Visual Studio tests and punctuation in project paths

A modern file system is a friendly thing. We can use all manner of characters, such as punctuation, in the file and folder names. This makes the path easier to read an provides a nicer experience for those of us that appreciate good grammar on our desktops.

I, for example, often name folders for myself or for clients so a folder named "Bob's stuff" or "Dave's projects" would not be uncommon.

If however you associate unit test suites with these projects an exception will be thrown by the test execution system complaining about illegal characters in the path.

To avoid this, and because I did not want to be forced to rename directories that had other relationships in then, I discovered that the use of the good old DOS subst command could provide a drive letter for the offending folder and allow tests to run.

It should be noted that this problem no longer exists in Visual Studio 2010 but for anyone still running on 2008 this little trick can be a life saver.

Manhattan bar charts

The term "Manhattan" used in reference to 3D bar charts has been around for a number of years. Since 1996 in fact when I coined the title for the 3D charts I wrote for Stingray Software's Objective Chart product. Sadly, Stingray was swallowed up by Rogue Wave and the chart product died shortly after. I know that Rogue Wave still sell it but it's C++ code that is a decade old and thoroughly out of date these days.
Anyway, I'd just like to thank the likes of Nevron and DevExpress for using the title. It brings me good memories.

The Jazz saga continues...

My Honda Jazz (Honda Fit un the U.S.A) has always been frugal with its fuel consumption and I always wondered just how far one could drive when the little "Empty" light on the fuel guage lit up. Well, this weekend I tested it by driving my usual hypermiling style but when the fuel light came on, I just kept on driving.

In the end the Jazz maintained 4.5 litres per 100 kilometers and drove 188 klicks, that's 116 miles in old money, before it spluttered to a halt. Honda-RESPECT!