A world apart from the everday ...

"A computer on every desktop"; hell no! how about "Every desktop is a computer"

So in today's world of constant change and innovation it often seems to me like all we're doing is re-inventing the wheel ... making things a little smoother, a little quicker. It is not often that something truly revolutionary hits the streets anymore .... It does happen from time to time, like the launch of the iPhone from Apple, but not THAT often.

This week however saw one of those defining moments. What is it you ask .... well Microsoft announced the launch of Microsoft Surface..........

No, this is not another Microsoft "innovation" that is based on concepts and ideas from Mac; IMHO this one is earth shattering, ground breaking and has the potential to change the way we think of computers today. They've done it again, the same as they changed the world of personal computing by introducing the first real graphical operating system by giving us Windows 3.1, now they give us Microsoft Surface.

 But enough from me .... go check out the videos and go make up your own minds about how powerful and fundamentally revolutionary this is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WIkrQu0-v0

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hVSnCfN8OI

Now the burning question is .... where on earth (out side of Bill's office) do I get one of these things?

Recursive lambda expressions

I feel it very neccessary at this point to warn you that this is most certainly not for the faint hearted ... As the author, Dr T., of the original post says; this might not be practical but it sure is fun. 

"People sometimes complain that you cannot write a lambda expression that is recursive. Good old factorial, for instance, how to write that as a lambda expression? " .... [read more]

believe it or not, but the line below is the single simple lambda function to implement the good old factorial problem;

i => new Func<Func<int,int>,Func<int,int>>(fac => x => x == 0 ? 1 : x * fac(x - 1))(new SelfApplicable<Func<Func<Func<int,int>,Func<int,int>>,Func<int,int>>>(y => f => x => f(y(y)(f))(x))(y => f => x => f(y(y)(f))(x))(fac => x => x == 0 ? 1 : x * fac(x - 1)))(i) 

I'm imagining all sorts of higher job security with this; just think of the possibilities.....

Ok, my head hurts after that .... need to get more coffee.

New plugin for Ludz's Reflector

All this talk of Silverlight has got me stoked .... the problem is two-fold, firstly I aint a web developer by any stretch of the imagination and secondly I just do not have the time to sit and play with the technology when there are just so many new toys out on the net at the moment; so when i came across this niffty little plugin for Lutz Roeder's Reflector.

"It that takes a URL to a Silverlight page and finds the assembly for that page.  It also loads up the JavaScript and root Xaml for the page."

Head on over to The Electron Sculptor and check it out.

Man where do these guys find the time?

When considering a new position at a company ....

Ok, guys & girls ... answer me this please ....

When considering a potentiol position at a company how do you go about deciding whether or not to take the plunge?

Is the interview process generally only one-sided? i.e. They grill you like a chicken *** at Nando's, or do you do some grilling of your own?

How important is "word-of-mouth" opinion of the company to you? Do you speak to people you know that have worked there before, that work there now? Do you consider the input of others that turned down similar positions at said company?
How important is their ability to retain staff? If they have lost the majority of their development team in the passed few months, would you be bashing down their doors?
If the business of said company is coming under more and more threat from US (and worldwide) legislation would you be signing on the dotted line?

What are things that attract you to a company?

• Money
• Cool offices
• Location, location, location
• Industry / line of business
• Casual environment
• Socially vibey
• High pressure
• Responsibility
• The promise of new technologies (only to find you end up maintaining VB 3 code )
• Flexi-Time
• The promise of a secure and stable environment
• Career growth prospects

For me I value the opinions of people I know and trust; and often I go on gutt feeling; yet some people think this is a naive approach.

So I'd like to hear from everybody else.

What will it take to get you to sign on the dotted line .............................................

Facebook is evil .....

there is said it and i've joined the trend to end it ....

"I, as a human being, implore you to stop using Facebook. Delete your account. You’ll be surprised when no one even notices... You are hopelessly addicted and it will be the end of your natural life. I guarantee if you can make it 2 weeks without it, your life will become better in every way..."

the above blurb was taken from; Facebook is the end of humanity 

This is a funny site; go check it out ... this guy has some issues me thinks.

ps. nothing serious. no small harmless creatures were harmed in anyway during the drafting of this post. please no threatening legal letters. it is just my opinion which I am still entitled to the last time i looked ....

LINQ and all things .NET 3

My thanks must go to Armand for his great talk and demo on Linq and the new language features in .NET 3.0 that drive it in the background.

I really learnt a lot and it was great to see working demo where he linked a List<Customer> with a strongly typed database object using an xml document and was able to query all three in one simple query just as if he were doing a regular SQL join. Impressive stuff.

This has inspired me to do a deep dive into each of the topics he touched on last night, including Lambda expressions (the great new cleaner way to do anonymous methods), Anonymous types (what they are and more importantly what they are NOT), Extension methods. Unless you have been living with your head in a hole recently I am pretty sure you have been bombarded with blog posts from all over the world about this stuff and figure "you've seen it a hundred times before" ... in which case feel free to ignore the series of posts to come. For those, like myself, who are not quite clear on the goodness that is coming but are very excited by the new things being introduced to the hottest language in the world then watch this space .... it's gonna get hot!

 I leave you with this thought .... if Anders still get's excited like a 3 year old watching Barney, then there must be something in it yet ....