Create Games From Scratch

By tewari | Published: April 11, 2009

My 18 month old son woke me up at 4 in the morning. I got him to go back to sleep, but … and here I am writing.

A few weeks ago, I downloaded Scratch from M.I.T’s website. Scratch is a programming language for kids. You drag/drop and (literally) snap together programming constructs to create games. Within a couple of minutes, I had a diver chasing a ball bouncing around on the screen.

I showed it to my 5 year old son and he watched as I “changed the game” and had the ball chase the mouse cursor and the diver chase the ball. He sat down with me and asked me if I could make it a dog chasing the ball instead. Sure! Then we started customizing further. Make it run faster .. Yeah! Let’s turn him into Clifford – The Big Red Dog … Can he bark ? Sure. Let’s turn it into a basket ball .. I want it red, blue, yellow, … Let’s make a basket ball hoop and have Clifford play basketball … Sure.

It was a quite productive pair programming session :) . No TDD yet – he is too young for that kind of stuff :) .

I was relieved that I didn’t loose his attention while I was “programming”. Now, my son does have a pretty long attention span for his age, but a lot of credit goes to the designers of Scratch. The entire “artwork” was created within the Scratch application and the “programming” was just a pure joy for my son. And we were just “scratching” the surface there. Explore the possibilities here.

You can download the game here : Clifford-ball.sb. Be careful, sometimes the dog turns upside down. There are some bugs to be fixed :) . Where is the debugger ?

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RIA with Silverlight and WCF – Los Angeles .NET Developers Group

By tewari | Published: March 26, 2009

 

I will be attending Jason Beres’ “RIA with Silverlight and WCF” lecture on Saturday the 4th. Check-out the details here : Los Angeles .NET Developers Group. Let me know If you are planning to be there. It will be a great opportunity to meet.

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Job Opening – Windows GUI Developer

By tewari | Published: March 9, 2009

We have a 3-4 month contract position open for a Windows GUI Developer in our group at Calabasas, California:

  • 2+ years experience developing C++/C# Windows thick-client applications
  • Expert in GUI development on Windows
  • Expert in Object Oriented Analysis and Design (OOA/OOD)
  • Deep understanding of client-server software development
  • Experience in multithreading, and thread synchronization
  • Excellent communication skills (written and verbal)
  • Highly organized and detail oriented
  • BSCS/BSEE or equivalent

If you are interested, contact me. The position is available now.

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Scrum Tools

By tewari | Published: March 8, 2009

List of Scrum Tools:

Other Lists:

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ReSharper vs CodeRush + Refactor Pro

By tewari | Published: February 21, 2009

I have been playing with JetBrains ReSharper (version 4.1) and DevExpress CodeRush + Refactor! Pro (version 3.2.2) lately. I wanted to decide on which one to go with. Here are some notes -

R# = ReSharper
CodeRush = CodeRush + Refactor! Pro

  • R# seems to be better for refactoring, because it does not assume that I follow a rigid work flow when writing code. For example, I don’t always decide on the class hierarchies upfront. I do discover them as I write code. So, when I discover that I need to extract a base class from the class I am working on, I can do so with R#. I couldn’t find a way to do extract a base/super class with CodeRush.
  • In R#, I can create an overloaded constructor using “Change Signature” refactoring (Ctrl+R, S). I couldn’t find a way to do this in CodeRush. CodeRush does allow me to create overloaded methods.

However, comparisons that only focus on how many refactorings each tool can do are not very important to me. After all, it should be easy for the individual missing refactorings to be implemented in the subsequent releases of these tools. I want to know which one is a better investment in the long run. The investment is not just a couple of hundred dollars, it is going to be an investment of time too.

  • R# “finds” Types as you try to use them and adds references and “using” directives from other projects in your solution. You will not believe how useful this is! You don’t have to interrupt your train of thought to go add references and “using” directives. CodeRush doesn’t do that.
  • I found R# “Create From Usage” feature incredibly useful with TDD. This feature will be available in Visual Studio 2010. They are calling it “Consume-First Development”.
  • R# has keyboard shortcuts for individual refactorings. All refactorings are accessible from ALT+ENTER or ALT+R. Again, R# helps you keep focused on the code you are writing.  In CodeRush, individual refactorings don’t have keyboard shortcuts.
  • R# allows me to specify exactly what to include when doing ExtractXXX refactorings. CodeRush doesn’t.
  • R# seems to know what I want to do. For example, when I discover that an existing class would be a good starting point to write the class I am thinking about and copy-paste the class and attempt to rename it, CodeRush renames both classes. R# renames the one you intend to rename.
  • R# introduces much less friction when running unit tests. It is possible to add unit-testing add-ins to Visual Studio and access similar functionality, but the way unit-testing is integrated into R#, it is much more conducive to TDD.
  • Collapse a class region. Now try to do a refactoring on this class, like “Rename file to match type” etc. In CodeRush, you will not be able to do it because the three-dot glyph will not be displayed when the class is collapsed.
  • CodeRush keeps getting in my way by automatically writing over as I type. It expands its “smart templates” when you press space. Guess what! That is how I separate words in my sentences – by pressing space. It gets quite annoying. I wish I could turn it off.

As you have probably guessed by now, I think ReSharper is a better fit for me.

Here is a list of some other comparisons, covering aspects and features of these products I haven’t mentioned here that might be important to you. Some of these concluded in favor of CodeRush. Keep in mind that some of the following articles are a couple of years old.

