John Lamansky

I’m just getting into .NET Framework 3.0 development (that is, I will be, as soon as I’m able to get the SDK to actually install :roll:), and I found Microsoft’s “Ready for a New Day” page (intended to help developers get started with .NET Framework 3.0, Office 2007, and ASP.NET AJAX development) very helpful.

It includes links to, among other things, download the .NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable Package (which is for running .NET Framework 3.0 applications), the Windows SDK (which is for developing them), and the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (which is for integrating .NET Framework 3.0 with Visual Studio 2005).

This .NET Framework 3.0 stuff is very exciting, especially the XAML stuff.

By the way, considering that this post contains 7 instances of “.NET Framework 3.0″, anyone know if there’s some sort of acronym that I can be using?

Parse error: parse error, unexpected ‘[’, expecting T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM in _____ on line 30

What a strange PHP error message indeed! I did some googling… er, that is, I searched the web using Google — in case there are any Google lawyers reading … and I found the following:

Turns out it’s Hebrew for ‘::’. You learn something new every day.

[Read more at source]

On the line number to which the error message referred, I was referencing a PHP variable without a dollar sign. Oops.

I don’t know what “paamayim nekudotayim” or two colons has to do with it though. (Shrug.)

I was reading about the new System.Speech namespace in the .NET Framework 3.0 and I thought, “Cool, it looks like I’ll be able to do another version of my BERT program.”

Here’s how my BERT test works in 3 easy steps:

1. You speak a sentance into your attached microphone.
2. BERT uses Windows’ speech-to-text functionality to try to figure out what you said.
3. BERT uses Windows’ text-to-speech functionality to say what Windows thinks you said back at you.

Windows XP, in short, fails miserably; although it does make for a good laugh.

We’ll see if Vista fares better.

From a PCWorld article:

A new game development platform from Microsoft allows anyone to create games for its Xbox 360 console, the company said today [August 14].

Typically, console games are designed by large studios that must pay high prices to buy development kits in order to write games for consoles. Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio Express is a new development kit that will be released in beta form in August. It will be available for free to anyone using a Windows XP PC. The kit is designed for game developer novices as well as studios, Microsoft said.

[…]

The XNA Game Studio Express development environment is based on Visual Studio Express and .NET, and allows developers to create games simultaneously for Xbox 360 and Windows XP.

Microsoft expects the final non-beta version of the development platform to become available by the end of the year. Another version of XNA Game Studio Express designed for professional game developers will become available in early 2007, the company said.

The part about simultaneous Xbox/Windows development sounds pretty cool. It’ll be interesting to see whether this platform takes off with game developers.

Microsoft has a webpage titled “Deploying Microsoft .NET Framework Version 3.0″ that has oodles of info about the new product that was previously known as WinFX.

Here’s what I found really exciting:

Because .NET Framework 3.0 is an additive release and uses the core run-time components from .NET Framework 2.0, it is completely backward compatible with the earlier version. Your existing .NET Framework 2.0 based-applications will continue to run without any modifications and you can safely continue your investments using the technologies that shipped with .NET Framework 2.0.

In addition:

The .NET Framework 3.0 is installed by default on Microsoft Windows Vista.

I’m assuming this means that .NET Framework 2.0 applications will be Vista-compatible. Cool!

According to a post on “Somasegar’s WebLog”, WinFX has been renamed to .NET Framework 3.0.

When speaking to developers about WinFX one question that repeatedly comes up is, “WinFX sounds great, but what happens to .NET?” .NET Framework has becomes the most successful developer platform in the world. Developers know and love .NET.

The .NET Framework has always been at the core of WinFX, but the WinFX brand didn’t convey this. The WinFX brand helped us introduce the incredible innovations in terms of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and the newly christened Windows CardSpace (WCS) formerly known under the codename “InfoCard.” The brand also created an unnatural discontinuity between previous versions of our framework and the current version.

With this in mind we have decided to rename WinFX to the .NET Framework 3.0. .NET Framework 3.0 aptly identifies the technology for exactly what it is – the next version of our developer framework.

