So it looks like MSFT has decided not to include the ObjectSpaces O/R technology in Whidbey (just can't call it VS.NET 2005 yet). Note: at the time of this entry, it's also mentioned on the main MSFT Data site.

Does that suck? Maybe if you're the guy who was responsible for getting it done, but I don't see a reason to worry about it. In fact, I see a few reasons to feel pretty OK with it:

• There are plenty of third-party tools out there that do this already. We've been using Olero's ORM.NET product and it's been great for us. There are even some open-source O/R tools that get pretty high marks.
• Maybe by binding ObjectSpaces to WinFS, they're looking past just mapping a relational database to objects. Maybe they're looking at an O/S (Object/Storage) implementation that's not just hooked into SQL Server, but is also aware of the common entity types being talked about with WinFS (person, company, document, etc). Or maybe not. But given the dramatic changes to storage for Longhorn, there's no question that they have to be looking at a OO interfaces for that storage today.
• Many of the people complaining now about the schedule slip would be similarly complaining if it DID ship with Whidbey and sucked. I'd rather have it late and stable than sooner and not production-ready.

Gerrard Lindsay posted a request for browser-style navigation through code in VS.NET 2003. I tried to use the Comments functionality there, but it didn't want to work for me.

Anyway, I think we've got this now with the "Navigate Forward" and "Navigate Backward" options under the View menu. I'm not sure if it's the default mapping or not, but my machine has them assigned to CTRL+- (backward) and CTRL+SHIFT+- (forward).

Here's the thing that's bugging me... it seems like the back/forward buttons on my trackball no longer do the same thing. They used to, but I'm not sure if that was because an add-in provided it (I recently moved from Visual Assist to CodeRush which came with our DevExpress subscription). I haven't looked into it yet, but I should see if I can get those buttons working with VS.NET again.

Soccer season's over for the kids... We finished 6-1, outscoring opponents 22 to 7. It was a strange season with all the weather cancellations, delays from other teams, etc. It was fun, but I'm also glad to have the summer off. Yard work, lounging around, enjoying the weather... and then we do it again in the fall, with that also being Allie's first season.

On the Rapids front, mediocrity continues to rule the day. Freddy Adu comes to town tomorrow night and they're saying that Mile High will have about 30K because of it. 14 year old phenoms aside, the Rapids need a victory so let's hope Freddy doesn't choose tomorrow night to finally earn some of that salary.

In a 4-2 match against their cross-town rivals, the Westminster Raptors defeated the Westminster Kickers. Defense was still lackluster, but the attack exploded out of the gate to provide a 2-goal buffer.

In other news, the Colorado Rapids played to a 0-0 draw against the New England Revolution. Unfortunately, the Revs couldn't play their usual role of slumpbuster to break the Rapids out of their (typical) slow start to the season.

Two more Raptors games today, a Tivo full of MLS, and a head/chest cold that won't go away.

Why wait for Whidbey? Gaston Milano created an add-in that includes some useful IDE shortcuts.

http://weblogs.asp.net/gmilano/archive/2004/05/05/126491.aspx

So let's get this party started. I've been using a firewalled corporate blog for a while, but decided it's finally time to get something publicly-accessible up and running.

About Me

I'm your basic mid-30s software geek, currently working with .NET (primarily WinForms) and keeping busy at work. I'm the proud father of a 4-year old girl, Allie, and try to spend as much time as possible with her and my wife, Michelle, when I'm not working. For fun, I play soccer weekly (when my knee will let me), coach a youth soccer team, and we're season-ticket holders for the Colorado Rapids. I'm also a musician, primarily keyboards and drums, and I enjoy home recording as a hobby.

I've been doing software development in one fashion or another for nearly 13 years now, with forays into a number of languages along the way. I was a 6-time Microsoft MVP for Visual FoxPro and also wrote a monthly "Best Practices" column. Later, my development focus changed over to Java around 2000 and then to .NET in early 2003. I specialize in reusable components, framework development, and distributed software architecture.

About This Blog

So, what can you expect to find here? Well, if you read the two paragraphs above, it should be pretty easy to guess. A wide variety of technical ramblings, some code, miscellanous family/personal shout-outs, maybe the occasional book/music/movie review, and even a rant now and then. If any of these aren't your cup of tea, you'll be glad to note that you can view/subscribe-to the web log entries by category.

As far as frequency goes... we'll play that by ear. It'll probably be several a day sometimes, other times once a week, but one thing's certain -- it'll be irregular.

Want to send me email about something? Use the Contact page, or jeff@THE-TRASHdonnici.com (just take out THE-TRASH for it to work).