Religious texts (List of Wikipedia)

Another interesting List of Wikipedia is the list of religious texts. It's a medium sized list, although I suspect it is not nearly complete and that some of the works there are pretty big.

I am not much on religion, but I wonder what one would come to think of if presented with all the texts in the list, exposed to them without any cultural bias. Would some sort of distilation of the concept of religion emerge from it, or would everybody just choose a religion they feel more comfortable with? Or maybe they would write their own religious texts.

When I think about it, I can't help but compare it with the emergence of certain genres in fiction, like alien invasion sci-fi or comic book super heroes. First there are some original authors that come up with an idea. The idea is well liked, bought and distributed. It becomes well known so that other people start making work of their own that is inspired by that. It's almost organic, with reproduction, mutation, cross breeding and extinction. However, the integrity of religions is mostly enforced by communities of people that insist on changing nothing. They stop evolution, but also protect against extinction. Is stagnation the hallmark of religion or is it the stability that it provides in a world in continuous flux of change?

I will tell you this: I like evolution. And I mean it in the most general sense, not only the Darwinian one. I find it ironic that in my mind religion is the opposite of evolution. Or maybe that's a cultural bias. Hmm...

Read More

Shigurui, one of the most beautiful manga/anime I've seen

The Shigurui (Death Frenzy) manga is now complete. The beautifully terrible story of two exceptional samurai in a world of politics, betrayal and cultural conditioning, locked in absolute rivalry, has ended with the 84th chapter, Pure Crimson. There is an anime with the same subject, I've also seen it and it is really great, even if it stops dead after 11 episodes. I actually recommend to watch the anime and then continue with the chapters in the manga, in order to understand better the feeling of the story. It must be said that the translation from a book written by a war veteran to a graphic novel by a mangaka 58 years his young and then translated to TV anime has not lost, but gained insight and emotion.

One can read the entire manga at MangaFox.

Read More

List of Misconceptions!

I've never thought to check if there is such a list on the Internet, but apparently it is, as described in the xkcd comic. Good thing I at least read that! Wikipedia's List of common misconceptions is a very interesting read, many of the myths described there being reedited regularly through the media without them actually being true! So, get reading.

Read More

How to hide inherited members on MSDN pages

If you are like me, you often google a .Net class and find it at MSDN. Also, since you want the page to load quickly and get you the information you need, you probably selected the Lightweight view on MSDN. If you haven't, you should :) Anyway, a problem with MSDN is that it shows you every possible member of the class, which is especially annoying with WPF classes as they inherit from FrameworkElement that has a gazillion events. Wouldn't it be great if one could hide the inherited members from an MSDN page?

At first I thought I would parse the content of each row and detect the (Inherited from string, but it appears it is even simpler: table row elements have a data attribute that (if the member is inherited) contains the word inherited. Probably someone at MSDN wanted to make the same thing as me, but forgot to implement it (at least on the lightweight view). The javascript is simple enough:

var trs=document.getElementsByTagName('tr');
var l=trs.length;
for (var i=0; i<l; i++) {
  var tr=trs[i];
  var data=tr.getAttribute('data');
  if (!data||data.indexOf('inherited')==-1) continue;
  tr.style.display=tr.style.display=='none'?'':'none';
}

You probably wonder why I haven't used jQuery. It is because I want it to work in a javascript: url so I can put it in a bookmark! Just as with the Firebug bookmark you need to manually create a bookmark in the Favorites folder (or to add any page as a favorite, then edit its URL) in Internet Explorer or to simply add a bookmark in the browser in Chrome and Firefox and paste the one line script. To make it easier, I will write them both here. The content of the .url favorite file:

[DEFAULT]
BASEURL=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/
[InternetShortcut]
URL=javascript:var trs=document.getElementsByTagName('tr');var l=trs.length;for (var i=0; i<l; i++) {  var tr=trs[i];  var data=tr.getAttribute('data');  if (data&&data.indexOf('inherited')>-1)  tr.style.display=tr.style.display=='none'?'':'none'; }; void(0);
IDList=
IconFile=http://msdn.microsoft.com/favicon.ico
IconIndex=1
[{000214A0-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
Prop3=19,2

and the javascript line to use in other browsers:

javascript:var trs=document.getElementsByTagName('tr');var l=trs.length;for (var i=0; i<l; i++) {  var tr=trs[i];  var data=tr.getAttribute('data');  if (data&&data.indexOf('inherited')>-1)  tr.style.display=tr.style.display=='none'?'':'none'; }; void(0);

.

Happy coding!

