Aftermath

About Code'n my way to the PDC

This entry was first published on August 22, 2005, 01:40 AM, CET and categorized as .NET, Code, Projects.

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Now that the contests are over (Blog'n and Code'n my way to the PDC) a few congratulations to the winners are due :]

Congratulations to bonk, the PDC05 Interact for Outlook 2003 and cameraFlow Labryinth.

If anyone wonders why submitted Allkali (a simple desktop calendar application) in favour of Nagelfar: a few time issues made it impossible to get Nagelfar to the point where I could dingesly release it. Anyway, I sort of reached the goal to submit something (without fulfilling my standards of quality though).

Lessons learned

A few selected things I learned (or relearned) during this:

  • When you are on a tight deadline, refuse the urge to do the stuff that interests you the most and get the basics done. E.g. doing the desktop alerts was fun but they won't be of any use without reminders…
  • Leaving a form in the form designer open slows down the post build process.
  • Coding when you're nearly asleep is interesting: this was the first time I sat in front of the keyboard and coded with my eyes closed because of tiredness.
  • I should have use an embedded IE for the calendar view. Implementing your own table layout engine is fun but does not help meeting deadlines. My TableControl is up to 26 classes and around 1200 lines of code now and not finished yet.
  • The Shareware Starter Kit is neat and works flawlessly after I sorted out the DB issues by running the IDE with administrator rights (most likely related to the use of Window integrated security/authorization).

To-do

Before Allkali can be called an Alpha version, these things have to be done (at a slower pace though):

  • A few finishing touches to the calendar view
  • The event editor needs validation
  • Labels
  • Reminders
  • iCalendar support (the reading part is already done)
  • Some kind of calendar sharing
  • The one or two secret uberfeatures

EFnet quote

(bonk) (damn I still can't believe I am going to pdc)

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