DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by akcoder

The Greatest Exception Handling WTF?!? of All Time

Thu, 28 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

The Exception object has ONE purpose and ONE purpose only - to represent a runtime error, nothing more. Exceptions should never be used for purposes for which they were not intended -- or you could end up with this monstrosity...

How to test your multi-threaded code (part 1 of 3)?

Thu, 07 May 2009 01:01:04 GMT

CHESS is the answer. At least this is what we have best right now.

No bandwidth MSDN: Reflector

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:01:17 GMT

How you can use Reflector to browse the insides of the .NET framework classes and why choosing Reflector over MSDN will make you a better developer.

DebuggerDisplay and DebuggerBrowsable - Two Debugger Attributes to kno

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:31:20 GMT

two very useful debugger attributes any programmer should know

5 Minute Tutorial on Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:01:04 GMT

A quick, to the point tutorial on exposing and consuming a plugin architecture created with MEF.

ReSharper 4.5 gone gold

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:16:11 GMT

JetBrains has released version 4.5 of their multi purpose productivity plugin for Visual Studio, ReSharper. This updates contains some pretty cool features. For example, solution wide analysis now checks for members that can be made internal. Also, JetBrains promises to have improved performance and memory use. All in all certainly an update that is worth installing, especially because updating from licenses for version 4.0 and above is free

9 Golden Rules of Visual Design

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:46:19 GMT

A consistency in Visual Design signals to users that they are in the right place and that they are moving in the right direction.

Content Stealing Jerks

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:01:02 GMT

I've grown somewhat accustomed to seeing my articles regurgitated on some random blogger's site and passed off as their own. Usually I just send content stealing jerk (CSJ for future reference) an e-mail asking that they provide some sort of link back to my original article and leave it at that. Sometimes they comply, oftentimes they don't. In the end, life goes on. After all, it's not like I'm going to press charges over it.

Do You Really Need a College Degree to Get a Programming Job?

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:16:04 GMT

There's plenty of articles about the shortage of skilled IT workers and the difficulty experienced by companies in finding qualified software developers. The whining would be far more credible if the Want Ads didn't have a silly, arbitrary qualification: a college degree.

Ruby's send in C#

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 01:46:02 GMT

An C# implementation of the send function found in Ruby.

Free ASP.NET MVC eBook Tutorial - ScottGu

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:16:02 GMT

There has been a lot of excitement in the community about the new ASP.NET MVC framework that is about to ship (literally any day now - announcement coming soon). As with anything new, people are also asking for more tutorials/samples/documentation that cover how to get started and build applications with it. Over the last few months I've been helping to contribute to an ASP.NET MVC book that Scott Hanselman, Rob Conery, and Phil Haack have been writing for Wrox. The book is now in production, and will be available to buy in stores soon

Posting data to a REST service using C#

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:31:07 GMT

A short overview on how you can post data to a REST based service using C#.

What's the difference between CONST and READONLY in .Net?

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:01:16 GMT

Ever sit around talking to your co-workers about random things, when all of a sudden you ask "What's the difference between const and readonly in .Net?". If so, you are not alone. If not, well, you're just weird.

Is Nick Stakenburg Bullying His Open-Source 'Competitor'

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:16:02 GMT

This is obviously a scare tactic used by a vendor to frighten a 'competitor' who is encroachinig on his sales. Nick (the vendor) is jarred by the fact that someone has released a comparable (better?) product that his and it is free. It behaves somewhat the same, so obviously it was copied... This is a serious issue, we can't let companies push around open-source with threats like this.

Do you have a datetime 'BETWEEN AND' bug??

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:35:59 GMT

In SQL Server working with date/time values can be tricky

Tools for performance

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:24:23 GMT

Since the introduction of SQL Server 2005 Microsoft implemented Dynamic Management Views (DMV's) in the database engine that enable us to peek inside of it, and retrieve the internal -performance- counters. The queries described here, combined with my previous posts on fn_virtualfilestats, auto index management, STATISTICS IO, multiple files per database and index reorganization should supply you with enough info to tackle most of I/O related performance issues.

Back to Basics: Interfaces

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:46:09 GMT

When it comes to object-oriented programming there are few concepts as basic and important as interfaces. Only recently though, and at a snails pace, have .NET developers started to take advantage of the simple benefits interfaces have to offer. This interest stems from the core role interfaces play in some pretty hot topics, including: dependency injection, unit testing and mocking (to name a few).

A New Look for Visual Studio 2010!

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 04:46:02 GMT

At the PDC and TechEd EMEA last year we described our new editor support built on the WPF technology in .NET Framework 4.0. Today I'm happy to reveal the new UI for Visual Studio, also built on WPF:

Re-Thinking C# Events

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:41:55 GMT

When I was learning C#, I was taught a pattern to use when declaring events. That pattern is rather cumbersome. Through the magic of generics and extension methods, this pattern can be generalized to a single line of code. This article explores the new pattern.

Posting data to a REST service using C#

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:46:08 GMT

Taking a look at how you can post data to a REST service using C#.

How I'm learning F# - Writing the First Program

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:46:16 GMT

The second post of a series on how I'm learning the F# language. In this post, I write the proverbial Hello, World! application and discuss a few core F# features.

Collapse all Projects in a Solution + How to Setup Macro

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 03:56:26 GMT

How many times have you been collapsing manually all the projects in your solution ranting about the fact there's no option to do that automatically?

A better, easier way to make sure you've globalized everything

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:46:18 GMT

A better, easier way to make sure you've globalized everything in your application

8 ways to be a better programmer in 6 minutes.

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:31:06 GMT

It's always nice to read a post where you already follow some of the suggestions but find the odd useful nugget, I dislike seeing literals in my source code and the hint about making them stand out with nasty color coding is something I'll be giving a go!

Sad Way To Do Business

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 01:01:03 GMT

how to make a bad impression with poor support and bad atitude and throw away thousands potential customers.

DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by akcoder

The Greatest Exception Handling WTF?!? of All Time

How to test your multi-threaded code (part 1 of 3)?

No bandwidth MSDN: Reflector

DebuggerDisplay and DebuggerBrowsable - Two Debugger Attributes to kno

5 Minute Tutorial on Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)

ReSharper 4.5 gone gold

9 Golden Rules of Visual Design

Content Stealing Jerks

Do You *Really* Need a College Degree to Get a Programming Job?

Ruby's send in C#

Free ASP.NET MVC eBook Tutorial - ScottGu

Posting data to a REST service using C#

What's the difference between CONST and READONLY in .Net?

Is Nick Stakenburg Bullying His Open-Source 'Competitor'

Do you have a datetime 'BETWEEN AND' bug??

Tools for performance

Back to Basics: Interfaces

A New Look for Visual Studio 2010!

Re-Thinking C# Events

Posting data to a REST service using C#

How I'm learning F# - Writing the First Program

Collapse all Projects in a Solution + How to Setup Macro

A better, easier way to make sure you've globalized everything

8 ways to be a better programmer in 6 minutes.

Sad Way To Do Business

Do You Really Need a College Degree to Get a Programming Job?