For those that have been looking forward to seeing the final result of Microsoft’s attempt at AJAX, your wait is over. ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 has been released.
I’ve not had time to test this yet, but it sure looks like it has promise. I’ll be playing with this one soon, I’ve got a couple new projects this might be perfect for.
Xceed has released version 1.0 of their new WPF based DataGrid, and best of all, made it free! If you’ve missed the news, you might want to check this out.
An update to the Visual Studio PowerToy Pack Installer has just been announced. This handy application wraps up many of the PowerToys so that they can be installed from one easy to use UI. With so many of these Power Toys available, this installer is great to have; otherwise finding and installing them can be a slow and painful experience.
If you’re a power user, or fancy yourself a power tweaker, this one might just be for you.
Looking to get a good start in the latest Microsoft technology? Rob Eisenberg has written what appears to be a rather interesting, and quite useful, crash course in WPF. If you’re looking for a quick way to get up to speed, this looks like a good place to start.
Paul Vick announced a possible change for VB 9.0, this change would give the IIF method the legitimacy it has long deserved. The issue with IIf is that it’s not a short-circuit operator, which can severely limits its usefulness. Take the following example, that will throw an exception if obj is Nothing:
IIf(obj IsNot Nothing, obj.Property1, String.Empty)
Since IIf() is just a normal method, all parameters will be evaluated, regardless of weather obj is Nothing. This change would make IIf a true part of the language, a true ternary operator, instead of just another method.
IIf is largely avoided due to performance issues, and its limited usefulness for the reason above. Now that IIf may function as a true operator (though still wrapped in the cloak of a method), it will be a truly useful part of the language, one that I’ve long wished for. I’ve always been a fan of IIf, it’ll be nice to be able to use it again, without the overheard and issues that has long went with its use.
Mr. Vick is still soliciting comments on this change, so now is the time to make your opinion known.
If you are looking to get started working with WPF, then Tim Sneath has a great guide for where to start: Building a Perfect WPF Developer Workstation.
This guide includes links to all the software you need, sample projects, and even where to go with questions. If you’re new to WPF, or want to take your WPF skills to the next level, this is a great place to start.
