Tag: Development

if you are trying to execute a process in .net and trying to pass in arguments, and seem to not be getting anywhere, in the “start info”, set UseShellExecute = false. Worked for me 🙂

I think the .NET Framework is great. It is great for web and fat client apps, web services, etc. I think the mistake Microsoft made with it, is it isn’t required with the OS. Too many people don’t have it. It isn’t feasible to develop a fat client app with .NET and expect widespread installations. People that don’t have the framework will be put of by the whopping ~23MB size of the install. I think it is just goofy that Microsoft tries to push .NET down our throats (as developers) – everything is .NET this, .NET that – and it is good, it can do a lot. Thing is – if you want to get an application to the masses, you still have to fall back on C/C++ as it will 99.9% run natively.

Instead of making the .NET framework a optional update on Windows Update, I think that if it was a required update, it would make things a lot better in terms of developers wanting to target a larger audience. Microsoft says that Vista will have .NET Framework 2.0 – but it is too late. Too many people have XP (9X even!) that they will probably never switch to Vista.

I think managed code is good. I don’t think I should have to develop in unmanaged code because it is too much of a PITA to get the framework to end user machines.

🙂

Well, here is a dilemma. Should you use an Enum in code or a Lookup Table in the DB for static lookup data. Or should you use both and make sure they match up? And if you do, should you make the tables have an identity INT column?

Depends on the situation.

If you have a lookup table for something that is static (or relatively static – changes maybe once every year or more), then an Enum to Lookup table relationship might be what you need. But, if your list is more than say 10-15 items, I don’t know if it would be best to even have an enum. If you have a lookup table that will get added to a lot (more than once a year) then I don’t think you want to add an enum as you would have to change it and recompile your code on every addition. With the case of frequently changing data or a lot of items in your list, a cached dataset would probably work the best. I think in practice you should lay out ground rules before the start of a project on what business rules have data assumptions and where they will be (data layer, business layer, presentation layer) – that way, there will be no confusion on lookup/seed/static data throughout your project.

If .NET had some way to make sure that your enum and lookup table matched or if you could create the enum from a data table, it would be great. You can dynamically create enums using reflection, but I don’t think that would be the best solution in this scenario.

Here are some other blog posts on the subject

Enums and Lookup Tables

Data Modeling and Enums