Several years ago, a co-worker, Doug Carpenter, and I were annoyed by the time we “wasted” in trying to come up with the optimum conference schedule when attending a developer conference with multiple sessions. It seemed like we would spend several hours with pencil and paper trying to pick and choose the correct combination of times and sessions to get the best bang for our conference buck. It was then that we embarked on the quest to come up with some semi-intelligent, intuitive software that would do the scheduling for us. It was that software, “The G.O.D.D.E.S.S.”, which debuted at the DevEssentials in Kansas City, MO. in 2004. K.O.K.O.P.E.L.L.I. is the next generation of this type of software.

Written in Visual FoxPro 9, Kokopelli (K.O.K.O.P.E.L.L.I. is too difficult to type) takes the attendee’s preferences and converts them into a SUGGESTED conference schedule that all but guarantees, by the time the conference is over, that the attendee will have seen every session they wanted to see. You will need either VFP8 or VFP9 installed or have the run-time files available to run the executable.

Once you download the zipped file, unzip the file into the directory of your choice and just run the executable. Take the time to READ both the help (4th page of the page frame) and/or use the graphical help by clicking on the “Help!” button. This is all the help you should need. I do have a couple of warnings however. If you keep them in mind, you will have the best chance of getting the optimal schedule.

First, although it may appear to be so, it should NOT be your goal to “pick” the session in each time slot that you want to attend. The software will eventually do that for you. YOUR job is to rank the four (or five) sessions in each time slot as if they were the only four sessions you could attend the entire conference. i.e. Of the four sessions in the time slot, which one would you MOST like to attend? Which one would be your 2nd choice? Third choice? It is so important that you understand this concept; I am suggesting that you read this paragraph over again. Do the same thing for EACH time slot (ignoring what you chose before in other time slots). To reiterate... Treat EACH TIME SLOT as an entity unto itself. By following this plan, Kokopelli will determine which sessions are most important to you and present a schedule that should meet your needs and ensure that you have had a chance to attend the sessions that interest you the most.

Second, the generated schedule is ONLY A SUGGESTION. No one is twisting your arm and forcing you to attend a particular session. I think you will be amazed at how well it does in creating a schedule for you. You can always tweak the rankings to fine tune the schedule. If you have any questions, concerns, comments, feel free to comment them here and I will answer them and guide you down the right path.

Lastly, we tried to come up with a form that isn’t your standard Visual FoxPro/Windows form in appearance. We hope you like it and appreciate the Southwestern theme of the form.

"Thank you"s are in order. I must mention those VERY patient folks who tested the application, offered constructive criticism, and generally harassed me to get it done. Without their help, it would have taken much, much longer. So, in no particular order, I would like to acknowledge the following humanoids for their help:

Doug Carpenter
Kelly Conway
Tamar Granor
Doug Hennig
Larry Koska
ShellEy Nass
George Clooney (just checking to see if you are paying attention)
Cathy Pountney
Rich Schummer

For those of you who are really weird, YES, it WAS in a particular order - ALPHABETICAL (by last name).
Thanks again to everyone.

We here at Visionpace make every attempt to practice the Agile methodology of software development. We are proud of the fact that this practice serves both us, as software developers, and our clients extremely well. Many of our clients were reluctant at first, but once they understood the benefits, most of them gave it a chance and haven’t looked back.

Agile practices are a good thing, but I do have one beef that I am VERY passionate about and I am about to discuss (some of you might even say, proselytize) it. In many agile discussions, as well as discussions about other software disciplines, one often hears the phrase, “All comments are lies.” Those of you who believe this are (as I have alluded to above) idiots! However, those of you who do NOT believe it, COULD still be an idiot, and so, be sure to get a second opinion.

Hey, I get it. Don’t trust comments. They are not always accurate. Duh! I feel that there are a certain percentage of you out there who actually embrace this belief because it validates the fact that you were doing the right thing all those years by NOT putting comments in your code. No, it just validates that you are lazy. Lazy is not, necessarily, a bad trait in a software developer, but NOT commenting your code WITHIN the code makes you, dare I say it again, an idiot. That is the last time I will use that term, because, hopefully by now, you are riled up enough to really listen to me.

