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About this Site
Welcome to the home page of Niche Software, a MicroISV based in Wellington, New Zealand.
This site has two (conflicting) goals.
The primary goal is to be a source of quality software - both shareware and freeware. Because I tend to develop applications that scratch my own itch, many of the applications are fairly technical in nature.
The secondary goal of the site is as a host to my writing - mostly entries in my blog, but also including more detailed articles and the occasional highly opinionated editorial.
SQL Formatting
Ever had a problem where someone has given you a chunk of SQL to debug, but it's so badly formatted that you can't tell what starts (or ends) where?
Here's a solution: The Niche SQLtool makes it easy to reformat SQL to your needs.
Unix2Dos
Unix2Dos (named after the unix commandline utility of the same name) provides a simple way to ensure that all your sourcecode uses Windows/DOS style End-Of-Line markers (the conventional Carriage Return/ LineFeed pair).
You might find this useful if
- You transfer files between Unix and Dos systems;
- You use a Unix emulation environment (such as Cygwin);
- You download source from the net (especially Java code)
- or You cut and paste code from web pages or help files
Unix2Dos can be particularly helpful for Delphi developers if the Debugger and you disagree about which line your code is on. A key symptom of this is when the "blue dots" representing executable code in the Delphi editor are out of sync with the actual code.
A Developer Blog
Rare C#
To me, the areas that languages have in common are much less interesting than the unique bits.
The Cargo Cults are Coming
It is as I feared - people are throwing away years of experience with conventional user interfaces to emulate the latest release of Microsoft Office and screwing up their products as they do so.
What are you measuring?
There is a common saying amongst management types - If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. I think this is complete and utter hogwash, because many of the most important things can't be objectively measured. This doesn't stop them from trying, though.
Cheatsheets
This is cool - a colection of more than 30 different developer cheat sheets.
Safe coding and IDisposable
I'm really fussy about writing safe code, and I'm a sucker for neat tricks as well - so this deceptively simple idea from Ayende.com is doubly attractive.
What makes a Professional Developer?
I've been thinking a lot over the last year or so about the differences between beginner developers and experienced developers - what it means to be a professional developer, and what differences will you see in professionally written code.