Because I'm a non-native English person, i use a lot a dictionary.
Now I'm learning C# and i was thinking to if I'm allowed to build an application which will run on my machine, but it will use the google/babefish translate service, or any other translation/dictionary online tool. It takes time to go on the browser each time and search for the translation of a word.
If is legal, what do u think of this type of application? At this point i see some problems regrading speed bc of querying, parsing the page, etc.
Yes, and actually Google Translate has an API for you to do this:
http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlanguage/documentation/#fonje
The Wikimedia foundation has database dumps from their projects online. You can download the Wiktionary dictionaries from http://download.wikimedia.org. Of particular use would be the one for a language you know well, so you can translate words in any language to your own.
For example, if your native language is Esperanto then you would download "eowiktionary" from http://download.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html
If you're learning C# this might be an interesting and useful project for you. And the Wikimedia data is certainly free for you to download use in this way. All Wikimedia content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It may be worth considering a desktop Gadget which does a similar thing.
Vista has sidebar gadgets which will do this, OS X has dashboard widgets which will do this, and Google Desktop has gadgets which will do this.
There are literally thousands of dictionary software which you can download or buy. I even have one on my phone. Its perfectly legal to create your own if you want to. However, unless you come up with some new invention to the existing plethora of software, it might be hard to find people willing to use it.
Related
I'm looking for some tool that can be used to create .chm (or something else that works with .NET) help files for my .NET application. I realize that Microsoft offers a free product that works perfectly fine, but here is the caveat: I work for a contractor that gets it's money from the gov't. As you can imagine, we have certain processes in place that are simply there to waste time and money. One of these is our process for approving "Free and/or Open Source Software." Given that this microsoft tool is free, program management wants nothing to do with it..they'd much rather find one that they can buy and get a license for to remove any ambiguity about our legal rights to use it. So yes, even though there is a perfectly good, free tool available, to satisfy management who doesn't want to deal with stupid, expensive, time consuming processes, I'm looking for something (that is probably less capable) that costs us money and will accomplish the same/similar thing.
I use Help & Manual which is extremely capable. It provides multiple outputs - chm, pdf, hlp and others. It is easy to use; can take very large help sources; and supports multiple languages and external translators; and can be used to generate application help (tool tips, etc.) I have no connection with the product or company, except as a very satisfied user. I do believe that its capabilities far outstrip Microsoft's free tool, though it is some years since I used the MS tool.
I've decided to start writing an iPhone app and coming from a c# background, I thought I'd start developing it with mono.
Though this question may be subjective, I'd love some guidance from you.
Is it safe to develop my app using this technology, or should I buy some books and start learning objective C?
I know Adobe were going to release a feature that allows you to build iPhone apps using Flash CS5, but this didn't last long.
I appreciate your feedback.
Marko
Monotouch is doing a great job of keeping up to date (usually within 24 hours of api updates) so just saying you have no idea about xyz but you know abc is much better than it is a bit silly. Monotouch has some serious advantages over obj c - for instance obj c has only been updated something like twice in the last twenty years!! expect good XML, regex, Http support? Think again. Linq in Obj c? never. Good OS community? Not likely. There's plenty of reasons to use MT, aside from C# being a far superior language. Being able to re-use a good percentage of your code in MonoDroid is one. Though there is word that apple are creating a new language - I'm not holding out too much hope for it. We'll see I guess.
I learned Obj C before getting into MT and the reason I went with MT is that using Obj C is like stepping back into the 90s. It just doesn't have any modern language features and is too far behind the curve. Create your bleeding edge apps with their archaic langauge? Thanks but no thanks.
None of us except people who work very closely with the OS and the App store policy in Apple would know whether it is "safe" to develop apps using this technology. Apple can say no anytime in the future, but we don't know. What we know is that all the compiled code has to be in C, C++, or Obj-C. However there's one catch: In some cases you can run interpreted languages.
If I were you, I'd go with Objective-C. We know that Apple supports it fully, it's been in there for almost 20 years. It's not that hard to learn since you know C#. I came from C++/C and it took me about a month or so to learn half of the frameworks. There are many other frameworks which I didn't learn because they're not applicable in my apps (such as accelerators, GPS, OpenGL ES, etc). You probably can get away with this too.
Once again, there's also another way: build it with HTML5. However that way you'd have to consider what your app'll do when it's opened with Safari desktop, Firefox, IE, etc.
The iPhone dev agreement is pretty clear that C# is not an accepted technology for developing iPhone apps. Regardless, Monotouch apps have still been accepted to the app store to date without any problems. My suggestion is to keep in touch with the Monotouch forums to see what their stance is on this issue and make your decision based on that. The long term safe bet is to go learn Objective-C.
