chmods please posted:

How much control do you have over the external process? If the answer is "none", I'd recommend building your program as a shell which draws itself around the other windows, it sounds like asking for trouble otherwise.

shrughes posted:

Why the gently caress doesn't the OP have a link to the old thread?

GrumpyDoctor posted:

Can I thank you for making the great OP and suggest adding Sandcastle/SHFB to it

wwb posted:

Yes, they are vastly different beyond some surface similarities as to similar languages. Especially with Option Strict on. The best place to start is http://www.asp.net/get-started , that is probably one of the few sites still doing examples in VB.Net though -- most of the world has gone C#. You might wish to do the same.

PapFinn posted:

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask, but I'm working on picking up some job specific skills to make myself more useful with my company. We are using Classic ASP with Visual Basic. My understanding is that this is a significantly different environment that a ASP.Net/VB.Net environment.

Is that an accurate statement? If so, are there any suggested online resources for learning Classic ASP/VB? So far I'm looking at w3schools and http://www.tizag.com but I'm not sure if either of those are my best place to start or if I should just find some old books.

Any current sources for online learning are obviously focusing on modern frameworks, not stuck firmly in the past like my company.

Newf posted:

More trouble in ASP land. I think that my goal should be obvious from the code, but I'm having a lot of trouble googling the right answers. I'm working with a ListView.

code:

<ItemTemplate>

Length is <%# Eval("States.Length") %>

<%

 int length = int.Parse(Eval("States.Length").ToString()); // error
 
 for (int i=0; i<length; i++)
 {
  Response.Write("<li>");
  Response.Write(Eval("States[" + i + "]")); // again?
  Response.Write("</li>");
 }

%>

</ItemTemplate>

The error that gets thrown here is Databinding methods such as Eval(), XPath(), and Bind() can only be used in the context of a databound control. Presumably the same thing would happen if it reached that line in the loop.

Suggestions?

Chasiubao posted:

What's everyone's opinion on the var keyword? I'm in the middle of a religious discussion on code reviews.

Team 1 has no hard and fast rules: use var where it makes sense, for super long nested generics, etc.

Team 2 insists that it should only be used when the type is immediately discernible from the rhs.

No Safe Word posted:

Use var like all the time basically. (Both teams are correct, and it should almost always be immediately discernible from the RHS or you should consider refactoring)

Chasiubao posted:

code:

var x = await GetAMyObjectAsync(); // okay

var y = await DoAThingAsync(); // not okay

Team 2 is not happy with the second line because the return type of the RHS is not immediately discernible, but Team 1 does not want to rename DoAThingAsync to DoAThingThatReturnsMyResponseAsync.

Chill Callahan posted:

Can't you just mouse over 'var' to find out the type in VS? C# is still statically typed so I'm not sure why it's a big deal.

omeg posted:

Do they also want to return to Hungarian notation?

Newf posted:

It's perhaps not clear, but I am in a databound control (note that the first <%# Eval("States.Length") %> works). The problem is that the control is bound to an object which has a number of arrays as members, including the present States array.

The solution then, I guess, is to bind more specifically to the States array rather than its parent object.

Chasiubao posted:

code:

var x = await GetAMyObjectAsync(); // okay

var y = await DoAThingAsync(); // not okay

Team 2 is not happy with the second line because the return type of the RHS is not immediately discernible, but Team 1 does not want to rename DoAThingAsync to DoAThingThatReturnsMyResponseAsync.

wwb posted:

You have a few issues in this code. First thing, don't try and convert int to strings and then do int things to them (error #1). Response.Write() is also an abomination that should generally be avoided in ASP.NET webforms as it really screws with the page lifecycle.

In general, with complex data binding, you are better off convervting the Container.DataItem to your custom object and never loving using eval no Response.Write. Something like:

code:

...

Been a really long time since I did webforms so that might not be perfectly kosher but you get the idea.

Ithaqua posted:

Or, better yet, don't use webforms if you don't have to.

Newf posted:

To follow up on this... The context here is that I'm making a web front-end that interfaces with a windows service which exposes a bunch of controls exposed via [ServiceContract] class and [OperationContract] methods. I'm using svcutil.exe to generate the client class for the webapp.

I understand that webforms are maybe on the way out, but they do seem like the simplest tool that's adequate for the job. Nothing super fancy will be going on - mostly CRUD interaction and configuring the windows service. Am I wrong about this? Are there reasons that I'd be better off going for an MVC2 app? (VS2010)

ShaunO posted:

Use var everywhere, IMO.

chippy posted:

Someone please help me with this problem, it's driving me mental.

I maintain and extend an old .net 3.5 Winforms app. It was created in VS 2008 but I recently updated the project to VS 2013. As part of the migration, it automatically switched the targeted framework to 4.5. I didn't want to force all my users to upgrade (they have some XP machines), so I switched the target back to 3.5. There was a warning that I might have to manually edit some project files to get it to build, but it built and run fine so I didn't worry about it after that, everything was running fine on the customer's machines.

Recently I was asked to make some changes in part of the system that uses a bunch of stuff from Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting. I can't open these forms up in the designer, I get a big page of errors and a warning that the designer might become unstable and I might lose some controls. The main errors are a bunch of failures to resolve the charting classes, stuff like this:

"Could not find type 'System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting.ChartArea'. Please make sure that the assembly that contains this type is referenced. If this type is part of your development project, make sure that the project has been successfully built using settings for your current platform or Any CPU'.

If I ignore them and open them in the designer, all those charts disappear.

The thing is, all the references in the project are pointing to the 3.5 version of the assembles, the projects build and run fine, and if I add new charts, they work fine too. The only thing that doesn't work, is opening up the existing forms in the designer. I don't understand why the compiler can resolve the references, and build the project, but the designer can't.

I've tried deleting and re-adding the references and it doesn't help. Although one thing I've noticed is that if I hover over the Chart control in the toolbox, it says version 4.0, even if I manually add those controls by adding the 3.5 version of the DLL onto the toolbox.

I tried switching the project to 4.0 and was then able to open the forms in the designer (wtf), but then when I tried to add new charts, I got an error message about not being able to create a reference to the assembly, which also seems odd, since I already had one. I managed to fix this by deleting and re-adding the references, and then everything worked, but the project was targeting 4.0, which I'm really trying to avoid.

Does anyone have any idea how I can get this working while still targeting 3.5?

chippy posted: