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VB 6 Helper Newsletter
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Rod Stephens
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Oct 16, 2009 14:16 PDT
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Beginning Database Design Solutions
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470385499/vbhelper/
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DevX posted another of my articles:
WPF Wonders: Building Control Templates
http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/42947
October 6, 2009
WPF's properties and styles let you change a control's appearance.
Templates let you modify a control at a much more fundamental level,
changing the components that make up the control and the way it acts.
This article shows how you can use templates to change the fundamental
structure of WPF controls. Examples show how to build a Label that wraps
text and ends long text with an ellipsis, an interesting button, and a
distinctive scroll bar.
They're pretty cool and easy to use.
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Visual Basic 2008 Programmer's Reference
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470182628/vbhelper/
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Last week I whined about the fact that VB .NET doesn't have reference
counting. John Mueller (all around great guy and the most prolific
non-romance writer alive) sent this reply:
Really cool example this week! I agree, leaving reference counting
out of VB.NET was a mistake. However, I don't think Microsoft had a
choice in the matter (please correct me if I'm wrong). I read an
article recently about the whole threading issue at:
http://visualstudiomagazine.com/Articles/2009/10/01/Threading-and-the-UI.aspx
If you read that article completely and then start reviewing the
free threading model, you'll begin to understand why moving from
apartment-model threading in VB6 to free threading in VB.NET is such a
big deal. Reference counting would seem impossible in VB.NET simply
because of the way the threading model works. Of course, you get a
whole bunch of positive things with free threading as well, so I think
the move was a good one, but not completely good--we had to give
something up. As the author of that article states, "There is no free
lunch" <g>.
I'm not completely convinced but I can see how reference counting would
mean a lot more cross-thread synchronization and it makes more sense
than the official line Microsoft has always given when asked about
garbage collection. They say it's better because it handles reference
loops (where object A points to object B, which points back at object
A). Yes, they are theoretically a problem but I've never actually seen
one cause trouble in the wild.
Check out John's Web site at:
http://www.mwt.net/~jmueller/
Have a great week and thanks for subscribing!
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Rod
RodSte-@vb-helper.com
Books To Keep: http://www.BooksToKeep.com
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