Friday, September 30, 2005

The real world does use .NET IDE

It's funny how when your in school the professors often preach things, but rarely will show any tools the industry uses. One of which is the .NET IDE. Now I've always liked the .NET IDE I think the one feature they focused on intellisense the did do right. With the new features that allow you to write alot more information into the interfaces of each function it is simply a joy to use.

When in University it seems that the professors focused on tools such as JAVA without demostrating the power of any of these tools we call IDE's. In fact alot of my classmates still would you notepad or vim to do all of their coding. Not that there's anything wrong with VIM in fact I'll admit to doing work in vim for simple single file projects, but any large project becomes difficult to manage and unintuitive without the aid of an IDE doing alot of the organizational busy work.

Theoretical languages like Haskell also work for theory courses but the fact remains that such languages don't really have any tools for larger development projects, they main a toy languages designed for specific evaluation of certain mathematical concepts.

I understand there are other tools like Eclipse which from what I hear are very good in their own right. Since I have insufficient experience with them I will not talk about them here. However where I work the .NET IDE is used to compile python, and binaries for UNIX platforms proving it's flexability. The fact is the .NET IDE wasn't made for just "Microsoft" languages, and is extensible just like Eclipse. As many have mentioned all over the .NET IDE has alot going for it finally seeing how .NET IDE can be used for more than just the inital languages it was built for makes me feel like it will become a dominating force when it comes to IDE's.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

The thing I hate most about computers

Being the computer guy, the thing I hate most is that on regular occasions I have to go and fix computers for friends and family. Honestly at this point I really hate doing it, it might have been interresting when I was younger but now it's really a pain everytime I decide to do such a thing.

The thing with fixing computers these days it's the majority of time it's removing spyware and other junk on their computer. Unlike before these days users are much less willing to part with their data because they actually don't keep backups anymore. The result is that your stuck with the inability to format and you have to use a computer that's terribly infected with all forms of spyware and malware.

In back a few years ago fixing was actually fixing, it involved diagnosing the problem and fixing a particular problem. It was challenging since it might be anything from an invalid IRQ to an badly configured piece of hardware/software. The advent of the internet and wonderful spyware programs that claim to be freeware has destroyed all that an now every computer person dreads having to fix someone else's computer.

I am much more willing to help fix a computer of a computer literate person since the problem they have is almost always non-spyware related.

Anyways looks like I have to stop rambling and head down to a mutual friend of the families and deal with yet another spyware infested PC again. So until next week cheers to all.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Caught a cold today...

Stupid cold, makes me feel not 100%. My friends tell me it's anticipation of Hamilton air. Yeah "steel town air" will do that to you.

I guess my #1 priority right now is to get better cause I start my internship on monday.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

The numbers are in

I first want to apologize for the hap-hazard look of this I wrote this on the palm while on the bus so there was no chance in organizing any of it. I haven't run analysis on it yet cause I'm a bit beat from the whole trip. I'll have a full detailed analysis for you everyone in the comming days.

Departure - 9/6/05 7:50 am
From departure to the trasfer on to sheppard took approx 30min. this is with consideration that I missed a streetcar to simulate possible delays. There was no that high a volume of commuters as I once though, possibly because the bulk of the commuting happens at 8:30-9:00am.

Transfer at Sheppard - 9/6/05 8:32 am
Sheppard line seems to go slightly faster I feel a stronger acceleration curve it just so happens that Don Mills is the last station on this route.

Arrival at Don Mills - 9/6/05 8:41 am

On final bus - 9/6/05 8:46 am
Hmm... it seems to be taking more than 15 min you might consider getting a place near your work at this rate.

Consideration zone:
< 1hr none
1hr < 50% < 1:30hr
1:30hr < a must!

at the current rate we either find a better route or get a place here.

(took the longer path the loop is excessive)
loop start: 9/6/05 9:10 am
This loop is a bad idea it's taking too long

18min loop
Off final bus - 9/6/05 9:28 am
wrong stop - 9/6/05 9:28 am
9/6/05 9:40 am
9/6/05 9:46 am
9/6/05 9:48 am



At Pci - 9/6/05 9:52 am
4min

(return trip we'll take a different route)
Taking the VIIA
departure - 11:16 am
arrival at richmond hill centre - 11:21 am
arrival at finch - 11:49 am
pass troubles - 12:00 pm
Enter train - 12:02 pm
-- time from departure -- 34min
arrival at king - 12:32 pm
(note bus time is longer due to non-rush hour use the previous numbers for this part)

Monday, September 05, 2005

Simulation Run

Tomorrow I'll be doing a check on how long it will take for me to get to work via rush hour times. I'll be riding the bus en-route to check the times for these things. Mainly I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to take too long over 1 hour to get to work everyday otherwise I might consider renting a place near my new workplace in richmond hill.

From the looks of things I'll be taking the King streetcar to King stn. (starting approx 8am) At king station hopefully I won't forget to get the GTA weekly pass (it's cheaper than paying for both Toronto and York transists every day). Then from King subway I will squeeze, and I do mean that literally cause if you've seen rush hour at the subways boy its it ever a squeeze. Anyways I will squeeze my way to Don Mills station. If all goes well the info I obtained about the GT I'll be able to find the 25D bus that will take me to my final destination. What I'm not certain about is the timming of all this so being the first time I could easily take more than 1 hour. To make things fair because I have to do things like buy a weekly pass and find where all the terminal traffic is I'll probably be taking away 10min on my travel time.

The bus will probably drop me off 0.2km from my final destination so I'm going to make sure I simulate that part as well. If not I'll be sure to add on time for that particular part of the journey.

Personally I really don't want to live out there, its barren and there really isn't anything to do. The only reason for really heading out there is that it really is taking to long to get to work every morning, and come back. Now if it comes to that I'll make the descision after the 1st month. I think the other reason I'm not so hot about going down there is that since it's not downtown I'd probably be bored out of my mind in my apartment mon-fri. Without a roomate amounst other things I will really be deprived of human contact that I thrive on.

Anyways better get a show and get ready for tomorrow it'll be a long day.

Hobbies

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