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Using NHibernate With SQLite in DbUpdater

By tewari | Published: September 9, 2008

DbUpdater (version 1.3 onwards) can be used with sqlite3.

Review the files included in DbUpdater-sqlite3.zip

1. DbUpdater.exe.config must be modified. Note changes to the following keys – exe-file, exe-args, dialect, driver_class, connetion_string.
2. SchemaVersion.hbm.xml must be modified. The ‘class’ attributes value for the ‘generator’ of ‘id’ must be changed to ‘identity’. No other changes are needed here.
3. \SqlScripts\schema-version-table.sql is modified. Note that the datatypes of all columns are changed to TEXT, except for SchemaChangeId, which is changed to integer primary key. integer primary key is used for auto-incremented columns in sqlite.
4. \SqlScripts\baseline.sql is modified. Note the use of current_timestamp function. The actual sql syntax in this file must conform to sqlite dialect.
5. All other .sql scripts in \SqlScripts directory are also modified to conform to sqlite dialect.

The following files are expected to be in DbUpdater.exe directory (as configured in the DbUpdater.exe.config file) -

1. sqlite3.exe : download.
2. System.Data.SQLite.dll : download.
3. createdb.bat file : This file is included. This batch script will call sqlite3.exe to execute sql queries.

Another very useful tool for working with sqlite database files is SQLite Database Browzer.

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DbUpdater on SourceForge

By tewari | Published: July 27, 2008

By popular demand, DbUpdater is now up on the sourceforge. Latest download (v1.2) is now available from there.

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Internship Position Available

By tewari | Published: June 18, 2008

We have a position open for a 6 month internship in our group in Calabasas, CA. We do cutting edge Network Performance Analysis work. A candidate with C#/C++/C background on Windows/Linux is preferred. If you are interested, contact me. The position is available now.

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Dial Gauge is a ProgressBar

By tewari | Published: June 10, 2008

I am not just being philosophical here. In WPF, ControlTemplates allow you to transform a control’s appearance. This is not the same as applying stylesheets. This is an entirely new level of customization. What you see in the screenshot below looks like a Dial but is actually a simple ProgressBar control wearing a “Dial” template. The Dial template was created using Microsoft Expression Blend .

dial-is-a-progressbar.PNG

Include the ControlTemplate as a Window.Resource and then assign it to ProgressBar element’s Template attribute :

Of course that is not all. The ControlTemplate must define some named elements of FrameworkElement type. Charles Petzold has explained it in detail : MSDN Magazine Article. So, I will not repeat it here.

The sample code can be downloaded here : DialTest.zip
License : Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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PostSharp with SharpDevelop

By tewari | Published: April 28, 2008

SharpDevelop3.0 uses MSBuild. Including PostSharp in your build process is transparent if you are doing a global install using PostSharp installer. If you are doing a per-project installation using “Binary – No Installer” download, you will need to import the PostSharp targets into your .csproj file -

	
    True

	C:\code\PostSharp-1.0.8.316-Binary\

For more details, read the install instructions included in the PostSharp download and under-the-hood-of-msbuild-integration.

To use local PostSharp binaries (relative to your project) , modify your .csproj file as follows -

  
    True
    $(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\PostSharp\

$(MSBuildProjectDirectory) is the directory containing your .csproj file.
\PostSharp\ is the directory containing local PostSharp binaries.

2. You will need to exclude the Aspect class itself from being woven.

If you are following the getting-started sample, see the following example:

[Serializable]
[Trace( null, AttributeExclude = true )]
public sealed class TraceAttribute : OnMethodBoundaryAspect
{

3. Compile your project.

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  • Notes

    Using DbUpdater with MySql
    DbUpdater can be used with mysql. Here are the files you need to jumpstart the integration – DbUpdater-MySql.zip 1. You might need to change the path to mysql.exe in mysql-exec.bat. 2. Modify values in mysql-sample-command-line.bat. Make sure mysql.data.dll is placed in GAC or in the same directory as DbUpdater.exe. Connector binaries can be downloaded from here - http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/6.1.html (0)

    Online Backup Solution
    Finalized online backup solution : JungleDisk. I can run it on all of my machines without paying extra. I get to keep the ownership of my data – by using my own Amazon S3 storage. Backed up all family photos – all 30 GBs. Feeling good (0)

    Switched to Thematic
    I have switched to Thematic theme on this blog over the weekend. I created a child theme after playing around with the customization hooks. I added a widgetized area below main asides, did some css modifications and created a three column, flexible layout just the way I wanted. I am so glad I switched to Thematic. ThemeShaper forums are very helpful. These articles were just what I needed to get started : How to make a child theme for WordPress and How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog. (0)

  • BookShelf

    Planned books:

    • ASP.NET MVC in Action

      ASP.NET MVC in Action by Jeffrey Palermo, Ben Scheirman, Jimmy Bogard

    Current books:

    • Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers)

      Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers) by Andy Hunt

    • Working Effectively with Legacy Code

      Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers

    Recent books:

    • How I Got Published: Famous Authors Tell You in Their Own Words

      How I Got Published: Famous Authors Tell You in Their Own Words by Ray White

    • Pro WPF: Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 3.0

      Pro WPF: Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 3.0 by Matthew MacDonald

    • Programming Windows Presentation Foundation

      Programming Windows Presentation Foundation by Chris Sells, Ian Griffiths

    • Advanced MVVM

      Advanced MVVM by Josh Smith

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