Scott Hanselman

When I was growing up we were not poor, but we weren't living in the suburbs. We did fine, the folks worked extra jobs and we had a $50 limit (total) for Christmas. That's $50 per child, total. Not a bad rule, actually. We appreciated everything we got.

My dad used to have fun with it by packing things in HUGE boxes. Like seriously huge. He'd pack an GI Joe Action Figure in a Dishwasher Appliance box that was bigger than us, then create a Russian Dolls situation with nested boxes. The house was full of boxes. I think the best one was when he put a kid's digital watch that played Space Invaders into a Refrigerator box. Wrapped in Christmas Paper and everything. Fabulous.

Now Amazon is continuing my Dad's tradition. I'd love to sign up for Amazon Prime, Amazon's pay-once, ship-all-the-time-for-free shipping program, but I won't.

Why? Guilt. Eco-guilt specifically. Over the size of the boxes that stuff comes in when you order from Amazon. The box-to-item ratio is out of control and then I'm left with the box.

I love Amazon, and I love being able to order Lido Cookies from Pepperidge Farms (they aren't carried in my town) at the same store I get DVDs, but when an HD-DVD of 300 comes in a box that my 2 year old is now building a fort out of, I think things are out of control.

What's the smallest thing in the largest box that you've received from Amazon?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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In my new ongoing quest to read source code to be a better developer, I now present the sixth in an infinite number of a weekly series called "The Weekly Source Code." Here's some source I'm reading this week that I enjoyed.

• xUnit is a new Unit Testing Framework from Jim "Original NUnit Guy" Newkirk and Brad "The .NET Guy" Wilson. Posts about the "why" of it are already flying and I remain neutral, like Switzerland. Seems unnecessary to me, but whatever makes you happy. Let's see if there's anything neat in the source. You gotta give them style points for extensibility. See how they make up a new attribute "RepeatTest," give it behavior, then apply it to a test and the Test Runner just runs the test as the yield's return new TestCommands. Clean.

  public class Example
  {
      static int val;
  
      [RepeatTest(5, Timeout=500)]
      public void RepeatingTestMethod()
      {
          Thread.Sleep(100);
          Assert.Equal(2, 2);
          if (val == 0)
          {
              val++;
              Thread.Sleep(1000);
          }
      }
  }
  
  public class RepeatTestAttribute : TestAttribute
  {
      readonly int repeatCount;
  
      public RepeatTestAttribute(int repeatCount)
      {
          this.repeatCount = repeatCount;
      }
  
      public override IEnumerable<ITestCommand> CreateTestCommands(MethodInfo testMethod)
      {
          for (int index = 0; index < repeatCount; index++)
              yield return new TestCommand(testMethod);
      }
  }

• Keith Brown's Password Manager (PWM) - I had my favorite Password Manager crash on launch for me today so I rebuilt it it locally and set the Platform to x86 and it worked. While I was in there...take a look at this bodiless "Record" constructor.

  public Record(string site, string salt, string encryptedUserId, string encryptedPassword, string encryptedNotes, string useSetWindowText, string duration, string nagSpan, string nextReminder, string lastReset, string usageCount) 
          : this(site, salt, encryptedUserId, encryptedPassword, encryptedNotes, "true" == useSetWindowText,
                 "" == duration ? 0 : Convert.ToInt32(duration),
                 "" == nagSpan  ? 0 : Convert.ToInt32(nagSpan),
                 "" == nextReminder ? DateTime.MaxValue : Convert.ToDateTime(nextReminder),
                 "" == lastReset ? DateTime.Now : Convert.ToDateTime(lastReset),
                 "" == usageCount ? 0 : Convert.ToInt32(usageCount)) {
   }

• RhinoMocks (SVN source) - Both Matt Gilbert and Mike Minutillo pointed me (back) to RhinoMocks Mike says he likes the DisposableAction pattern Ayende is fond of.

  namespace Rhino.Commons
  {
      public class DisposableAction<T> : IDisposable
      {
          Proc<T> _action;
          T _val;
  
          public DisposableAction(Proc<T> action, T val)
          {
              if (action == null)
                  throw new ArgumentNullException("action");
              _action = action;
              _val = val;
          }
  
          public T Value { get { return _val; } }
          public void Dispose() { _action(_val); }
      }
  
      public class DisposableAction : IDisposable
      {
          Proc _action;
  
          public DisposableAction(Proc action)
          {
              if (action == null)
                  throw new ArgumentNullException("action");
              _action = action;
          }
          public void Dispose(){ _action(); }
      }
  }

• Monorail HotSwap - While you're there, take a look at these 70 lines of code. I wonder aloud if this leaks Assemblies, but it's OK because it's primarily created as a development speed thing. Clever though. Did YOU know how easy it is to compile new code from within .NET?

