Daily Archives: June 13, 2005

Visual Studio 2005 TS Beta 2

I finally received my Visual Studio 2005 Team System Beta 2 in the mail!

It took about 3 weeks to get here. I’m very excited. I plan on converting BRayTracer to use VS 2005.

It’s on track to take about 90 minutes to install. Installation of the compact framework failed, so I’m repairing that component. According to the log, it failed because another installation was in progress.

Features I’m looking forward to?

  • Refactoring – many free IDEs have them, it’s about time VS did too.
  • Improved IntelliSense – I know, IntelliSense is a crutch, but it’s a nice crutch to have–better than memorizing the API for Windows, .Net, MFC, and whatever sub-systems you’re working with.
  • The class designer – the old Add Method/Add Field was too slow and unwieldy to use.

There are a lot of other nice things that are in there. Check out the full list here.

Something I’d like to see that I don’t think is in there: change the type of a variable. I can foresee difficulties in this, but it would be a valuable feature.

[code lang=”cpp”]
float X;
[/code]

could be changed to

[code lang=”cpp”]
Coordinate X;
[/code]

and everywhere that variable is used, all the functions it gets passed to could be changed. As I said, there could be difficulties in this, but it would be powerful functionality.

Cars and the Idiots who Own Them – Part II

Well, I took it in this morning for a full checkup. I should preface this with by saying that for the last month, and especially the last week or so, I’ve been feeling strongly that I needed to take the car in for a serious look. Things just felt different–and not better.

I left it this morning at 8, and at 11 they had a diagnosis–made worse by the fact that my Honda Care extended warranty had run out a few months ago. Basically, new CV joints, new engine mounts, oil change (I just tacked that on), and something else that was fairly expensive.

The mechanic told me that otherwise the car is in great shape. The good news is that this kind of work won’t need to be done for a while.

I should be leaving to pick it up in about 45 minutes or so…