How To Become a Better Programmer

Interesting Post.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/01/how-to-become-a-better-programmer-by-not-programming.html

Does accumulating experience through the years necessarily make programming easier?


Bill Gates: No. I think after the first three or four years, it's pretty cast in concrete whether you're a good programmer or not. After a few more years, you may know more about managing large projects and personalities, but after three or four years, it's clear what you're going to be. There's no one at Microsoft who was just kind of mediocre for a couple of years, and then just out of the blue started optimizing everything in sight. I can talk to somebody about a program that he's written and know right away whether he's really a good programmer.

Interprocess Communication using Named Pipes in C#

Named pipes are a great way to communicate between multiple processes. What's makes them even better is that the processes don't have to share the same language.

A named pipe is a named, one-way or duplex pipe for communication between the pipe server and one or more pipe clients.

Any process can act as both a server and a client, making peer-to-peer communication possible. As used here, the term pipe server refers to a process that creates a named pipe, and the term pipe client refers to a process that connects to an instance of a named pipe. The server-side function for instantiating a named pipe is CreateNamedPipe. The server-side function for accepting a connection is ConnectNamedPipe. A client process connects to a named pipe by using the CreateFile or CallNamedPipe function.


Server Side:
using (NamedPipeServerStream pipeServer = new NamedPipeServerStream("testpipe", PipeDirection.Out))
{
     pipeServer.WaitForConnection();
     try
     {
          using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(pipeServer))
          {
           sw.AutoFlush = true;
           sw.WriteLine("Mensaje");
           }
     }
     catch (IOException ex)
     {
          MessageBox.Show("ERROR: {0}", ex.Message);
     }
}

Client Side:  
using (NamedPipeClientStream pipeClient = new NamedPipeClientStream(".", "testpipe", PipeDirection.In))
{
     try
      {
           pipeClient.Connect(2000);
           using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(pipeClient))
           {
                string temp = string.Empty;
                while ((temp = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
           {
           label4.Text = "Received from server: ";
           textBox1.Text = temp;
     }
     catch (Exception ex) { }

Show Context Menu on DataGridView

private void gridCoutas_MouseUp(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
          DataGridView.HitTestInfo hitTestInfo;
         if (e.Button == MouseButtons.Right)
          {
            hitTestInfo = gridCoutas.HitTest(e.X, e.Y);

           if (hitTestInfo.Type == DataGridViewHitTestType.Cell && hitTestInfo.ColumnIndex >= 0)
           {
                ContextMenu RighMenu = new ContextMenu();
                MenuItem Delete = new MenuItem();
                Delete.Text = "Eliminar";
                Delete.Click += (s, ea) =>
                {
                MessageBox.Show(Row.Couta.ToString());
                 };
                RighMenu.MenuItems.Add(Delete);
               RighMenu.Show(gridCoutas, new Point(e.X, e.Y));
          }
    }
}

Show Context Menu in the Grid Control

private void gridViewPendientes_ShowGridMenu(object sender, GridMenuEventArgs e)
{
         // Check whether a row is right-clicked.
         if (e.MenuType == GridMenuType.Row)
          {
                //Clear Items from a Menu
                e.Menu.Items.Clear();

               //Create a new MenuItem
               DXMenuItem Nuevo = new DXMenuItem();
               Nuevo.Caption = "Nuevo Proyecto";

               //Activa the EventHandler
               Nuevo.Click += new EventHandler(Nuevo_Click);

               //Add to the menu
               e.Menu.Items.Add(Nuevo);

               DXMenuItem Agregar = new DXMenuItem();
               Agregar.Caption = "Agregar a Proyecto";
               Agregar.Click += new EventHandler(Agregar_Click);
               e.Menu.Items.Add(Agregar);
       }
}

Alias	CLR type
string	System.String
sbyte	System.SByte
byte	System.Byte
short	System.Int16
ushort	System.UInt16
int	System.Int32
uint	System.UInt32
long	System.Int64
ulong	System.UInt64
char	System.Char
float	System.Single
double	System.Double
bool	System.Boolean
decimal	System.Decimal

Import Excel using OLEDB

You may need to impor a namespace:
using System.Data.OleDb;

//New DataTAble
table = new DataTable();

//Conection Straig For Excel Files
//FilePath is the direccion where the file is stored
string strConn = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" +
"Data Source=" + FilePath + "; Jet OLEDB:Engine Type=5;" +
"Extended Properties=Excel 8.0;";

//Establish Coneccion
OleDbConnection conn = new OleDbConnection(strConn);
conn.Open();
OleDbCommand comm = new OleDbCommand();
comm.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
comm.Connection = conn;

//Query for the Sheet
//Hoja is the name of the sheet
comm.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM ["+ Hoja +"$]";

//Execute Query and stores in a DataTable
OleDbDataAdapter adapter = new OleDbDataAdapter();
adapter.SelectCommand = comm;
adapter.Fill(table);
conn.Close();

//Then you can put the informacion in a grid
//MyGrid.DataSource = table
//Or take the table and insert into a databases

Export to Excel using StreamWriter Interop

You need to impor:
using excel = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel;
using System.Reflection;
 
//Variables
excel.Application App;
excel.Workbook WB;
excel.Worksheet wsheet;
excel.Range range;

//Open New Instance of Excel
App = new excel.Application();
App.Visible = true;
App.DisplayAlerts = false;

//New Workbook
WB = App.Workbooks.Add(Missing.Value);

//New Sheet
wsheet = (excel.Worksheet)WB.ActiveSheet;
wsheet.Name = "Hoja";

//Procces DataTable
int Aux = 1;
foreach (DataRow row in table.Rows)
{
     Aux+=1;
     for (int i = 1; i < table.Columns.Count + 1; i++)
     {
          //Add Headers
          if (Aux == 2)
          {
               wsheet.Cells[1, i] = table.Columns[i - 1].ColumnName;
          }
          wsheet.Cells[Aux, i] = row[i - 1].ToString();
     }
}