Other than the fact that someone either knowingly wrote an inaccurate comment or wrote a comment, modified the code pertaining to it, and then did not update the comment, can any one out there give me a reason NOT to trust a comment you discover in code? We will exclude that person from the discussion because he is a “psycho programmer”; you know the one that NEVER follows any kind of standard and use one character mvars. Besides, most “psycho programmers” don’t comment anyway.

Here are the reasons why, in MY opinion, you SHOULD comment your code.

Let’s get the “trust” issue out of the way right now.  If YOU put the comment in yourself, you BETTER believe that the comment is accurate. You did it (primarily) for yourself.  The fact that an accurate comment will benefit a maintenance programmer who comes down the pike a year later is an extra benefit; a benefit which I appreciate when I am called in to do the maintenance. I will be more than happy to ASSume that the newly discovered comment is accurate because THAT developer put it in there and, like you, why would they want to lie to them self? Yes, there is that chance that the comment is now inaccurate.  Studies have shown, statistically, that approximately 93% of comments ARE accurate.  Right here, you should be asking yourself where I got those numbers, and right here, I will tell you that I made them up.  Who would waste their time researching that fact? Nevertheless, think about it, most comments ARE accurate because the person who writes them WANTS them to be accurate.

OK, I can tell you are getting a little bit peeved right now. Dave, I thought our code is supposed to be “self-documenting”? If I write bug free code, why do I have to comment? Oh, grasshopper, you will learn someday.  Until then, trust me, write those comments! In all honesty, I, too, am a believer that under most circumstances, the code SHOULD be self documenting. However, consider the following code:

REPLACE Name WITH UPPER(SUBST (LastName, 1, 2) + LOWER(SUBST (LastName, 3)

That code is self documenting, if someone wanted to take the time to figure out what it does, they could easily do so. The real question the person should be asking their self is... WHY is that code there? It looks kind of goofy anyway.  When I first saw it, I thought that perhaps the coder didn’t know about the PROPER function, but then, they were really capitalizing the first TWO letters of the name. Maybe the parameters of the first substring should have been 1, 1.  Maybe I should refactor using the PROPER function.  I am soooooooo confused!  Close to an hour of my time was spent determining WHY this code was here.  Imagine how much easier it would have been had the following comment been in place.

DLA/Visionpace 04/01/2004 Mr. Jones, the COO, recently bought 113 file cabinets

Immediately, we can see that the code is correct and that there is a reason WHY it was written.  Additionally, as often happens to me, in some scrum, when asked why this was done or who requested it, the answer is there.  Not only for me, but for you when you come in to do the maintenance. Two minutes to initially write the comment or 60 minutes to figure out the details five years later. You do the math.

Additionally, what one developer feels is self-documenting, another might not. Why not eliminate any potential confusion and explain the reason for the code’s existence? Again, it will save the next person who comes along much valuable time for there is a real good chance that they will know nothing about the project and the code. Believe me, you will benefit also.  One of my favorite phrases is... “When you are coding, you and God know what you are doing.  Six months later, only God knows.” I can not begin to tell you the number of times when I have gone into some legacy code and the comment I wrote three years earlier IMMEDIATELY brings back to life the exact reason for the code.  Many is the time that it has saved my fanny. Those are the times that I almost dislocate my shoulder patting myself on the back for a job well-done.

If you have made it this far, you are just not getting enough billable hours in.  However, thank you for reading along and agreeing or disagreeing.  Either way, I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this very polarizing topic. I promise to bring an open mind if you do the same, but I will say right up front, that it will take a Herculean effort to change my mind.  Care to give it a try?

Southwest Fox 2009 will take place in Mesa, Arizona  USA and I strongly suggest, if you are still developing in Visual FoxPro, that you think long and hard about being there. Don’t miss out on the $125 discount, the free pre-conference session, and a chance at the $300 scholarship from White Light Computing.

Already registered? Great! Spread the word (hey, that is what I am doing right now) among your fellow VFP developers (who have been procrastinating) that the deadline is looming nigh?

