Sometimes the interoperability between .NET and Win32 could by a pain in the ass. Especially in places you don’t expect it to be. I’ve worked recently on a cryptography algorithm. I had the source code in Clarion and all I had to do was to implement it in C#. No problem I guessed. But… The Clarion algorithm used pointers extensively. I have worked with byte arrays. I read the text as a char array and I copied the bytes into long variables using a binary shift. Lets say we have a string s = "abcd"; Its something like this: If we try to interpret this as a uint variable: uint…

A new version of Clarion RAD is released. It is the last Win32 version of a tool, that my company used (an in a fact still uses) for the last 10 years with great success. The next generation is Clarion.NET based on .NET Framework. The first taste of the “wind of change” is seen it current beta version. Clarion 7 IDE is based on well known tool form our neighborhood the SharpDevelop IDE. I have my first “Hello world” app in Clarion 7 behind me and… there is really not much to say to .NET developers. It is rather buggy version. There is no application generator. Data dictionary (a kind…

… and learning Clarion 6. It’s quite interesting to switch from “normal” programming to RAD programming. Learning Clarion teaches you new meaning of the words Rapid Application Development. Few times I heard this term in while speaking about VS. I think that it is a over interpretation. I’ll make a competition with you. We will write a database driven application simultaneously. You will do it in .NET and I will do it in Clarion (after 3 days of learning ;). Few tables in connection to one another, few browse, few forms. I’m pretty suer that I’ll beat you. Sure Clarion is no comparison to VS in terms of developer comfort,…

In Clarion date is defined as follows: number of days that have elapsed since December 28, 1800 Why? I think that’s when Seoftvelsocity CTO’s grandgrandma reached Florida but they say its because this date was inherited from Btrieve Record Manager. Well. Cool, but in .NET DateTime looks different. How to get a Clarion Date for a given .NET date? public static int GetOLDate(DateTime dotNetDate) { CultureInfo ci = new CultureInfo("de-DE"); DateTime baseDate = DateTime.Parse("01.01.1801", ci); System.TimeSpan ts = dotNetDate - baseDate; int l = ts.Days + 4; return l; } How does Clarion defines time? Number of hundredths of a second that have elapsed since midnight, plus one. How to…

I’ve seen Clarion.NET in action. Well actually it was something that WILL by a Clarion.NET. But from the beginning… There was a Clarion Developers Meeting in Cambridge last week. I was there at 27th and 28th of July 2006. I’ll skip the Clarion “Core” part, because its irrelevant for us (.NET developers). I’ll say only one thing, I thought it’s a common knowledge that when you are making a presentation, you are not supposed to read all that you have on your PowerPoint slides – the attendees are getting the whole ppts, they surely can reed 😉 I was waiting anxious for Clarion.NET presentation. I’m tired of shuffling the data…

I’ve written a short article about extending the MVP (Model View Presenter) with .NET Remoting. “MVP in ASP.NET with .NET Remoting” is available on CodeProject. This article is a extension of great text “Model View Presenter with ASP.NET” by Billy McCafferty. You are welcome to read and flame! Originally published at Friday, August 11, 2006.