Posts Tagged ‘Mike Hayton’
Good News from Mike-rosoft*
Posted by banger@epgstream in Windows 7 on February 19th, 2009
I got a speedy response from Mike Hayton yesterday about the MXF data I had sent him and, bar one or two minor tweaks, it looks like everything is good to go! I’ve got a few more base-line features I want to build support for so you should be seeing a pre-release version of our wmcGuideCompiler7 coming soon!
The reason I’m keen for a wmcGuideCompiler7 beta/pre-release is because our current versions of Windows 7 are, obviously, still in beta. I’m sure that between now and the final Windows 7 release we’ll see some more Media Center features added, existing functionality break, and dozens of bugs fixed!
Knuthing better than The Art of Computer Programming
Posted by banger@epgstream in Random Thoughts, Recommendations, Windows 7, XMLTV on February 18th, 2009
I don’t know about you guys, but I find I have to throw out books and whitepapers from my professional library every few years. I recently tossed out a few old Visual Basic 6, Microsoft C++ and Microsoft .NET 1.x books which were taking up valuable space and came across some old friends …
Aside from my Bruce Schneier books, I really love my well-read “The Art of Computer Programming” (TAOCP) volumes by Donald E. Knuth and was happily side-tracked for a hour as I thumbed through some familiar chapters. Keen to see if there were any new Knuth editions published, I temporarily abandoned the library cleanup and checked on Amazon to find:
The Art of Computer Programming (Vol. 1-3) – US$149.18
3 updated editions, a boxed set and all hard covered to boot! How could I not buy these computing classics in the hopes that one day I could pass them onto my computer-literate grand-kids? Needless to say I promptly purchased these tax deductible references and then returned to the purging of my professional library.
Two weeks later (i.e. yesterday) this heavy boxed set turned up on my doorstep, and much to my surprise, in pretty good condition after being shipped from the USA. Ahhhh… nice white pages with no notes in pencil or dead mosquitoes stuck between the pages. Now I can take my tattered old TAOCP paperback copies to work and not worry so much if any “light fingered” work colleages are going to borrow my books for months at a time!
If you haven’t heard of Donald Knuth before then take some time out of your day to find out about his work. This is especially important if you want a better understanding of the “hows and whys” of software development fundamentals, or maybe just need to write lean, mean, industrial strength code.
Oh… errr… I finally sent off the sample Windows 7 EPG MXF data to Mike Hayton this morning for critique. I would have sent it last night but I was too busy flicking through TAOCP, Volume 2. Hopefully Mike will give it the thumbs up and we can start looking at releasing a new wmcGuideCompiler7 version!
The second cut of our Windows 7 guide compiler!
Posted by banger@epgstream in Windows 7, XMLTV on February 17th, 2009
I had been planning to send Mike Hayton some sample MXF data on the weekend but I ended up being side-tracked by the Valentine’s Day and a surprise itinerary planned out by my girlfriend! Needless to say I got very little work done, but I did have time to think about how to progress the XMLTV to MXF compiler project.
The original plan was to release a new version of our Guide Service Proxy application which included a Windows 7 MXF guide compiler. After a little refactoring and a lot of reflection and I decided that we should bundle the compiler as a new application, rather than trying to stuff it into the currently stable Guide Service Proxy.