Read about the registration process and get the registration application here:

http://www.swfox.net/register.aspx

OK, that sounded kind of bland, but now I would like to add the emotional/excitement factor. The first half of this blog was the facts, ma’am, just the facts. This second half contains (although not in its entirety) stuff that I am looking forward to doing and experiencing at the conference.

Reviewing and reinforcing all I can about the VFP9 Report Writer and ReportListener. Show of hands, please. Who, among you, has still not explored all of the capabilities of the ReportListener? i h v  my h n  up in  h  ir. This is the PERFECT opportunity to do just that.

VFPX – Lots of us have heard about it and maybe even played with it a little bit, but THIS TIME at THIS CONFERENCE, I vow to pick the brains of EVERY speaker who is presenting ANYTHING concerning EXTENDING VFP. It will look like a scene from “Hanibal” (Silence of the Lambs – Part II). Doug Hennig (GDIPlusX), Jody Meyer (Extending the VFP Grid Object), Jim Nelson (FoxCharts), Rick Schummer (Enhancing the VFP IDE using VFPX Tools) all better look out.  I wonder which goes best with a nice Chianti? Learn to extend VFP to make it bigger, better, richer, fuller!!!  I am ready.  How about you?

Christof Wollenhaupt has a session about “Excelporting”. That’s just a fancy word that means “make your data look like a spreadsheet”. Sounds like something I need because my clients are always asking for DATA in a SPREADSHEET (and not just using the COPY TO command).

Those are just some of the session that I plan on attending. Your mileage may vary, but if you go to http://www.swfox.net, you will be able to see the entire list of speakers and a brief description of the sessions. Don’t delay; you just have a couple of days! Hope to see you there (unless you are an obnoxious “know-it-all”, in which case, I will just mosey on over to the bar and order another adult beverage).

I learned something “new” yesterday that I know is not new, and in fact, might be known by tons of Widows users. However, since I didn’t know it, perhaps you don’t either and that is why I am passing along this bit of “new” information. I have encountered this situation many times throughout my career, been annoyed by it, and yet, never knew I could do anything about reducing my frustration. Yesterday, I was at a client site and the location of some text files I wished to access was stored somewhere on their server. The folder I wanted to access was about six levels down from the root directory and each level had a minimum of 50 folders.  Needless to say, migrating to the desired location using Windows Explorer was tedious. Not very tedious the first couple of times, but since I had to do this about every five minutes, it quickly became very annoying. You know the drill (no pun intended)… Open up Windows explorer, search the list of folders for the first level, click on the folder, locate the next level from among 50 folders, find it, click it, and so forth until you have navigated your way to the final level.

It was when I mumbled something about how frustrating it was having to navigate all the way down to Dante’s seventh level of hell, that my contact at the client site stopped me and showed me his technique. Since I think this is such a cool trick, I have to give credit to Patrick Hansen of Penton Media who showed it too me. I hope I am not blowing it out of proportion, but this is one of those tips that I will use often and now, maybe you will too. Navigate to the desired folder in Windows Explorer. Once there, you can add that “location” to you list of favorites at the top of the screen just like you would do for one of your frequently visited websites. Yep, that’s right. Just click on Favorites|Add to Favorites… and enter a description. The next time you need to get to that folder, just open Windows Explorer, click on Favorites and it will be there. Click on the link and you are immediately transported to the desired location. I think this is the closest I will ever get to “Beam me up, Scotty”.

Now, all of these shortcuts to various folders will show up in your list of favorites when you open up Internet Explorer also. Because of this, I created a new folder in my favorites named “Explorer Folders” and the name of each link is the full path I want to go to. Each level is separated with an underscore for clarity. i.e. G_Departments_BookGroup_MarketingRep_Extracts_Colorado_Aug08. What a time saver!  Thanks again, Patrick. You CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

It seems that tool tips for objects in a grid that have been previously working flawlessly are no longer visible. Would I run his form and see if I got the same results? Sure, but, all knowingly, I reminded him that I shouldn't have to "waste" my time because (undoubtedly) what had happened was that the ShowTips property of the form on which the grid resides probably got accidentally reset to .F..

