Too much bitching and moaning

August 26, 2005 @ 6:08 pm

I spend a lot of time writing up things that don’t work and if you only look at entries in my Blog you’d kinda get the feeling that I’m either a major whiner or that I really hate development in whatever tools I use. In fact, I see very frequently mentions in various forums about ‘all the problems Rick’s having with this or that’ and taking that as a sign that the technology is not ready or flawed (this invariably seems to be FoxPro folks that need a reason to slam .NET – but trust me there are plenty of bitch and moan posts of VFP here as well).

The reality is that I choose to blog about things I struggle with, because a) it often helps me to define the problem more clearly and often times merely writing it down makes me figure out the solution, which then promptly gets blogged as well. I can’t tell you how often this has happened.

But b) is just as important: If I’m having a problem with something, it is likely to help out other developers or if there’s no solution to bring in people who have in fact solved a particular problem. One of the things I’m a little proud of is the quality of responses that are being posted on this blog – there are lots of knowledgable people providing input and often the comments are more prominent than the actual posts. It’s community at its best when that happens. For a couple of examples look at these two posts:

Making sense of ASP.NET Paths

DataGrid Paging Events not firing

In fact, I’m very happy with the way this Blog is working for me as a developer’s diary that I can go to search for my ‘notes’ as well as having solicited some truly useful feedback by the many people who stop by here and contribute to this blog as a resource. I’d venture to say that it’s working – a lot of times when I’m looking for a solution in a search engine I find entries in my own blog – not that that’s helpful necessarily (although sometimes it is as I forget what’s actually there <g>).

But my point is that if you’ve gotten the impressions I’m constantly struggling with problems and everything is awful is broken – not so. It’s just the face of this blog that brings out the worst of development in me <g> most of the time. I mean it’d be pretty bland if I’d be crowing every day about all the things that worked as they are supposed to, wouldn’t it?

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re: Too much bitching and moaning
by Marty Cantwell August 26, 2005 @ 9:06 pm

Don't let anyone give you a hard time over a perceived 'complaining sprit' from you in your Blogs Rick. I truely understand how helpful this type forum can be in working through issues. That's why I was so surprised when the big new thing of 'Pair Programming' came along a few years ago. I've used that style of working more than one pair of eyes on development for years!

I do want to say this though; I'm not surprised to see the high-quality postbacks here and I think you should be proud of that. All one has to do is look at the West-Wind Message Board and see that the same high bar of quality is consistently upheld there too.

It is obvious that you, your personality, who knows, maybe even your old hair style <g>; something about you draws the best out of the developers and users you interact with.

I've truely enjoyed and benefited greatly from getting to participate on your message board for the last few years. I never have felt like a fool (well, maybe once when Lauren had to whack me with a Trout<TIC>), been talked down to, or in any way made to feel inferior to anyone, especially in the light of my many peers, most of whom are more knowlegeable than I in many of the areas discussed there.

I can't tell you how many times I've read a postback, a post, one of your blogs, or a message/reply on the message board that have caused some of my little grey cells to work correctly and get through a problem of my own. Now THAT is colloberation of a caliper that can't be bought for any amount of money in my book.

In short, I for one hope you keep having problems!<gd&r>

re: Too much bitching and moaning
by Dan Woolston August 26, 2005 @ 10:14 pm

i dont think you whine. i think you deal with the same frustrations that all of us developers deal with.
Its a tense job at times, but as you've mentioned, very rewarding as well.
keep up the good work.

re: Too much bitching and moaning
by Dennis Bailey August 27, 2005 @ 7:02 am

Rick,

I don't comment much, but I do stop by and read your articles on a regular basis. One reason is because you do bitch!!! I thought I was the only one having problems with this stuff. It's refreshing to know that I am not alone.

As for your blog, keep up the excellent work! I can't wait to see what you do next!!

Dennis Bailey

re: Too much bitching and moaning
by Tom Kelly August 28, 2005 @ 10:25 am

Rick,

I spend to many hours day to mention and all I do is work with Visual Studio's 2005 using C# and Win or WebForms.

You have saved me countless hours of work by keeping me informed of issues that effected you.
As an example, my impression of the July CTP release of VS2K5, based on a collective group of blogs from your site as well as others, made me to stay with the Beta 2 version until November, release. At time I will work out the issues that have changed.

As far bashing one language versus another, that issue is mute, you program in what you personnally like, or what your company wants you too. Pretty much almost anything can be done in all modern done language. One language may implement smoother or easier as compared to another.

I have no VFP background, but used pre-VFP, pre-MS versions for 6 years and installed and modified multiple SBT packages in the late 80's and early 90's. Foxpro 1.5 to 2.5 version pre-MS...

To quote another comment"Keep up the good work!".

re: Too much bitching and moaning
by Anon August 28, 2005 @ 2:10 pm

You say you "frequently" see people quoting your troubles as a knock against .NET. Where is that happening? I've only ever seen it once or twice, after a .NET zealot claims that difficulty with .NET is always caused by stupidity, not by faults in the product. Quoting you is actually a compliment and I don't think you need to be concerned your blog is misused as a weapon. Personally I've really enjoyed hearing your troubles because it saves me wasting time and $ banging my head uselessly on brick walls. I think that's the main attitude you'll find from people who use both VFP and dotNET. So be cool!

Making sense of ASP.Net Paths - Rick Strahl's Web Log
by Rick Strahl's Web Log October 15, 2006 @ 6:46 am

ASP.Net a plethora of properties to retrieve path information about the current request, control and application. To keep things straight I thought it'd be a good idea to summarize those options briefly along with describing some common scenarios of how they might be used.