Jeremy Esland has convinced me that XML is the answer to many of the data problems I am encountering in a variety of projects.  The more I learn about XML, the more I'm sure it's the answer. 

In a related side-note, Jeremy also introduced me to the eXist project.  eXist is a powerful XML storage and retrieval solution that can be run and accessed in a variety of ways. 

Now if I could just get my .NET code to retrieve some documents from eXist...

When the IBuySpy portal was released along with ASP.NET 1.0, I pretty much used it to teach myself programming with .NET.  In January 2002, Cory Isakson convinced me that I should abandon the enhancements I'd made to it and join the Rainbow Portal project, even though this meant learning C# along the way. 

More than a year later, I can't believe how Rainbow is growing.  As I type this, I'm listening to the second hour of a broadcasted meeting between Cory and a handful of Boise, Idaho area developers using (or considering, I think) Rainbow for various reasons. 

If you're new to .NET (or software development in general), Rainbow is an excellent place to start.  The learning curve is steep (meaning “challenging, but short“), but the rewards are many. 

It's exciting to be (even a small) part of a project that really has HUGE potential.  Join Rainbow, and you are welcome to be a part of that, too!

At my day job, I've been working to update an old quickbasic-centered data storage system to something a little more 21st century.  Along the way, of course, I've had to learn a great deal about QuickBasic and how it stores/retrieves values in text files. 

Our data solution uses fixed-length text records for storage.  One 'quirk' about that is that it also uses QuickBasic's CVI() and MKS() functions to store 16-bit Integers in a 2-character string (so any integer will still fit into our happy little fixed-length string). 

The problem is that Microsoft's .NET doesn't have any functions that resemble CVI(), MKS(), or a number of others that were found in QB (like MKD, CVD, MKI, MKL, CVL).  There are plenty of examples out there for VB6, but not .NET!

Anyway, I've searched pretty hard for a .NET version of CVI(), and finally found one that would work:

Here's the link to the original article, and I'll attach the code for download in case that article goes away some time in the future:

I hope this helps someone else with the same problem.

I've been looking for a way to record (and hopefully later retrieve) some semi-random thoughts, so I thought I'd give this blogging stuff a try...I found dasBlog because Cory sent me a link.