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Actually they didn't know. I quit my last job (three months ago) because I wanted to do something else than WinForms.
The company I work for now doesn't do WinForms at all. They assured me I'd never do WinForms again!
So then this customer called "We need a programmer for some quick bugfixes asap! We need a HTML and CSS expert!"
A colleague and me would do the job. Then they called again "Actually, we need someone with AngularJS skills."
I actually spend an entire day learning AngularJS, because I didn't know it yet (my colleague does know it).
But the day before we'd get started they called again "Actually, do you have a WinForms programmer? We need it more than the web stuff!"
And so here I am doing WinForms programming again. Not quite what I had in mind, but it's only for a few weeks 
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Ah, I see - it's that client who exactly knows what he needs!
At least your time spent learning AngularJS won't have been wasted once you're done with this 
By the way, you said somewhere in this thread that n-order-sorting is being done with additional entries in that ComboBox. But at least now that you have this solution in place it would be easy to allow the user to flexibly chain sorting columns. Not that I want to lengthen your time with WinForms though 
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I say kudos for cleverness! Your solution is hard to read/understand (at least for me) but I like it since it makes me break it apart. If I still don't understand it, I'd have to run it in a debugger. Just leave decent documentation for the next guy.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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kmoorevs wrote: Just leave decent documentation for the next guy
If I told you you could call it like this, would you know enough?
SomeFunction("Name", Queryable.OrderBy, q => q.Name);
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Sander Rossel wrote: would you know enough?
I wouldn't. I don't do lambdas. Or Linq.
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I do C#; it's kids these days who don't.
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You do C#, but not LINQ and lambda?
How do you work with collections, write out each foreach loop every time?
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Foreach is inefficient, for loops rule.
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I think/hope you're missing a joke icon
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"Maxthon has found dangerous code on this page.
Click OK to stop loading the page, or Ignore if you're an idiot."
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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It's pretty clever.
Although I am stuck on why you don't sort on the column headers, and eliminate the problem?
Also, my first thought would have been to simply enumerate the columns to load the Combo..
Your solution has the added advantage of a simpler way to select a hidden column, as well as
a more complicated pre-defined sort.
I am not sure that the Descending option needs to be in the Combo.
Sort by: [Name ^] [x] Descending
Given that I am not familiar with WHY your UI is the way it is, I am not qualified to recreate it.
But I do prefer naturally adaptive code (reading the columns from the dataview).
No need to remember anything...
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Looking at your code my subconscious started hearing the song "Simply Irresistible," starting at the verse: "methods are inscrutable"
cheers, Bill
«To kill an error's as good a service, sometimes better than, establishing new truth or fact.» Charles Darwin in "Prospero's Precepts"
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How's that the same? My solution is type safe and has design time error checking
I simplified it a bit by the way.
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It is the same in that it accomplishes the desired functionality in the app.
You were asking where to draw the line on readability and simplity. If you give a junior developer an API with .OrderBy(string) and then the one you posted, which will they understand immediately?
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Put like that you make a good point.
The question is are you willing to trade type safety for a simple API? OrderBy(string) may be a simple function, but there's no way in telling what string values are valid and when their validity expires.
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Me too, me too... Already changed the code 
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Sander: Yes, it's 'clever' code.
I have many years with Winforms, and the DataGridView. Also with building software for users, using a team of developers.
To my mind (based on your necessarily limited description) you are re-coding something that the DataGridView already does. It does it (a) more efficiently than your code, (b) with less potential for support issues (ie, bugs), and (c) in a more user-friendly manner.
If you were on my team I would see two problems. They are very common problems, so fairly straightforward to deal with.
The first problem is: Why on earth do you need to invoke the sort from a drop-down? Does the client really want to pay $10,000 to be able to sort clunky-fashion, instead of just click the damn header like every other right-thinking user?
Go back to the user and enlighten them on what they really want to do here.
The second problem is: You (the developer) have decided (as developers often do) to code your way out of a corner. You develop code that must be laboriously explained (although it is excitingly generic). Then you post the code on a geeky forum, looking for approval. I know why you've done that: because you know there are other guys on your team who will diss your 'clever' code.
