Tips for Programmers

Using SendTo for launching different text editors

[For Windows users] As a programmer you will soon discover that you like using different text editors, IDEs, and other applications to open your source code files because each offers different advantages depending on your task. Double-clicking the file name launches only one, not necessarily the desired one. You can change that by opening any folder, selecting Folders Options from the Tools menu, and then choosing the File Types tab to alter the file extension to application mapping as needed. But this still causes a specific application to be launched, not the one you always want. The solutions is to right-click (not double-click) the file icon and select the desired application under the SendTo option. But to do this, you must add your favorite text file applications to the SendTo list. Do so as follows:
  1. Right-click the Start button and select Explore to open an explorer window.

  2. Expand the file tree in the left panel until you see the SendTo folder of interest. On Windows 2000 this will be under a directory with your user name (or All Users if you prefer) in the Documents and Settings directory. On other Windows systems you may look for it under User Profiles.

  3. Elsewhere in the file tree navigate down to the folder containing the application of interest. Click on that folder so that you can see the executable in the right panel.

  4. Right-click-and-drag the application icon to the SendTo folder. You will be asked if you want to copy it or a shortcut to it... you want the shortcut. You definitely do not want to move it (which will happen if you use the left rather than the right button).

  5. Repeat the last two steps for each application of interest. When done, you may want to rename the shortcuts in the SendTo folder (by removing the "Shortcut to" prefix in the names).

Using Google to figure out what confusing error messages mean

You probably have used the Google search engine to search for information, but it is also useful for programmers when you get some cryptic error message that you do not understand. In the real world, programmers use this to find technical answers to technical problems and error messages. Just clip the message and paste it into the Google search field and submit. You may need to remove parts that are locally specific (such as references to files, directories, or machines at your site) or remove portions of the message until you get some useful hits. Don't just search the Web, also click on the Groups tab on the Google search page to search for the same thing amoung the newsgroups (where much technical Q&A occurs).