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We recently started a desktop client app for one of our clients. Being a .NET shop, we naturally picked WPF over others for two main reasons: 1) WinForms is practically dead and 2) WPF can target broader platform versus WinRT/Universal Apps. WPF is a great framework; the separation between UI and code-behind code is akin to ASP.NET MVC’s Razor. The biggest pain point, however, is not being able drill down on UI code the way web developers could inspect HTML, CSS and JavaScript inside a browser. It’s a such a huge problem.

While browsing MSDN, I was blown away that such functionality now exists in Visual Studio 2015. The video discusses two of the XAML’s UI debugging tools: Live Visual Tree and Live Property Explorer. If you’re a web developer, you can pretty much guess how these tools behave: inspect your element hierarchy while the application is running. I’ve embedded the video below. Enjoy!

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There’s nothing more gratifying to a developer than finishing a weekend project ahead of time. I started a building a WPF desktop client around 1PM yesterday. Roughly twelve hours later, I was able to put up a stable, working build. That includes a 30-minute walk, occasional play time with the kids and an hour-and-a-half massage. Granted I reused some of my libraries but still, that’s not too shabby.

I need some caffeine.

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Hot off the press, Lazada.com.ph offers Apple Watch locally, ahead of mostly anyone else (I checked few online stores and none of them offer it yet, there are a few sellers in OLX, however). The catch: the price is ridiculous. The Stainless Steel (42mm, screen grab) costs P80,890, a near 100% markup from the original price. The Sport (42 mm, screen grab) is even crazier. It costs P68,890—a whopping near-400% markup. It gets worst. If you read the fine print, there is no product warranty!

The previous price for both watches is, get this, P100,000, which makes the current prices appear discounted. So you are “saving” 19% and 31% for the Sport and the Steel, respectively.

Hilarious.

Speaking of ports, CNET has a good rundown about USB Type-C and its previous incarnations. This little nugget caught my attention:

Type-C USB also allows for bi-directional power, so apart from charging the peripheral device, when applicable, a peripheral device could also charge a host device. All this means you can do away with an array of proprietary power adapters and USB cables, and move to a single robust and tiny solution that works for all devices. Type-C USB will significantly cut down the a amount of wires currently needed to make devices work.

Sweet. One power bank to charge them all?

TechCruch:

Apple just announced its latest MacBook. It’s tiny… This MacBook only has a single USB-C and it does everything from charging, to sending video out and transporting data.

Predictably, a lot of people are criticising Apple for the move. This is the same reaction I made during its launch on January 2008 when Apple decided not to include CD-ROM in the MacBook Air. Guess what? I am writing this blog on a 13″ MacBook Air. I get why Apple is doing this. I also understand why most people are disappointed. If you are one of those people, the answer is simple: this product is not for you, yet. People have hundreds of options out there including Apple’s own products: MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

The new MacBook is a forward-thinking product. Imagine going back being in 2005 and using a machine where you can start working the second you open your laptop’s lid up. No boot time, no waiting. When you need to connect to a device, you do not plug anything to your machine, it connects wirelessly. It does all the computing in the background, wireless and silently. It makes everything simple and easy. Familiar? That’s because it’s possible now and the new MacBook further solidifies the concept.

I am not claiming that the new MacBook will be the only one to do this but, compared to any device in the market right now, it has the clearest intention to do this. It might also be the best device to execute such dream.

A machine that doesn’t go in your way so it starts to disappear. That’s what this device is all about.

 

Tech in Asia published this article about how “Apple Watch is a stupid idea, and it shows Apple is falling behind in innovation”. Putting the watch aside — how good it will fair is anyone’s guess right now — I am perplexed how the author is convinced that Apple is falling behind innovation.

Google is looking decades in the future with research into things like virtual reality and self-driving cars. Baidu is working on “deep speech” and artificial intelligence. Xiaomi (and a lot of other tech companies) are working towards a “smart home” system that unifies and networks all the devices in your house for easy remote control from anywhere. LeTV is building an electric smart car. Alibaba wants to deliver things with drones. I could go on.

Compared to all of that, the Apple Watch seems small. Unambitious. Ultimately irrelevant.

The author lambasted Apple for being behind on innovation to companies like Xiaomi (I know) and Google and should be “looking decades in the future with research into things like virtual reality and self-driving cars“. I almost stopped reading the article. The author is clearly clueless how Apple operates. If anything, Apple does the exact opposite: it takes its time entering a market then launches a product that defines the user experience and finally, refines and polishes the product. That’s how most of their flagship products became huge:

  • Macintosh was not the first PC, yet it became an iconic product.
  • iPod was not the first MP3 player, Apple entered the music industry and changed the way listen to music.
  • iPhone was not the first smartphone, Apple entered the mobile industry, changed the entire mobile computing landscape.
  • iPad was also not the first tablet, well, everyone knows what happened.

When was the last time Apple introduced a product that is so far ahead of its time? I would have to say when they launched Newton. We all know what happened to it.

 

 

 

Nick Bradbury:

Your code isn’t important: what matters are the ideas your code brings to life. Shitty code that makes a point is better than perfect code that proves nothing.

I agree that ideas brought to life by code are more important than the code itself. However, shitty code that makes a point is just aiming low. Developers should always strive to do their code right. Code done right allows ideas to scale and makes them robust.

 

Speaking of farewell, it’s bloodbath in the ASP.NET team:

It is also time to say goodbye to Visual Basic. ASP.NET 5 only supports C# and Visual Basic is left behind.

My hope is that this change won’t be too painful. I believe that there are only two people in the entire world who are building MVC apps in Visual Basic. It is time for both of you to stop it.

Ouch.

My feeling about this is the same as Web Forms’s fate: it’s just time to move on. Besides, I’ve always felt that Visual Basic is a transitionary language. It’s something cool to learn but once you learned the real language *cough* C# *cough*, you’ll forget about it.

 

Stephen Walther announcing the death of Web Forms in ASP.NET 5:

I love ASP.NET Web Forms. I’ve spent hundreds – if not thousands – of hours of my life building Web Forms applications. However, it is finally time to say goodbye. ASP.NET Web Forms is not part of ASP.NET 5.

I was shocked but not surprised. ASP.NET Web Forms is a bit long in the tooth. Compared to ASP.NET MVC, it has so many unnecessary baggage. You have to deal with cruft like Page Life Cyle, Server Events and worst of all, ViewState.

I wrote the first web application that I am actually proud of in ASP.NET Web Forms. Even then, we had to do crazy things to make it work. Remember UpdatePanel? Even my nostalgia won’t make me wish that they spare Web Forms. It’s just time to move on.