"No, dummy, (Larry and I clearly have a mutual admiration society going on), I am not that stupid. That was the first thing I checked."

My response then was, "Lar, this may actually be a problem. Let me check it out."

And so the mini test began. I fired up his form and everything worked as expected. I could see tool tips specific to the grid, to the columns, and even the column headings. And yet, I had to believe that Larry knew what he was talking about; he usually does. So, why would the form work on my machine and not his? What recent changes might he have made? A quick phone call determined the difference. Both of us are running VFP9, both of us have access to Vista OS and XP OS and tested on both OSs. The only apparent difference is HE (always on the bleeding edge of technology) is running Service Pack TWO  and I (invaribly on the coaggulating edge) am running Service Pack ONE. To confirm, he reinstalled using SP1 and the exact same form work as expected. Mystery solved. Now I am going back and review a recent blog by Rick Schummer (April 8, 2009) to make sure this bug gets reported properly.

Getting tool tips to display may not seem that big of a deal, but if I didn't want them to be displayed, I wouldn't have gone to the bother of creating them. I am glad to see that Larry, as a developer, followed through rather than re-evaluate the need for tool tips. Besides, as quite often happens, I learned something and because I worked on it, I will remember this issue. Subsequently, a Google search did discover a discussion of this issue and that MIGHT have saved us time, but in the long run, I believe it was more beneficial to have gone through the discovery process ourselves. Afterall, it is all a big game and isn't that what we developers like best?

Today's perfect example is the most recent post ( http://doughennig.blogspot.com ) by one of the legendary (hope that description doesn't go to his head) super-players in the world of Visual FoxPro, Doug Hennig. Hidden within the code that Doug generously provides is a Visual FoxPro function that I did not know even existed. The ObjToClient() function has limited use, but like most functions, when you need it, you are glad it is around. I have never used it, but after reading about it, I KNOW that I could have used it in the past when I "jumped through hoops" to achieve the desired effect. AND... I KNOW that I will use it in the future when the need arises.

I would not have gained this knowledge had I not been in the habit of reading Doug's blog. Now it so happens that, today, Doug's blog was the one that contained the nugget that made me a smarter software developer, but it just as easily could have been one of the many other blogs that I read on a regular basis. So, if you are not reading blogs regularly (which begs the question, what are you doing here right now?), get in the habit of spending a few minutes each day. I guarantee that, in the long run, it will pay YOU dividends.

To give you taste, here are some of the sessions I attended today:

- In "Profiling and Refactoring: How to Analyze and Clean up Your Code", Andrew Ross MacNeill talked about a powerful tool in VFPX called Code Analyst that can help you identify "issues" in your code (e.g., too many lines of code in a single routine, too many comments, too many loop structures, has more than one return value, etc.).  (VFPX is a Visual FoxPro Community effort to create open source add-ons for Visual FoxPro 9.0).  You can select which rules you want run against your code; you can also create your own rules.

You can download Code Analyst for free from the VFPX CodePlex web site: http://www.codeplex.com/VFPX.

Andrew also discussed an add-in for the Coverage Profiler.

- Christof Wollenhaupt gave an introduction to mobile development; employing his product, Guineu (Catalan for "Fox"), you can develop mobile applications from within Visual FoxPro. Cool!

- Doug Hennig talked about Advantage Database Server for VFP Developers; with this alternate back-end, you can either read VFP .DBF files directly or you can move your data into the proprietary ADD format.  With Advantage Database Server (ADS), your .DBF files are no longer limited to 2 GB.  "In ADS, there isn't a direct limit on the size of the file; instead, the limit is a maximum of 2 billion (2,147,483,648) records. Of course, if your DBF becomes larger than 2 GB, you'll only be able to access it through ADS since VFP will see it as invalid."

"ADS [also] has a fast and powerful full text search (FTS) feature. FTS uses an index on each word in a memo field to provide fast, index-based lookups for desired words."

