With the release of Visual Studio.Net 2005 right around the corner, I think it's about time to start a deep dig into ASP.Net 2.0 and C# 2.0.

The MSDN documentation is as good a starting point as any book, and it's free to boot!  As my friend Dave likes to say, "You can't beat free!"

Here are some of the more interesting topics (a personal bookmark of sorts, I guess):

• An Introduction to C# Generics
• Iterators
• Nullable Types
• C# Programming Guide (including the above)
  

Perhaps the feature I'm most excited about, with regards to C# 2.0, is generics.  My goodness, this will save so much time, effort, and silly code.  I've been using various typed collection generators so I'm happy to see this added to the framework.  On the ASP.Net front, I'm very excited about the provider model (and all of the different built in components like membership and roles), Atlas, and master pages.

A lot of stuff to digest, for sure.  Now my only question is how long it will take before any of our clients are even remotely interested in doing projects with .Net 2.0.  Past experience tells me it'll be at least 2-3 years before companies start to move over and some may never do so (Newegg is still using ASP Classic; why change what's not broken?).

I keep telling myself that I'm going to start a small mini-project in ASP.Net 2.0, but I'm just too turned off by the idea of mystery feature cuts between beta/RTM and the final product.  I've been in a "wait and see" type of mode, but reading more about the framework itself.

On a loosely related note, I found that Jason Gaylord did a port of the very early .Net 2.0 starter kit photo gallery project to .Net 1.1.  I've been looking for a good .Net photo gallery app for a while now, so I may take a look into this.

On an interview yesterday, one of my interviewers asked about my experience at ITT.  Specifically, he asked whether I knew Chris .

Now a quick flashback; Chris was my second level manager at ITT.  Towards the end of my stint at ITT, he and I were butting heads over whether to use Plumtree to satisfy an internal client's request.  Obviously, management wins in these situations.  He also took me into his office one time and chewed me out for asking for a raise (which he was nice enough to give to me anyways).

Back to the interview; I was kinda thrown off a bit and had to think for a moment on how to respond.  I mean, I have no hard feelings towards Chris, as I was able to work with a lot of freedom and responsibility when I was at ITT, but I can't say that we parted ways on the best of terms.  I decided to give the honest answer: Chris is one of those stubborn, hardnosed guys that can be difficult to work with at times (I am too ).  I think he took it well, as anyone who knows Chris knows that he can be a tough to work with at times (as am I).  All in all, I think it was a bad interview, but not necessarily any fault of my own.

To begin with, I had missed several tabs of an Excel spreadsheet that I was supposed to fill out and email back to the HR recruiter (who notices tabs in a spreadsheet?).  Doh!  In addition, there was tons of paperwork and a set of pre-interview questionaires that the recruiter had to fill out (would have been faster if I typed it instead of her).  That alone took 1.5+ hours to complete.  Then, during the interview, it really didn't seem like the interviewer was very interested (seemed as if he had more pressing matters).  He pretty much asked me the same questions I answered in the pre-interview questionaire (even though he was holding and obviously reading it).  Blah!  I also brought along my laptop with demos of my work, but the interviewer was obviously not interested, as I hinted several times that I could demo some of the work that I mentioned in my resume.

Not only that, it wasn't overly technical at all.  Actually, there was no discussion of technical skills whatsoever, which is a bit disappointing, as I think it gives good insight into the types of people an organization has (and also gives me a chance to shine).

As an aside, I've always wondered why IT consulting companies still rely so heavily on paper based procedures.  It would have been much easier to have the forms online and allow applicants to fill it out before the interview.  I mean, who keeps records of the addresses of your employers filed in your head?  What about reference contacts?

They did have a very nice building though.  Damn, it's one of the nicest buildings I've ever been in (even nicer than the Merrill Lynch Hopewell campus, which was a pretty nice building).  Even had a huge Samsung DLP television in the conference room; Awesome.

Overall, not a very good interview, but who knows.

In any case, it's one of those "wow" moments when you realize how small the world really is.  As I learned in the last month, one of my coworkers here at Immedient, Evan, previously worked at MarketSource, where my friend Hoon had worked just a few months before (he's now an actuary).  Oh yeah, and I almost forgot, the recruiter mentioned that she used to work down the street from where I work now and she used to cold call our company (for what purpose, I don't know).

A small world indeed.