Pro tip: you are writing Winforms apps for end users. You have not yet been called to write cross-platform compilers for GoogIntelSoft.
As your boss I would tell you: "Sander, when we deliver that software (next week BTW), our client will not pay us one red cent extra for the cleverness of your grid sorting code. Any bugs it generates in the approval period will cost me money."
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Robert g Blair wrote: something that the DataGridView already does
I have had this problem before and sorting a DataGridView is somehow a very difficult task when you're not using DataViews...
Robert g Blair wrote: Why on earth do you need to invoke the sort from a drop-down?
Because it's much easier than sorting the DataGridView without a DataView (why is this so hard anyway?).
Robert g Blair wrote: Then you post the code on a geeky forum, looking for approval
Actually I don't. I was expecting this to fail the 'clever'-test. But where does real clever become 'clever'? That I wonder. And I wondered that when writing the code. It does everything I need and it does it well (better than the DataGridView which is still impossible to sort...), but no mortal is ever going to figure out those generics (well, so to speak, I'm not that clever ).
I'm no newbie looking for approval. In fact I don't think the people who know me question my professionalism or my 'cleverness' (although they do, from time to time, question my sanity)
Robert g Blair wrote: there are other guys on your team who will diss your 'clever' code
Actually they were quite impressed I could concoct such a piece of unreadable, yet compiling, code
I did already make the code a bit simpler.
Robert g Blair wrote: As your boss I would tell you: "Sander, when we deliver that software (next week BTW), our client will not pay us one red cent extra for the cleverness of your grid sorting code. Any bugs it generates in the approval period will cost me money."
Actually we're being paid by the hour
That isn't to say I'm not doing my best or working my fastest. Our clients are programmers too and they will check out my code.
I'm professional and practical enough to know when to stop working on a 'clever' solution and look for another solution.
This solution here cost me about 15-30 minutes, which is infinitely faster than sorting the DataGridView without a DataView.
If only it were actually easy to out-of-the-box sort that DataGridView... 
I still wake up at night, sweating, screaming "InvalidOperationException! The DataSource does not support sorting!" (or something like that)...
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What a pleasure to read this kind of thoughtful analysis !
thanks, Bill
«To kill an error's as good a service, sometimes better than, establishing new truth or fact.» Charles Darwin in "Prospero's Precepts"
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Robert g Blair wrote: instead of just click the damn header
How do I have it sort by column 5 then by column 7 descending?
Clicking on column headers to sort is bullshit and whoever started it should be shot.
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using(Rant rant = new Rant(RantMode.On))
{
A few years ago I stopped getting the newspaper delivered because I usually peruse the news sites when I get to work in the am. It used to be where you could go to CNN.com, NBC.com, MSNBC.com, LATimes.com, NYTimes.com, etc, and actually READ articles. I enjoyed stating my day with thinking through the news articles.
Now, they're mostly pages of video links. MSNBC.com has different sections, and stories often appear in 2 or even 3 sections - just to fill the page. It's mind numbing and doesn't really make you pause and think.
NBC.com and CNN.com are just as ridiculous with large images that often link to videos.
LA and NY times sites are less of a mess, but still contain mostly videos.
In all cases it takes FOOOOOOREEEEVVVVERRR for these pages to load because they're pulling all these images. Clicking one takes FOOOOOOREEEEVVVVERRR to load because they go get the clip. And I have a fast machine.
Then, the clips all start with 30 second ads for stupid stuff I don't care about. Then the video's actual content is often a 30 second blurb from a reporter with no real content about what's actually happening 
Sometimes there's text associated with the "story", sometimes it's just the vid. Sometimes the vid doesn't load at all, so if I want to read (hear) about the story, I have to go to another site.
Me thinks I'm going to order the paper again. If I want to watch vids, I'll go to Netflix.
}
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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I like the BBC [^] even though they are a little bit leftie and biased they still report the news rather than droning on about their own view of the world.
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