Scott Hanselman

In my new ongoing quest to read source code to be a better developer, I now present the fifth in an infinite number of a weekly series called "The Weekly Source Code." Here's some source I'm reading this week that I enjoyed.

• NGenerics - "A class library providing generic data structures and algorithms not implemented in the standard .NET framework." I love it when someone adds something computer-science-like that they feel "ought" to have been in the framework. This is cool code because it's not only adding new data structures, but also extending existing ones. They've added an IVisitor interface to add the Visitor pattern to create the VisitableHashTable amongst others.
• iGmail, a Gmail interface for the iPhone in Ruby - What a find. This is a simple iPhone-friendly AJAX gateway that gives you Gmail-style email (a view, not pull via the uber-lame Gmail support the iPhone currently has) implemented as a Rails app. Best to host it yourself and take the pressure off his system. Check the source out via subversion. Brilliant.
• jQuery - Well, not really. I've been trying to get my small mind around this crazy amazing JavaScript library for a while. I read it like I read Rainbow Six. Er, like the way I've been starting and re-starting, and jumping in the middle. I mean, the book is 897 pages and there's a crapload going on. JQuery isn't that long, but there's a LOT going on and you need to keep track of it. Maybe I'll finish someday. At least I know it's awesome.
• The iPhone Unlock Source - I personally don't care, but I found it interesting to see the out of the box thinking that a community will invoke when a company "locks" something. Reminds me of the Oracle "Unbreakable" fiasco. As Quentin Tarantino says, "He who is most likely to make declarative statements is most likely to be called a fool in retrospect."
• Arduino - This isn't really like source to read, as it's a whole programming language and hardware platform. I'm thinking of building a robot, so I'm brainstorming different platforms I could use to move the arm, the camera, etc. It is actively developed and loved...more importantly it's a whole parallel universe that I know NOTHING about. When trying to become a better developer, I think that visiting parallel universes can only help one's perspective.

Feel free to send me links to cool source that you find hasn't been given a good read.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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