StackOverflow.com

StackOverflow.com is a community based Question and Answer site that is free and reliable. When people are having those completely random, inexplicable issues, while developing code and there is no solution in site this site is your savior. Unless you are coding in Cobalt or some other really rare environment you post a question, and within seconds will get some type of feedback. It’s been along for so long why am I blogging about it? Well recently, they finally released an api that allows for you to share your reputation as an image. For years they have allowed this, but it was javascript/iframe based which did not allow for embedding in public forums(most strip out the html markup).

 

Today I am happy to announce to you that this is no longer a limitation.

 

They now have an url friendly way to share your rep!

http://stackoverflow.com/users/flair/USER_ID_HERE.png

So why is this important to share with people?  Well SO is a reputation based site, so as you help other people you gain reputation.  Here is how the reputation works:

    answer is voted up:  +10

    question is voted up:  +5

    answer is accepted: +15 (+2 to acceptor)

    post is voted down: -2 (-1 to voter)

 

Reputation is not easy to come by, there are a lot of bored developers out there trolling the site just waiting for a question they can answer,and the community is not shy about down voting bad answers.  As a result the reputation you earned is well respected among software developers.

 

 

I recommend you getting involved in the site on both sides.  If you are having issues, ask questions.  If you are looking for some feedback on a design idea?  ask the question.  If you are doing something you aren’t quite sure is industry standard?  ask the question.

 

And when you don’t have any questions to answer, spend a couple minutes a day helping out others.  I guarantee the process of helping outers will increase the breadth and depth of your knowledge.

 

 

The creators of SO recently have expanded their sites to other areas most can be seen here ( http://stackexchange.com/) these sites range Administration (server issues),  Programming,  Food, Music, Gamming, so if software isn’t your thing.. maybe one of the other sites might make for a good hobby…

Microsoft’s Bad Rap

Microsofts evil empire?

I have been in the IT industry for a while now, and there seems to be a black cloud that has been cast over Microsoft.   Over the years i have become proficient in Java, C++, Python, and C (and in that order) i never had the opportunity to do any .net work.  People always talk about how crappy Windows has been coded, and there seems to be some people who live and die java, they think java is the greatest thing on earth.. but unfortunately.. its not.

IDE

Microsoft has an amazing platform for developing anything from WebServices to GUIs.  There IDEs are much more powerful then anything i have seen in the java eclipse or net-beans world.  Now i will say, of course, that you have to pay for the Visual Studio 2008 IDE, and i have never purchased any java ides but it just seems like the MS VS 2008 is well tested and mature.  You can tell it has been modified over the years for development and really makes your life easier.

 

Web Services

I was able to get a Web Application up and running within 15 minutes. THE FIRST TIME.  In java… good luck.  The .net framework is almost over simplified in design.  When coming from J2EE i was like where are all the XML files i need to create or generate ? ? Where is my Web.xml.. i was almost lost.. i wanted to hand jam some type of deployment descriptor in order to get it to work… but i didn’t!  ALl my boilerplate code was generated for me.. and i could move on with my life.

 Language in General

Now that i have touched the C# world its going to be long transition back to java.  C# really does give you more tools when it comes to coding… from delegates, to partial classes, to Linq.  It just seems like the language is experienced,  that the core foundation was layed a long time ago, and they now have moved on to enhancements.

Greatest Deficiency

Portability.  Hands down java smacks C# in the face when it comes to Platform Independentnesss.. So if you are going to need to run on linux, or be able to support linux breeds C# is not your solution.  The linux (mono) is just not there yet.

 

So in the end, to all those people who thing MS doesn’t know what they are doing.  MS has a sick suite of tools when it comes to developing software.  Much better then any suite i have seen to date.  They are way ahead of any other language or tool set, so i think it might be time to give them some props…