  void CodeChanged(object sender, FileSystemEventArgs e)
  {
      string fileName = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(e.FullPath);
      string typeName = controllersNamespace+"."+fileName;
      CompilerParameters options = CreateCompilerOptions();
  
      CSharpCodeProvider provider = new CSharpCodeProvider();
      CompilerResults compilerResults = provider
          .CompileAssemblyFromFile(options, e.FullPath);
  
      container.Kernel.RemoveComponent(typeName);
      
      if(compilerResults.Errors.HasErrors)
          return;
  
      Type type = compilerResults.CompiledAssembly.GetType(typeName);
      container.AddComponent(type.FullName, type);
  }
  

Feel free to send me links to cool source that you find hasn't been given a good read.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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That's pretty cool, Bill Gates sold the first copy of Halo 3 to a 17-year-old in Bellevue at the Best Buy. Why did I think of that - standing in line for 10 hours to meet Bill. Darn. I'll need to be more creative.

Fortunately, as you know, I went to work for Microsoft for one reason. Was it to "influence millions of developers?" Please. It was to get a cheap copy of Halo 3. Home delivered. Yesterday. To my home. Thank you Company Store. I can quit now.

Seriously, the wife was kind enough to let me encourage me to play "that damn game" last night from about 10pm to 3am. I don't play a lot of games, so this was a rare thing. I started on the Solo Campaign - I never start with Multiplayer, I want to get my bearings first - I did that for about four hours. I then did the Multiplayer Matches for the last two.

Here's my impressions.

First Impressions

It looks like Halo. Maybe I've forgotten what Halo 1 and Halo 2 look like, but Halo 3 looks like those, except bigger and sharper. The graphics aren't face-meltingly awesome like BioShock or Gears of War. I didn't go "holy crap, look at that water" or utter any "wow's" that I can think of.

However, it's smooth. It's calm. The framerate is clearly the number one priority of their graphics engine. You can feel it as you walk around. There's no tearing, no drops, no slowdown. It's just buttery smooth. I'm not saying that they've sacrificed visual quality for framerate, I'm not qualified nor do I have an eye for such things. I am saying that you WILL notice the smoothness. I did like the Spartan (no pun intended) opening menu. No nonsense. Gets you right into the game.

Single Player

The story picks up literally minutes after Halo 2 ends. This of course means that you should familiarize yourself with the story if you want the cutscenes to make sense. I had to read Wikipedia on Halo 2 before I went "oh! THAT was who that dude was." Then again, I have a memory like a sieve. Frankly, now that there are THREE I want to go play Halo 1 and 2 through on Single Player again for some reason more than I want to play #3.

So far the same has been very easy on Normal mode, so I think I'm going to pump up the difficulty as soon as I can. I would probably think that "Heroic" difficult would be a good default for folks who made it through the first two games.

 The dual wielding (two guns) option, combined with the addition of a pile of new weapons makes the mind work much more than with Halos 1 and 2. You're constantly asking in the back of your mind, "is this the right combo for what might be coming." Also, you'll need to watch the reaction of the enemies, as they are distinct. I never thought I'd choose a Shotgun to go after a Brute, but frankly, not only is anything better than the standard gun, the Shotgun just works. It becomes clear which weapons work against which guys and each weapon has it's reason for being.

The story really has you on rails. After playing BioShock, another FPS that is slightly less structured (but still on rails), I had forgotten how I didn't like games that walk you from level to level. Don't get me wrong, the level design is lovely, but there seems to be a pattern just in the first few hours of walk, walk, walk, fight, fight, go back to the main area urgently!, run run run, fight fight, new door opens up, walk walk walk. We'll see if there are surprises coming that will blow my mind like the the introduction of The Flood did.

My ONLY complaint (and it's a lame one) is that the dude is just so jumpy. After playing Gears of War and being stuck to the ground with no jumping at all, the Master Chief in Halo 3 seems like he's running on the Moon an can leap really high and really slow. It's a little confusing for me, but I'm getting used to it. Pretty lame that's my worst complaint. ;) It's a really solid game.

Oh, one other thing you can do Single Player is you can play cooperatively single player online. If anyone sees me online in Xbox Live I'm "glucose" and I'm happy to play if the family is asleep. If you haven't played a single-player game as a team with someone in another timezone, do, it's a treat.

Multi-Player

So balanced. I just hate getting beat on in Multi-player games. Seriously. It's depressing. I suck and I know it, so I want to be paired with others who suck equally. How hard is that? Well, apparently it's so hard that it takes three versions - but they nailed it. You really do get matched to folks that are challenging, but not punishingly so.

