Professional Bodies & Organisations
| Web Site | Link |
|---|---|
| The Association for Geographical Information (AGI) | AGI |
| The Institute of Engineering & Techology |
|
| The Institute of Electronic & Electrical Engineers |
|
| The Institution of Mechanical Engineers |
|
| The Institution of Chemical Engineers | IChemE |
| The Institution of Civil Engineers | ICE |
Technical Help
There are uncounted web sites that offer technical help. Some focus on specific products, others on application programming interfaces (APIs). Some are more general and deal with a wide topic, such as Windows™ programming.
LA Solutions does not endorse or recommend any of the sites listed here, nor do we claim that they are a substitute for a formal support contract. However, we have found them useful ourselves from time to time.
LINQPad: The Ultimate C# / F# / VB Scratchpad
LINQPad
is a valuable tool for .NET developers.
LINQPad lets you test fragments of VB.NET or C# code.
Cut-and-paste a code statement or fragment into LINQPad for instant code validation and testing.
General Programming Topics
.NET
| Web Site | Link | |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) | MSDN | |
| LINQPad |
|
|
| The Code Project | Code Project |
|
| Stack Overflow | Stack Overflow |
|
| VisualBasicTutorial.NET | VisualBasicTutorial.NET |
Visual Basic for Applications
| Web Site | Link | |
|---|---|---|
| Code Guru | Code Guru |
|
| The Code Project | Code Project |
|
| DevX | DEVX |
|
| Help Technology Center | Help Technology Center | |
| Karl E. Peterson's One-Stop Source Shop | Karl Peterson | |
| Microsoft VB6 Resource Centre | VB6 Resource Centre | |
| MZ-Tools | MZ-Tools for VB and VBA |  |
| Programmer's Heaven | Programmer's Heaven |  |
| The VB Zone | The VB Zone | |
| Xtreme VB Talk | Xtreme VB Talk |
|
| Visual Basic User Group | VBUG appears to be defunct: let me know if I'm wrong! |
C++
| Web Site | Link | |
|---|---|---|
| C and C++ | C/C++ Users Journal | |
| GotW | Guru of the Week: Herb Sutter | |
| EIGEN | Eigen C++ template library for linear algebra |
|
| CGAL | The Computational Geometry Algorithms Library |
|
| Code Guru | Code Guru | |
| DevX | DEVX | |
| Microsoft Developer Network | MSDN | |
| Programmer's Heaven | Programmer's Heaven | |
| The Code Project | Code Project |
|
Miscellaneous
| Web Site | Link | |
|---|---|---|
| Code Guru | Code Guru | |
| DevX | DEVX | |
| Matrix Algebra | The Mathematics of the 3D Rotation Matrix | |
| Microsoft Developer Network | MSDN | |
| Programmer's Heaven | Programmer's Heaven | |
| The Code Project | Code Project |
|
Text Editors
A programmer's editor typically lets you edit multiple files of monospaced text. They may include features such as keyword highlighting, syntax colouring, regular expression searching, and file searching. There are many programmer's editors: there's a summary of text editors at WikiPedia. Two editors that we've happily used are TextPad ™ and CodeWright ™. Notepad++, UltraEdit and Zeus have also been recommended.
If you are familiar with Unix text editors, such as vi and emacs, then you may find vim to your liking.
Microsoft's Visual Studio ™ can be useful, especially if you're writing a C++ DLL for MicroStation®. It provides a C++ compiler and linker that can also be used with Bentley make (bmake) files. Visual Studio Express ™ is currently a free download from Microsoft.
There's the freeware XML Notepad. You can use a plain old text editor for creating & editing XML files (you did know that XML is plain text, didn't you?), but dedicated editors can do a better job and make your life easier. In particular, an XML editor can usually pretty print the XML to make it easier for you (a human) to read.
| Web Site | Link | |
|---|---|---|
| Visual Studio Code | Visual Studio Code Site | |
| Notepad++ | Notepad++ Web Site | |
| TextPad | Helios Web Site |  |
| UltraEdit | IDM Computer Solutions, Inc |  |
| vim | vim online |  |
| Visual Studio Express | Microsoft Web Site |  |
| Zeus | Zeus Web Site |  |
TextPad is useful as a general-purpose text editor. It handles huge files very well, and lets you edit multiple files simultaneously. It's good for MicroStation configuration files, and there's a syntax colour file available.
|
MicroStation® and Bentley Map
| Web Site | Link |
|---|---|
|
Bentley Systems |
|
BE Communities |
 | UK and Ireland User Group |
XML, SVG, XSD, XSLT, XQuery & XPath
| Web Site | Link |
|---|---|
 | Extensible Markup Language |
| World Wide Web Consortium SVG | Scalable Vector Graphics |
 | XML.org |
 | XMLSpy Development Tool |
| Microsoft XML: download MSXML4 & MSXML6 from here | MSDN XML Development Center |
| XML Notepad: download XML Notepad from here | XML Notepad |
| Gallery of Stupid XSL and XSLT Tricks | Stupid XSL and XSLT Tricks |
Relational Databases
| Web Site | Link | |
|---|---|---|
| SQLite | SQLite Home | |
| Microsoft SQL Server™ | SQL Server Home | |
| Microsoft SQL Server™ | SQL Server Programming Forum | |
| Microsoft SQL Server™ | SQL Team.COM | |
| Microsoft Access™ | MS Access Technical Support | |
| Microsoft Access™ | Access Technical Articles | |
| Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) | ADO Home Page | |
| The Code Project | ADO Connection Strings |
|
| Oracle Corporation | Oracle Home | |
| Oracle Corporation | Oracle Technology Network |
Devon Art
We enjoy visiting Devon Open Studios.
Somerset Art
We enjoy visiting Somerset Open Studios.
