The Daily Grind 514

By Mike Gunderloy
Friday, December 3, 2004

I have no idea what happened to this week. None.

Software

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition - Community Technology Preview December 2004 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Manager - Community Technology Preview December 2004 - Looks like there's a build of the new management user interface out at last. Careful reading also reveals that there's a new CTP of the full product about to release as well.
Halo 2 RSS Excel Workbook - I personally have absolutely zero interest in Halo 2, but if you do this is a nifty example of using one Microsoft product to overanalyze another. (via Scott C. Reynolds)
BuildUtilities.NET - James Simmonds has packaged up his SendMSN utility with another one to parse MBUnit results.

Unit Test Frameworks - A book to make me regret that I fell off the O'Reilly reviewer list for some reason, but there's the usual sample chapter online. (via Jose Nazario)
String.Concat versus Text.StringBuilder - Long analysis and comparison with MSIL and graphs with circles and arrows on the back of each one.

Mike Gunderloy is the lead developer for Larkware and author of numerous books and articles on programming topics.