There's a ridiculous number of options and choices in multi-player and if Bungie continues to offer maps (which I'm sure they will) then it will continue to stay fresh. They've even included an object placement/map editor called the Forge. You can't change terrain, but you can move stuff around and buy and place weapons.

Last night when I was playing there were about 90,000 people online. Right now there are:

• Halo 3 Players Online: 151,309
• Unique Players (Last 24 Hours): 529,510
• Matches Logged (Last 24 Hours): 1,649,790

It looks like there are at least a half-million folks for us to play with. :)

Conclusion

Is it the greatest game ever? Probably not, but I'm only 4 hours into the single player mission. It might turn out that way. It's clearly different from Bioshock (which may well be the greatest game ever) and Gears of War, but if you like the FPS (First Person Shooter) genre, then all three are distinct flavors worth tasting.

It's really fun to play, though, no question. As I see it:

• BioShock - Prettiest Game To Date. Full Stop. Amazingly deep story that's not too hard to follow. Unbelievable sound engineering - you must play it with headphones or a nice 5.1 surround sound.
• Gears of War - Most "immersively urgent" Game to Date. I'm literally on the edge of my seat with this game. The camera work is fantastic and the human models are the best I've seen in any game, including Halo 3
• Halo 3 - Most Balanced Game. There's something about Halo's Multiplayer Matching. I noticed it in the Halo 3 Beta, and it's even better in the Final Release. I had the most satisfying multiplayer matches last night. I suppose it could have been a fluke, but it happened time and time again. The folks I was matched against were not kicking my ass as completely as they usually do. I attribute this to being matched to folks within my skill range. It's very nice. The whole game feels very balanced.

Should you buy Halo 3? If it make you happy, yes. It is a very pretty, very balanced game. I expect I'll have a lot of fun with it.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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Atul (one of this blog's sponsors) over at Sky Software emailed to let me know that through the end of the month he'll be donating 50% of the proceeds of any orders for:

• Shell MegaPack (both .NET and ActiveX )
• EZNamespaceExtensions (both .NET and MFC)

Atul's frameworks plug into Visual Studio with new Project Types for Shell Namespace Extensions, and the Shell MegaPack includes all sorts of interface widgetry for the hard stuff like "toast" that notifies you from the system tray as well as a clean interface to Vista-style Task Dialogs and Wizards.

After you you place an order, then email "sales at ssware.com" with the Order # (also called the ShareIt Reference number) and the name/email used on the order. 50% of the proceeds will then be donated to the ADA!

Thanks Atul for supporting our fundraiser!

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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Well, I've officially been blogging forever, in Internet Years. Here's my first post, from April 16th, 2002.

"Well, it's up.  After screwing with FTP permissions on and off for a week, my weblog is up.  Sigh, I'm blogging.  We'll see how long it lasts."

What a powerful first post. Moving, really. ;) A harbinger of great things.

I noticed a kind of a pattern in the numbers next to the Months, like September 2007 (21), and graphed it real quick. Looks like I post an average of 32 posts a month over the last 5 years, with outliers clipped (a trimmed mean). I started slow, with just 21 posts in the first six months, then something happened. Somewhere in October of 2002, I found my blog's (first) voice, did 44 posts, and haven't shut up since. The max? An obnoxious 64 posts in June of 2004 - of widely varying quality, but a few classics that get lots of traffic today.

I started on Radio Userland as a blogging platform, then decided a few short months later that it wasn't working for me. I moved to DasBlog in September of 2003, and posted about how to redirect all my old content and comments.

Aside, my original Radio blog is still out there, as Radio won't let you 301/302 your links, but the template included a META redirect and a Javascript timed redirect, and I've imported ALL that content into DasBlog (hence some of the funky generated titles - there was a time when Radio let you post to your blog without titles) and you'll get auto-redirected to the same post.

Now, I've got 1914 posts, counting this one. I may start doing a "greatest hits" or maybe a Popular Posts link so folks can come straight to the 10-15 posts they most likely came looking for. What do you think? LifeHacker does a Retro Roundup each week. Kind of a "this day in history" post. I could probably do one once a month. Just a thought.

 At any rate, the point of this post. I believe that a blog has a heartbeat. Mine, without me thinking about it is about 32 posts per month or 32ppm. I think it's probably good to have a consistent one, while the number isn't that important, the tempo is. There are some blogs I read that are 5ppm or less, but they make each post count. For example, Atwood's blog is consistently about 20ppm (guess) but they are 90% gold. Slashdot's is hundreds of ppm but I've stopped caring.

What is your Blog's Heartbeat? What's your Blog's PPM?

You can click on that ppm image above for a Paint.NET layered file if you want to make your own PPM image.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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