The change is in name only and will not affect the technologies being delivered as part of the product. The .NET Framework 3.0 is still comprised of the existing .NET Framework 2.0 components, including ASP.NET, WinForms, ADO.NET, additional base class libraries and the CLR, as well as new developer-focused innovative technologies in WPF, WCF, WF and WCS:

The .NET Framework 3.0 will still ship with Windows Vista, and will be available down-level for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 as planned. This change doesn’t affect in any way the ship schedules of either Windows Vista or the .NET Framework 3.0 itself.

What I find weird is that .NET Framework 3.0 doesn’t seem to be a new version of the framework per se, but it seems to be an extention to the existing .NET Framework 2.0.

I think Microsoft is trying to encourage developers to utilize WinFX by marketing it as the next version of the .NET Framework. To me, “.NET Framework 3.0″ certainly does sound a lot more “friendly” and approachable than “WinFX.”

But is WinFX really a new version of .NET?

It depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, WinFX seems more like an “add-on” package to the .NET Framework than an upgrade. But on the other hand, some program upgrades do indeed just add new features while for the most part leaving pre-existing components of the program alone.

For me, and I’m guessing for many other developers, this news was strange and unexpected. I think it’s probably because we had a different mindset of what we thought WinFX was going to be.

But this name change has let me know that I’ll be able to use my existing .NET Framework knowledge and experience to harness the power of WinFX. And that is very exciting news.

Who knew you could make games with Visual Studio? MSDN’s Coding4Fun site has an entire section devoted to Game Development!

Until I saw this, I was under the impression that game development could only be achieved using C++ or a “beginning game programmer language” such as Dark Basic.

Looks like I was wrong! If I decide to get into computer game development again, I’ll definitely consider using Visual Basic or Visual C# as a balance between the power of C++ and the ease of use of Dark Basic.

According to a blog post on MSDN, Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition will be free permanently!

From the blog post:

We are incredibly excited to announce that effective April 19th, 2006, all Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions including Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual J#, Visual C++, and Visual Web Developer Express will be free permanently!

Prior to this pricing announcement, Visual Studio Express Editions were promotionally discounted to be free for one year, starting on November 7th, 2005. With this announcement, the promotional discount for Visual Studio Express is now permanent and Express will continue to be free.

The key reason for the pricing change was you. You’ve helped make Visual Studio Express a runaway hit, and we’re proud to announce that in the five months since its launch, Express has been downloaded over 5 million times!

Developers using Visual Studio 2005, especially those switching from Visual Studio .NET, will probably know that Visual Studio 2005 hides code produced in Design mode automatically. Although on Microsoft’s site this feature is called “Just My Code,” there is no reference to that phrase anywhere in the UI that I could tell.

I couldn’t find a solution on the Internet that worked, and I finally figured it out on my own. I thought I’d publish it here in case anyone else had the same problem. It’s really simple: just click View, then click Show All Files. In the Solution Explorer pane, a plus sign will appear next to Windows forms. Just click on the plus sign, then double-click on <formname>.Designer.vb (replacing <formname> with the form name, of course).

(FYI: Note that I found conflicting instructions on the Internet that said the option to disable Just My Code was in the Options dialog box. Perhaps that was only applicable to beta versions of Visual Studio 2005, or perhaps my solution only works with the Express Editions.)

WOW! I am simply blown away by the powerful new features planned for Visual Basic 9.0!

One awesome new feature is query comprehension, SQL style. Take the following sample code from the Microsoft website:

Dim SmallCountries = Select Country From Country In Countries Where Country.Population < 1000000

This creates a collection of Country objects called SmallCountries, but it only contains Country objects whose Population property is less than one million. Very powerful. Very exciting.

Considering Visual Basic 2005 (a.k.a. Visual Basic 8.0) included support for Office 2003-style menus and toolbars, I wouldn’t be surprised if Visual Basic 9.0 also included support for Ribbons from Office 12, as well as other Windows Vista integration features.