Read More

Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay

The fifth book in the Dexter Morgan series by Jeff Lindsay, Dexter is Delicious is slightly better written than the first four, but also less credible. The main character is torn between his Dark Passanger and the desire to love and protect his newly born child. He thus decides to "become human" in the worst possible moment. His brother Brian, who attempted to kill Dexter's adoption sister Deborah, also makes an appearance. The bad guys in the story are a cannibal ring and they are quite the gourmet, requiring Dexter as a main course.

The problem with this book, apart from the general Dexter Morgan hard to swallow leaps of faith, is that the Dark Passenger is pushed back, as Dexter gets in tough with his parental instincts. For me, at least, Dark-Dexter was the main character and the mischievous whispers of his inner demon were the delight of the series. If I would want to know people having kids and loving their pinkness I would read something else entirely.

I will continue to follow the series, but I can't help feeling a little dissappointed every time I read one of the books in the series. With such a wonderful subject, the possibilities are limitless and a great deal of potential wasted.

Read More

Another take on INotifyPropertyChanged generation from POCO Objects

The latest sources are now on Github: C# 4.0 library to generate INotifyPropertyChanged proxy from POCO type. The source from the post, designed as a proof of concept, is not the same as the one from Github.

It all started from a Sacha Barber post on CodeProject, enumerating ways in which one can use Aspect Oriented Programming to mark simple automatic properties so that they get compiled into fully fledged INotifyPropertyChanged properties, thus saving us the grief of repeating the same code over and over again in each property setter. The implementations there were good, but too complex, relying on third party libraries, some of them not even free.
He completely ignored template generators like T4, but then again, that particular approach has a lot of issues associated with it, like having to either parse source files or somehow tap into the compiled assembly... before you compile it.
However, this brought forth the idea that I could do this, maybe in some other way.

Enter Felice Pollano, with his article on CodeProject detailing a method of using CodeDom generation to create at runtime the INotifyPropertyChanged object from an already existing type. This is pretty slow, but only when first creating the type, so with a cache system it would be totally usable. I liked this approach better, but I noticed there were some errors in the generated code and when I tried changing the generating code I had to look at it for half an hour just to understand where to change it. Wouldn't it be better to use some sort of template that would be easy to edit and use it to generate the proxy type?

So this is my take on generating INotifyPropertyChanged classes dynamically, avoiding the repetitive plumbing in property setters. The library contains a template for the class and a separate template for the properties. The proxy type is being generated in memory from a string that is generated from the source type and the two templates. All in all, one class, two templates, three public methods and four static methods. As easy as 1,2,3,4 :) Here is the code:

Click to expand/collapse

public static class TypeFactory
{
private static readonly Dictionary<Type, Type> sCachedTypes = new Dictionary<Type, Type>();

public static T GetINotifyPropertyChangedInstance<T>(params object[] arguments)
{
Type type = GetINotifyPropertyChangedType<T>();
return (T) Activator.CreateInstance(type, arguments);
}

public static Type GetINotifyPropertyChangedType<T>()
{
return GetINotifyPropertyChangedType(typeof (T));
}

public static Type GetINotifyPropertyChangedType(Type type)
{
Type result;
lock (((ICollection) sCachedTypes).SyncRoot)
{
if (!sCachedTypes.TryGetValue(type, out result))
{
result = createINotifyPropertyChangedProxyType(type);
sCachedTypes[type] = result;
}
}
return result;
}

public static bool IsVirtual(this PropertyInfo info)
{
return (info.CanRead == false || info.GetGetMethod().IsVirtual)
&&
(info.CanWrite == false || info.GetSetMethod().IsVirtual);
}


private static Type createINotifyPropertyChangedProxyType(Type type)
{
var className = "@autonotify_" + type.Name;
var properties = type.GetProperties().Where(p => p.IsVirtual());
var sourceCode = getINotifyPropertyChangedSourceCode(className, type, properties);
var assembly = generateAssemblyFromCode(sourceCode);
return assembly.GetTypes().First();
}

private static string getINotifyPropertyChangedSourceCode(string className, Type baseType,
IEnumerable<PropertyInfo> properties)
{
var classTemplate = getTemplate("INotifyPropertyChangedClassTemplate.txt");
var propertyTemplate = getTemplate("INotifyPropertyChangedPropertyTemplate.txt");
var usingsBuilder = new StringBuilder();
var propertiesBuilder = new StringBuilder();
usingsBuilder.AppendLine("using System.ComponentModel;");
usingsBuilder.AppendFormat("using {0};\r\n", baseType.Namespace);
foreach (PropertyInfo propertyInfo in properties)
{
usingsBuilder.AppendFormat("using {0};\r\n", propertyInfo.PropertyType.Namespace);

