My guess is that object-oriented programming will be in the 1980s what structured programming will be in 1970s. Everyone will be in favor of it. Every manufacturer will promote his products as supporting it. Every manager will pay lip service to it. Every programmer will practice it (differently). And no one will know just what it is.

T. Rentsch

The more I read these words, the more I’m convinced this is one of the more accurate prediction I’ve heard about in programming. I feel it so… real.

via Booch, Grady. Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications, Second Edition. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1993. Link.
via West, David. Object Thinking. Redmon: Microsft Press, 2003. Link.

It’s 2 days I’m trying to get Visual Studio 2008 beta 2, a true pain.

Both the two download manager proposed as plug-ins by msdn site (an ActiveX for IE and a Java applet for firefox) don’t work. From two different computers, so is not my problem. I suspect the reason is the web server replying with a 302 HTTP code (temporally moved) to the first request, but I’m not sure.

Ok, I said to my self. It’s time to get a download manager. And I started surfing Softpedia looking for something freeware. The first I tried was VisualVGet. The maximum speed I was able to obtain over 12Mbits DSL line was 5Kb/s. I tried to tweak it a little bit, but nothing happened. Uhm… I need the beta 2 before the final version is released…

Then I remembered of GetRight, I used it a lot in the past. Isn’t free, but the trial period should be enough, I thought. Quickly downloaded and installed. But never been able to use it. The only thing I was able to do was seeing the process getright.exe starting, and shortly terminating. No windows, no alert. No messages in event viewer. A software I will never buy.

Finally, again via Softpedia, I found FDM (Free Download Manager). That is what a program of this kind should be: easy. I learned to use it in about 30 seconds, configured in 15 and, first of all, downloaded Visual Studio in a couple of hour, having the download speed at 350/400 Kb/s, as expected. And… if not clear from the name, it’s free!

Source: xkcd, via: Pietro.