New Language Features in C# 3.0

Just read this blog entry about three of the new language features in C# 3.0, and I hate to say it, but Microsoft is getting it right. In my short three months developing in C#, I have internally wished for a solution to each of the problems these features attempt to solve. Though they are simply syntactic sugar, I think they will each contribute greatly to reducing the tedium of typing in such a wordy language (although C# in my experience is still less wordy than Java). Maybe history will repeat itself and we'll see these features make it into Java 7. Much like generics, auto-boxing and variable arity made the leap from C# 2.0 into Java 5.

Blinky.NET now available for your poor, poor eyes

Problems with eye strain? You might have heard of Matt Smith's blink notifier application, Blinky. Well, in an attempt to become more familiar with .NET windows forms development, and to address some of the things I wanted to see added to blinky, I have released a first-pass of a port/rewrite in C#. The link below will take you to Blinky.NET's wiki page where you can download the application. This is basically a beta release, so be sure and leave me comments about things you'd like to see added to the application.

I started using the original Blinky application because I was getting massive headaches at work. After the first day of use, I noticed that my headaches had cleared up and my eyes didn't feel like they were going to pop out of my head. Needless to say, I was hooked. The problem is, I recently started a new job where I happen to have a nice dual monitor setup (which I highly recommend). And for whatever reason, Blinky wasn't notifying me to blink like it did on my old single-monitor setup. So I downloaded and studied Matt's source code and decided I just might be able to pull off writing this application in C#. Give it a try:

http://geek4christ.wikidot.com/blinky-net