In my experience people don't learn JavaScript. They copy-paste random code until it magically starts working, then refactor everything into a gazillion functions and plaster unit-tests all over it. Once they realize they've written too much code and have too many dependencies, they call it a framework. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some of our projects are very similar: interconnecting PLC's, manufacture DB's, process control systems and getting the result to layer 4 or 5. The choice of technology you have in such an environment is really limited, because you often need to support various OS technologies and each version is fairly old. For Windows systems in particular, we have to support Vista with no updates, except for security patches. Instead of using Java, which would be the obvious choice, we package everything into .NET Standard 2.0 libraries. For modern systems we run those with .NET Core, for legacy systems (both Unix and Windows) we use a custom Mono branch. It's always weird and nice to see brand new nugget packages actually working on Vista.

In my opinion, we should default to block all ads, miners, etc.. and only opt-in if it's meaningful to us. If sites go offline/broke.. so be it. In my experience, sites that don't thrive on ad revenue, for whatever reason, put out much higher quality content and are curated to a much higher degree. Quality is used attract people and generate profit. Sites that run on ad revenue are in the business of wasting my time for money. Money is far less valuable to me than time, so I hate those sites with a zealous passion.

WPF and UWP are, one way or another, getting closer together with the formulation of XAML Standard. In a year or so, this will generalize XAML to the point that UWP, WPF, Xamarin.Forms (and Unity3D assets like NoesisGUI) will all work with the same basic XAML. Add that to the steady evolution of WebAssembly, and you'll end up with local HTML clients running C# and XAML somewhere around Q4/2018-Q1/2019.. if nothing goes horribly wrong. My money is on UWP and WPF devs eventually migrating to HTML5/electron running C# with some iteration of XAML Standard. At that point, the boundaries between web and desktop apps will be gone, and everything else can be deprecated. :cool:

For me, less graphical details = much better. The words are still the same and it's less distracting.

If you can't explain your pattern in 5 minutes time, then you probably don't understand it.

True enough. I was only trying to explain our somewhat informal guideline at work; a junior should be able to master any one of our projects in a maximum of 2 weeks time, without any help from a senior. In general, we don't trust juniors to correctly identify or implement various patterns, so we don't approach our code as such. But, of course, we do want juniors to be able to work for clients almost instantly. *grin* It's mostly an effort of gathering/vetting the right tools; ones that are easy to use, easy to test, and with a low code footprint. Around 90% of our R&D is spend on simplifying the way we do things. But, to come back to factory pattern: I hate it because it often seems the right choice, but, for me, it has never panned out. Every time I try it out, I end up over-designing my data models and adding an abstraction layer I don't really need. In the end, I usually remove it and end up with (almost embarrassingly..) simple classes with distinct data. It can be infuriating. I try to come up with a clever looking data structure, hope factory pattern fits the bill, and *boom* suddenly I see there's no need for abstraction whatsoever, vastly reducing my test code and simplifying my DB design. :(

I don't care for patterns in my code and I definitely don't care for vague terms like "clean" code. I only care for code that's short, safe to fail, easy to test, and understandable by a college freshman in less than 2 weeks. Nevertheless, please write about the patterns you think are worthwhile; preferably with a not-too-generic example. You might teach us something worthwhile. Also, if anyone knows of a must-read regarding the use of factory-pattern, please share. I really hate it and I'm looking for material to nuance my feelings towards it.

Don't buy HP. Just.. don't. I stopped counting the amount of HP related desktop and laptop problems I've seen over the years. The oddest one was a laptop with a modified Windows 8 install image on it with less drivers than the stock Windows 8 image. As a result, it had no Ethernet and no Wi-Fi out-of-the box. On the plus side, it was priced pretty cheap and the MB broke in the last month of warranty. :thumbsup:

I've used git for about 10 years. Typically, I'd automate most of it with scripts, and then forget about it existing until something goes wrong and doesn't merge. Then it's of to SO looking for ways to make it to work again. I've used TFS for about 3 years now and it's way easier. I can just point and click (never used a TFS command afaik) and it's so easy to figure out that you don't need documentation. If you want something that just works, go with TFS. If you need fine-grained control or want to actively maintain everything, go with git.

I've used most C# projects of VS2017 since release and I only encountered this once; when my IntelliSense database failed to synchronize with one of our automated backup solutions. So.. I'm guessing it's either a bug in the newer ASP projects or it depends on an external factor. Have you considered eliminating plugins, extensions and non-typical project settings? Have you properly debugged your own Visual Studio environment? A bug is a bug. Just fix it like the rest of 'em. :)

Any particular boots in mind? I've been cycling through rainstorms and walking large distances a lot lately, and I'm also in the market for waterproof walking boots.