Dude!, where's my code?

I've recently got hands on Visual Studio 2005 (beta 2).
There are a lot of cool new features for win forms apps. But the the best stuff are definitely for ASP.Net 2.0.
First of all, you don't need IIS in order to run your web applications. Visual Studio 2005 comes with a personal web server so can keep your source files under the folder you want and not inetpub/wwwroot like VS 2003 used to. So now, what do I need XP Pro for, I can develop with my XP Home Edition.
The second cool feature are the Master Pages. Once you have your master page the way you want it, your other pages will have your master page as a "frame", so they will all look the same. I know you could do this in the past, but trust me, now is a lot easier.
And the last feature, which in my opinion is the coolest, is the amount of new controls and teir databinding capabilities. They say they've reduced the needed code about 70%, I built my first ASP.Net 2.0 site with master page (good look and feel) and data access with not a single line of code.
I know there are some arquitectural issues around that solution, people say "your presentation layer go straigth to your data". I say, "I know, isn't my data access encapsulated in a single component?, isn't that even better?, how about performance?"

Recientemente me metí a vichar el Visual Studio 2005 (beta 2).
Hay unas cuantas nuevas funcionalidades para aplicaciones win form. Pero las mejores cosas son definitivamente para ASP.Net 2.0.
Primero que nada, no es necesario contar con un IIS para correr aplicaciones web. Visual Studio 2005 viene con un web server personal y permite a uno mantener sus fuentes en una carpeta independiente del IIS, y no en inetpub/wwwroot como antes.
La segunda funcionalidad interesante son las Master Pages. Estas son páginas que permiten a uno diseñar el look and feel de sus páginas y esto después se vé como marco de todas las páginas. Esto ya se podía hacer, pero ahira es mucho mas fácil.
Y lo último, que para mi es lo mejor, es la cantidad controles nuevos y sus capacidades de databinding. Dicen que ahora se necesita un 70% menos de código que antes con VS2003. Yo hice un pequeño sitio con acceso a datos sin escibir una sola linea de código.
Sé que hay algunos "temas" de diseño en estas soluciones, hay gente que dice "la capa de presentación accede directamente a los datos", y yo digo "ya sé, pero no queda de esta forma también encapsulado mi acceso a datos?, no es esto aún mejor?, y que hay sobre la performance?"

Taiwan rulz!!!

They've made every electronic gadget I have, they don't deserve what's going on with Google Local. As you can see in this picture and you can check it out for yourself, when you search Taiwan at Google Local, it says Taiwan "Province of China".
I can only imagine how angry taiwanese people must be. According to the BBC they've already complained at Google, but the legend is still there.
Support Taiwan! they might get so angry they won't sell any electronics to us anymore.
Hey Taiwan!!! In Uruguay we know you are an independent country so keep the electronics coming.
Imagine Uruguay appeared as a province of Argentina!!! I'd be pissed!

Ellos han hecho todos los aparatos electronicos que tengo, no se merecen lo que está pasando con Google Local. Como se puede apreciar en esta foto y puede verificarlo useted mismo, cuando uno busca Taiwan en Google Local, dice Taiwan "Provincia de China".
Solo me puedo imaginar el enojo de los taiwaneses. Según la BBC ya se han quejado con Google pero la leyenda sigue ahí.
Che Taiwan!!! En Uruguay sabemos que son un pais independiente asique sigan mandando los electrodomésticos.
Imaginense que Uruguay apareciera como provincia de Argentina!!! Yo estaría re caliente!

Off the Record

Este post será solo en español y fuera de los tópicos sobre los que acostumbro postear, pero bien vale la pena la noticia.
El tema es que desde hace un tiempo se viene llevando a cabo el consurso Pepsi Loops donde distintos "grupos" de música electrónica compiten pasando música (pinchando discos o pinchando el mouse) en un boliche (Milenio). Y tengo un amigo, el prestigioso Ing. Alvaro Mederos, que compite con su "grupo" MooW. Tal vez él agregue un comentario sobre el por qué del nombre.

La cosa es que "tocarán" el 19 de Noviembre de 2005 en Milenuo en la fecha final del torneo. A él toda la suerte y espero que la gente se prenda para ir a darle aliento. Arriba Alvarenga!

P.D: Volviendo a lo nuestro, muy bueno el diseño de la página del Pepsi Loops, vale la pena vicharla.

J2EE vs. .Net??? why?

Hi all, I recently ended a J2EE course where I learnt how everything works together for J2EE. During that course I used Eclipse as de DE, Jboss as the application server, Hibernate to connect to the DB (MySQL), Struts for the JSP pages and ANT to run scripts. We also used Jweaver.

First of all, why do I need all those tools? There's a whole bunch of stuff to know about each one of them. They all have configuration files, which is a plus in some ways, but it's also a bad thing since you don't have tools like IntelliSence there that tells you where you've messed up.

Having that many different tools working with you makes it hard to track bugs since the bug could be in your code or in any of the different configuration files.

They say there's a whole lot of documentation and the community is huge, probably someone already had the problem you are having, the only thing you have to do is find that person (I love the MSDN site).

And the last thing, it's so "open" there are tons of different configurations, if you download an example of something you're looking for, there's a 80% chance you'll have to modify something in order to run the example and getting it working on your computer.

Also, and this is the last one, J2EE is just a bunch of papers that tell you what to do and how to design your apps, while .Net is a framework, there's an IDE where you can modify your server pages or you data bases' store procedures. In case I want to run an example from the web all I need to do is copy the files in my hard drive, load them in VS and press F5.

My bottom line is: of course I won't develop in the short/middle term in J2EE, there's nothing they provide I can't do with .Net, and with .Net I'd probably do it in half of the time it would take me to do it with J2EE. I believe J2EE is for scenarios where the application servers have to be Linux, and your company is planning on providing a lot of services to other companies, cause if they don't, I would just use plain Java Beans.

Para obtener este texto traducido mándeme un email o vaya a Babel Fish, la traducción no es muy Buena pero la idea se entiende, creo.

Where are you at?

Hi all, just wanted you to know that since today you'll be able to see where you are while checking my blog out. There's a new link below my picture (Where R U @?) that will take you to a site where you can see a map... mm mm why don't you just click the link and see it for yourself?

Hola a todos, solo quería que supieran que a partir de hoy podrán ver dónde están mientras miran my blog. Hay un nuevo link debajo de mi foto (Where R U @?) que los va a llevar a una página donde verán en un mapa... mm mm por qué no hacen click en el link y lo ven ustedes mismos?