Re: [tasque-list] Date format in Tasque

[Sandy Armstrong <sanfordarmstrong gmail com>]

On 03/21/2009 12:30 PM, Bent wrote:
> Hi
>
> The following is probably slightly off topic but I hope you will bear with me.

Always glad to help.  If you run into a lot of problems with 
MonoDevelop, you might get more help on the monodevelop-list, but I'm 
happy to answer any of your questions.

> I have begun using MonoDevelop and I am a bit intrigued by the use of
> a couple of words. Since English is not my mother tongue I need a
> little help from someone who has English as her/his first language.
>
> The words I have problem with are 'Project' and 'Solution' The way I
> see MonoDevelop use them, they are the same thing. There are two
> buttons in the MonoDevelop IDE: 'Build Project' and 'Build the
> Solution' and when I push them they do the same: do a build, i.e. run
> 'make'.

These words are borrowed from Microsoft's Visual Studio IDE.  The way I 
think of it is like this:

* A project is an object that keeps track of source code files, 
resources, and references (dependencies) for some single output. 
Usually in MonoDevelop, this single output is a .NET assembly (a .dll 
file).  Building a project allows you to compile one assembly separately 
from the rest of your application.
* A solution is an object that contains projects and other solutions. 
It is used for organizational purposes.  If you were to build the 
solution, it would build all of the projects contained within it.

However, for Tasque, there is only one project in the solution.  So 
building the project and building the solution really do the same thing.

> In my world the two words have different meanings. The Oxford
> Dictionary has 'Project' as. "n [C) (plan for a) scheme or
> undertaking" and 'Solution' as (1st entry) "n [C] answer (to a
> question, etc); way of dealing with difficulty".

Yes, those are the correct definitions of those words.  I hope you can 
see how the explanations I have given above are vaguely related to the 
"real" meanings of those words. :-)

> Could someone please enlighten me on the meaning in MonoDevelop, please.
>
> Or have I run into one of the differences between British English and
> Americam English?

No, this is just one of those circumstances where programmers take 
perfectly good words and overload them with new and confusing meanings. :-P

Hope this helps,
Sandy