DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by Zero3

Microsoft cracking down on community extensions

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:01:02 GMT

Microsoft released a tool called Microsoft Source Analyzer, or StyleCop. It analyzes source code for standards violations. It's a 1.0 release, so it doesn't do some things ... like have a published API for custom rules or MSBuild integration. So the community dug in and figured out how to do these things and now MS is firing off license-violation emails. Don't they get it? The community wants to use the product, but it's too limited ... these extensions help make it better.

Showing some support for LINQ to SQL

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:16:02 GMT

Great article detailing why LINQ to SQL deserves some attention particularly if you buy into the object oriented style of development or are currently working with an ORM such as NHibernate.

An Unfortunate Consequence of History

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:45:12 GMT

The author talks about the history of data in applications, why we have the need for databases, and where data is headed.

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:16:05 GMT

Internal email from Bill Gates detailing his difficulties with Microsoft.com, Windows Update, and more.

Foundations of Programming Ebook

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:46:04 GMT

Covering the basics of good programming.

ADO .NET Entity Framework Vote of No Confidence

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:46:02 GMT

Over the past year, Microsoft and the Entity Framework team have received a tremendous amount of feedback from experts in entity-based applications and software architectures on the .NET platform. While Microsoft's announcement of its intention to provide framework support for entity architectures was received with enthusiasm, the Entity Framework itself has consistently proved to be cause for significant concern.

10 reasons why SQL Server 2008 is going to rock

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:01:12 GMT

Just like its predecessor, SQL Server 2008 is taking its sweet time to actually ship. However, unlike its predecessor, it won't just be a "worthwhile upgrade". It will kick ass. Here are the top 10 reasons why.

The 5 types of poor software architects

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:31:06 GMT

The types of software architects you never want to meet in your career

Software Development and Programming Podcasts

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:46:03 GMT

I couldn't find a good list of software development and programming podcasts so I created my own. Feel free to chime in with any you recommend!

How to get Cross Browser Compatibility Every Time

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:31:10 GMT

Cross-browser compatibility is one of the most time consuming tasks for any web designer. We've seen many different articles over the net describing common problems and fixes. I've collated all the information I could find to create some coding conventions for ensuring that your site will work first time in every browser. There are some things you should consider for Safari and Firefox also, and IE isn't always the culprit for your CSS woes.

Performance: IEnumerable<>.Sum

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:31:02 GMT

A article about the performance hit created by the IEnumerable<>.Sum extension method!!!

Using C# 3.0 (.Net 3.5) syntax in a .Net 2.0 application

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:16:02 GMT

An overview of using C# 3.0 syntax in a .Net 2.0 application.

Keep your .config clean with external config files

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:01:19 GMT

The web.config (or app.config for non-web applications) file is the central place to configure your web application, starting from connection strings, over application settings to ASP.NET specific topics like caching, authentication & authorization, sessions as well as HTTP handlers and modules. Normally the web.config starts as a neat little pet you can easily manage. But as soon as your project grows mature, web.config turns out to be a huge beast. This article shows you a way to tame the beast.

Overview of concurrency in .NET Framework 3.5

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:01:14 GMT

An easy-to-digest high-level summary of concurrency on .Net: what are the different pieces, where they differ and how they relate. If you want to know the difference between a Thread and a BackgroundWorker, or what is the point of interlocked operations, read this article.

Sending SMTP Email Asynchronously

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:16:09 GMT

Sending email using the Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) can be a slow process, particularly when sending large numbers of messages using, for example, a bulk email tool. This process can be accelerated with considered use of asynchronous sending.

Multithreading and Concurrency in .NET

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:57:50 GMT

An overview of multi-threading and concurrency in .NET -- threads, the threadpool, parallel extensions, and the CCR (Currency and Coordination Runtime).

15 Tools to Help You Develop Faster Web Pages

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:16:14 GMT

Response times, availability, and stability are vital factors to bear in mind when creating and maintaining a web application. If you're concerned about your web pages' speed or want to make sure you're in tip-top shape before starting or launching a project, here's a few useful, free tools to help you create and sustain high-performance web applications.

Functional C# - Unfolding Lists

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:01:03 GMT

Very nice post on implementing ideas from functional programming with C#.

Turn Google App Engine into your own Personal Content Delivery Network

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:01:03 GMT

As anybody who has run a growing website or blog knows, response time is going to get worse with the more users you have visiting your site. The users come from all angles, RSS feeds, homepage visits, search engine visits, people sealing your static files that you host, and pretty much anything else that can be served over HTTP. The solution to this problem is to off load your static content on to a Content Delivery Network or CDN. CDN providers cost a lot of money though, so it is nothing for us mere mortals with one server can afford. But thanks to Google anyone can now run their own CDN for free on Googles servers. Lucky for you and me Google has made the process really painless and you can even have the CDN under you own domain name. In my case static.coderjournal.com.

Getting rid of strings (2): use lambda expressions

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:31:02 GMT

In the first article of this series I talked about the problems with strings in code. This article will show you how you can use lambda expressions and expression trees as another tool to avoid strings

Top 100 Best Software Engineering Books, Ever

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:16:02 GMT

In this post I proudly present the Top 100 of Best Software Engineering Books, Ever. I have created this list using four different criteria: 1) number of Amazon reviews, 2) average Amazon rating, 3) number of Google hits and 4) Jolt awards.

Hanselminutes 116 - Distributed Caching with Microsoft's Velocity

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:16:10 GMT

Scott sits down with 2 of the architects of Velocity.

Delayed execution and "yield return"

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:46:02 GMT

A quick look at "yield return" focusing on arguably the most important aspect...delayed execution.

Behind the scenes of the C# yield keyword

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:16:10 GMT

Yield is not a CLR feature, it's just about the C# compiler. This post explains how this works.

Creating Templates in Visual Studio

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:01:12 GMT

Creating Templates