Access front end SQL Server back end served me well for years in a large corporate environment. The report creation is a wiz , a lot easier to knock out a report that Reporting Services. I agree a large user base over a network is a bit iffy which is why I ported from an Access db back end , that said we managed up to 50 users across a network with no issues. I eventually ported it to SQL and ultimately it was "taken over" by a dot NET app , mostly because the IT dept couldn't cope with an Access App that worked !!

Mike

Maybe C++ , I had in installed with fax and often r# as well with no issues

Mike

No ones mentioned the best bit it's free ... I have used it on and off for literally years it's been around at least 5 The one real goody is the file structure window - like r# and vac It's worth a look it does all sorts of formatting and clean ups Check out VS gallery it's in there Mike

Mike

I was wondering how to strap that cream coloured box and 2 floppy drives on my wrist. AHHHH nostalgia ain't what it used be ... Apple ][ .... Mike

Mike

If you drag a control from teh Data Sources , Microsoft will call it firstNameTextBox -- who am I to argue if you have camel humps in R# who really cares , verbose maybe but self explanatory

Mike

You wait until you get really old( 63 coming soon -- retirement yeahahahaha) I seriously thought of a specific pair of reading glasses set up for screen distance rather than book distance. I use a 24 in screen but its still about what resolution you choose. Maybe my none HD laptop is the asnswer but you lose screen "Real Estate" Variafocals don't do badly but its all the head movements to keep the focus "sweet spot" Still I suppose it exercises the neck ;) Mike

Mike

2 days a week works fine for me and my company , I need limited face to face meetings , and everyone knows my schedule. I do it primarily to avoid traffic , I work in one of the central business district in Johannesburg and getting in can vary between 30 mins and 90 mins , depending on who has run into who on the feed roads , working from home I start relaxed and not frustrated and wanting to throttle some one. AND the coffees better

Mike

I agree , I just upgraded to a laptop , i7, 8Gb and Win 7 64 from Core 2 with 4Gb and Win 7 32 bit . VS 2010 behaves a lot better , especially with R# installed , the 4gb PC I was getting Out Of Memory errors galore . Whats the line "Why didn't I do it earlier" -- Money as ever Mike

Mike

Z80 -- Luxury , I had to make do with Sinclair Basic. You had to be very gentle with the ZX81 if you that 16K RAM Pack , when you got to the end of the program and pressed that final key with a flourish , the RAM Pack connection flexed and whoosh away went all your work . There was nothing to save to your cassette recorder . Maybe the scrathcy Led Zepplin recordinsg were safe after all. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be ;) Mike

Mike

Hold ....? I have 2 readers , a SONY PRS600 and a Kindle Touch. For normal ebook novels etc I would vote Kindle any time as the contrast on the eInk is so much better than the Sony(the reason for 2) . BUT I haven't seen the new generation eInk on the newer Sony devices, mine is 3 years old and they have released new versions. BUT PDF is another thing ,unless I am missing something, I read novels on Kindle and Tech stuff on Sony because the Kindle doesn't scale the text properly on PDF , it effectively shows it as an image and is one size, whereas Sony shows it as an image only on the lowest text setting which is far too small to read. The remainder of text sizes it shows true text (I hope I made that clear) . You can convert the PDF to Mobi and use Kindle that way of course We tried a Netbook for a while which works as my wife didn't like the contrast on the Sony but battery life is a bit limiting , also its a bit bulky. She eventually went for Kindle , but she reads novels only on it. It doesn't really matter but Kindle has no external SD card ability , on my sony I have a 16gb card which is quite a few libraries. Althought I must admit I keep all books on my LapTop and manage them with Calibre (Abs FAB Software and free), and just load what I will read in the next few days / weeks /holiday Hope This Helps Mike

Mike

Bit late -- been sunbathing Not trully shareware but has any one tried Devprojects.com AutoCode , its a $20 "contribution" for the pro version (Nag version is free but you can't roll your own templates). It does some loverly code template insertions Mike

