Author: grant

Entity Framework 4.1 – Code First

Entity Framework 4.1 – Code First is a good next-step from this. Guessing that all of the courses referenced in the latter are going to be good next steps, so I will watch all of them. My neighbor at work asked me why I’m using PluralSight instead of just reading all of the EF material.
Normally I read all of the literature on a topic, in depth, at least a couple of times. Every time I’ve done that before, there has been a lot of energy and desire surrounding the pursuit. Learning EF though I feel like I am late to the game. That means that people aren’t really excited about sharing their experiences with EF anymore, so I can’t draw from their energy at all regarding EF, and, I want that. That is why I want to use PluralSight here.
Lerman is sharing 3 things here: facts, values and personal preference. That is exactly what you get interacting with your professional peers. For an experienced programmer, this is the sweet spot for learning new things. Yes my peers are totally up for sharing those things, too, just not 10 hours of it! This is where courses like this are valuable.
The fact that Lerman is vouching for EF means a lot, and sharing her values and beliefs about how to do EF is energizing, and that makes it fun. Lerman’s courses on PluralSight provide a very pleasant learning experience in a very short time-span.
My personal notes on EF follow.
Continue reading “Entity Framework 4.1 – Code First”

Getting Started with Entity Framework 5

Julie Lerman’s PluralSight training is as almost as good as her books. Perhaps it is not a fair comparison? She has a great writing style, and her books are a joy to read. You might expect the same experience with her training videos, and that is probably unfair. You are all about fairness, right? Entity Framework is quite mature at this point. For those of us returning to .NET, this video is quite perfect. It covers just enough. If you’ve built systems before, you will get so, so much out of her series.

First Hatha at YogaOne @yogaonemke Fox Point Report

On Sunday I attended the “Vinyasa Flow L1-2” class. Catherine taught it in Fox Point. This was my first class in a long, long time. Too long. It was so great to get back.

Catherine is a delightful teacher and she taught a delightful class. Let me elaborate.

I haven’t done hatha for a long, long time. Too long. I really haven’t done much of anything physical for a long time, either. That is the problem. No, that is the opportunity. Everything is either an opportunity, or not worth pondering.

I went to class without a clue about how I was going to get through 60 minutes of hatha. I mean, I knew that I couldn’t. I banked on being able to just stop and rest. I did, and that was fine.

I needed help overcoming the inertia of doing nothing, and this was my chance, so with a gentle nudge from my good friend to help me along, I went, even though people would probably figure out pretty quickly that I wasn’t attending class as my warm up for my Cirque du Soleil interview later that morning.

Nobody chased me out of the studio, it was no big deal. I didn’t run away from the whole thing, either. I did hatha for 20 minutes, rested for 20, and did the final 20, and that was no big deal. The last 20 was a lot easier floor stuff. The world didn’t end. Instead, the world expanded.

Could somebody going to yoga be embarrassed about being clueless? Yes. Could they be insecure about the whole thing? Yes. Might they wonder why the heck they are there when, everyone else there seems to be an expert already? Yes. I didn’t think any of it, though.

My mind didn’t even bother to start telling me those stories. Catherine created an environment where the minds of her students could be illuminated by the luminosity of that which is gentle and kind, so that they could just do their practice. There is work to be done, and you have to be the one to do it, but when you have a kind and masterful teacher, it is a delightful experience because you can utilize your energy for your own good, instead of your own detriment with doubt and fear. Catherine was super.

The whole thing was really, really great. I’m going to the beginner classes next, with the goal of working on strength and flexibility. Part of me wonders of some beginner-yoga motorcycle-riders classes will spontaneously be scheduled as Spring nears.

CB750F: Day 36: Forward Progress

I couldn’t find a throttle plate rod for the carburetor on ebay. I couldn’t even find the part on the microfiche. A kind soul sent me the link for that part though, used, on ebay. The search term is “carb linkage assembly”. Another kind soul explained that some of the carburetors on the ’79 CB750F were recalled and maybe half the bikes got the work done. He went on to explain that the carburetors were very different between ’79 and ’80-’83, and even more, that the carburetors were very different between the supersport and the classic. Great to know; great to know. Those should be here soon. The other option presented was to weld some steel in there and tap out a new thread. That may still happen, we’ll see.
The next project is to rebuild the front suspension.
Addendum: 2015-02-09
Here is the Motamec Tools Thread Insert Nut & Stud Rivet Gun Riveting Rivut Blind Riveter that was suggested on Facebook. Very cool.

Hydra, a new Emacs package to fall in love with

A few weeks ago a really nice post appeared. It explained how to use set-transient-map. Is is nice for all the same reasons that all keymaps are nice, and additionally, their transience. The example of managing text size is perfect. Everyone has that in their Emacs config. When we define a goal like “we want to adjust the text size”, we are virtually “in the zone” of performing that task. We just want to hit a couple of keys to make the font bigger or smaller and this approach makes that really easy. That idea, and post, quickly blossomed into a package and many new cool features.

That “zone thinking” is how most modes and features work, whether the authors and the users are conscious of this or not. Hydra makes you very conscious of this. Watch how quickly examples evolved into re-recreating most of what someone needed of ViM. Cool!

The user-interface feature of displaying available commands (while in that “Hydra”) in the mode-line really piques my interest about using Hydras to provide a very “user friendly” suite of features for new users. Granted, after you use the same features a lot your quit using visual helpers, but for new users, this could be really interesting.

This package has all of the earmarks of a game-changer. That is my gut feeling; it will be a major facilitator for expressing all sorts of creative approaches for creative expression in Emacs (or ALEC in my case).

For the last few months I’ve had a thought visit me more than a few times: “What would it take to implement ViM, in Emacs, without taking one peek at evil-mode”. That question was just in the collective conscious I believe. Very, very delightful to see it get answered in this delightful new package, Hydra.

Thank you Oleh!

Easily set column width in org tables

Org tables are great. Most of the time I rely on the column width auto-resizing feature. Perhaps you want to do force a smaller width though for example. Just specify the width, in its own empty row inside of angled parentheses. Default justification is right. Prefix the number with a l or c to do left or center.
Here is the page. Thanks Tory!

     |---+------------------------------|               |---+--------|
     |   |                              |               |   | <6>    |
     | 1 | one                          |               | 1 | one    |
     | 2 | two                          |     ----\     | 2 | two    |
     | 3 | This is a long chunk of text |     ----/     | 3 | This=> |
     | 4 | four                         |               | 4 | four   |
     |---+------------------------------|               |---+--------|

org-table-edit-field (C-c `) lets you easily edit the entire field and the org super key (C-c C-c) saves it.

Narrow your view on multiple-cursor marks

The discussion in the comments of this post is great. It reveals a couple of ways to narrow your view, in a few frameworks. In particular it reveals that in multiple-cursors, all it takes is a call to mc-hide-unmatched-lines-mode.

(mc-hide-unmatched-lines-mode &optional ARG)
Minor mode when enabled hides all lines where no cursors (and
also hum/lines-to-expand below and above) To make use of this
mode press “C-‘” while multiple-cursor-mode is active. You can
still edit lines while you are in mc-hide-unmatched-lines
mode. To leave this mode press or “C-g”

Just be sure to exit this mode before closing Emacs as it is a little confusing to return to nothing.