Recently Apple changed the clause relating to the third party development tools now stating that if you have prior approval you can use them. I haven't seen any official word that Mono will be allowed though.
If you are coming from a c# background I would highly recommend learning Obj-C because it always helps knowing another language and you could pick it up reasonably easily. Have a look at the stanford University iPhone lectures, they were the best resource when I was learning.
Although I haven't personally used C# or Mono, the iOS SDK once you get to know it has some really great work behind it making it both easy and powerful once you get used to it and I would be surprised if Mono took advantage of it all.
I think it's important to learn the language the frameworks for your platform of choice were written in. Then you can understand more why the frameworks are the way they are, and often anticipate behavior or API calls just based on knowing what is typical for the language and framework.
On top of that there is now a ton of support for blocks across the API (iOS4 and on only), which may take some time to be incorporated into MonoTouch. Overlay frameworks are always a step behind the base platform so it's nicer to be using the frameworks directly.
It's now been months since the Flash debacle and Monotouch and Unity are still rocking along.
As developers in a .NET shop we're looking at expanding into iOS development. After prototyping some fairly basic stuff in Objective-C, We're 100% committed to using Monotouch, it's worth every penny.
I am currently mostly a Java Developer, and would like to know if one would be able to creating Windows MCE plugins for popular services using a language like C#? Where would i find resources to learn how to write MCE plugins using C# if at all possible?
Really to find these resources you are going to have to be a bit more specific as to what resources you actually need.
Start with the SDK as David M suggested above, also check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb189062.aspx
Its probably going to be easier if you work out what you actually want to build, what it needs to do then research that particular area or ask specific questions rather than trying to look at writing plugins as a whole. Since you come from a Java background C# shouldnt be too hard to pick up if you dont know it already.
A quick google search for 'writing windows MCE plugins' returns a few good results too.
There's an SDK for this published by Microsoft. You could do a lot worse than start by downloading that and reading some of the technical articles available on that page.
I'm a little ashamed for asking this, because, you know, I've been very anti-MS for a long time. I have been fortunate enough as to make a living outside Visual Studio. As I grown older there are "some" things I would like to try, and to be very honest, this Q&A site has inspired me and I realize that VS and Windows Development doesn't suck that much. Hey, after all C# was designed after Java, and now Java is copying back some features from the child language. And Windows vista is the first decent version since windows came to light.
Anyway, to any +3,000 user in the audience, you may delete all the above crap and keep the following:
Do you have, links, resources, tutorial aimed to learn Windows development coming from strong Java background?
I'm very interested in Windows manipulation (that is the actual window, the frame, get the name, get foremost app etc., resize it programatically, etc.) and in Windows Search API among other minor API's. My interest after all is to integrate them with my Java apps through JNI or JNA.
I've read many tutorials and links over the MSDN, and I actually understand the API it self. I've grabbed a copy of C# and C++ Express and actually got some basic samples running.
My problem is I don't get the big picture of the whole architecture (because, well, it is big). The classes have hundreds of methods, and it not that clear to me who calls them. (I had this same opinion when I first look at the Java's Javadoc API.) I don't know some basic common objects, for instance HWCD (or something like that) that it turned out to be the very window handler, but every single tutorial I read give that for granted (as if WHCD or what ever it is, was a very descriptive name).
I don't know exactly the difference between Win32, COM, COM+, DCOM, Windows SDK ADO, and some other technologies. I mean, I know them at some degree and by common sense, but while reading the tutorials or the API I get confused. I've tried to grab some "beginner" tutorials, but they are aimed for absolute 0 programmers using Visual Basic (yiak! , THAT was the main reason I kept away from MS for so many years in first place.)
I do understand .NET framework, managed code, unmanaged code, C# basics, CLR and related stuff, because well, they are SO similar to the Java platform that it is almost transparent.
So, after all my rants and honest opinions about MS development:
What's the best way to learn Windows Development for a non absolute beginner (in programming) but absolute new to Windows APIs itself? What would be a good path?
The Petzold is your new best friend, and MSDN is your new Javadocs. Make sure you have a good understanding of C before you dive into it though. The Forger has a great beginner tutorial too if you're interested. A great place to hang out while learning is #WinProg on efnet irc, plenty of win32 gurus ready to help.
I'm going to suggest an alternate path (with less resistance). Have you looked at WPF yet? It's the new GUI toolkit that lets you create sexy interfaces (like those found in Vista).
