DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by akcoder

Some Managed/Unmanaged Exception Tricks

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:01:23 GMT

I just spent 5 days tracking down a Heisenbug. Historically, I've tracked down a lot of these but not because I create a lot of them, because I'm good at finding them. In this particular case, I had a set of unit tests that were failing on our build server but did not fail consistently on my machine. This is not a good sign to start with.

Lutz Roeder's Weblog: The Future of .NET Reflector

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:16:02 GMT

After more than eight years of working on .NET Reflector, I have decided it is time to move on and explore some new opportunities. I have reached an agreement to have Red Gate Software continue the development of .NET Reflector. Red Gate has a lot of experience creating tools for both .NET and SQL Server. They have the resources necessary to work on new features, and Reflector fits nicely with other .NET tools the company offers. Red Gate will continue to provide the free community version and is looking for your feedback and ideas for future versions.

Some best practices for NHibernate by Ayende

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:01:11 GMT

A few hours ago I completed a code review of an application using NHibernate. This is not the first time I am doing such a thing, of course, and I noticed that there are quite a few areas where I tend to have comments in such code reviews. The following is based on several such code bases that I went through, and contains a partial list of things that you need to watch for.

NHibernate: Testing The Performance Urban Legend

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:01:10 GMT

I wanted to challenge the dogmatic urban legend passed down from .NET developer to .NET developer since the classic ASP days. That dogma simply states you should always access your database via stored procedure for "performance reasons". Inline SQL is BAAAAAAD. So I fired up Visual Studio, created a class and started writing tests.

Call Virtual Functions From Constructors?

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:01:02 GMT

Be aware of this matter because it is not a trivial issue and apparently, there are no errors or warnings generated by the compiler. So, the rule to remember is to never call virtual methods from constructors.

Negative Attitudes are a Cancer to Successful Teams

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:16:09 GMT

Team members with a negative attitude are thieves, robbing the team of its potential, its moral, and often its success.

Why SortedList<Key,Val> Is Useless

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:16:04 GMT

The other day I wan in the need of a sorted collection. I found that there are 2 sorted collections available. SortedDictionary and SortedList. Now let me ask you, what do you think is the difference?

How to Generate Public Classes for Resource Files

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:16:02 GMT

Notice that when you add a resource file, there is an automatically generated class with properties issued from the resources elements, so you can call this class properties instead of using the ResourceManager. The only problem with this class is that its properties are marked as internal and thus can't be accessed externally

Tree Surgeon 2.0 Release

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:16:04 GMT

A tool to automatically generate Visual Studio solutions with proper directory structure

Replacing Loaded Assemblies - Paulo Morgado

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:46:02 GMT

Paulo shows us how to load, unload and replace assemblies at runtime.

Jumping on the environment trend

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:43:17 GMT

A look at the Environment class and the services it provides.

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.

Rhino Mocks 3.5 beta released

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:01:16 GMT

Odd this hasn't been submitted before. Rhino Mocks is one of the leading mock frameworks for unit testing in the dotnet world. This version fully supports the 3.5 fx.

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!

Don't be clever 2 - The cost of cleverness

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:46:03 GMT

In the modern world of programming we need to be more cognizant of making our code readable and grokkable than to make it clever or sneaky. For 99% of the developers out there, no one is ever going to pat you on the back for being sneaky. You're probably more likely to get punched in the face for it when the team has to spend the weekend debugging a piece of your clever code.

The Cursed History of Smalltalk in .NET

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:01:04 GMT

Digging up the history of Smalltalk for .NET - none of the 5 are currently in development

Learning how to create LiveTemplates with ReSharper

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:01:02 GMT

Short how-to on learning how to create LiveTemplates with ReSharper

Another Use for C# Using

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:16:02 GMT

If you are a C# developer you're familiar with the using directive. It appears at the top of every one of your class files informing the compiler what namespaces should be looked at while compiling this code page so that you don't have to fully qualify every object. (This isn't the interesting bit)

FizzBuzz the Functional Way

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 06:14:09 GMT

A fun little aside showing one way of solving the "Fizz Buzz" problem using functional-style C# (anonymous methods, lambda expressions, and anonymous types). It's by no means ideal, but shows a different point of view.

Sandcastle Removed From CodePlex

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:46:02 GMT

Sandcastle - the .Net community equivalent of RDoc/JavaDoc and the spiritual successor of the now defunct NDoc - has been removed from CodePlex. It's fate is currently up in the air and Microsoft is asking you for input on what should happen next.

What a developer needs from their manager

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:16:03 GMT

I've a read a lot of articles talking about what it takes to be a good development manager. There are also articles about what makes a good developer. I thought it would be a good idea to describe what a developer needs from their manager.

Gravatar Supports PNG Transparencies Again!

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:01:02 GMT

Gravatar has added support for transparencies back. You'll need to go to their website and reup your avatars: http://gravatar.com

I finally get the point of inversion of control

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:31:02 GMT

A quick overview of IoC (with diagrams!).

Scrum Explained in 5 Minutes

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:01:02 GMT

PDF entitled "Scrum in Five Minutes" from http://www.softhouse.se/