I just found out that "Beginning .NET Game Programming in C#" is going into its second printing.  Thanks to all the readers out there and for all the great reviews!!

Next week I begin to write a game programming book for Avalon!

You gotta admire the dedication and hard work these guys have.  To my knowledge, no other team in Microsoft yields SDK updates on a quarterly basis.

You can find it here.

And for you VB people, here's a couple goodies for you:

• The "DrawText" bug (discussed here) is fixed
• There is a VB.NET sample added to the DirextX Browser (Basic HLSL).

The bad news: There's still no "Empty Project" option for you to start with :(

Also, although the release doesn't officially work for Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1, I verified that the C# "Empty Project" sample compiled and ran ok.  That doesn't mean your code will work, I'm just saying that a quick 5-second test worked ok for me.  YMMV.

September 13 – 16, 2005
Pre-conferences September 11 and 12
Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA

Go here for more details.

I'll see you there!!!!

I came across this great article written by Robert Hensig (thanks Craig!) about Why you shouldn't be using passwords of any kind on your Windows networks . . .   This is an EXCELLENT post and is well worth reading for anybody that cares about security.  As of today, I have STOPPED using passwords on my login....you should too!

Big kudos to Andy "ZMan" Dunn who has created a website, The Z Buffer, that's completely dedicated to Managed DirectX goodness.  So, the best thing I can say is, "Stop reading this blog and get over there!"

Tim Preuster asks if Managed DirectX is discriminating against VB developers by concentrating on C# instead of VB in the examples.  In addition, he cites a strange error when you attempt to call DrawText in VB...it turns out that VB cannot properly resolve the difference in two methods between a ByVal and ByRef parameter when all other parameters are the same, so it can't compile what would otherwise be valid VB/MDX code (Yes, it's a known bug that will be fixed in the next release...but at the bottom of this entry is a link to download a temporary fix).

The final answer to the "discrimination" would have to come from Tom Miller, who is almost entirely responsible for Managed DirectX (yes, it's being developed by just one person mostly).  But, having talked to Tom, I can say it boils down to time.  There's only so much that one person can do in a development cycle.  In my opinion, that's just fine.  Further, I think he made the wise choice of selecting C# as that language.

Now, before all you VB diehards start burning me in effigy, let's be a little logical about this.  There's a few reasons why Tom's decision was a good thing:

• You can't possibly master DirectX without knowing C++, and C# is syntactically similar to C++, so picking up on C# shouldn't be difficult.
• Rather than having a few examples in two languages, Tom opted for several examples in one language.  More examples is a good thing.
• Folks, converting from C# to VB really isn't that hard.

But having said all that, it's true that Tom is working on expanding the number of VB examples in the future.  In the meantime, there's nothing stopping you hard-core VB people from posting your own conversions of the Managed DirectX samples.  If you do this, please send me the link and I'll blog about it!  We really DO care about people being able to write cool stuff in VB/MDX, so tell me what you've done and I'll be glad to brag about it!

Oh, and apparently I forgot to add the code to fix DrawText in my book code (oops!).  Just download this code, compile it, then add it as a reference in your VB project.

P.S. Half-Life 2 ROCKS, World of Warcraft rocks but it's addictive (damn you, Brian Benincasa!), and they released Half-Life2 Multiplayer today.  There goes my social life (as if I actually have one