Curious of how fast LINQ would be to filter items from a large list, I was writing a test In Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 to determine the performance, by creating a List of a class that contains 1 million items to be filtered and sorted:

        
        // Performing a LINQ command for a list of 100.000 items:
        public IEnumerable<item> Filter(IList<item> list) 
        { 
            IEnumerable<item> items =
                from it in list where it.value < 40 || it.text.StartsWith("W")
                orderby it.text select it; 

            return items; 
        } 

                // Create a list of 1,000,000 items with random value:    
        private void button2_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 
        { 
            List<item> items = new List<item>(); 
            Random r = new Random(); 
            Random m =new Random(); 
            for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) 
            { 
                StringBuilder sb  = new StringBuilder(); 
                for (int x=0;x<10;x++) 
                { 
    
                    char c = (char)(m.Next(27)+65); 
                    sb.Append(c); 
                } 
                item item = new item(); 
                item.text = sb.ToString(); 
                item.value = r.Next(100000); 
                items.Add(item); 
            } 
   
            int t1 = Environment.TickCount; 
    
            IEnumerable<item> filtered = Filter(items); 
    
    
            bool stopped = false;
            foreach (item it in filtered) 
            { 
              if (!stopped)
              {
                int t2 = Environment.TickCount; 
                Trace.Write("Duration: "); 
                Trace.WriteLine(t2 - t1);
                stopped = true;
              }

                Trace.Write(it.value); 
                Trace.Write(" "); 
                Trace.WriteLine(it.text); 
            } 
    
        } 
    } 
    
    public class item 
    { 
        public int value; 
        public string text; 
    } 
 

To filter 1,000,000 items, it took only 631ms on a @2400GHz Core 2 Duo that was even virtualized with Virtual PC!
That's very impressive!

Note, that the LINQ result IEnumerable<item> does NOT immediately perform to filter but after the first item is request, so that explains the weired code and why I was using the stopped variable.

Today I was testing a more or less stable version of apple's safari browser. First I was eagerly trying out the rss feed functionality, and I discovered that safari does indeed support rss feed in a way that makes rss reasonable. This is a big advance in contrast to firefox. even 3.0 of firefox does not really support rss, although it claims to, it's just a useless menu point, whereas safari offers fully support like IE7 does, although IE7 is still a more nifty. Unfortunately safari lacks on websites with various rss feeds. Against IE7 that show all of then in a drop down menu, safari only offers the first grabbable rss feed.

Also a very nice feature (but more for the fun factor and not really necassary) is the nice animation, safari provides on moving a tab or layouting the toolbar buttons. In short words, it simulates an animation that vista's sidebar does, but anyway, would be a nice feature for the wow effect on IE8.

Disappointing is the search bar. as default there is google selected and you can only select yahoo but there is currently no way to use live as seach engine. so this makes actually the search bar useless. or is there really someone out there who still uses google? my recommendation to apple is not only to offer live as seach engine but also set it as the default.

Also impressive is the inline search. Against IE7, that opens a separate window for input, the safari show's a separate toolbar as soon as you press Ctrl+F and higlights a match instantly while typing the text. Both methods have their pro's and contras, and none of theme have a better usability.

But there's at least one thing that is really better than IE7: The integrated download manager. I hope that IE8 will offer this very usefull functionality, but I fear that Microsoft might get problems integrating this functionality by third party's, like always.

The global usability is not as comfortable as IE7, but it can easily compare with firefox.

So my conclusion is, that safari will become a serious threat to firefox, so at the end firefox might loose popularity. For IE7 i see no serious challenge.