XML

Victoria Code Camp retrospective

Kent Sharkey — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:20:41 GMT

[modified] Almost forgot. Here are the slides if you want to see them.

We're back from Victoria, where I did another version of my "A quick look at SubSonic" talk (it was a shorter version of the talk I gave in Winnipeg). What did I learn?

People don't stay all day at a Code Camp. During the kickoff, there looked to be around 100 people in attendance. There were all of 8 or so people in my talk (and a big 'Thank you!' to all of you), and the other two speakers (I would have gladly been in either of their talks) during the last session claimed 25 each.
I really need to force myself to get out and speak (and write) more
While I feel generally apprehensive around the whole "LINQ thing", the syntactic sugar they added to VB to help on the XML work is excellent. You can now declare and use an XML element (or document) on the fly:

        Dim custs = <customers>
                        <customer id="ALFKI">
                            <company>Alfreds Futterkiste</company>
                            <address>
                                <street>Obere Str. 57</street>
                                <city>Berlin</city>
                                <zip>12209</zip>
                                <country>Germany</country>
                            </address>
                            <contact>
                                <name>Maria Anders</name>
                                <title>Sales Representative</title>
                                <phone>030-0074321</phone>
                                <fax>030-0076545</fax>
                            </contact>
                        </customer>
			'...more here, but removed
                    </customers>

        Dim contacts = From cust In custs...<contact> _
                       Select cust.<name>, cust.<phone>

        For Each contact In contacts
            Console.WriteLine(String.Format("{0}: {1}", _
                                            contact.name.Value, _
                                            contact.phone.Value))
        Next

Lies, damed lies and (glorious) stats

Kent Sharkey — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:16:54 GMT

Via The Frontal Cortex, I see that Amazon now has a few tidbits of information about some books, so I had to take a look to see the last two I worked on (not entirely my work/words, but mostly for amusement).

Professional XML:

These statistics are computed from the text of this book. (learn more)

Readability (learn more)

Compared with books in Computer... > Programm... > Language... > General

Fog Index:

12.5

37% are easier

63% are harder

Flesch Index:

45.7

38% are easier

62% are harder

Flesch-Kincaid Index:

10.0

35% are easier

65% are harder

Complexity (learn more)

Complex Words:

19%

55% have fewer

45% have more

Syllables per Word:

1.8

55% have fewer

45% have more

Words per Sentence:

12.7

26% have fewer

74% have more

Number of

Characters:

1,622,846

85% have fewer

15% have more

Words:

227,865

83% have fewer

17% have more

Sentences:

17,986

85% have fewer

15% have more

Fun stats

Words per Dollar:

6,907

Words per Ounce:

5,217

Easy reading, and 6.9Kwords per dollar! That's about 20,000 words for the price of a (decent) latte! Where else can you get a bargain like that? Well...

Professional VB 2005:

(They didn't have the concordance set up for the new edition yet)
These statistics are computed from the text of this book. (learn more)

Readability (learn more)

Compared with books in Computer... > Programm... > Language... > General

Fog Index:

13.1

56% are easier

44% are harder

Flesch Index:

46.9

40% are easier

60% are harder

Flesch-Kincaid Index:

10.5

53% are easier

47% are harder

Complexity (learn more)

Complex Words:

18%

53% have fewer

47% have more

Syllables per Word:

1.7

46% have fewer

54% have more

Words per Sentence:

15.1

64% have fewer

36% have more

Number of

Characters:

2,173,556

98% have fewer

2% have more

Words:

337,224

98% have fewer

2% have more

Sentences:

22,325

98% have fewer

2% have more

Fun stats

Words per Dollar:

9,921

Words per Ounce:

6,799

That's right -- almost 10,000 words per dollar! (The new edition is even longer/larger, so the bargains keep piling on. Operators and Web sites are standing by.)

What has been occupying my time

Kent Sharkey — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:03:50 GMT

It's been about a nice round 17 months (give or take) since I left Microsoft. Since then, Microsoft shipped some software, people have argued, and the world continues its revolution, rotation and other movements.

I know all of you were wondering, "What's Kent up to?", so here is some of what I've been up to since I left.

I do a daily newsletter for Code Project, the Insider. It's a daily email of news on the industry, developer stuff and more. Oh, and sorry, no RSS feed.

I helped Bill Evjen (aka Writing Monster II) create a couple more books.
I did four chapters in Wrox's new Professional VB 2005 with .NET 3.0. (Proving once again that Microsoft doesn't have a lock on overly long product names.) No prizes if you guess which chapters I did, but I hope you like them. It also continued my almost perfect series. I realized as we were working on it that I have written on every version of VB since 5 with the sole exception of 2003. That I would have included, but I chickened out, and D had to finish it.

I did far too many (in my opinion) chapters in Wrox's Professional XML. It was a good experience, I think; it just took too long for everyone involved. Bill and I had originally planned for it to be out last year, but schedules, our new jobs and assorted other events contributed to it not. Again, no prizes if you can pick out my chapters. One of the things I liked about the book is that Bill wanted it framework-agnostic. That means it isn't a .NET book per se, but there are .NET samples, Java samples, Ruby samples and many others. It may not end up being a must-have book for everyone, but I think there is a lot of useful information in it.

I've been helping out with the whole TechEd Bloggers family of sites. Mostly poking at the back end of it, but I did also help out with the new look. More on that later, along with assorted complaints about CSS. While I am discussing TechEdBloggers, though. Don't forget to add your blog to their system. You don't have to be going to TechEd to participate. Oh, and if you like (or hate) the new look, feel free to let me know.

Finally (at least that I'll admit to right now), I've worked on a couple of Web sites for Microsoft. The Coding4Fun Web site was an experiment -- an attempt to host information both on MSDN and MSDN Blogs. Finally, Dan came to his senses, and he's moving it over to being a blog-only site. Check out the new look.

The Beginner Developer Learning Center is more of a standard site as far as MSDN is concerned, but is still an important site for me. The one group we miss in all of our discussions of best practices, language wars and datagrids is the complete beginner. This site really strives to help them out, and I know it will continue to get even better.

What's next? Dunno. Maybe another Alphabet project - at least it kept me posting. Maybe some of the items that don't make the newsletter, or comments about some of the items that do. Maybe something about the article series I'm doing for MSDN, assuming I do the next one and if any of them ever get published.