string propertyString = propertyTemplate
.Replace("{propertyType}", propertyInfo.PropertyType.FullName)
.Replace("{propertyName}", propertyInfo.Name);
propertiesBuilder.AppendLine(propertyString);
}
string sourceCode = classTemplate
.Replace("{usings}", usingsBuilder.ToString())
.Replace("{className}", className)
.Replace("{baseClassName}", baseType.Name)
.Replace("{properties}", propertiesBuilder.ToString());
#if DEBUG
Debug.WriteLine(sourceCode);
#endif
return sourceCode;
}

private static string getTemplate(string resourceName)
{
var templateAssembly = Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof (TypeFactory));
resourceName = templateAssembly.GetManifestResourceNames()
.First(name => name.EndsWith(resourceName));
using (Stream stream = templateAssembly.GetManifestResourceStream(resourceName))
{
using (var streamReader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
return streamReader.ReadToEnd();
}
}
}

private static Assembly generateAssemblyFromCode(string sourceCode)
{
var codeProvider = CodeDomProvider.CreateProvider("CSharp");
var parameters = new CompilerParameters
{
GenerateExecutable = false,
GenerateInMemory = true
};
var locations = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies()
.Where(v => !v.IsDynamic).Select(a => a.Location).ToArray();
parameters.ReferencedAssemblies.AddRange(locations);
CompilerResults results = codeProvider.CompileAssemblyFromSource(parameters, sourceCode);
#if DEBUG
foreach (CompilerError error in results.Errors)
{
Debug.WriteLine("Error: " + error.ErrorText);
}
#endif
return results.Errors.Count > 0
? null
: results.CompiledAssembly;
}
}

As you can see, the code needs only a type that has public virtual properties in it and it will create a proxy that will inherit that class, implement INotifyPropertyChange and override each virtual property with a notifying one. The templates are so basic that I feel slightly embarrassed; I keep thinking if I should have created template entities that would stay in the same file. :) Here are the templates:

{usings}

namespace __generatedINotifyPropertyChanged
{
public class {className} : {baseClassName},INotifyPropertyChanged
{
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

{properties}

private void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName)
{
var handler=PropertyChanged;
if (handler != null)
{
handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
}
}
}
}

public override {propertyType} {propertyName}
{
get { return base.{propertyName}; }
set {
if (!Equals(value,base.{propertyName})) {
base.{propertyName}=value;
OnPropertyChanged("{propertyName}");
}
}
}

Don't forget to save the templates as Embedded Resource in the assembly.

Update: At Sacha Barber's advice I took a look at the DynamicObject solution for the INotifyPropertyChanged code smell. The link he provided is OlliFromTor's CodeProject article Using DynamicObject to Implement General Proxy Classes. While this works a lot easier than with compiling generated code, it also has a major drawback: the proxy class does not inherit from the original object and so it can only be used as such, but only in dynamic scenarios. Otherwise, it seems to be a perfect solution for proxy scenarios, if you are willing to discard the type safety.

Read More

aspnet_wp.exe could not be started (error C0000142)

I restarted my computer and afterwards I could not access any of the local sites via IIS. The error message in the Application logs of the EventViewer was

Event Type: Error
Event Source: ASP.NET 4.0.30319.0
Description:
aspnet_wp.exe could not be started. The error code for the failure is C0000142. This error can be caused when the worker process account has insufficient rights to read the .NET Framework files. Please ensure that the .NET Framework is correctly installed and that the ACLs on the installation directory allow access to the configured account.

I did the classic

iisreset /stop
%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -i
iisreset /start

to no avail. I was about to curse and restart the computer again when I found this pretty little link: IIS doesn't start. Error code: C0000142. A solution is at the bottom, as the least voted answer: Go to Task Manager, kill explorer.exe, Run another explorer.exe. This starts IIS (aspnet_wp.exe under inetinfo.exe) correctly.

Update: It bugged me that I had to kill explorer.exe. First of all it is a manual solution, then it always messed with my system tray icons. So I searched a little more. Short story shorter, you need to edit machine.conf and replace <processModel autoConfig="true" /> with <processModel userName="system" password="AutoGenerate" />. That effectively makes ASP.Net work under the System account, not the default machine. It does indicate the issue is permission related, but I don't get exactly where and why it should work if I restart explorer.exe. As long as you don't mind running ASP.Net under the System account, this solution seems to solve it. Here is the long version.

Note: you can find the machine.config file in %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\[framework version]\Config\machine.config.

Read More