overeating causes heartburn!

I knew it

why nobody uses String.Format

You know what’s annoying? Powerful API’s like .NET.

You know what’s even more annoying? When MSDN SUCKS~!!!!!

Formatting numbers in C#

Holy crap. I’ve had to rail on this again and again and every time I do.. I ask myself WTF is MSFT doing? I mean, they want people to use their API’s. Why don’t they get a crack team to document this stuff?

HOW IS this acceptable??? Don’t they have a QA team? I mean yes there’s a lot to document, but there’s also a lot of code to write to get the thing to work. If you’re going to get one thing right, you may as well get the other, otherwise all your effort probably is wasted because the vast majority of people (average developer I suppose, from what I see on these usenet and discussion board posts) won’t be able to use these nifty/neato functions that you’ve worked in here and they’ll be stuck creating crummy workarounds because no one uses these functions so nobody knows about them unless they really look..

    int x = 5;
    double y = 5;
    int z = 9492;
    string a = String.Format( "{0:00} {1:00} {2:00000}", x,y,z );
    Console.WriteLine( a );

    // outputs: 05 05 09492
    // 0:00 says:  The first 0 is which arg to match up with (in this case, x)
    // the :00 after that first 0 says "it must be 2 digits long, and if its not, pad it
    // with extra 0's.

msdn’s docs really blow.

cts sufferers — alternative mouse

WELL!

I didn’t think it’d be any good, but I’m presently trying to use an XBOX 360 controller instead of a mouse

Its kind of good. Not THAT good. I guess its analogous to using that old time BALL that sat on the tip of some cone shaped “mouse” thing. Like, it was an inverted mouse with the trackball exposed and you rolled the trackball with yoru fingers to control the mouse.

This is like that in that its not as EASY to do fine control as with the mouse. The mouse uses your whole hand to control, this just the thumb, so you loose a good bit of dexterity naturally.

Configuring both the left and right joypads to control the mouse is a bit neat/weird. Its like connecting 2 mouses at the same time. YOu get a bit of extra control, but you seldom need it unless you’re playing a game with it. T hen you might as well just use a mouse, right?

Anyway, pretty cool.

C# tips

Write to debug stream

System.Diagnostics.Debug.Write(“text”) ;

Enum

excellent article here. Also regarding the question code works without [Flags], so what’s the point of [Flags]?

Repeated here:

Flags indicates that the enum is intended to be used as a set of bit fields. The ony practical difference it makes is in the implementation of ToString on the enum. without the attribute it simply prints out teh symbolic equivelent of the value or the value uf there is no equiveleint. With teh attribute if it can’t find the exact match it tries to oassembly the value from the bitwise orable fields and if successful prints out teh list of fields comma separated.

– Richard Blewett – DevelopMentor

C# gotchas

You are not allowed to remove something from a List if you’re iterating through that list using a foreach loop.

    List list = new List( new int[] { 3, 6, -9, 12, 15 } );

    foreach( int val in list )
    {
      if( val < 0 )
      {
        list.Remove( val ) ;  // ILLEGAL:  RUN-TIME ERROR!
      }
    }

Instead, you must be iterating using a vanilla for-loop. Keep in mind that this reduces the Count of your list when you do this

    List list = new List( new int[] { 3, 6, -9, 12, 15 } );

    for( int i = 0; i < list.Count; i++ )
    {
      int val = list[ i ] ;
      if( val < 0 )
      {
        list.RemoveAt( i );  // OK for List
      }
    }

You are not allowed to write directly to (i.e. overwrite) “foreach iteration variables”.

So for instance:

    foreach( int val in list )
    {
      val = 0;  // ILLEGAL, can't overwrite value of a "foreach iteration variable"
    }

However, this doesn’t mean that val is readonly. If val is an OBJECT with references to other things, e.g.:

  class Point
  {
    public int x, y;
    public override string ToString()
    {
      return "( " + x + ", " + y + " )" ;
    }
  }

  List points = new List( new Point[]{ new Point(), new Point(), new Point() } ) ;
    
  Console.WriteLine( points.Count );

  foreach( Point p in points )
  {
    p.x = 5 ;  // Works fine, since we are not overwriting
    // p itself, but writing to something that p refers to
  }

keyword yield

This is one of those things where you’re like “oh.. cool.. ah, but I can’t really use that..”

A couple of links that explain yield pretty well: The yield statement in C#,
Behind the scenes of the C# yield keyword, Give way to the YIELD keyword!.

I don’t like keyword yield. Its not that useful to me, and I find the very idea a lot like using a static variable in C++. You know about it, and you hardly ever use it unless you’re like WOW, I COULD use one here. I’ve only really usefully used a static variable in C++ about once or twice to my recollection.

[ May 15/09 ]: These may be useful yet. There’s an article in GameDeveloper May 2009, page 15 that talks about using coroutines in C++. Also, Using Coroutines for Asynchronous Programming.

Two types of Arrays

This is a weird one. In C#, you can create two types of 2D arrays: the “normal” kind that you are probably used to new string[2][2] is a 2×2 array of strings. And the MUST BE SQUARE kind: new string[2,2]. The comma separated arrays are weird in more ways than one as I’ll show here.

    int[] normal1D = { 2, 5, 7 };   // probably already know this

    int[][] jagged2D = { new int[] { 5, 2, 9 }, new int[] { 7, 5 } };
    // 0:  5 2 9
    // 1:  7 5

    int[ , ] square2D_1 = { { 1, 0, 0 }, { 0, 1, 0 }, { 0, 0, 1 } };
    // 0:  1 0 0
    // 1:  0 1 0
    // 2:  0 0 1

    // So this last array type with the int[,] type specifier
    // is actually a SQUARE 2D array.  It HAS to be square.