Mike

Hi Check Out the Resharper Forum , you are not alone. There has been a heated debate about performance (by me at least) since 6.0 was released , they released 6.1 to overcome some of these , a specific issue with writing and processing files. I have a i7 Quad / SSD / BUT Win 32 and 4Gb . There is nothing I can do about this as its an "Issue Machine" by my employers . BUT Why should I have to , its not a bad spec. I code for about and hour and eventually get a Out Of Memory error and VS 2010 crashes . I have had to uninstall R# . I have reverted to using Visual Assist X as a much lower demand add in . BUT a much lower functionality to go with it. I firmly believe that R# has simply got too big and now really demands a 64 Bit PC and Loads of RAM if its to function at all . This is sad since comapred to all the add ins out there its streets ahead in the way in blends into VS. The Love Hate relationship continues. What is really sad is that users like me sit with a "redundant" product . I can use it but it means restarting VS every hour or so to clear out memory, hardly ideal. Even on small projects I see 300 Mb DevEnv.exe usage in Task Manager climb to 700- 800 Mb within an hour. Even sadder is Jet Brains are remarkably quiet on the subject. Mike

Mike

Resharper or Visual Assist an absolute Must , probbaly leaning Resharper these days Red Gate SQL Prompt if you do any amount io SQL , also works in SSMS Tab Studio (nice little Extra) I beging to think I code in shorthand :laugh:

Mike

Its been said above but I'll say it again Codsmith is only as good as the Templates you use , there are enough template samples to show you the way . Its a no pain no gain situation , if you spend time learning how to code (YES code) your own templates then it pays dividends . While Codesmith excels at reading DB Schema's and translating to Entity Classes and DAL etc , if its text you can generate with with Codesmith , I use it extensively to generate small "slugs" of code in Win Form apps , things like repetitive building of tree views etc. Coding by hand is essential to start with but once working debugged and perfect Codesmith simply automates "Copy & Paste". At least it gives you the bulk to edit and customise if all else fails. You only have to look at the PLINQO project (thats added a a new lease of life into a doomed Linq 2 SQL) to see an example of the innovation that Codesmith have put into the "Open Source" projects , yes you need Codesmith to take advantage but thats a small prices for the functionality it buys. My suspicion is thet the nasysayers of Codesmith have never really put in the effort to learn how to use it properly , stuff like VS Integration with Codesmith Projects is just magic , auto sync with your DB each time you compile your VS project(if you so wish) , Active Snippets just slots in pre tested lumps of code and a mouse click. Admittedly the 2 week evaluation limited to their db (Petshop) is a bit restrictive on a decent evaluation but it does show enough for a $200 gamble. I have tried a lot of the other DAL generators , the output in general I find confusing and overly complex in many cases and in most cases only doing One job whereas Codesmth can do many . My Generation comes close as an open source alternative , but in terms of ease of use I found it very scrappy compared to CodeSmith. I have yet to really use T4 in VS2008 . ApexCode is a good alternative but despite their efforts to drum up support for templates , there seems limted following. I use Codesmth avidly (as you may gather) and as for stability in V5 I have never had a single issue, there are active user forums and their support for any queries or potential bugs is excellent. To me its an indespensible tool , it will never replace a thinking developer but it sure can do a load of mundane work to allow the developer to think !! To Eric Smith and his team , keep up teh good work.... Cheers Mike

Mike

It looks like the same team is working on Linq2Sql and Ado Framwork and only one will win (ADO EF)they claim Linq2Sql will still be there and they will keep it current only time will tell I have played with both and find Linq2 Sql much friendlier .If you add all the tables of a db into one linq2sql designer you get a similar effect as EF but I must admit the "codeless" nature of ADO Ef makes it very attractive.Alsso in linq2 sql you have to manage your own entity states There is not much info in a readable form hence my post below

Mike

Is there anywhere a 'distilled" version of the MSDN content on the ADO Entity Framework or equivalent. I can't find a book to suit and the MSDN content while good is so full of hyperlinks as to make reading , navigating and printing some of the key areas a nightmare. What I have seen so far looks promising as Linq_Sql seems doomed , I may as well bite the bullet, but at my tender years I need a "paper read" Cheers Mike

Mike