I’m shocked at myself… I’m downloading the Visual Studio C# beta! And I want to use it! Argh!
(Writing utilities, with GUIs, that manipulate objects via COM is not a task Java is intended for, I’m afraid…)
Okay, a bit more on this…
I’m going to be writing a little toy to enhance how I organise the various podcasts I pull down, and how I manage getting them over to my Shuffle – the inbuilt iTunes AutoFill only fills in mp3s (intentionally, for the same reason the “shuffle” mode skips over m4bs).
As I mainly listen to podcasts rather than music, I want to solve this problem. 🙂
I also want to play with some more languages; I’ve only dabbled in a couple of languages in the last four years, mostly at the command-line scripting level. So I want to use the opportunity to learn some more.
So, I’m going to write this toy in C#. Then I’m going to rewrite in Smalltalk (probably the Dolphin version, but maybe Squeak). Then I’m going to re-write it in something else, maybe Ruby. Basically trying out the same thing in different styles, to see what I can learn. It’s not a big project: if Java had a decent way of manipulating COM objects, it would be a two-three day project in Java.
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Software is too expensive to build cheaply.... 
Is that the VS 2005 beta?
Does it have NUnit with a “green bar” integrated yet?!?
(I only have 2003, and there are various NUnit add ons that have some integration, but not as pretty as Eclipse/IntelliJ).
Is nice and fast to build things, but the temptation to skip sensible TDD steps and OO design is high (for someone weak willed like me !).
however, when I have done TDD with it, I thank myself when I finally come back to the project after 3 weeks off (run all the tests, see what I was up to). Who was it that wrote about leaving a “trail” of broken tests to act as a todo list?
Yes, it’s the VS2005 Beta. I doubt it’s got NUnit integration, because it’s the Express edition (aka the free-as-in-beer one), because I’m too cheap to pay for an IDE. 🙂 Heck, I don’t know if the more expensive ones have it.
I say “doubt” because I’m yet to fire it up; the setup program is one of those small downloads that suck down the rest of the program, and I left it doing that overnight and haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.
The “broken tests as todo list” is mentioned in Kent Beck’s TDD book.
Check out Test Driven .NET
http://www.testdriven.net/Default.aspx
I’m pretty sure it’ll integrate with Whidbey.
Yeah thats one of them that I tried (I think they were teasing about adding in a “green bar” with enough support 😉
The stand alone NUnit UI isn’t too bad – but haven’t really used it seriously on an enterprise project (but I suppose other folks do).
I have noticed that with .Net (at least the MS version !), you get re-aquianted with your mouse (I am even thinking of buying a better on). Not saying it is a bad thing.. just worried out tendinitis again…
Yes, it’s definitely true that Microsoft loves the mouse – and it’s especially difficult coming from a java camp if you’re used to using an editor like IntelliJ.
Thankfully though, the good folks at JetBrains make an add-in for VS2003 – ReSharper – which does an awesome job of adding back in all the favourite shortcut commands. Better still, I’ve heard rumours (directly from JetBrains no-less) that they’re planning on building an IDE for .NET v2! It just can’t come quick enough in my opinion…