...as life grows on and I continue to be faced with greater and greater challenges, I'm often times reminded of a lesson I learned from a book a while ago. The interesting thing is, as experience often grows, the simple things we read suddenly take flight and we see exactly what they actually mean; it's like something becomes much more real to us and we start to actually understand it in a three-dimensional fashion. The lesson basically goes like this:

In picking a problem to work on, you take the liklihood that you'll solve the problem (as a guessed percentage) and multiply it in your head by some kind of relatively constant scale of importance - the result is a fairly pseudo-quantitive representation of whether the problem should even be attempted when considering other problems seen under the same light.

A good example of that is a bug you may encounter as a software developer - or a particular article you notice online, etc. You are presented with a problem of understanding the bug, or of understanding the article or of attacking a particular problem of some other type when you are also faced with other problems around you (this always happens, as there is never just one potential problem at a time we face as developers). How do you pick and choose your battles? Do you attack each and every problem you encounter? Is this feasible? The reasonable ones realize it isn't and so scale themselves appropriately.

I have started doing this more and more recently and have felt myself become more effective as a problem solver in general.

Check it out and download it here.

I give no guarantees, I give nothing - so don't bug me, I slapped it together last night on my third or fourth Guinness...

Imports System.Web
Imports System.Configuration

' TODO: Add thread safety.
' TODO: Optimize open/closure of data connections per routine call.
Public Class Provider
    Inherits System.Web.SiteMapProvider

    Public Overrides Function FindSiteMapNode(ByVal rawUrl As String) As SiteMapNode
        Try
            ' TODO: clean up this code by taking out the redundant snippets.
            Me.OpenConnection()
            Dim command As Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleCommand = Me.m_Connection.CreateCommand()
            command.CommandText = "select * from BEN.SITEMAPNODES WHERE URL = '" + rawUrl + "'"
            Dim adapter As New Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleDataAdapter(command)
            Dim node As New SiteMapNodeDS()
            adapter.Fill(node.SITEMAPNODES)
            If node.SITEMAPNODES.Count = 1 Then
                ' we have a single result, which is what we want.
                Dim sn As New SiteMapNode(Me, node.SITEMAPNODES(0).ID.ToString(), node.SITEMAPNODES(0).URL, node.SITEMAPNODES(0).TITLE, node.SITEMAPNODES(0).DESCRIPTION)
                Return sn
            Else
                If node.SITEMAPNODES.Count > 1 Then
                    Throw New System.ApplicationException("Too many rows returned; this violates the restraint.")
                End If ' otherwise error.
            End If
            Return Nothing
        Finally
            Me.CloseConnection()
        End Try
    End Function 'FindSiteMapNode

    Public Overrides Function GetChildNodes(ByVal node As SiteMapNode) As SiteMapNodeCollection
        Try
            Me.OpenConnection()
            Dim command As Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleCommand = Me.m_Connection.CreateCommand()
            command.CommandText = "select * from BEN.SITEMAPNODES where ROOTNODE = " + node.Key
            Dim adapter As New Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleDataAdapter(command)
            Dim nodeDS As New SiteMapNodeDS()
            adapter.Fill(nodeDS.SITEMAPNODES)
            If nodeDS.SITEMAPNODES.Count > 0 Then
                Dim coll As New SiteMapNodeCollection()
                Dim row As SiteMapNodeDS.SITEMAPNODESRow
                For Each row In nodeDS.SITEMAPNODES.Rows
                    coll.Add(New SiteMapNode(Me, row.ID.ToString(), row.URL, row.TITLE, row.DESCRIPTION))
                Next row
                Return coll
            Else
                Return Nothing
            End If
        Finally
            Me.CloseConnection()
        End Try
    End Function 'GetChildNodes

    Public Overrides Function GetParentNode(ByVal node As SiteMapNode) As SiteMapNode
        ' TODO: implement security trimming.
        Try
            Me.OpenConnection()
            Dim command As Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleCommand = Me.m_Connection.CreateCommand()
            command.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM BEN.SITEMAPNODES WHERE ID = (SELECT ROOTNODE from BEN.SITEMAPNODES where ID = " + node.Key + ")"
            Dim adapter As New Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleDataAdapter(command)
            Dim ds As New SiteMapNodeDS()
            adapter.Fill(ds.SITEMAPNODES)
            If ds.SITEMAPNODES.Count = 1 Then
                Return New SiteMapNode(Me, ds.SITEMAPNODES(0).ID.ToString(), ds.SITEMAPNODES(0).URL, ds.SITEMAPNODES(0).TITLE, ds.SITEMAPNODES(0).DESCRIPTION)
            Else
                If ds.SITEMAPNODES.Count > 1 Then
                    Throw New System.ApplicationException("Too many parent nodes found, this violates the constraint rules.")
                Else
                    Return Nothing
                End If
            End If
        Finally
            Me.CloseConnection()
        End Try
    End Function 'GetParentNode

    Protected Overrides Function GetRootNodeCore() As SiteMapNode
        Try
            Me.OpenConnection()
            Dim command As Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleCommand = Me.m_Connection.CreateCommand()
            command.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM BEN.SITEMAPNODES WHERE ROOTNODE = -1"
            Dim adapter As New Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleDataAdapter(command)
            Dim node As New SiteMapNodeDS()
            adapter.Fill(node.SITEMAPNODES)
            If node.SITEMAPNODES.Count = 1 Then
                Return New SiteMapNode(Me, node.SITEMAPNODES(0).ID.ToString(), node.SITEMAPNODES(0).URL, node.SITEMAPNODES(0).TITLE, node.SITEMAPNODES(0).DESCRIPTION)
            Else
                If node.SITEMAPNODES.Count > 1 Then
                    Throw New System.ApplicationException("More than one root node discovered, this violates the parent restraint.")
                Else
                    Return Nothing
                End If
            End If
        Finally
            Me.CloseConnection()
        End Try
    End Function 'GetRootNodeCore

    Private Function OpenConnection() As Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleConnection
        If Me.m_Connection Is Nothing Or Me.m_Connection.State <> System.Data.ConnectionState.Open Then
            Me.m_Connection = New Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleConnection()
            Try
                Me.m_Connection.ConnectionString = "Data Source=DEV1_BEN;User Id=ben;Password=xxx;"
                Me.m_Connection.Open()
            Catch
            End Try
        End If
        Return Me.m_Connection
    End Function 'OpenConnection

    Private Sub CloseConnection()
        If Not (Me.m_Connection Is Nothing) Then
            Me.m_Connection.Close()
            Me.m_Connection.Dispose()
            Me.m_Connection = Nothing
        End If
        Return
    End Sub 'CloseConnection
    Private m_Connection As Oracle.DataAccess.Client.OracleConnection
End Class 'Provider

http://authors.aspalliance.com/aldotnet/examples/translate.aspx

I've seen some interesting solutions for browser-based progress bars in the past, but this one is the first one that seems right.

I found this via the link I posted on my last entry, but you MUST check this out if you do regex development of any kind.

A link I found courtesy of Steve for VS hackers.