If the environment is noisy you want one that fully covers the ear. There are many excellent ones available targeted to the gaming market. They generally include mics. Spend at least $100. You get what you pay for. If quite area then there are lots of Plantronics options. A wireless one is also a must. You can go get coffee or lunch in the middle of a meeting. You will not miss anything, and no one will know you were not glued to your computer.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

More than once I have had peers that sneered when I suggested it. One went so far to ask if I needed my diaper changed. But then in the next round of layoffs he was let go and I stayed. My customers kept asking for more Excel spread sheets.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

Don't laugh. I have converted several apps that used to use CR to put the output to Excel. More recently I have just used Excel to query the database to replace a CR. Users really like when I do that and going back a year later, I find many of the reports I did have been edited. Everyone works with Excel. Most of the time is it is just secondary calculations. Many get very skilled. Seeing how I did the queries several have even changed the queries. In all cases the reports are now better suit the needs. Using Excel has now achieved the goal(dream) of letting users edit reports.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

Another major milestone in the death of Blackberry was reached yesterday. BlackBerry pulls the plug on its pioneering mobile phone - CBS News[^] It reminds me that technologies are as mortal as people. And as varied as people. In this case it is a long drawn out, painful death. Not a quick merciful one.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

I recently did an app and the company library had a set of about 30 converters in it. Mostly common things. I found myself using binding and converters much more than I ever had in the past. Simply because I did not have write the converters. They are not hard to write, it is just I am lazy. It got me wondering if out there somewhere there is a better worked out converter library????

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

I sometimes think binding is a new form of spaghetti code. Converters are kind of like the meatballs. All covered in sauce, a kind of slippery connection. Binding and converters are a great idea but are almost rendered useless by the lack of debugging tools.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

This is a very glossy overview I assume you know what binding is since you are watching this forum on WPF. Let’s say you want to bind a bool to visibility. Bool has only 2 states, true and false. Visibility has 3 states, Visible, Hidden, and Collapsed. (Ignoring null). A binding converter will convert bool to visibility. As stated, before binding and converters are not for the faint of heart. This link will get you started, barely. Value conversion with IValueConverter - The complete WPF tutorial[^]

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

If you want to be close to the metal then you would do everything in assembly. When the IBM PC first came out there was quite a discussion about the pros and cons of using assembly. Out of this the one thing I remember was the story about the cowboy that liked to chew on metal nails. Do you remember it? Someone asked a cowboy why he like to chew on nails. He answered, when I look in a mirror and see all my broken and cracked teeth, I look tough. When it pokes me and cuts me in the mouth, the pain makes me feel tough. When there is blood running down the corner of my mouth others will know I am tough.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

A different kind of converter. This is about the old Converter dialog box. Not the binding converters.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

It is a feature of binding. I know some people have never used binding. I use it but would not recommend it for the faint of heart. When you have a good set of converters, binding is much more useful. Still very difficult to debug. Do you know about Behaviors? Another obscure and little used feature.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

You should try APL. It was hot in the 60's and 70's. APL (programming language) - Wikipedia[^]

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

Where can I find an up-to-date library or set of wpf converters? I have also found that System.Windows.Controls contains 3 convertors. The closest I can find to a set. I did a query wpf converters github - Google Search[^] It found several candidates but they are quite dated.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

Why has Binding never caught on in Windows Forms. I have been using binding in Wpf for years. Have not paid much attention to Windows Forms. Someone just pointed out that Windows Forms has binding. Looking it up they have had it since .Net2. Occasionally I have had to maintain a Windows Forms app and have never seen it used.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

Celebrated by having cold leftover pizza for breakfast. One of my favorite breakfasts. Note that when having it for breakfast it must be eaten cold. Warmed up is for lunch an dinner.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

I was given a medium sized app, about 50,000 line total. It will not shut down on its own. You either have to kill it the debugger or go to Task Manager to kill it there. I have hit things like this before. You create a child and then kill the parent. You have lost the handle to the child and cannot close it. The app hangs when shutting down. Before I was building the program and knew when this happened. I only had to backtrack a little bit to find the problem. Now I have something written by someone else. When you kill the app even in the debugger you loose the stack panel. How can I find what the offender is?

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

I have also seen static's used. Not a "static" fan but it works. Static's have there place. The reason Serilog is so easy to use and hence popular is because of static's.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

I like that phrase, "ferret it out". It is a common idiom. I brings to mind the furry little animal that seems to not have a spine and can get into all kinds of places. Per Wikipedia, The name "ferret" is derived from the Latin furittus, meaning "little thief". In this case wiggling around a lot and stealing results from obscure references.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

One thing I see right off the bat is that when you use DataContext you are instantiating DisplayViewModel.

You basically created two instances of DisplayViewModel. One fix would be to instantiate it somewhere else in C# :

DisplayViewModel displayViewModel = new DisplayViewModel();

Then add to each page then for each page in C# on initialization add:

this.DataContext = ????.displayViewModel

Now they will both point to the same instance.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

I am working on an app that is organized sort of as a browser with the frame/page construct. I ran across an interesting behavior that I can not find documented. When you use the Initialize event, it gets executed when the page is instantiated. When you use the Loaded event, it gets executed every time the page becomes content of the frame. It makes sense and is sort of alluded to in the Microsoft documentation, but the implication is easily missed as it applies to frame/page. I have run across other interesting aspects of fame/page that are not clearly documented. Is there a good article or book that really describes the frame/page construct? Everything I have found is rather superficial just giving the highlights or stressing navigation. It should be at least 10 pages long and could be a book of well over 100 pages.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.

Arguments is an old term that is not used much any more. You still find arguments in many references. Parameters is the newer term for the same thing. This is where words get confusing. When you use get/set many consider it a kind of super argument/parameter. That is why many references consider things with get/set use the term parameters. My whole point in this rant is no one is right or wrong. They are not terms with rigid meanings cast in syntax stone. They are all just general concepts.

So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.