of being, and both
kinds have value. There are software architects and software construction
workers; the architects do not have to be the king of the hammer and the
construction workers do not necessarily need a deep understanding of CLR
internals.

Please remember, this article was directed toward someone who wants to
*learn* .NET programming. It is really about a lot of very cool free tools.

Thanks for the feedback!

CSharpener

Nov 22 '05 #33

Very good. very good indeed. That rewrite is much better.

I know that one of you has a perceived serious management problem *pointing to skeet*

they are
different breeds of software engineer, different sorts of being, and both
kinds have value.
Thats an important point. In all this bickering we forgot this. I certainly
did. After the day was over, I find I've softened up a bit about my hard
line stance. I do tend to see only black and white, color is for whimps.
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-----------
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"John Tobler" <jt*****@edmin.com> wrote in message
news:eM**************@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
That's not the fault of the extra knowledge,
it's the fault of the person abusing that knowledge.

OK, guys, I'll play moderator here, since I kind of started this thing.
Please note that you saved me a lot of writing to clarify some of the
underlying issues. Now, I have gone back and edited my little article a

bit and you can see my changes at

http://weblogs.asp.net/jtobler/posts/35600.aspx

Note, particularly:

Context: we are discussing the needs of someone who wants to learn ..NET programming.

and

Warning! When you are behind on a project with a hard deadline, forget all of this nonsense
and make your company buy Visual Studio.NET for you.

I know that one of you has a perceived serious management problem. This
article is not about that. This article has nothing directly to do with you or your problem. Some people will never be efficient or effective software engineers either with or without an IDE.

There are cookbook engineers and the ones who figure out why the bridge fell down when a cookbook engineer misused a formula.

There are code crankers and those who clean up after them; they are
different breeds of software engineer, different sorts of being, and both
kinds have value. There are software architects and software construction
workers; the architects do not have to be the king of the hammer and the
construction workers do not necessarily need a deep understanding of CLR
internals.

Please remember, this article was directed toward someone who wants to
*learn* .NET programming. It is really about a lot of very cool free tools.
Thanks for the feedback!

CSharpener

Nov 22 '05 #34

Ed Courtenay

You could start by having a look at:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0301.html
"Alvin Bruney" <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote in
message news:uy**************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...

Hardly, the vast majority of internet users are still accessing via 56k
dial-up modems. It's a *very* practical issue. not where i live. where did you pull that from anyway

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"Ed Courtenay" <my***********@edcourtenay.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uz*************@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...

"Alvin Bruney" <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote in
message news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> I've just had a look at the front page. It's *really* messy HTML (as
> office tends to produce). Someone with fairly basic HTML and maybe CSS > skilils could have written the same page in a way which took a lot

less > bandwidth and was more easily maintainable. This is nothing you've done > wrong in Office, by the way - it just doesn't create nice HTML.

Yes you have a very good point there. very good indeed. best thing i heard all week. It's messy. Hell, it scared me and then i blamed it on HTML. :-) The bandwidth point is good in a class room but it's pointless in a
practical world. There's dsl and cable and satellite. These things are
non-issues. But I suppose it's still an academic point and i'll give
it to you.

Hardly, the vast majority of internet users are still accessing via 56k
dial-up modems. It's a *very* practical issue.

Nov 22 '05 #35

"Alvin Bruney" <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote in
message news:ur**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

I do tend to see only black and white, color is for whimps.

Ah, but any serious B&W photographer can wax philosophic for hours about
those beautiful shades of grey in between the B and the W!

I have had a lot of fun with my little article
(http://weblogs.asp.net/jtobler/posts/35600.aspx) and your collective
responses.

Bottom line, my thesis is simply that it is nearly impossible to stop, or
even slow down, a sufficiently motivated engineer!

Thanks!

CSharpener

Nov 22 '05 #36

Jerry III

"Alvin Bruney" <vapordan_spam_me_not@hotmail_no_spamhotmail.com > wrote in
message news:OK**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

No, you don't need html for that. You need javascript. You absolutely need
to learn Javascript. Javascript knows how to talk html so you don't have to.

Eh, how are you going to use JavaScript if you don't know what you're
accessing? The fact that you can write code in JavaScript (or whatever
script) does not give you the understanding how HTML objects are accessed.

And just try to nest a table into a cell of another table in VS.NET's web designer.

You can do this from the itemdatabound in codebehind.

Sure you can do it with html, but you don't need to now because .net has
provided more options which are easier and require less programming

effort. I'd rather use attributes and server side event handles to impose my will on the browser than having to muck with HTML clientside to do it. There are
solid reasons why microsoft is scraping the HTML standard.
From what I see and what Microsoft posts on their sites they're actually
trying more and more to adhere to standards. Whidbey is going to have new
"targets" for pages - standard XHTML and HTML code. Would you care to
explain why would they add dead technology into their newest product?

As for not needing to understand HTML when developing a web app - you're
like those VB programmers who can only drag and drop components to a form
without understanding what's actually going on. And you know what happens
when you have programmers like that (can anyone say Deibold? Using an access
database to count votes in an election? What were they smoking?).

Jerry
regards
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Nov 22 '05 #37