Over the past few months or so, Galden Studios has been pretty quiet. And that will likely continue for some time. Here’s why… We’re pregnant! We’re expecting our first child in early 2020. Instead of working on new apps, I’ve been reading child/parenting books. Instead of experimenting with new development tools, I’ve been researching car seats and strollers. And so …
Unexpected Database Advantage
Over the past six months or so, I’ve been working on an application to help out one of our other businesses. It’s a Windows application that maintains inventories of products and parts. Early on, I decided to store the data in a SQL Server database. I did that for many reasons including: I could avoid writing file loading/saving code. I …
Updating a Set of Properties
I finally found a good way to update a set of properties in an API without touching others. Let me explain… Let’s say I have a method that updates a set of properties on an object. It looks something like this: class MyProperties { public int PropertyA { get; set; } public int PropertyB { get; set; } } class …
Backup Verifier
I spent some time over the last few months writing an application that I’ve always wanted: a backup verifier. I store backups of my data both on-site and in the cloud. But unless I do a “restore” of everything now and then, how do I know that the backup is actually good? That’s where the backup verifier helps… The backup …
Enhancing the Architecture
In my experience, one difference between a “junior” developer and a “senior” developer is how quickly (if ever) they realize that the architecture needs to be enhanced. Let me give you a simple example… I was working on a project that stored & manipulated file paths. Sometimes the code worked on a full path like this: k:\Test\t.txt Other times it …
Encapsulation Technique
I’m a really big fan of encapsulation. I use it all the time, and I’m always looking for improved techniques. One technique I’ve been using recently (in C#) involves using interfaces, nested classes, and a factory method. Here’s an example: public interface IFoo { IBar GetBar(); } public interface IBar { void SomeMethod(); } public static class Foo { public …
How I Got My Job at Microsoft
It was my last year of college. I needed to find a job. Many big companies came to my college to interview people. I prepared for the interviews as best as I could. I read about the companies that I’d be interviewing with. But many of them also had an “information session” in the evening before the interviews. The night …
Processing Applications
I really enjoy writing console applications that do some sort of processing. I did that again a few weeks ago. A client needed an application that read a text file, made various modifications to it, and then output the new file. Some of the modifications included: Removing lines that matched particular patterns. Merging lines that matched particular patterns. Identifying lines …
Seattle CodeCamp & Exceptions
I went to Seattle CodeCamp last weekend. I learned about a lot of new technologies (to me) including React.js, Azure Machine Learning, and Ionic Framework. I’m planning to investigate those more in the future. But one of my favorite sessions was Adam Furmanek’s “Internals of Exceptions” talk. He had the most practical (and immediately useful) tidbit that I’d heard all day: …
Android Studio & Java Impressions: Part 1
I wanted to start writing an Android app. But I had a big decision to make: do I use Microsoft development tools (Visual Studio, Xamarin, .NET, C#, etc.) or Google development tools (Android Studio, Java, etc.)? I know the Microsoft tools pretty well. But I’d never used the Google tools. However, since I always like to learn new things , I …