oneof.us

When I read the other day that Microsoft will be releasing the .NET source code under a so-called “Review License”, I was more than a little pleased.  Having a chance to step into code under all the namespaces of the framework seems so beneficial and as a tinkerer, I love to see how things work on the inside.

Well, Joe Wilcox over at Microsoft Watch sees this as a way for Microsoft to sue more open-source developers by claiming that their code uses the same concepts, etc as the .NET code.  I whole-heartedly don’t agree.

Microsoft isn’t in a position to wipe open-source developers off the face of the earth as some would have you believe–this is further spreading of FUD and honestly, it’s getting old.  It’s so easy for every Bob, Dick, and Jane to “hate the establishment” and be anti-Microsoft because it’s trendy.  Now I’m no Microsoft fanboy, in fact, I loathe all fanboys because they don’t know the meaning behind the words moderation/fairness/opinion/etc.  Over-the-top support for some cause, while at the same time being ignorant/intolerant of the opposing view is just plain stupid.  But that is how our society is built–extreme competition.

There is a time and a place for competition, but there has to be limits; like when you become a douche-bag about it, that’s the limit.

So, stop being douche-bags you fanboys (not speaking to Joe Wilcox, talking to all fanboys, just to be clear), and have an open-mind from time to time.

While coding up some PoC (proof of concept) for a new side-gig, I finally got around to using the PropertyGrid control in Visual Studio .net (thanks Dan for bringing this control to my attention). If you’ve ever used Visual Studio .net, you’ll immediately recognize this control, even if you didn’t know its name. Here’s a screen-clip of the property grid in action on a Form control:

Now the cool thing about this control is that you can incorporate it into your own app very easily:

1. Create a class with public properties
2. In your Form1 Desginer, drag a PropertyGrid control from the toolbox (if it’s not on your toolbox, check here)
3. Open the Form1.cs class and add the following line: propertyGrid1.SelectedObject = yourObjectName;

That’s it! To add categories, descriptions, etc to the PropertyGrid, check out the lower half of this page on c-sharpcorner.com, it goes into the appropriate attributes you can use (most of the time, they tell you to append ‘Attribute’ to your attribute names, but listen to intellisense, it will omit that).

Here’s a screenshot of a custom class I made with a few properties, bound to a PropertyGrid control: