DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by SQL_Menace

LINQ to SQL queries involving strings cause SQL Server procedure cache

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:01:03 GMT

Be careful when using LINQ. If an application is using LINQ to SQL and the queries involve the use of strings that can be highly variable in length, the SQL Server procedure cache will become bloated with one version of the query for every possible string length

Send Action Queries to Your Database in Batches

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:46:03 GMT

Coming from a database background, I should've known better. But, I didn't. Recently I found myself needing to write a GUI wrapper for a new Address Standardization component we got at work. This was purchased in order to clean addresses for a variety of data processing tasks we do on the way into the database, allowing us to completely automate these processes,

My Dev Kit -- Alvin Ashcraft

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:46:14 GMT

With a nod to John Lam and Shawn Wildermuth for the inspiration, here is a rundown of the things I use on a daily basis to develop software. This includes hardware, software and online resources.

Cloud Computing - More Storms Ahead

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 05:41:04 GMT

Cloud computing will need to addess multiple technical issues (including DNS security) before it becomes mainstream.

Only In A Database Can You Get 1000% + Improvement By Changing A Few L

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:01:04 GMT

Only In A Database Can You Get 1000% + Improvement By Changing A Few Lines Of Code

VB.Net: Single Instance application the better way

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:35:14 GMT

A better way to create a single instance application

.Net 3.5 Changes as Seen from NDepends...

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:01:02 GMT

Really interesting breakdown of the new 3.5 sp release.

SQL Server 2008 Management Studio tip: Status bar Custom Colors

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:16:02 GMT

"Here is a handy tip for those of you who work often with multiple SQL Server instances: Custom Colors for the connection status bar."

Quantity Always Trumps Quality

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:50:42 GMT

When it comes to software, the same rule applies. If you aren't building, you aren't learning. Rather than agonizing over whether you're building the right thing, just build it. And if that one doesn't work, keep building until you get one that does.

LTD Puzzle VIII - Converting between Roman and Arabic Numerals

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:46:09 GMT

The puzzle this week is simple. Write a program to convert to (and from) roman numerals. So your program should be able to take the input of 27 and return XXVII, and take MCMLXXXI and return 1981. And of course any other values....

nHibernate performance against stored procedures

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:01:15 GMT

A 5 part blogpost about the performance of a select statement done with ADO.Net using inline sql, and stored procedures (even some dynamic sql) and then nHibernate to get the same results. But this one has an alternate ending.

Spark and NHaml - Crazy ASP.NET MVC ViewEngines

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:46:07 GMT

Scott Hanselman's talks about two ASP.NET MVC view engines.

5 Books Every Developer Should Read

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:01:02 GMT

Which books should you read/buy when you are a programmer? I have listed 5 books that have helped me a lot. The books that I have chosen are not specific to any language although some of the books have examples in one language only

Skip lists are fascinating!

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:16:03 GMT

Skip lists are a fascinating data structure: very simple, and yet have the same asymptotic efficiency as much more complicated AVL trees and red-black trees. In this article, I discuss the asymptotic efficiency of operations on skip lists, the ideas that make them work, and their interesting use cases. And, of course, I give you the source code for a skip list in C#.

.Net Extension Method Library

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:01:13 GMT

Lots of good extension methods here for C#

Extending the System.Drawing.Image clas to make a thumbnail

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:46:04 GMT

Extending the System.Drawing.Image clas to make a thumbnail easy way. Instead of using getThumbnail you just use Tothumbnail and a maximumsize, optional parameter is if you want to keep the aspect ratio.

ASP.NET Hacks

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:46:08 GMT

At LessThanDot, we've decided to release a series of articles, tips and tricks which will be known as the "Hacks" series. The first instalment was the popular SQL Server Programming Hacks and this week sees the release of the ASP.NET Hacks. These hacks have been split up into the following categories: 1 Applications 2 Caching 3 Controls 4 Database 5 Dates 6 Debugging 7 Email 8 Encryption 9 Files 10 Images 11 Javascript 12 Objects and Classes 13 Pages 14 Sessions 15 Strings 16 Validation 17 Visual Studio 18 Web We've decided to release these in the wiki so that anyone can contribute to them, so feel free to add anything else that you find useful.

Danger in Design: Why bother with Architecture?

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:01:12 GMT

Creativity is a wonderful thing. It's also something different for each of us, which is why sometimes our perspectives on the world can produce conflicting ideas on what is the right way and the wrong way to do things. This is a very common facet of the IT world, in particular making computer software, solutions and services.

Scale Cheaply - Sharding

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:16:05 GMT

There are a lot of expensive ways to scale your database - all of which are highly touted by the big three database vendors because, well, they want to sell you all types of really expensive stuff. Despite what an "engagement consultant" might tell you though, most of the high-traffic websites on the web (google, digg, facebook) rely on far cheaper and better strategies: the core of which is called sharding.

Puzzle - Ascii Art in Shortest Code

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:47:28 GMT

This week's puzzle is to draw a couple shapes using characters, in as little code as possible.

Three Index Cards To Easily Remember The Essence Of Test-Driven Develo

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:08:32 GMT

Three physical index cards representing the ideas put forth in http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/2008/03/06/tdd-on-three-index-cards

C# Sorting winforms controls using linq

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:16:09 GMT

C# Sorting winforms controls using LINQ

Rails can't scale alone.

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:50:39 GMT

So why use Rails? With Rails you can spend 10% of the time creating the app, 80% of the time scaling it, and 10% of the time marketing how Rails scales.

Alvin Ashcraft's Dew Drop

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:22:10 GMT

Alvin does a great job of publishing an organized list of great links for the .NET community.

How to use NDepend to improve code quality

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:16:09 GMT

Code quality is an important aspect of every software development project - discover how NDepend can aid in giving you a richer and more meaningful understanding of the quality of your code as well as helping to identify areas you could improve. This post is a high level overview of what you can achieve with NDepend.