As I was laying down to sleep one night last week, I started thinking about the computer science field and where I would want to focus if I were to do graduate studies (probably software engineering or UI related work).  I started to build a "map" (okay, it's not really a map) of the CS field in my head and I thought I'd share it with anyone that's looking to study computer science.

Without further delay, here is my map and commentary:

Core Principles

In my opinion, the core principles of computer science are:

• Mathematics.  At the heart of it all, computer science is really a branch of mathematics.  I don't think anyone who doesn't have a fondness for math (you don't have to be terribly great at it) will make it far in computer science (and if they do, they probably copied their calc. homework ).  If you look at most computer science curriculums, you'll find that they're heavy in mathematics.
  
• Programming Languages.  All computer scientists must know at least a few useful programming languages (and the good ones know many). Programming languages are the mechanism by which we communicate human ideas and concepts to machines.  Different areas of study will typically involve different types of languages.  For example, most application development is done in a general purpose programming language (like Java, C#, or Visual Basic.Net).  From my understanding, most of the work in the field of AI is done in functional languages such as Scheme, Lisp, and Prolog (these languages were designed for AI).  In mathematics applications, you'll find that many computer scientists rely on math programming languages like MATLAB.  So each branch in computer science typically relies upon and utilizes different types of languages (although you see crossover as well).
  
• Tools and Environments.  All computer scientists rely heavily upon their tools to get their work done.  From emacs, to vi, to pico, to Visual Studio.Net, having the proper tools for the job is very important to the computer scientist.  The core tool is almost always some mutation of a text editor (like Notepad).  Most computer scientists are familiar with at least one or two different environments/platforms as well (for most universities, this is Unix/Solaris).
  
• Algorithms.  In computer science, there are a few universally useful algorithms and concepts that everyone learns.  For example, binary sort.  Another good example is recursion (not so much an algorithm as it is a concept).
  

Main Branches

In my view, CS can be broken out into three main branches:

• Mathematical. As I mentioned, computer science is deeply concerned with solving problems in the area of mathematics. This branch of computer science is really about the application of computing to solving mathematical problems. For example, one of the persistent problems in computer science is how to efficiently factor large prime numbers (the basis of current data encryption algorithms). While this itself is more of a mathematical problem, the practical application of such solutions falls into the computer sience field. Computer scientists in the extremes of this branch (those that are practically pure mathematicians may rarely program computers and work primarily with algorithms and pseudocode).
• Theoretical. This branch of computer science deals with the theory of computing. For example, creating, categorizing, and analyzing algorithms. At Rutgers, I would say, from what I garnered from my TAs, most of the graduate level research was in this area (as opposed to mathematical or practical). The work done in this field is often not useful by itself. For example, I would classify the graduate work that Larry Page and Sergey Brin did at Stanford into this branch. Google, the search engine that you and I use daily, really falls into the third branch.
• Practical/Application. While the Rutgers graduate curriculum focuses primarily on theoretical computing, some schools focus more heavily on application/software development. This includes the actual implemention of theoretical algorithms, building user interfaces, and writing software (in the general case).

Of course, the boundaries between the different branches are not hard boundaries, but rather very loosely defined; however, generally, there is a distinction between one extreme and the other and, typically, someone intersted in one extreme will not be interested in the other extreme.

Number of Students/Types of Students

What I've noticed is that there are generally more students in the third branch than the others, with the least number of students in the mathematical branch. What I've also noticed is that at the left end of the spectrum, you'll find most of the nerds. On the right end of the spectrum, you'll find mostly geeks.

At the far right end of the spectrum (also the most populous among the CS students), are the idiots. These guys are the ones that always try to mooch code off of you as the deadline for handing in the assignment looms near. They are the stragglers that try to latch onto the nerds and geeks in hopes of getting that CS degree because of the tech boom and not because they are intrigued by the different aspects of computer science.  Not all idiots are doomed to failure; to be honest, I would classify my mother into this category (she has a masters in mathematics with "computer option").  I really don't know how she managed that one, but she told me that there was a lot of mooching  In any case, she's been highly regarded everywhere she's worked for the last few years as one of the better AS/400 developers.  So all hope is not lost; most of the idiots can become very successful and productive programmers once they realize that mooching can't get them through life.

