Really?
I know mono can produce real native machine code - no VM or such involved, not like Microsoft's ngen that only pre-JITs.

If they have JS compiled to native code too, then that might be interesting.

So, figure out the layers or logical components between each module and then you will be able to chew smaller chunks.

Then, doxygen the whole lot, making sure to use dot to create the graphs for callers and callees. This will let you see the interaction points so you can see what impact a change in one method will have (ie which callers you have to check).

Some people will say "write unit tests" but frankly, it never works with a legacy code base, to effectively unit test you have to write your code differently to how you'd normally do it. You don't have that luxury here. So a good integration test suite should be developed to test the functionality of the whole thing, then you can repeat it to make sure your changes still work. Its not as instant as unit testing (but more effective) so you'll have to invest in a build system that regularly builds and runs the (automated) integration test and tells you the results - and commit changes reasonably regularly so you can isolate changes that end up breaking the system.

The rest of the task is simply hard work running through how it works and understanding it. There's no short-cuts to working hard, sorry.

I do... but then my customers are public sector (police, EMS) who can;t afford to keep replacing their systems every few years.

This is why I advocate multiple tier applications, like the MVC boys but without their "all-in-one project" mentality. Then you can write your server side stuff in a mature, reliable language and give some kids an API that they can use to build flashy GUIs in flash or javascript or whatever fashionable toy they like this month.

And, strangely enough, everybody is happy with this approach - the kids who get to play with new toys, the elders who get to keep a solid application running, and the bosses who get reliability and flashy at the same time!

So throw away your MVC frameworks and templates and embrace the service architecture.

The new Windows is the cloud, or Azure as they call it. They want you to write your GUI for a mobile/web/whatever device and then have it connect to all-Microsoft stuff on Azure, along with Microsoft adverts and Microsoft appstore etc.

They've basically stopped believing that Windows is the only platform that gives them lock-in. Now all platforms will be lock-in!

I think it was brought up in the Google v Oracle case where they had their little legal tantrum over Java copyright.

Sorry no, WPF is the new Silverlight. Microsoft wants you to use HTML5+js (which isn;t much different from XAML+c# anyway).

They are pushing Cordova now, the Visual Studio addin that gives you support for that can do you cross platform GUIs (and on phone) and they are saying its the best way to create "Metro" apps. Expect more of this rather than WPF that is crippled partly by poor performance and partly by infghting between the Microsoft teams.

Not this time, the new guy has decided that selling Windows is no longer the lock-in platform that makes us all buy Microsoft stuff.

Now, the Microsoft stuff they want use to all buy is services, and that means they have to supply said services across every platform possible.

So, open source .NET in the hope that it'll be cheaper to port it (ie you'll do it for them) and then all those lovely .NET apps that use things like Azure and Microsoft Ads will be ported to Linux and Mac and Microsoft can reap the revenue from more people consuming their services.

Its the same story really, only this time the lock-in has shifted slightly away from Windows.

.... does the job, has a solid toolchain, and coupled with years of development experience globally and in-house, then you don't just throw that all in the trash because something newer/faster/smaller/cheaper comes out

You don't work with Windows development shops then!!

Oh noes, you're going to be disappointed -)

According to the BBC

but its makers have also promised it will be able to support Microsoft's next operating system at a later date.

"For the last six months we've been working closely with Microsoft to bring the forthcoming Windows 10 to Raspberry Pi 2.

silly bastards, thinking you can keep the fruit of your labor without having it stolen through threat of violence.

you mean by funding a police force, military and diplomatic corps through taxes, right?

read it carefully, they will tax American companies for earning tax and then give them a tax credit for any taxes paid by those companies overseas.

So if you pay tax at 19% in the UK, America will tax you at 19% as well and then give you a 19% rebate. Net result, you pay the due tax in the UK at 91% and all's well.

Of course, if you don't pay any overseas tax for whatever reason, then you will still be charged at 19% but you won't have any credit to claim, boohoo sucks that you thought you could get away with paying no tax whatsoever.

Batteries wear out and you need a very considerable number of them to store enough energy for everyone's evening use watching TV, lighting, heating, cooking and whatnot.

I think you'd be surprised just how much gets used overnight just on street lights, let alone all the use for heating water when the cost is cheap.

A better way to store the energy is to pump water uphill, then let it drop to power turbines in the evening, but that requires a lot of infrastructure. Simply put, we don't have an easy solution to the problem of our massive energy consumption.

I understand biofuel may not be very efficient, and that's fair enough - altrhough I'd love for there to be an unlimited, carbon-free supply of cheap energy... there isn't, so we need to be a bit intelligent about it all.

the problem with solar is that you do get energy supply from it, but only during the day, so we need to come up with much more efficient ways of storing that energy. We don't have this yet.

The problem with wind is that it can be quite intermittent, not working on non-windy or too-windy days.

The problem with wave is that its in a corrosive environment so will not be as efficient if you have to continually maintain the equipment.

So what else do we have that can be used. Biofuel, and biomass generation, as part of an overall strategy is something that will help to plug the gaps in the areas when the other renewables stop working. We just need to focus it at an appropriate level rather than thinking its another silver bullet.

Why should there be any sort of limit, other than exhausting all memory in the computer?,/i>

I don't know, maybe you should first find out which version of Excel you're having difficulty with and seeing their limitations page.

16,384 columns max in Excel apparently.

At least with LO, you can at least edit the code to fix this and make columns dynamically allocate!