DevBlog

Mary Jo Foley is reporting that Longhorn will not be the big .Net OS is was originally expected to be. It has been widely thought that much of Longhorn would be written in managed code, but it is turning out that many features are being rewritten in good old C++, and not the managed code type.

Sometime ago, fellow Fox MVP Rick Schummer started a blog, but due to some problems with his feed, I never subscribed. Well, Rick has fixed that now and I'm now aggegating. Check out Shedding Some Light.

Famed sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card writes a column for the weekly Rhinoceros Times in Greensboro, NC and then posts it on his website. It's filled with movie and book reviews, Scott's travels, life in Greensboro, and lots more. Recently, Scott ranted about iPod and Apple computer in general. I have to agree with his assessment.

Ken Levy has blogged that the VFP Roadmap will be announced on June 1 and that the life of VFP after 9.0 will be clear. Interop with .Net is the primary goal for what's coming next. There has been speculation for years that Microsoft will kill VFP. One person on the Universal Thread has already guessed that there won't be a VFP 10 and what is being planned is some sort of extension pack for 9.0 and then the plug will be pulled. We can only guess for now. Check back in a couple of weeks for my take on the Roadmap.

Microsoft has been pushing 64 bits for some time now, and it is now catching on. It'll start in the backroom on the servers, then work it's way out to the desktop. VFP won't be 64 bit, but it will run in 32 bit compatibility mode. If you need 64 bit dev tools, look at Visual Studio. As for the OS, my prediction is that Longhorn will be the last 32 bit OS from Microsoft.

Last night I attended the Utah .Net User Group. Noted .Net guru Joe Mayo was the guest presenter. His topic was C# 2.0. Now, I'm just sticking my toe in the .Net waters and didn't understand many of the new features, but Joe, to put it bluntly, is boring. His voice is low, he was quite monotone, and he was all business. He never cracked a joke, and in fact, I never even saw him smile. He definately knows his stuff, but his public speaking skills need improvement.

Both could be true! Yesterday, I attended an MSDN event here in SLC. The speaker was an MS employee. About half-way through, he fired up Linux. Yes, you got that right...Linux at an official Microsoft event!

OK...perhaps a bit more explanation is in order. The presenter was showing off web services in Visual Studio 2005 and demonstrated how .Net web services can be consumed by non-Microsoft clients.

What I was really there for was the SQL Server 2005 stuff, and I came away rather disappointed. The session was called, "Universal Data Access in SQL Server 2005", but it was really, "Using SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services".

SearchSQLServer.com has posted an article on VFP 9.0. Noted VFP guru Andy Kramek and developer David Bernard are interviewed.

I'm pleased to announce that I have been accepted to speak at the Southwest Fox conference, in Tempe, AZ, October 13-16. Topics include a Pre-Con session, "Using Windows Component Services (COM+)" and two regular sessions, "What's New in SQL Server 2005" and "Coder to Developer". Southwest Fox is the lowest cost Fox conference this year in the US. I hope to see you there!

A new report scheduled to be released in the UK says that schools cut their computer costs in half by dropping Microsoft prodcuts [TES]. Now, I'm all for saving money. However, I have to question the wisdom of this. Looking at this from the educational view says that dropping Microsoft products is a bad idea. The schools' job is to teach kids the basics they need to know to function in life. (Whether or not the schools are doing that is a different arguement.) Most of the PCs in the world run Microsoft software. By dropping MS products in the schools, our children will be at a disadvantage when it comes to getting a job. In addition, odds are very high that when kids get home, their computers there will be running Microsoft software. If work is done at home and at school, there may be incompatabilities with file formats, application software, menus, prompts, dialogs, etc., that can confuse kids and make it more difficult for them to do assignments. Finally, most educational software is geared to the biggest platform. By dropping Microsoft, there will be fewer applications that teach kids concepts they need to know. The reported study is missing the bigger picture.

This is a great post that explains what SOA is. [Rocky Lhotka]

Microsoft has released Service Pack for SQL Server 2000 and MSDE. You'll find them here.

This is soooooo cool!

When Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2005 shipped, I blogged about how bad the install was and then blogged about the email I received from the the VS Install Program Manager. Yesterday, I installed Beta 2 and the install process still isn't right. Here's what I did...
- Went through the manual uninstall steps for Beta 1 and SQL Server 2005. This is not right. Uninstall should not be this complicated.
- Dropped the VS install disk into the DVD drive and launched steup.
- Agreed to the EULA.
- Got a message that some part of Beta 1 was still lurking about. Why couldn't all the Beta 1 components identify themselves as such in Add/Remove programs? Why didn't the Beta 1 uninstall remove everything? All the components got installed from a single install procedure, it should be able to remove them. Short of that, the Beta 2 install recognized them, why can't it remove them.
- Removed the rogue Beta 1 component.
- Manually launched Beta 2 setup.
- Agreed to the EULA. I did this once before. There's no reason my previous answer can't be saved. Better yet, if Beta 1 had a proper uninstall, this would have been totally unnecessary.
- Selected the features to install (Web Development, VB, C#, SQL Server).
- Twiddled thumbs while the .NET Framework 2.0 installed.
- Got a message about needing to reboot. The Windows XP Logo Program for Software states, "An application that meets the "Install/Remove" requirements will install onto Windows XP without degrading the operating system or other applications...Do not require a reboot inappropriately." From a user's standpoint, inappropriately is never. Install should never need to reboot. Ever. At least it gave me the option of rebooting now or later instead of just rebooting.
- Shutdown all running applications. Rebooted.
- Manually launched Beta 2 setup. Again. This is wrong. Setup should have automatically continued after the reboot.
- Agreed to the EULA. I did this once before. There's no reason my previous answer can't be saved. Better yet, if Beta 1 had a proper uninstall, this would have been totally unnecessary. WAIT!!!! I already did this! Twice!
- Selected the features to install (Web Development, VB, C#, SQL Server). I already did this too! Again, THERE IS NO REASON SETUP CANNOT SAVE THIS INFORMATION TO A TEMP FILE SO I DON'T HAVE TO BE ASKED AGAIN!!!!!!!!!
- Twiddled thumbs while VS was installed.
- Got a message that Setup was complete, but warnings were generated.
- Reviewed both the Error Log and Visual Studio Setup Log. There are dozens of lines in each, none of which make any sense to me. Why aren't the warning messages in plain language (in my case, English), per the Official Guidelines for User Interface Developers and Designers?
- Got a message that to install MSDN, I have to run a separate setup. Why can't this be an option that was checked when selecting features and then automatically install?
- Got a message that a reboot was required. No, No, No!!!!! NEVER EVER REQUIRE A REBOOT FOR APPLICATION SOFTWARE!!!
- Shutdown all running applications and rebooted.
- Manually started MSDN install.
- Noted that Visual FoxPro documentation is an optional install. However, docs are for VFP 8.0. VFP 9.0 has been out for over four months. There is no excuse for not providing the latest docs.
- Discovered that SQL Server Express was installed. Visual Studio is a developer tool. SQL Server Developer Edition should be installed, not Express.
- Uninstalled SQL Server 2005 Express.
- Installed SQL Server 2005 Develop Edition, April CTP.

Now that everything is installed, it's time to play.

Ken Levy's May Newsletter is now on the VFP home page. Ken has promised news about future enhancements for VFP in June. Based on history, I'm not expecting any announcements until DevCon in mid-June.

Computer forums cause death? Looks like it contributed to it.