Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

I've been using the Enterprise Library (now 3.1 and significantly more "mature") for a bit now, and on the whole I like what's been done. Policy injection is very AOP-ish and clean (especially with 3.1, you have more freedom to customize) , Logging and Data are provider agnostic (in fact, Ken Scott beat me to it and did a very nice SQLite provider that you can find on the Codeplex extensions bits for EntLib) -- and there are other features that help with the whole concept of "lets build our apps around this". However, Brad Wilson makes some good points - namely, that "if there is any single failing of Enterprise Library, it is where it tries to behave like a framework where it should instead be acting like a library. Baking the configuration system into EntLib and making it hard to use without it is the most obvious example of this behavior." I feel the jury is out on this, because if you really want to "engage" with this type of "b...

One of the biggest impediments to successful software development is communications, and the biggest part of that, in my opinion, is the ability to listen effectively . I write this not only as an instructional piece, but to remind myself that I too suffer from Listening Dysfunction (LD). I am glad to say that I'm getting better at it all the time, but sometimes I just can't seem to keep it up (the listening, that is). Your doctor generally cannot prescribe some "blue pill" for this, however - you have to fix it yourself. Have you ever been in a situation where you are conveying a concept or explaining something, and the other person constantly interrupts or "talks over" you? They're not listening. They are involved in some other agenda. Perhaps they hear what you are saying, but the comprehension is not there. Or, have you ever sent an email to somebody with several points in it, but you get a response that only addresses one point? The respondent didn...

In an unusual but very logical move, Microsoft and Novell signed a pact (with the Devil?) for interoperability and support between Novell's SUSE Linux distro and Microsoft's Windows operating systems. Dell recently signed on. MS claims to have hundreds of patent infringements documented in the Linux Kernel and other open source software such as Open Office. Companies with business models based on open source software, or other small businesses, would least be able to afford the legal costs of defending against a patent infringement claim by Microsoft. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that open source projects are infringing on 235 of its patents. The company claims that the Linux kernel violates 42 of Microsoft's patents, that the graphical user interface such as the Gnome and KDE projects fall foul of another 65 and that OpenOffice infringes 45. Email programs account for another 15 violations and the remainder is claimed by various other open source applications. Micros...

Here is an interesting experience. I don't know how this happened, but either through my careless deletion of an errant Registry key, or some other demon in the OS, I lost the COM+ subsystem when I rebooted Vista. This means you get errors like "Not enough storage space" and so on. Windows Restore is grayed-out, and all kinds of other goodness. Not only that, but the system won't recognize the Windows Vista DVD in the drive since it now thinks it's a blank CD. DOH! Unlike with previous OS versions, you cannot repair Windows Vista from the Boot CD unless there is either a System Restore point or you've backed up the system to another drive or other acceptable media. Since I had no backup and could not see "System Restore" I was sunk, right? That would leave only the option of a fresh install which would rename my old Windows folder to windows.old or something like that. Then, if I wanted my software, I'd have to boot into another OS (I've got ...

"An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar for best documentary. According to the NY Daily News, fewer than 300 people were eligible to vote in the documentary category for the award. As most are aware, in his movie, Gore claims that production of carbon-dioxide from human energy use will cause devastating changes to the Earth’s atmosphere within 10 years. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research reported that Gore’s 20-room mansion in Nashville, TN guzzles nearly 20 times the energy of the average American home. Gore, who took more than a month to concede his loss to President George W. Bush in the Presidential election of 2000, has spent the past year promoting his film, making frequent use of private jets. One cross-country flight in a private jet produces nearly double the amount of carbon dioxide produced by an average American in an entire year. I'm not saying other people, Republicans included, aren't just as hypocritical - but Gore's presence in the global warmi...

The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. --Heinrich Heine I write this because I still see many, many posts and questions from n00b developers who have difficulty with the Web Site project model. In many cases,I believe they do not even know that Web Application Projects are an option, or they simply haven't installed Service Pack 1. When Visual Studio 2005 first came out, I immediately took a disliking to the only ASP.NET model it had at the time, the "Web Site" project. Fortunately,I wasn't alone, and after listening to the screaming hordes of developers bitching about it, Mr. ASP.NET & Co. finally came out with the Web Application Project, which restored my sanity (and my productivity). I do not like having multiple "per page" assemblies with weird, cryptic names; I do not like distributing my .cs source files onto a production webserver, and that's just the beginning! If I want my...