DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by Reverie

Cleaning Up Your C# Closet, Making Messy C# Code More Readable

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:01:05 GMT

Struggling with an existing code base and want to tidy things up? This article gives some great tips on how to do this along with a real world example. The end result is much more readable code that is easier to maintain.

String Extraction

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:15:10 GMT

Ah thought I go back to basics today for a post. An operation I rely on a lot when I'm working with text is the ability to extract strings with delimiters from within another string. RegEx can be quite useful for many scenarios of finding matches and extracting text, but personally for the 10 times a year when I need to use RegEx expressions I tend to relearn most of the cryptic syntax each time. What should take me a couple minutes usually turns into a half an hour of experimenting with RegEx Buddy for me...

The dynamic Keyword Part 1 - Introduction

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:20:42 GMT

This is the first post of my new series about the dynamic keyword. This part is an introduction to the new dynamic keyword that will become available on C# 4.0.

SILVER-U - A Neat Way to Remember the ASP.NET Page Life Cycle

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:36:12 GMT

Mnemonic devices are fun, aren't they? They're especially userful for remembering steps that are performed in a certain order -- like how to start a motorcycle, or how ASP.NET serves web pages. I happen to be a certified Motorcycle Safety Instructor at Illinois State University. In our classes, we use the Motorcycle Safety Foundation curriculum, which contains all kinds of mnemonic devices to help student riders remember various motorcycle related procedures.

Easly improving .NET Code performance

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:04:20 GMT

Simple code refactoring that can help your code to run 5 times faster

Performing Simple Interprocess Communication with Verbs

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:13:09 GMT

In this post I'll be discussing simple process interactions via ShellExecute API Verbs. Using Verbs will allow you to perform simple tasks on specific file types without having to worry about building a complex communication layer to a specific application.

Choosing Between WebForms and MVC

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:46:04 GMT

Another take on what to consider when making a decision between Asp.Net WebForms or Asp.Net MVC.

What Constitutes Ethical SEO?

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:31:02 GMT

As a web developer / someone who has a blog, I understand dealing with spam is one of the necessary evils of having a comments enabled on my site. Too often, SEO companies use unscrupulous tactics in the name of website optimization. What is the best way to prevent link spammers from overrunning your site?

Is F# faster than C#

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:16:11 GMT

I had a bet with a co-worker that C# would out perform F# for a simple counting exercise. This turned out to be quite a surprise for many reasons. In this blog post I will try to explain why.

DNK Community Guidelines - Suggestions welcome!

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:01:10 GMT

Lets come up with some much needed community guidelines for DNK. Please post your suggestions and comments below, I'll update the community guidelines page on the Google group once we have reached a consensus.

More Image Processing with C# Lambdas

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:05:18 GMT

This is a continuation of the earlier post on image processing with C# lambda expressions. The previous blog describes a simple way to define image processing in terms of lambda expressions, and while efficient, it's missing the ability to do commands that examine pixels outside of the source pixel in order to compute the destination pixel. The way around this is to provide more information to the lambda expression.

Oxite: OpenSource CMS from Microsoft Built on ASP.NET MVC

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:16:18 GMT

Simone Chiaretta writes about the recent announcement by Microsoft Evangelist, Jeff Sandquist, about Oxite which is an open source CMS built by Microsoft as a showcase and sample for ASP.NET MVC.

Microsoft Releases Free CMS-Blog System

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:46:26 GMT

Read about the new, free CMS/Blog system released by Microsoft called "Oxite". It is built using the new ASP.NET MVC framework and is highly extensible, touting such features as Microformats and source control integration.

How To Guarantee That Your Software Will Suck

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:31:10 GMT

Do you bad software and unhappy developers? Well, it isn't that hard...

Implementing a red black tree in C#

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:01:08 GMT

This article talks about how to implement a red-black tree in C#. The implementation is generic, and it also implements IEnumerable<T>.

Pimp My Debugger - DebuggerDisplay Attribute

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:46:10 GMT

The other day I was reading some friends code, and I saw that he used a DebuggerDisplay attribute. It allows you to create a custom view of your objects in the Visual studio debugger. This attribute is very straight forward, but very powerful in the amount of time it can save you when debugging your application. I'll show you a cookie cutter example, but you can use your imagination as to how to use this particular attribute.

Why Good Developers Are Not Getting 10 times the Pay?

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 13:31:02 GMT

The productivity gap between the good developers and the bad ones can be very huge. But why good developers are not getting significantly more than the bad ones?

The Book Writing Process

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:31:02 GMT

Simone Chiaretta writes about the writing process of a book, especially a programming book, based on his own experiences with Wrox when working on Beginning ASP.NET MVC.

Have you ever wondered why CodePlex is so slow?

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:31:21 GMT

Taking a look at one feature on CodePlex that is much slower than it needs to be, due to indiscriminate use of UpdatePanels and bloated ViewState, and then comparing it to similar functionality on Stack Overflow to illustrate how much more efficiently the same feature can be implemented.

Writing Testable Time Dependent Code

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:46:06 GMT

In this post, Tuna shares his ideas on how to write testable time dependent code.

Signs of a GOOD Manager / Team Lead

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:16:02 GMT

Characteristics / attitudes / process of good management & leadership: 1) Have a passion about technology but

10 Ways To Programaticly Shoot Yourself In The Foot - Part B

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:46:13 GMT

This is part B of the 10 Ways To Programaticly Shoot Yourself In The Foot article. In this article I will talk about another 5 issues that even the best developers have to be aware of. In other words, I will try to prevent you from programaticly shooting yourself in the foot.

Stupid NUnit Tricks #3 Foiled!

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:16:12 GMT

Revelation of a CLR bug.

Creating a Silverlight Fade In and Out Popup Window

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:16:03 GMT

how to create a pupup window in silverlight without using the popup control

Back to Basics: Generics

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:01:12 GMT

Introduction There are language features that are nothing more than syntactical sugar. For example, C#'s coalesce operator (??) is a short-handed and specialized if-else. Object initializers make it easier to set properties on a newly created objects. Some features though go beyond mere convenience and add real value. I know it seems like we constantly have to learn new things, while at the same time actually produce code to pay our bills. It can be hard to pick and choose what to learn and what can wait. Let me be straight up though: if you haven't mastered generics yet, you're starting to fall dangerously behind.