On the NetFlix site you will have two lists, your Instant Queue and your Standard Queue. In the Standard Queue goes movies you want to obtain through the mail on DVD. The Instant Queue is what you will be able to see on your Xbox 360. Perhaps they will change this in the future but you can only see what is on the Instant Queue.

Why is it important to know this? Because the instant collection rarely contains newer movies. You will usually not be able to get a movie on instant until a few months after its DVD release if not a few years.

Furthermore, if you plan on playing NetFlix over HDMI be sure you have a compliant monitor or TV because DRM will be used. Currently I am having a lot of problems getting it to work on my Dell 2408 even after it worked 2 weeks ago. Hopefully it is fixed by NXE launch.

This is an important question and one that I can’t say I truly know the answer too. I had always assumed it was based on either the idea that System.* was part of the core framework where as Microsoft.* was for Microsoft specific functionality. For instance, it would be expected that much or all of the System.* functionality would be replicated on many other platforms where as Microsoft.* would not.

Certainly this is true for the very basic feature set such as the common types but it is not true for System.Windows.Forms. Which begs the question that I always wondered: why is Windows.Forms where it is? I always expected it to be in Microsoft.Windows.Forms as it is a Windows specific implementation based on many of the Win32 controls.

I believe that English should not be the official language. It is nice to know that variable names will generally be in a language I can understand, however I believe that this can be fixed in the future with language independent coding taking the place of what we do not. Visual Studio is already an incredibly powerful tool and it wouldn’t surprise me if within a decade or two it would begin to support the dynamic localization of variable names. It would be ignorant of me to demand or expect all source code to be in English.

However, the one caveat here is that non-English speaking programmers or wannabes should most likely learn English simply because features like the one mentioned above will take many years to come about and perfect. Furthermore, it can be said that English is somewhat of an international language. In Western cultures it is very easy to find someone who speaks English and it is quickly spreading throughout the tiny corners of the world. For evidence of this, look no further than the Olympics which was conducted in (I believe) three languages. If memory serves me correctly it was English, French and Chinese. This was due to the host country (China) and the IOC (Official Languages: English, French).

While on the subject of languages there is another potential problem. While languages based on Latin or in similar style (left to right) can be well understood by an immense amount of people in the community, vertical and right to left languages that feature non-alphanumeric characters can cause more problems than just being able to understand the meaning. I can’t imagine what source code written in Chinese or Japanese would look like.

So remember to clean out your case at least once a year or more.

Yes, it is my own implementation of the Aero style of windows done in XNA. What does this mean? Well I have decided that although the simple way of doing a menu system in games is fine for simple situations, I want something more powerful and prettier to look at. Thus I have started working on a new UI library for Thrust that is based on Aero and similar interfaces. I am doing it in a fully customizable but lightweight manner and working on Xbox 360 compatibility.

What’s next, the Death Star?

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public class Foo{
     public virtual void Print(){
          Console.WriteLine("I am a Foo!");
     }
}
 
public class Bar{
     public override void Print(){
          Console.WriteLine("I am a Bar!");
     }
}

If we declare a Bar and cast it to a Foo in the above code, we will still get “I am a Bar!” when we invoke the Print method. However, if we change the code to the following things will get messed up a bit.

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public class Foo{
     public void Print(){
          Console.WriteLine("I am a Foo!");
     }
}
 
public class Bar{
     public new void Print(){
          Console.WriteLine("I am a Bar!");
     }
}

If we instantiate a Bar, we will get the new functionality. However, if we cast that Bar object into a Foo, we will get the implementation provided by the Foo. So be sure of what you are using and why!

But in the end, I am going back to start a new character and do it all over again. That is how good this game is.