by Matthew Noonan
27. February 2006 16:37
It was a long overdue and greatly needed vacation. I was rapidly approaching burnout status with everything I had going on. So last week, I abandoned my laptop and email and traded them for a cerveza and the warm clear waters of the Caribbean.
There were some annoyances, such as the early arrival of the "spring break" crowd and their inability to detect their own rude behavior, but for the most part all was good. The weather was perfect, and relaxation was the order of the day.
But now I'm back in (crappy winter weather) Ohio, and it's time to get rockin' on EasyObjects 1.1. I will dig in this week and post some updates, with a possible release candidate late in the week or early next week. I'm a little behind schedule on my roadmap, so I need to get this release out so we can move on to version 2.0
by Matthew Noonan
15. February 2006 06:41
I initially intended this to be a rather heated rant, but I have delayed my posting on this so I have had time to cool off.
Before I begin, I will stipulate that managing a site like Wikipedia, with all of the raw user input and the obvious tendency for abuse, has got to be an extremely difficult and perhaps even tedious job. I wouldn't do it unless you paid me, and I doubt those guys get paid.
Nevertheless...
I went to the ORM page on Wikipedia because it showed up in a Google search I was investigating. I noticed that dOOdads was listed on the page, but did not have it's own subject page (now I know why). So I added EasyObjects to the list of ORM providers and proceeded to create a subject page for it.
I knew that adding something entirely self-promotional was going to get rejected, so I tried to take some text off the home page and trim the "marketing" fluff out of it, leaving only the related features. Apparently that wasn't good enough.
The next day my page was flagged for deletion, according to their policy (note: I am not asserting the anyone at Wikipedia has violated their own policies), which gave me a 3-day notice. I went to look at the feedback, and I was shall we say, put off.
Everything from "spamvertisement" to "self-promotion" to disparaging my relevance due to this site's Alexa ranking (and a few other childish remarks as well). All of which is, of course, true to some extent. I am trying to promote EasyObjects through their site. This site is less than six months old, so my ranking in Alexa is not very high.
All of this I could probably forgive (in time), if I hadn't visited some of the other pages that apparently were allowed. One in particular, and I think most of you can probably guess which one, was filled with self-promotional language touting the features of the product. Was it better and more informational than mine? Yes, it was. I wish I had looked at it first to get some ideas. Was it a dry and encyclopedia-like page, offering no "spamvertisement"? No, it sure as hell was not.
So I'm left with the conclusion that the primary reason mine was rejected was because I am a "little fish" compared to the others. Again, this is true, but it's also not equal treatment, either. And I thought that was a hallmark of Wikipedia.
I guess I was wrong...
There was no constructive feedback, and the comments were occasionally childish (one might say unprofessional, if there were paid staff involved). I haven't gone back to the site since, and I won't be returning to the site anytime soon. I assume my page is now deleted, though the link on the ORM page seems to still be active. We'll see for how long.
All in all, I'm just left with the impression that the editors of the site are more like Caesar, waiting to give the gladiator in the Coliseum the thumbs up or down, with no chance for redemption for the latter.
What a bunch of jerks...
by Matthew Noonan
15. February 2006 06:28
EasyObjects.NET 1.1 is coming along great! Here are the major items on my checklist before release:
- Extensive Oracle testing for aggregates and proc-less operations.
- Update the VB QuickStart.
- Update XML comments and generate new NDoc help file.
And that's about it! I think we're looking at a release around the 1st of March, assuming no schedule interference or feature creep.
If you download the latest code from Tigris and you can live without the VB QuickStart, you already have most of the functionality available to you. Even the VB template has been updated.
I appreciate any feedback or bug reports you may have. Stay tuned, we are getting close...
by Matthew Noonan
5. February 2006 23:46
Things have progressed far enough that it's time to release a preview version for community review and feedback, so head on over to the Downloads page to get your copy (registration is required). I will release a "binaries-only" version to the User Samples section on GotDotNet shortly.
New features and bug fixes:
- Complete functionality without generating stored procedures. You no longer have to generate stored procedures for your business objects (although this is still supported). You now have the option. This paves the way for adding support for database platforms that do not support stored procedures (Access, VistaDB, MySql, SqlLite, etc.).
- Support for Aggregate functions in custom queries, courtesy of David Neal Parsons.
- Ability to load an EasyObject from a DataTable or a DataSet (specifying the index of the DataTable). This allows for developers to return multiple resultsets from a stored procedure and then load the objecct from the DataSet.
- Updated the QuickStart to prompt for dynamic connection information, including the server name and user credentials.
- Fixed a bug where the internal datatable was not removed from the dataset when an exception occurred (reported by daveyjclark).
We are well on track for the 1.1 release, but your feedback is important and welcome. You can post any comments you have right here on the blog.
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