Let’s Get Animated in VB.NET!

This isn't your rerun of Looney Tunes. Everything and anything that is simulating animation is hot in the world of programming. I guess it is because everyone is trying to mimic that wicked mid air desktop Tom Cruise uses in the movie Minority Report. All animated, all quick and fast, just add some user interaction and we are one step closer to making it reality! The world of animation can ...

Tips on Converting from Console to GUI

One of the most daunting tasks for any beginner programmer is building a great console application and wanting to put it into a GUI, but don't know how. Even experts have trouble at times doing this because the design for the console application assumes output would go to one screen unless directed elsewhere. In this entry I provide a few tips on migrating that great console app over to something ...

Microsoft Should Take A Look at Java

I am sure some of us have stopped and thought "Is Microsoft really going in the right direction with its development languages?" and then you probably put your nose back into the compiler and continued coding, not giving it another thought. But wait a minute, perhaps you are right. Maybe we should take another look instead of just blindly following Microsoft's techies into their vision of what software should be ...

Introduction to the Singleton Pattern in PHP

Ok, what the hell is with all this talk about design patterns? The bookstore has books dedicated to the subject, experts in all the different computer language fields are talking about them, and how the hell does it make my programming life easier? The answers may be "They are gossips", "Authors have nothing else to write about", and "Yes they will make things a bit easier for you in the ...

Apply Formulas to Your Programming

There has been a lot of instances where we receive a question about a mathematical formula not working correctly in a program or script they are writing. How does one go about solving such a problem? Well, I will provide some great tips to get you started here on this entry of the Programmer's Underground! Mathematical formulas are all around us for all sorts of things we do in life. From ...

Test and Test Some More

At the heart of programming is the test. Without a good test, nothing will work right. How often should you test and what should you test? We will cover a few topics in the world of testing and how you can make tests that tell you the most about what is going on with your programming... on this entry of the Programming Underground! Every day we get people on the boards ...