Jack of all trades; Master of one.
Topics about programming which include Visual Basic, VBScript, C#, ASP, PowerShell, Python, PHP, Clipper, Javascript, SQL, or really any other related language/concept.
So I just blogged about how I find XSLT somewhat frustrating. Admittedly some of the frustration is based on my relative lack of experience with XSLT. One area ripe with potential frustration is the concept of the node-set data type for which learning has caused me a bit of hair loss recently! A typical scenario …
Continue reading “Getting Past the XSLT Error: “Expression must evaluate to a node-set.””
I’ve been trying to learn XSLT for a few projects, and I find it both a fascinating and extremely frustrating language! I read about the designers goals (from Michael Kay’s XSLT: Programmer’s Reference) and just shake my head, i.e. : "XSL stylesheets should be human-legible and reasonably clear" and in the next sentence "Terseness in …
Several months ago I blogged about the need for a much simpler way to get into .NET, and I named my proposed solution VBScript.NET (in hindsight the name was a poor choice because people assumed I was proposing porting VBScript to .NET instead of providing a simplified VB.NET, but highsight often is 20/20…) And I …
Continue reading “Mort, the “Hobbyist”, and the “Occupational” Programmer get their due”
It’s always something! At Xtras, we have a rather sophisticated email broadcast system that we developed internally. Our system uses a set of tables in our SQL Server database that models the type of email, who it should go to, the mailing lists, etc. It loads each newsletter subscriber’s name and email address using a FOR XML …
I did a web search for an XSLT tutorial a few minutes ago and came across a really nice one I want to remember at topxml.com.
Refactoring. Yes, I want refactoring in TSQL/SQL Server. What do I mean by Refactoring in SQL? Specifically, I want to be able to evolve my database schema without breaking the application. For me at least, I frequently evolve the naming of my database schema as I’m adding features to deployed apps, but it is really …
A ton of people have already pointed to Adam Nathan’s PInvoke Visual Studio Add-in and related wiki site PINVOKE.NET, but it is very cool and I wanted to add to my lists of free tools and favorites.
I just found a very cool site called ConnectionStrings.com (I found it on the .Text Basic Configuration web page.) This site provides examples of connection strings for all of the following including subsets of each: SQL Server Access Oracle MySQL Interbase IBM DB2 Sybase Informix Mimer SQL PostgreSQL DSN Excel Text DBF/FoxPro Visual FoxPro Pervasive UDL …
For the month of May I’ve signed up a vendor new to Xtras.Net named LaMarvin, and we are offering their Dynamic AutoComplete Tool for FREE this month to XDN Professional members ($99/year.) This component adds auto-complete functionality to WinForm Text Boxes and Combo Boxes just like the auto-complete you get in Internet Explorer’s Address (URL) …
Continue reading “Cool Component: LaMarvin Dynamic AutoComplete Tool”
This next feature isn’t exactly a TSQL feature, and it is not highly visionary, but after spending literally the past eight (8) hours (I kid you not) using SQL tools to manipulate data and evolve some table structures, I remembered it is something I really would like to see. What I’d like to see added …