- Rick Schummer did a presentation focusing exclusively on "Using VFPX Components"; he demo-ed various controls like Themed Controls (e.g., OutlookNavBar), the ctl32 project (e.g., StatusBar and BalloonTips [tooltips on steroids]) and Desktop Alerts.  VFPX controls add pizzazz to your VFP applications, giving them a more polished/professional appearance. You can download these controls for free from the VFPX CodePlex web site (http://www.codeplex.com/VFPX) and then implement all of these controls in your VFP applications

- In "Creating Owner Drawn Controls in VFP", Christof Wollenhaupt showed us how to "exploit the power of GDI+ to create our own controls" in VFP forms (e.g., "new pageframes, progress bars, formatted text, chart controls, basic text input or Unicode text output").  He also covered "dealing with mouse and keyboard input."

- Bo Durban showed us how to create custom report controls with VFP 9, employing the GDIPlusX library; rotated text, dynamic text formatting, graphs and custom shapes are a few examples of things you can do/include in your reports.

I continue to see the common thread/theme of EXTENSIBILITY with respect to Visual FoxPro (that was also displayed in a 2-day West-Wind Web Connection training I attended on Tuesday and Wednesay this week [Rick Strahl's product enables you to create web applications using VFP and some other technologies like CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, etc.]).

About 8 months ago, I started noticing a recurring issue on my virtual machines with regards to SQL Server 2005. I was regularly getting errors in the application event log about SQL Server 2005 performance counters. Since this was the only error I was getting, and SQL Server 2005 seemed to plug right along just fine despite these errors, I ignored them.

Fast forward 8 months to today. I've been using SQL Server 2008 in development projects for a few months now. I had one particular virtual machine that did not have SQL Server 2008 reporting services installed and I wanted to install it today. When I ran the installation wizard, it kept failing during initial check steps, reporting that there was a problem with the performance counters. In this case, it would not let me install reporting services withough resolving this issue. The details reccomended following the steps of Microsoft KB article 300956, "How to manually rebuild Performance Counter Library values".

I followed all of the steps of this KB article (not a quick task mind you), rebooted and started the installation again. Much to my chagrin, it failed due to the same performance counter check failing AGAIN..... UGH!

Some additional googling let me to this blog post.

The short story here is that performance counters were disabled.... ALL OF THEM. Rebuilding them was a completely unnecessary step. I also know why they were disabled, and I will remember this for a LONG time to come.

I've been using VMOptimizer from Vizioncore (desktop version now discontinued) since before it was purchased by Vizioncore from Invirtus (or they merged, or whatever happend). There is a checkbox in the opimization options regarding disabling disk performance counters. Unfortunately, this is mislabled. It doesn't disable "disk performance counters", it simply turns off ALL OF THEM.

Guess when I started using VMOptimizer again.... say... about 8 months ago.

If you need any performance counters turned on, don't check this option or possibly suffer the same fate that I did.

JE

  - when calling the SEEK() function  and not storing the return value, e.g.,

      USE (HOME(2) + 'Data\Customer') IN 0
      =SEEK('Great Lakes Food Market', 'Customer', 'Company')

  - when denoting an expression in a property in the Properties Sheet/Window; for example, when setting the .Caption property of _Screen:

      ='My Application (Version # ' + m.gcVersionNo + ')'

Side note, when setting the .Picture property for an Image control, include the equals sign as follows:

      ='MySplash.JPG'

If you specify MySplash.JPG without the equals sign and character delimiters, VFP will attempt to insert the path in front of the picture's file name; the problem is that that path may not (in fact, most likely will not) be on your customer's PC (when your application is production).

Having said that, it gives me the opportunity for some self-promotion. When you go to the conference website, look for the link to download the K.O.K.O.P.E.L.L.I. software written by moi. It will give you two hours of your life back. How? Well, instead of spending two hours trying to figure out the optimum schedule to ensure you see the sessions you are most interested in, the software prepares a "suggested" schedule based on your preferences in just a couple of minutes.  Give it a try. If you have any problems, let me know by leaving a comment and I promise I will get back to you.

Hope to see all of you in Mesa, AZ in October.