That may be enough to keep you interested while easing into more advanced development. From there you can jump into the jungle of the Win APIs (if you choose).
Just a thought, as that path would be more interesting for me. Your mileage may vary, of course.
I strongly recommend getting yourself a copy of "Win32 Programming". It explains the basic DNA of WINDOWS - and this is valid if you are programming with the old C++ win32, the new C# WinForms and also the future Windows Presentation Foundation.
In a nutshell, a Windows program consists of a WinMain. When first started the app registers its window class with the system, initializes and then starts a message loop which continues till WM_QUIT is encountered. The system (OS) keeps pumping messages like keyboard or mouse click etc to the message Q of the application. In Windows, at any point of time there is only one active Window - so the OS knows whom to send the message to.
Well things like these are described in detail in the above book.
COM (COM+, DCOM) are not really related to Windows. When Word, Excel became popular and it was required to be able to access Excel from Word (viceversa) they came up with the AcitveX technology which is kind of the root for COM etc. You can get started with "Essential COM" by Don Box.
One warning: in the Microsoft world, there are two ways to program - to go the boiler plate way (write everything yourself) or use frameworks (MFC, ATL-COM....). It is recommended to do a bit of boiler plate so that you know the basics.
Having made the same conversion a year ago I can say that there's a lot of literature specifically for learning c# from a Java background. This was my first into which I found really useful for learning the important differences / features of C#:
C# from a Java developer's perspective
And there are also books which may be worth a look at (google 'c# for java programmers'). As JohnT said MSDN library is the equivalent of JavaDocs API, but I found it really frustrating to use. The best way to learn is to grab a copy of Visual Studio express and start playing around. Use intellisense to explore classes and methods. Find a small program you wrote in Java and try to reproduce it in C#. Start with simple problems, use google to solve them. You'll find it hard for the first week, but trust me, it will come to you surprisingly quickly!
At my place of work I've been put in charge of creating a coding standards document. Generally we follow what FxCop and StyleCop tools report to some degree but what we really require is document that will explain when to use a convention, why and maybe even a simple example.
This could be extended in the future for other purposes as well.
The first thing that came to my mind is to have an internal wiki site that we could build up and change easily over time but I've never used a wiki-based engine before and would like some recommendations.
If possible the engine should be in C# so we're able to tweak it to our needs if required.
If you think a wiki solution is the wrong way to go about this then please give an alternative :)
Update
I've just been informed, although we do have a php server it wont be staying, so I'm afraid php-based wiki ideas are off the table.
Update 2
Could you also (if possible) let me know if any of these solutions work with Active Directory?
Cheers
Tony
ScrewTurn Wiki is an free and open-source wiki made in C# and ASP.Net. Different database back-ends can be used, like MSSQL and MySQL, but also works without any database. It has several plugins to work with Active Directory.
Mindtouch Deki
Great wiki and it's built on C# and PHP, so you can use it on Mono or .NET
It also has Active Directory integration.
Download their ready-to-use VMware image. It started using it on my own PC then moved it to the company's VMware server when they had it ready.
We keep an internal wiki at my shop that has almost all of our documentation (not just coding standards). We didn't really see the need to roll our own so we just used MediaWiki...
We use JAMWiki and love it.
It is a solid application, we have had nothing but good interaction with both the application and the developers.
The guy you maintains the code does a great job answering questions and helping users out.
Brad Abrams has published an online set of C# coding standrds:
http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/articles/361363.aspx
If you go to the starter kits section of the Microsoft ASP.NET site, you will find several wikis to download such as ScrewTurn and Flexwiki. A wiki would be ideal for your needs by the sound of it :-)
I second MediaWiki. It's not C#, but it can be a nice excuse to sneak some free software in through the backdoor.
If you guys are a Microsoft shop, though, and are using Sharepoint, it has some built-in wiki-esque functionality.
In one project that I develop, I set up one MediaWiki wiki for development documentation, and one for online help.
I even generate part of the development documentation right from source code and database.
At the shop I'm at they use a commercial package which is really good: Confluence. What's especially nice is that it integrates with LDAP/AD so that you don't need a seperate login and it's build especially with business use in mind and has lots of free plugins. We couldn't live without it.
I am confused by what you mean when you say you don't have a php server. It runs on every platform known to man. I am noticing most Visual Studio Developers don't know that PHP runs on IIS.
I would go with mediawiki It has the biggest feature set and most add-ons developed for it in case you ever need to port your data elsewhere. If you need to modify your wiki you are doing it wrong.