Moving on, there are also the assholes. They're like idiots, but their people skills make them even worse since they posess superior people skills and they will try to manipulate the nerds and the geeks. You can spot these types of people by how they try to use other to their advantage.  For example, organizing study groups.  Real nerds and geeks don't need study groups to prep for exams. And if they do, they will typically do so with a select group of fellow nerds and geeks.  Another common behavioral trait is that they tend to ask many stupid questions, which, aside from the idiots, everyone in the damn lecture hall knows the answer to already.  You can almost hear everyone groan when one of these guys/gals raises his/her hand during a lecture to ask a question with an obvious answer. They ask not because they're curious, but rather to get facetime with the professor. These types of people will typically end up in IT management because of their type A personalities and lack of any real understanding of CS. It's like they accidentally enrolled in CS when they really should have enrolled in business, finance, or opertions management.

Real World Applications

Just for the sake of illustration, I listed some of the real world applications (off the top of my head) assiciated with each branch. Don't make too much of my placement of the text as, clearly, database systems require significant knowledge from each of the branches.

Areas of Study/Disciplines

As with the real world application, these are just rough estimations of a few of the areas of study/disciplines in computer science (random list off the top of my head).

Summary

If there's one thing that you can take away from this, it's that computer science is not for everyone. I think people don't realize how math heavy it really is and how certain fields require extensive knowledge of mathematics. At Rutgers, for example, I think calc. II and introductory linear algebra are required.  You'll find, though, that almost all levels of math courses beyond the required ones play a significant role in different areas of computer science (for example, calc. III and linear algebra (non-intro) are important for anyone that wants to get into computer graphics). In fact, you'll find that many of the courses in math and computer science are cross discipline and can count as credit towards either major (like linear optimization).

In addition, at the graduate level, there are different types of philosophies at different institutions. At Rutgers, the curriculum and research has a heavy theoretical bias (from what my TAs told me) whereas, based on my research, a school like Steven's Institute of Technology offers more practical masters/certificate programs.

I don't know if this will actually help anyone, but I'm throwing this out there for anyone that's thinking about obtaining a computer science degree. Bear in mind that this is from the experience and perspective of one person, me and I offer none of this as fact, so take it with a grain of salt

Talk about monstrosities.  Wow.  Check out the Asus N7800GT dual GPU vid card

Good news for us CS (computer science) graduates!  Well, at least according to Mr. Gates:

"Gates addressed University of Michigan students Wednesday in kicking off a three-day college tour aimed at getting young people interested in computer science and related fields.

Gates said the global market has greatly expanded the need for technology and innovations and needs young people to create them. Although many computer science jobs are being created overseas, there still are plenty of opportunities in the United States, Gates said."

For anyone that may be interested in CS, stay tuned.  I composed a little mini-map of the CS field (at least according to my knowledge of it) that I think is helpful for those of you thinking of getting into CS.  I think I'll work on that this weekend (if I can find my map (I have a habit of writing random things on random pieces of scrap paper that either end up being recycled by someone or lost in a pile somewhere)).

On a sidenote, I encountered this lovely error message (twice!) yesterday while working on a project:

Yes, not once, but twice yesterday!  Luckily, my computer didn't explode and, to my amazement, the Earth still exists.  Whew!  Here I was hoping for the worst, too.  I started laughing as soon as I saw it and just had to take a screenshot and share

As anyone who has used the .Net System.Web.Mail namespace can attest, the default .Net mail classes are woefully lacking in functionality.  It's really a shame too, considering that they're based off of the very powerful CDONTS/CDOSYS libraries, which allow a lot more functionality.

In this first investigation into unleashing the full power .Net web mail, we will create a simple web interface to send email messages with a user uploaded attachment without saving the uploaded attachment to disk first.

Some of this functionality is likely built into many third party mail packages, but why pay for it if you have time and you can build it for free?

So if you're still interested, hop on over to the workshop article.

As always, please leave comments, questions and criticism in the post.

Came across a great site today.  Now permalinked on the nav bar.  Just had to share

The Ghetto Jacob's Ladder is badass.  I especially like this line:

"A flyback transformer in the monitor generates a few kV that is used to accelerate electrons in the CRT to hit the screen, and produce the pornographic images we all love to view because no girl will talk to us."

LOL.

Don't miss Ghetto Tattooing either; OMG, that last photo is hilarious.

With the NBA season opening soon (Nets vs. Indy tonight, preseason), it seems fitting to have an NBA related post.