    // For example, this next array is illegal:
    //int[ , ] square2D_wrong = { { 1, 0 }, { 0, 1, 0 }, { 0, 0, 1 } }; // X!!!!!!
    // You can't have a JAGGED array when you use [,] syntax.

    // You could also write the above array like:
    int[ , ] square2D_2 = new int[ , ] { { 1, 0, 0 }, { 0, 1, 0 }, { 0, 0, 1 } };

    // Or even:
    int[ , ] square2D_3 = new int[ 3, 3 ] { { 1, 0, 0 }, { 0, 1, 0 }, { 0, 0, 1 } };

    // Ok so how else do the [ , ] square type arrays differ from "normal"
    // 2d arrays?  Well, their length property measures the length of the
    // ENTIRE array!  Talk about weird.

    Console.WriteLine( square2D_3.Length ) ; // PRINTS 9 !  (not 3!)
    Console.WriteLine( square2D_3[ 0 ] ) ;   // X ILLEGAL!!

    // You can't seem to access an "individual" array that makes up
    // this 2D array.  In general then, the [,] arrays are somewhat
    // more restrictive than "normal" 2D arrays which is probably why
    // they aren't seen in common use.  However, you COULD find
    // a use for them like as a z-buffer or something.

Eval in C#

Not easy to get .. a few hacks..

• Some dude’s code that seems to emulate eval. Its not guaranteed to work and I wouldn’t use it
• The Activator.CreateInstance for instantiating a class given a TYPE, and SetValue for setting an instance of an object’s property by some string you have
• Stack overflow discussions
• sulekha.com discussion WITH some sample linkage to JScript

warning: weird css class behavior for jquery

just a note:

textarea.sortingElement
{
  /* a sortable element */
  border: solid 1px #aaa;
  font-weight: bold;
  height: 2.2em;
  text-align: center ;
  width: 8em;
  background: 0% 50% no-repeat; 
}

.pivot
{
  background-color: #000000;
  color: #ffffff;
  border: solid 1px #ffaaff;
} 

trips up when I

// using jquery
$('#SomeTextarea').addClass( 'pivot' ) ;
// where SomeTextarea already has class="sortingElement"

but works if you change the textarea part in front of the css class def

.sortingElement /* removed textarea from in front,
even though this is being applied to a textarea, it seems
to trip up jquery. */
{
  /* a sortable element */
  border: solid 1px #aaa;
  font-weight: bold;
  height: 2.2em;
  text-align: center ;
  width: 8em;
  background: 0% 50% no-repeat; 
}

weird.

fun!

Some dude says about Warcraft 3:

“…it feels like 100 pots boiling at the same time.”

Bang on! I think THAT is what makes it fun. Once you learn to control those 100 pots. Keeps boredom FAR at bay.

A boring game is exactly the opposite. Nearly nothing to do except watch..

how to force horizontal scroll iness on any browser

Well, sometimes it doesn’t work as you’d like:

html like:

<div style=”overflow: scroll”>
i want this text to force a horizontal scrollbar if it overflows at the right yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
</div>

On firefox at least, it doesn’t give a nice horizontal scrolly.

To force it, surround the <div> in a <pre> tag.

<pre style=”font-family: arial”> <– you aren’t forced to use monospace just because in pre –>
<div style=”overflow: scroll”>
i want this text to force a horizontal scrollbar if it overflows at the right yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
</div>
</pre>

virgin mobile.. :)

I really like virgin mobile.

I mean really.

Calling their customer service is the complete opposite of what you get with most other companies.

Its warm human contact. I love their agents. They’re nice, charming, cool, and fun to talk to. They’re really eager to help. I have never seen this level of customer service in my life.

Its the complete opposite of what you get with Bell (foreign accent that doesn’t seem to know what the product). I’m sorry if that sounds racist, but that really is the case. There’s something about being given a guy with an indian accent to talk to that feels short-end-of-the stick (note this isn’t racist: I didn’t say anything bad about Indian people, I only said I didn’t like being given a guy with an Indian accent). You just know they’re offshoring and its just so cheap.

I really hope Virgin becomes like the de-facto cell phone provider in the world and also keeps their ways. With the just.. stark, sheer differences in the services Virgin should be killing Bell in every sense of the word.

I’m just so .. at a loss for words at how much BETTER Virgin is then Bell and for all the years I stayed with Bell I really .. just regret it.. its real regret man. All the mistreatment, waiting, just abuse, really that’s what it is, and there’s virgin right there, better services and all..

OH AND before I froget, their voice answering system is the cleanest shit i’ve ever saw in my fucking life. they don’t bother you with Bell’s BULLSHIT “say your phone number” — WTF. Bell should know by now that people HATE voice recognition bullshit and its ANNOYING to have to SAY what you want. I think the Bell marketing people don’t have it. They really don’t. I mean really don’t. Virgin GETS IT. Bell doesn’t.

windows search -fucking finally

Pardon the verbage in the title fo this post, but ITS ABOUT DAMN WELL TIME.

I mean come on, HOW HARD COULD IT BE?

some shiny article page

download, x86 (32-bit machines – most use this)

download, x64 (64 bit machines only!)

downloadsquad article

logic from the mind of a genius

I was really tired one night. i found scrawled on a piece of paper

if i sleep now, i can get up later