Coding Horrors

I found me a new blog to read (like I need more, I have 179 feeds in Bloglines currently).

Coding Horror

Its similar in essence to what I kinda aim to do with my blog, although he’s being a bit more successful (i.e. A coding blog with a bit of other stuff, whereas mine is more a other stuff blog with a bit of coding, and not updated as often!)

Anyway, I thought I’d quickly mention two of his recent posts that caught my eye.

Coding Horror: C# Snippet Parity

Microsoft have apparently released a new set of code snippets for C#. Now I’ve never been a big user of code snippets in general, although I have started to use the property ones in Visual Studio 2005 quite a lot. But having installed these code snippets I have even learnt a thing or two. Examples include capturing the output from a console app, pinging a web site. There are many other useful code snippets that could save so much time and effort, and also result in better code (such as some of the database snippets that wrap execute statements in a try finally block to make sure connections are always closed).

Coding Horror: Darwinia

I looked at this entry and thought – looks interesting, wonder if there is a demo. Quick jump to the web site and minutes larger I’m blasting little red pixels to protect my little green pixels (it really is that basic on some levels). After completing the demo level I almost immediately paid for the full game (only $20 if downloaded via Steam), minutes later I’m playing the game and many hours later (late into the night) I emerge bleary eyed, it has proved an absolute winner. I may have to check out their previous game Uplink which is also meant to be very good. I also think the future of games is the download distribution model. (They have a new game due soon as well, Defcon).

Darwinia