David Stern  is a Rutgers Alum! Very cool.  Sandra was looking up some stuff on the Rutgers website and I noticed an article on David Stern.  I dunno...I guess just a bit of Scarlet Pride

On a slight tangent, I noticed that the Rutgers Graduate School of Education website looks really sharp (well, the menu is kinda out of position on the main page, but seemingly okay on sub-pages).  I especially like the tabbed navigation on some of the sub-pages for different views of the data; much easier to use than dropdowns (well, I guess the one drawback is that the page is limited in the number of pixels in that space, but I think it works better than a dropdown).

On the flipside, the HTML is not that sharp.  Heavy use of tables and a pure JavaScript menu where a CSS/list-based one would have sufficed and been more efficient.

In keeping with my random tangents (totally random), I'd just like to share that this company, Maranatha, makes some of the best peanut butter.  Got it at Sam's Club the first time, but I'm trying to ween myself off of Sam's and, unfortunately, Costco doesn't carry it yet.  Unlike a lot of the all natural peanut butters you can get in the grocery store, this peanut butter is soooo finely ground, that the oil is able to work itself through the paste.  This means that when you get to the bottom of the jar (huge 26 oz. jar), the peanut butter isn't crusty and unspreadable like most other brands.  Yah, I feel like a little kid I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich everyday at 10:00 AM.

Having worked with BizTalk Server 2004, SQL Server Integration Services (replacement for DTS), and having taken a quick glance at Windows Workflow Foundation, I was kind of confused why Microsoft would create so many competing technologies, especially considering the high license costs of BizTalk Server.

As an aside, during my time with BizTalk, I was thoroughly unimpressed.  To begin with, I hate working with technologies where you can't easily see every piece of the whole.  Too much of the functionality of BizTalk is hidden in property menus and context menus...I can't stand that type of crap.  Even more annoying than that is the dependency on the GAC.  It takes a ridiculous amount of time to build and deploy the assemblies.  Consequently, it's a PITA to test and debug.  I've not found any real scenarios yet where I've felt that I would recommend BizTalk over some other solution, especially considering the insane licensing costs for what amounts to nothing more than an XSLT engine with some workflow and connectors built into it.  People, especially Microsoft, will try to convince customers that it's the solution to everything.  They tried to convince one of our clients to use it for a task that was 10x easier and more efficient (time wise) to do using DTS.  Not to mention the client already had a license for DTS whereas it would have cost them in the neighborhood of $40k just to get a BizTalk server up and running. I dunno, maybe I'll be impressed by the next version.

If you're still interested, there's some discussion about the main differences between Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk on the web today, so I'd thought I'd share with anyone else that's interested:

• Brian Loesgen's Blog
• Jon Galloway's Blog

The short answer is that WWF (no, not the one with big men in spandex) is a framework to be used to develop intra-application workflow whereas BizTalk is aimed at inter-application workflow and [buzzword alert] "business process management".

WWF looks promising.  Without realizing it, I actually built a mini workflow framework for a recent project I worked on which required automating the UI of Microsoft Project Pro 2003.  It allowed developers to program against an API to create "Steps" and "Actions" whose results could be linked to and iterated over by subsequent Steps and Actions.  Very cool stuff.

Yesterday was my first time at an NFL football game (Jets vs. Bucs).  This also means that I've been to each of the three major sports (NBA, MLB, and NFL).  (For my international readers, the NFL is the highest league for American-style football).

I must say, the experience is quite something.  It's very different from either of the other big three sports in that there is a whole huge sub-culture in the football world.  If you've never experienced it, there's nothing quite like it at all.

Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me, but driving into the parking lot of Giants Stadium I was just struck by how many people were there tailgating.  It was incredible, it was like a little town sprung up there that morning, with people pitching tents, watching TV, eating BBQ, throwing footballs around.  I mean, it felt like these people lived there.  What caught my attention as well was that a lot of men would urinate right by the side of the road without hesitation (since the lines for the port-o-potties was ridiculous.

The stadium itself was tremendous.  There's nothing quite like it in the enormity of it all; you get kinda queasy sitting in the third tier just looking down.

