I'm looking to start a .NET User Group in upper Westchester, NY (or anywhere in Westchester, if there isn't enough interest in upper Westchester / Putnam).

I occasionally go to the meetings in NYC or Stamford, CT, but quite frankly, it's a trip after a long day's work.

If you are interested, please post a comment here.  I'm currently researching the steps I need to take to do this successfully, so any additional help would be greatly appreciated.  I visited the ineta site for info, but found surprisingly little about how to start a UG.  Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way, but the site seems a bit disjointed.

Thanks.

We have a system which was written in VB6 way back when.  Several cooperative components are involved.  A couple of years ago, we rewrote the core components in .NET.  A couple of the driver modules remained as VB6 applications due to time constraints, etc., as is typical in migration.  But because these were the "calling" components, we had to resort to "reverse" interop.  Basically, we have COM calling a .NET component.

As you probably already know, this requires us to mark the .NET project with Register for COM Interop.  We mainly do xcopy deploys of our .NET applications, so call me slow or whatever, but the last step of the deployment was to run RegAsm.exe to register the generated .TLB file.  This required me to copy that utility to the destination machine (dumb, I know).  I think we got into this mode due to lack of time to research things correctly.  Installation and deployment (like documentation) always seems to be an afterthought in a fast-moving business.  Excuses, excuses...

Anyway, I finally took the time to read up on RegAsm.exe, and discovered that you can use the /regfile switch on the build machine to generate a .REG file that you can run on the destination machine to apply the required registry settings to register the .NET component for COM usage.  Very cool, and allows me to just add it to the deployment script (we're moving away from simple xcopy deploys) using FinalBuilder (a future article, by the way).

I just got done with training this past week.  And now my whining starts...

Hey, it's my blog, and I'll cry if I want to...

1) A one month course squashed into one week.

2) Although I understood the topics, and got a lot out of it, I suffered an inferiority complex when it came to the labs.  I NEED TO CODE MORE!

3) The instructor -- brilliant and arrogant.

Ok...I made myself buy a VB .NET tutorial book when I was in NYC.  And I will follow it step by step.

It takes experiences such as Rory Blyth had to remind me of this.  Rory is one of the smartest and funniest people I have never met (but have communicated with from time to time).  He works for Microsoft, and happens to be a big U2 fan (which is how we "met").

As he describes with his usual mix of humor and insight, no matter what us 21st century techno-dweebs think, humans are very bad at multi-tasking.  I've been telling myself for years that I need to focus on one task at a time to become more productive and less stressed out.  But some habits die hard.

I'm going to try it again.  Otherwise, I may just explode.

Also, read this VERY related article: http://news.com.com/2102-1022_3-5637632.html?tag=st.util.print

Why do experts insist on making things so hard for others to understand?  Is it a fear of losing their "expertise" label?  Do they throw around buzzwords just to feel part of the "in" crowd?

Isn't there joy in being able to help the less enlightened person's eyes light up with understanding?  Isn't it worthwhile to help another person share your appreciation and understanding for what you know so well?

Well, then why does so much of the teaching material available today suck?  Why do I have to read explanations about a topic from five different books before I can really grok something?  Is it that hard for people to remember how they felt when first learning something?

Yes, the situation has improved.  There are some excellent technical writers these days, such as Mark Minasi, and Charles Petzold has always been clear.  But the situation is still inconsistent at best.  And way too many writers write like it hurts them to do so -- obviously they're in it to capitalize on being the first ones out with a book on a topic.

Where am I going with this?

I want to change this.  I have an idea for a website that will attempt to teach without being condescending or obtuse.  I grabbed the URL a few years ago, but never used it.  It may take me another six months to a year to start it, though.  You see, I'm procrastinating again.  But I know why -- a few reasons:

1. I want to learn ASP .NET enough to write the site using that.
2. I didn't want to start the site with just a topic or two.
3. I wanted to start this site initially to help me learn .NET -- it was going to be one of my tools for learning it.  But it would require me to actually learn a topic or two inside-out.

Obviously, these are lame reasons for not starting the site:

1. Uh, DUH -- how do I think I'm going to LEARN ASP .NET??
2. Who cares?  Do I think I need to document everything in the framework before I start?
3. Double-DUH -- see # 1.

Like I warned you -- this blog is for helping me to kick my own ass.

Between Microsoft's online bug reporting page, their employee blogs, channel9.msdn.com videos, etc., the openness and responsiveness of Microsoft over the past couple of years has been absolutely unprecedented in the history of the software industry.  Here's an online chat transcript with MS about VS2005:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=49356

For the past few years, I have fallen in love with this technology...from a distance.  You see, I normally don't have time to make use of it myself.  I do a lot less coding than I used to (which still pains my soul), but I know that if I really wanted to, I could force myself to use it more.

Maybe I'm being lazy...

Maybe I'm just overwhelming myself with all I know I need to learn.

.NET is HUGE -- the framework, especially.  And I still have not grokked it.  I have over 75 (yes, 75) books on .NET.  And if you saw my bookshelves, you'd see a bookmark about 20% into each book.  I'm all over the place on this stuff.

I've learned a lot by osmosis.  But my biggest problem is that I'm not learning by DOING.  There are so many programs I want to write -- utilities to make my job easier.  But I don't know which to do first.  I'm rarely undecided in my job -- but when it comes to things I want to do on my own time, I'm very undecided.  I want to do it all.

Isn't it strange how a discussion about .NET turns into a rant on my failings?

Like I said, this blog is for kicking myself in the ass.  Join in if you'd like.

Because I just started this blog, I'll be posting more often than normally.  I have a lot of crap to get out of my system.  I may go weeks without posting anything, but I seriously doubt that.  But for now, I continue to spout...

Like I said, I'm a Software Architect.  That's just my latest role in the field of software.  It is said that modeling is one of the best things you can do towards reaching your goals in life, and in your field of work.  I have had some heroes in my field.

One of my first heroes was an English chap I'll call Richard W-1.  He wasn't perfect -- not at all.  He spent most lunch hours drinking.  But he was one of the first real smart developers I ever knew.

By the way, unless I have only positive things to say about someone, I won't be mentioning full names in my blog.

I was just starting out in my first programming job (seems like yesterday, of course) at a large bank in NYC.  COBOL (which I actually liked -- I liked the verbosity of it.  Maybe that's why I'm a VB .NET guy today).

My first day on the job, right out of the training program, was one of the scariest days of my professional -- no -- my ENTIRE life.  I was in WAY over my head.  I wish I could remember the name of the developer who I had to report to that day.  She had a very non-caring attitude about her job.  Here I am, in my first real programming job (which I thought would be FUN), totally scared to death, because I just took a look at the first program I was supposed to maintain, and it was the worst piece of shit I've ever seen written.  And the person I was reporting to could not care less about her job.  How did I keep my enthusiasm about my field of choice???

Well, I did make it through my first few months, quite well, thank you.  But mainly, it was thanks to Richard W-1, and his English partner in code, Richard W-2.  RW-2 was the NEATEST coder I have EVER known (and HE was always sober, as far as I could tell), but RW-1 was smart as a freaking whip.  You find me a smart whip, and I'll...whatever...

I learned more from these two guys about clean, structured programming, than anyone else in about 5-6 years...

COBOL, no less...

So, the Richard W's were my first real software heroes.