Thank you for your update... I have always enjoyed the Daily News emails. Hopefully, Chris' replacement will take up this aspect of The Code Project's repertoire...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
Chris... Wishing you and your family all the best. Hopefully, the Code Project Team will replace you with a professional as equally talented...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
Does anyone know why we have not been getting The Code Project's "Daily News" emails in the past week or so?
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
Stick with C or move to C++. We also now have Rust. Anything else and you could be risking more than you would want...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
I would switch to Linux in a heartbeat and Ubuntu installed with Virtual Box on my workstation-laptop. However, nothing compares to working with Visual Studio. Even JetBrains Rider feels like a half-baked product...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
I have Ubuntu installed in Virtual Box on my workstation-laptop. I really like it as it has come a long way from when I first began tinkering with it. However, as a developer, Visual Studio is still the best IDE available, and I have tried quite a few, including Jet Brains' "Rider". I have Rider installed in Ubuntu and was tinkering with it when it crashed the entire VM. Jet Brains has some great products. I have both their Python IDE, PyCharm, and PHP IDE, PhpStorm. I love the PyCharm as it just works both under Windows and Linux when you get used to its interface. Unfortunately, I believe Jet Brains took on more than they could chew with Rider. As a WPF developer, Rider is not all that mature as it still doesn't have a control toolbox, which I use just to get the basic XAML generated. Everything else, I do manually in the editor. So for me, as of now, there is still no real quality C#\VB.NET IDE under Linux and with the complexity of my work I am not interested in rewriting everything in Python, though it is tempting. As for WPS, it was my go-to MS-Office alternative until they implemented their AI spellchecker, which was a major annoyance so a lot of us WPS users complained and dropped the product. I switched to LibreOffice, which I have under Ubuntu as well. This software has come a long way from its early days making it now a stand-up tool for what we need it for. I would like to eventually switch over everything to Linux, or at least make my development cross-platform. As a result, I am experimenting with the Avalonia-UI software to see how it runs under Linux with .NET Core 8. Microsoft still has no plans to make a version of Visual Studio for Linux but hopefully the pressures will mount and they will eventually have to...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
Why would I need an AI Assistant if I knew what I was doing and what I wanted to write as code? Seems like Co-Pilot is merely a redundant piece of software that Microsoft wants professionals to use with no real and apparent reasoning... Unless of course, Co-Pilot has another layer of surveillance software in it. I have never tried the software and have no intentions for doing so. In fact, I have been looking at moving my development efforts to Linux. I wish JetBrains with its Rider ID would get its act together with WPF support...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
This appears to be part of a classic kick-back scam, which is quite common among technical managers. If you see a new contractor come in the door to assist you in this project or your manager recommends an expensive software tool to assist you in this work, then there it is...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
I have a Honda 2019 Accord. Its great car. And I bought it off lease for a mere $12,500.00. The price was so low because it doesn't have all the tech-junk that is common with cars today. However, it does have an internal diagnostic system that goes nuts every now and then. While driving on a highway, the diagnostic system will sometimes pop up messages telling me that my brake-system has failed,along with a host of other issues. However, nothing is wrong. The brakes still work fine and so does everything else. This all started happening after the last software-recall from Honda. Never had an issue with the older software...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
Why would any intelligent, advanced civilization want to contact us? They don't need to be sanctioned by the US...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
C# is merely VB.NET with some steroids added...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
I always stayed with my "smart" flip-phone instead of one of those "dumb phones". My own "smart" phone is smaller and thus easier to carry. And without all the stupid features, which no one really needs, my little phone ensures that I rely on my brain and not someone else's algorithm. "Dumb phones" seem to have only made our country much dumber than it already was because it allows everyone to create their own little self-deluded bubbles while allowing someone else to think for them. When someone tells you that they find their "dumb phones" very helpful, simply ask them when was the last time they read a credible military analysis of the US' wars across the globe...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
This is a project I have wanted to do for many years. However, for good number of years, decent information on both the graphics and the AI was scant at best until more recently. The result is that I have a lot of learning and research to do. This makes it a little difficult for me to request monies for my work... At least now. Even the with third release, which is what is currently available for download, I found quite a number of issues with the GUI and the database, most of which should be corrected in the upcoming release. However, the work on all the updates to the HELP file will take a little time and I have to finish the testing of the GUI. It is a lot of work but it is slowly coming together...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
The military simulation workbench I am developing will provide the basic capabilities, which includes the necessary AI routines to any developer who would like to develop a war game/military simulation. To date, I have just about completed a database sub-system that will provide for all the data for a land-based simulation. Still a few tweaks left to put in it but they will have to wait until the 5th version release. I am working on the 4th version release now. I have completed a distance calculation (distance between two hexagons on a map board) that makes use of the standard "Manhattan Distance" algorithm for such calculations. A path-finding algorithm has also been implemented, which relies on the distance calculation. And finally, I have just about completed a basic decision-tree algorithm that when provided with both a unit's data and a number of conditions is able to provided response as to what action a unit should take (ie: attack, retreat, ...) You can download the complete project from my website, http://www.blackfalconsoftware.com The software is called the "AGKWorkbench"...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
