Tap My Mind

A Blog by Scott Isaacs

Curly Brace Placement

I’ve been writing code with curly braces for a dozen years or so, starting with C++ in college, then JavaScript for many, many years, and for the last few years, C#.  In all that time, I have been a fan of putting the opening curly brace on the same line as the declaration or control statement.  For example:

private void DoSomething() {    // ...    if (somecondition) {        myval = true;    }    // ...}

At work, though, I have been working on someone else’s code, and I always try as much as possible change my coding style to match the existing code.  In this case, that means opening curly braces get their own line, like so:

private void DoSomething() {    // ...    if (somecondition)     {        myval = true;    }    // ...}

I find that I’m actually starting to prefer the "new line" option.  But I don’t want to prefer it!  I guess maybe I’m stubborn.

I agree that it is easier to visually match opening and closing braces this way, but VS2008 does that for me anyway with clever highlighting.  Also, I don’t like how much extra room is taken in my editor window.  I like whitespace, but this seems to put it in the wrong place for me.

Sigh.  What’s a poor developer to do?

What’s your preference and why?

GiveCamp MKE

I’m very excited to announce that we are planning the first ever GiveCamp in the Milwaukee area: GiveCamp MKE.  In fact, it’s one of the first GiveCamps anywhere.

"What’s a GiveCamp?", you ask.  In short, it is an opportunity for developers, designers, DBAs, project managers and anyone else involved in the software development process to give back to the community.  And we do it by doing what we know how to do best — building software.  We will soon be accepting applications from various charities for software that they need.  It could be anything from a website to a data collection app to a mailing list manager or anything else.  For more information about the whole GiveCamp concept, and to see what other communities have had (or are planning) GiveCamps, please visit the official GiveCamp site.

We’ve been putting a lot of time into this over the last couple weeks, but we’re still not quite there.  Please bear with us as we continue to finalize things, including the website itself as well as more info about the GiveCamp MKE event.  Rest assured that we will be making regular updates to the GiveCamp MKE site, so please check it often or subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss anything.  I’m sure I will also post major updates here as well.

I am very excited about this, and how things are shaping up.  Remember that conference call I wrote about a couple weeks ago?  That was about this.  I just wish I could put all of the things I want to say into words tonight before I fall asleep, but that might take me a couple hours.  :)  So keep checking back here and at the GiveCamp MKE site, and I’ll eventually get it all out there.

If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to let me know, or to use the contact form on the GiveCamp MKE site.

Four Eyes

I’m wearing glasses now and I don’t know how I feel about that.  I have nothing against glasses.  In fact, I prefer when my wife wears her glasses over her contacts.  I just don’t know how I feel about having them on my own face.

I only need to wear them, for the most part, when I’m working (close range, eye strain, etc.).

Sigh.

I should make sure I keep that roll of masking tape nearby, just in case…

I Am Excited About… A Conference Call?

For the first time since — ummm — since ever, I am looking forward to an upcoming conference call.  And I’m really looking forward to it.  I don’t want to say too much, yet, because I want to get some very basic details ironed out first, but I will say that it is about a special project we are working on for the WI .NET Users Group.

I’ve been thinking about this project for a few weeks now, and I’ve actually taken notes.  If you have ever been with me to a meeting, that statement alone should let you know how serious I am about this.  I am a terrible (appalling, horrendous, atrocious, apocalyptic) note taker, so much that I often don’t even take a pen and paper with me because I will get more out of my memory of the meeting than from my notes.  But I have notes for this.  And they make sense!

So, if you work in technology in the Milwaukee area, keep an eye on my blog over the next couple weeks.  If this call goes even half as good as I expect, I will be asking for your help!

Which Is Better?

I can’t decide if I get more pleasure from solving a big problem, or from the process of breaking it into a series of smaller problems and solving each of them.  Does anyone else ever think of stuff like this?  Or is it just me?

Testing PreCode

I’m using this post to test PreCode — a code snippet formatting plugin for Windows Live Writer.  It uses SyntaxHighlighter on the client side and this plugin just sends the needed code to my blog engine.

As a test I thought I’d just add a couple short snippets, using some of the different available options.

//C#, using PREbool b = true;

' VB, using PRE, Starting at line #20Dim i as Int32i = 1i += 3MessageBox.Show(i)

Note that I may update this post several times while trying different options, or I may delete it altogether if I decide I don’t want to bother with the plugin.  (I think if I do delete it, it will be the only post I ever deleted.)

I would appreciate it if you would take a look at this post both in your RSS reader as well as on my website in your browser of choice and let me know what you think, my dear guinea pigs.

Working From Home

As part of my new job, I will be working from home one day per week.  Now that I’ve been there for a couple weeks, my first work from home day will be tomorrow.

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be trying to make improvements to my home office, including deciding which room to use.  We built a den/office in the house, but I’m thinking it might not be ideal.  It’s in the main area of the house, and the doors have windows, making it very easy for Charlize to see Daddy and want to come visit.  So the current thought is to setup a small work area in the spare bedroom, which is in the back part of the house.  It has a heavy, solid core door, which is typically closed throughout the day anyway.  So Charlie will probably never know that I am even in there.  For tomorrow, though, I’ll probably be in "my chair" in the living room.  Charlie and Mommy will be over at Grandma’s house for most of the day.

In the past I’ve worked from home a day or two here and there, but never on a scheduled, regular basis.  If any of you work from home, I welcome your suggestions.

Beginner’s Luck

Last night my in-laws came over to visit for a while and we decided to play Yahtzee.  Of course, Charlie was immediately interested in the dice and the cup, so we let her have a turn rolling.  In one turn (three rolls) she had rolled a Yahtzee (five 6s)!  On her next turn she rolled four 5s in a single roll!  She had a number of other high-point rolls throughout the night (in between playing with a jar of ink pens, some blocks and Little People), but I think the best part for her was when we would all cheer when she rolled something good.  And that seemed to happen a lot. 

Beginner’s luck?

Work Soundtrack

This happens to me on a regular basis — probably every other month or so.  I get tired of the music I have on my iPod.  So I’m looking for suggestions.  What music helps you get your job done?  Sometimes I need something nice and mellow to get myself into the right frame of mind, and sometimes I need something I can turn the volume up to drown out the background noise.  Sometimes vocals are good, sometimes they are distracting.  Unfortunately, streaming sites don’t work from the office, so things like Pandora are out.  Looking forward to your suggestions.

TimeSnapper

I’ve been using the free version of TimeSnapper off and on for some time now, but pretty regularly over the last few weeks since I started my new job.  I’m doing billable work again, and am notoriously bad at getting my time entered.  TimeSnapper helps by taking screenshots at some interval throughout the day and allowing me to play them back like a movie.

I’ve been thinking about getting the Pro version for a couple weeks because there are a few more features that could be helpful.  It’s an inexpensive program at about $40 (USD), but I just hadn’t pulled the trigger and bought it.  Then today on Twitter I saw that it was on sale.  It was actually on sale for $20.  Since I was on the fence at $40, I couldn’t pass it up at $20.

If you are like me and have a hard time keeping track of what you worked on, I highly recommend you check it out.  I still haven’t taken advantage of the Pro features, but even the free functionality is worth $20.

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