A Text File Splitter user had a problem with the file encodings. This is a known issue, that I'm happy to report is almost resolved. He gave me a file for testing, and that has helped enormously. Thanks Zhou!
Work on Text File Splitter 3.0 has crawled, but I had already converted the code from 2.2.1 over to .NET 4.0. I decided to just finish this work, and release it as 2.5.0.
Here's a screenshot of Text File Splitter detecting a UTF-8 file without the Byte Order Mark (BOM):
Here's a screenshot of a file with a BOM:
I'm using a library called "ude", which is a C# port of the Mozilla Universal Charset Detector. I had to put a bug fix to deal with very large files. At least the file encoding detection, first half of this feature, is now done. Now I need to deal with the encoding on the file chunks. This has taken a lot more time and code than I expected. Hopefully, this will solve this nagging issue once and for all.
I don't have a date for when this version will be released. I still need to update pages in the new wiki (http://docs.systemwidgets.com). You guys will be able to start creating your own splitting strategies, once I get all of this work done. The wiki talks about version 3.0, but you will be able to do this with version 2.5.
I was cleaning unneeded files in one of my servers, when I noticed that PHP had a massive error log file.
As you can see, I was able to break it into 10 Gig files. Here's a screenshot of the UI, right before I clicked the "Split!" button.
I'm getting out software development as a career. I still wanted to stay in Information Services. Fortunately, I found my new home in Business Intelligence. Specifically, I'm working with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS).
Staying competitive in software development has become harder and harder each passing year. By competitive, I mean being able to have a job to practice the craft. My commute (45 minutes each way) and my energy levels have caught up with me, so I can't stay competitive (in the context of this post). The churn is crazy high, and requires even more increasing time outside of work to stay relevant. It used to be that you could concentrate on specific technologies, but that's no longer the case.
I've found that Business Intelligence is a lot more sedate when it comes to technologies, and it's much easier to stay competitive. This means that my focus will be in data warehousing, and Microsoft technologies related to this. So far the main technologies are SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS. I can still use my development experience to deal with custom and edge cases.
I'm much happier with this transition. I can truly feel that my work-life balance is back to where it needs to be.
So effective immediately, I'm cutting back on my development pet projects. I'll update a few tools here as time permits. My main efforts will be directed at getting WheelMUD to version 1.0. Then, I will retire from development in the public eye.