Jeremy... Thank you for your very informative reply... I am in the middle of developing a large military simulation workbench. As a result, I have a lot of research to when it comes to the AI aspect of it. Just now, I am completing a basic decsion-tree algorithm, which is based upon a standard B-Tree implementation. If I was at the beginning of this project, I may have considered doing the entire thing on Linux in Python. However, I started this project quite a while ago and have been working on it just about every day. Except for one assembly, the entire project is written in VB.NET. I am sort of waiting for JetBrain's Rider IDE to enhance its WPF GUI-designer and then I may make a purchase to see if I could get my code over to Linux. I have the Ubuntu Workstation installed, and it really has come a long way in ease-of-use. So moving to Linux is a backup plan I have been keeping in the back of my mind. BTW, all of the Indian professional technicians I worked with prior to 2000 were wonderful people and quite capable technically. Yet, sometime after 2000, India saw a new avenue to make money as started cranking out technicians over there like a flood. Most of them were not all that good. However, I got to work with a team over there and they were just like the older technicians I had worked with. Friendly, capable, and willing to have open minds. I got friendly enough with one of them that she sent me a picture of herself...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
I agree with you but this also has a lot to do with the deteriorating quality of young professionals who work at the big vendors. Many documents have been written in the past few years reporting on how younger people are coming out of university with an overblown sense of entitlement while really having nothing to do offer in terms of critical thinking skills and technical intelligence. Many professionals are seeing this with the increasing mess in web development products that has been made possible by the radical decoupling of components from more centralized processes (ie: ASP.NET WebForms), which may not have been the most efficient but were easier to learn, easier to compartmentalize, and made for better project estimates. Now what do we have? A entire sundry of tools, tool-sets, and frameworks that increasingly rely on more arcane and ambiguous syntax that together is enough to drive one to drink. This is why the PHP language is still holding its own in the web arena... We also have the deteriorating quality of decision making at Microsoft, which I knew would happen under Nadella's leadership. I have worked with quite a few Indian managers during my career, and though technically capable they are arrogant, and have little capability in big-picture strategies, relying on a just a "get it done" attitude while attempting to cut costs at the same time. This is also why you rarely see top quality and innovative software products coming out of India. The time is coming where if Microsoft keeps on turning everything into varying levels of rocket science for its products, which is hardly required for what a lot of us need to do, another company will eventually move into Microsoft's declining space. For example, does anyone really need to use SQL Server any longer when we have the MySQL and PostgreSQL database engines, both of which have large support communities as well as direct technical support. Without Windows, Microsoft would be nowhere, and with the sagging influence of cloud computing, Nadella's original goals are starting to get a black eye from which he may never recover. Still, I prefer using Windows to Linux. But if necessary, will make the switch when the time comes...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I am just about 74 (this month on the 26th). Glad to see that there are professionals older than I still doing the work. Me... I'm going out like Admiral Grace Hopper, the inventor of the COBOL language. She worked full time as an instructor at Annapolis until the day she passed away at 85 years of age...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
I use as few dependencies in my project as possible. In my current, rather large project, the only actual dependency I am using is for Syncfusion's WPF control suite. I have an additional Open Source project, which I ported to VB.NET so all of my source is consistent (it is an Open Source project) and the Firebird Database Provider, which I also include the source code for. This latter project is in C# and is the only one I decided not to port since most people would not be looking at it anyway. However, it is compiled with the rest of the project so that if I want to upgrade my framework version, there are no issues. When I upgrade the database engine to the latest version, I will probably just use the DLL for the data provider. All this being said, I attempt to minimize project dependencies as much as possible since they can and do cause issues when updating and\or upgrading one's project. As one who came out of the mainframe environments we all learned one thing about our coding and project infrastructures... Keep it as simple as possible so the least experienced member of a team can quickly come up to speed with the project. Today, however, many developers seem to regale as to how complex they can make their code and project infrastructures by using much of then newer and arcane coding constructs, which really do very little for performance in most cases while making the source code more ambiguously complex. At the same time, projects are no longer offered as separate versions on a per framework basis but are all combined into one solution with a lot of directives to produce all of the necessary assemblies on a per framework separation. All this makes a project difficult to read and understand...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
Whenever I receive a live robo-call I have always wanted to answer... "You have contacted the Special Intelligence Network. This agent #00329017, please provide me with your agent authorization code..."
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
So I am not the only one fed up with all the automatic code insertions... I was working on a C# project in VS 2022 and got so annoyed with this idiocy that I went back to VS 2019, where I am staying for the time being... In VS 2022 I tried setting ll of the options off that may have been supporting all the code insertions but nothing worked...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com