MSDN ... ?

Rage

I have to program some excel stuff using vba and MSXML. The reference to MSXML is not included in the standard Excel help, so let's go to msdn. Good lord. :wtf: Back in the time when I was still a programmer, so 5 years back from now, MSDN was ... complicated, but the old windows help file (compiled html) version was still very handy. But today ... What's this monstrosity ? This is the most unhelpful thing I have ever seen. Are you guys ( I mean the professionals) really using this ?

~RaGE();

I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb

W Balboos GHB

If MSDN's help came on a roll I'd be using it daily!

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein

"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert

"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010

hairy_hats

I only ever enter MSDN's portals via Google searches. Trying to navigate around it directly is a recipe for madness.

Rage

:rolleyes: It took me two minutes to understand that. :-D I have now found what I was looking for, but the example code is buggy : they create dynamical DOM objects and ... do not release them to free the memory. :| :sigh:

~RaGE();

I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb

Rage

Yeah, but this has limits. Tried "Load XML file Excel vba" and then you get macros to use the XML feature of Excel, which is precisely not what I want.

~RaGE();

I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb

OriginalGriff

That's just Google-fu, you can't blame Microsoft for that. But the MSDN latest site redesign is very poor for navigation - most of the content is still pretty good, if only you can find it... [edit]Typo: "code" for "good" - I'm sure this keyboard is typing for me... - OriginalGriff[/edit]

If you get an email telling you that you can catch Swine Flu from tinned pork then just delete it. It's Spam.

Michael Haephrati

Where I work, they have a unique tool which is quite useful, it is called GOOGLE...

Rage

OriginalGriff wrote:

you can't blame Microsoft for that.

I don't, was merely pointing out that Google search do not always help finding a quicker way in the clumsy documentation structure. I do have found the reference now, much easier.

~RaGE();

I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb

Rage

Of course, but see my comment above.

~RaGE();

I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb

AlexCode

I don't know anyone that goes to MSDN for help. You might end up there when Googling (on Bing of course) but it's by mistake. In most cases there's no sample code and the information sums the propose and the dependencies. So if by mistake you end there just click back on the browser and hit the next search result :laugh:

Rajeev Jayaram

What a coincidence! It is called the same where I work too ;P

Quick Homepage - www.FaceLaptop.com

peterchen

Yes, and I'm loving the new new layout. IMO it's more about the maturity of the topic you are looking for help for.

ORDER BY what user wants

Corporal Agarn

OriginalGriff wrote:

most of the content is still pretty good

You must have a different site. The number of times I have tried examples that did not work... Time when I click a link only to have to guess from several links (only thing on new page).

Rage

Do you really come clear with it ? Wow ! DOM and MSXML should be mature enough to be documented in MSDN, no ?

~RaGE();

I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb

Michael Haephrati

I remember the days MSDN was all packed in Visual Studio Disk 2

peterchen

Yeah, they should. In practive it's the maturity of the documentaiotn, that is limited by the maturity of the technology itself. And I still maintain that compared to the median or average state of documentation, MSDN is stellar.

ORDER BY what user wants

CPallini

Yes, I'm really using it.

Veni, vidi, vici.

Lost User

Nothing wrong with MSDN, I use it all the time and find it very useful. I did prefer the old "classic view" though. :sigh:

Use the best guess

Matthew Faithfull

To use MSDN even in its older and more useful forms you really first have to understand the rules and ways of Microsoft. Otherwise you're always in danger of dying of frustration before you find what you need. 1. Microsoft don't understand full-text-search. It's a kind of religious thing, they just don't believe in it. So all Search means search of the index which they've created based on their assumptions about what's important to you. 2. New always trumps old. If you are looking for anything where there's a .Net thing of that name and a pre-.Net thing of the same name you will have to dig through all the .Net results before you find anything pre-.Net. 3. Most importantly Microsoft never admit when they suck. As a general rule the less detail in the documentation of a particular item the higher the probability that it is bugged, flawed, broken or in some way Microsoft wish they had never created it. Converserly APIs with loads of detail and samples are usually the ones that just work anyway, are robust and consistent and could possibly do without much of the detail as a result. 4. Almost all Microsoft sample code is terrible. In order to make use of it you generally have to be knowledgable enough not to need it and skilled enough to be utterly revolted by how insecure, poorly structured, badly written, badly commented and non reusable it is. This is of course 'recognized' by Microsoft in the only way they ever do by providing you with a disclaimer essentially telling you not to reuse it, believe it or learn from it. This also explains to some extent the lack of accumulated sample code. Once you've understood that this is what you're going to get MSDN becomes as useful as it can be. A fairly comprehensive list of entry points into Microsoft's operating system provided code with a fairly accurate description of the types needed to call those entry points and hints about how you might like to secure your code against the potentially explosive results of doing so. If you expect from it anything more you're going to be disappointed. All of this should not be taken as an attack on Microsoft so much as a reality check for what to expect. If we were talking about the interface to the Linux operating system kernel then a comprehensive list of entry points with hints as to what they're for, divided into categories would be so revolutionary as to have half the Linux Kernel hacking community in total appoplexy.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage."

Mass Nerder

Yes I am using this every day. But you are right, just due to its monstrous size, it is sometimes difficult to find things. So when i've finally found what I was looking for, I am going the hierarchy up to the more general topic an bookmark it. Like this: DOM Reference Cheers