The game itself was great.  Vinny Testaverde was playing in his first game in 9 months since retiring with the Cowboys after last season.  I have to say, I can only hope that I'm that mobile and that fit when I'm 41, because damn, the guy can still move and throw the long ball.  He had the crowd roaring during pregame warmups when he threw a 60-70 yard pass to Laverneus Coles.  Wow.  Vinny only threw one interception, which was unfortunate (it was short only by a little), but acceptable considering that just two weeks ago, he was hanging out on his sofa watching the Jets play

Afterwards, listening to Vinny talk, I was reminded of The Incredibles.  Vinny had some great years (the best of his career) with the Jets and here he was again, up to his old heroics after retiring from football.  And like in The Incredibles, it took a team effort to overcome the opponent.

In a totally unrelated sidenote, I got my copy of "Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface" on Friday.  My review is on Amazon, but I'll copy it here for the lazy:

"Before you read on, bear in mind that I'm writing this review in comparison to the first "Ghost in the Shell". While Shirow does mention that this book is not a continuation of the first, there are some major differences in style.

Let's start with the artwork. As I've noticed with Shirow's work, all the ways from Appleseed, his style has matured with each work and is at a very advanced level, in my opinion, among top comic book artists in the world. He has a certain style of coloring that, to me, is really unique in how subtle, lifelike, and tactile he makes fabrics and skin. While only roughly 35-40% of the book is colored, it is done so fantastically.

In addition, Shirow has a supreme mastery of the female body form. It's simply stunning to see how beautifully he can render the female body, especially with the dynamic energy he brings to his characters. While he renders many of the panels with the female characters in the buff, he does not render "R" nudity, but rather "PG-13" nudity, except in one panel). (As a sidenote, parents of younger readers should perhaps consider this an "R" rated book. While none of the nudity is gratuitous, it can be a little too much for some).

As fans of Shirow have noticed, he has been experimenting with integrating 3D, rendered environments and objects with his 2D artwork. He shows his mastery of this technique in many of the panels, where it seems seemless; you feel as if the character is really a part of the scene. Then in others, it seems poorly done (for example, he renders pigs in a sequence of panels and the pigs just look weird). I'd also offer some criticism of his rendering of "virtual space", as it quickly becomes cluttered and very difficult to navigate, visually, especially in the low-res, black and white lineart panels.

As with all Shirow works, there is certainly enough cool technobabble and gadgets to get your geek juices flowing. From exoskeletons that envelope and "swallow" the pilot, to oddly constructed androids, to the techno-metaphysical discussions of reality, life, existence, and justice.

My main criticism with the work is the incontinuity *within* the plot itself (I fully understand and accept that this is not a continuation of the first). Without going deeply into the plot, there are some scenarios where he will start what seems like an arc, but then the arc disappears, without entering into the plot again. It seems like whole parts of the book were created just for the sake of showing artwork, and not progressing plot (to me, plot should always come first in a written work, which this is, despite the medium). It feels like the recent Star Wars movies in that they are really a showcase for Lucas's technique with fully rendered sets and have lost any semblence of a cohesive plot and the great acting (especially Harrison Ford) that made the first three the classics that they are. Yes, while I do appreciate the eye candy, this is still a graphic novel, and, as such, I expect a cohesive plot and not random interjections of this and that and whatever.

Some fans will also find the lack of action (compared to the first book) a bit disappointing. The first book was far grittier and more action packed than this book. It also had a richer cast of characters. "Man-Machine Interface" really only features one character (albeit in various bodies and forms) and thus loses some of the dynamic interactions between characters. Shirow never gets a chance to fully developer the chief of Poseidon police and his crew.

Overall, this book is excellent if you simply love Shirow's beautiful artwork, mastery of the female body form, and creative techno-gadgets. The plot, especially the ending, will leave you sorely disappointed. Whereas the first ended on a revelation of a metaphysical type, this book ends in a fizzle."

If you're a fan of Shirow, it's a no brainer, you gotta pick it up, but it's certainly not for everyone.

I'm also working my way through Fred Brooks' "The Mythical Man Month".  I'm only 1/3 of the way through the book at the moment, but it's absolutely a great book that everyone in an IT organization (everyone!) has to read.  I mean, even after all of these years, the same problems persist in software development (doesn't anyone learn from history?).  If you're in the IT industry, whether you're a manager, a salesperson, or a developer, be sure to pick this one up.  It's an easy read, too, since Brooks' style is very inviting and personable.  He makes some excellent analogies.  I think I'll do a mini book review after I'm done with the book

That's it for now...been busy at work, so less time to post during the day >.<