DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by bert

Model design - refactoring domain models using LightSpeed

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:15:00 GMT

If you've used Visual Studio for any length of time, you undoubtedly make heavy use of refactoring. Even the simple refactoring of renaming a class or method and having Visual Studio automatically update all references is a huge time-saver. Until now model design with designers have not provided good refactoring support. This post details how the LightSpeed model designer now supports partial class, solution wide rename and convert to manual implementation refactorings. Provide feedback on domain model refactorings you would like to see.

Working with large domain models just got easier

Wed, 27 May 2009 12:15:00 GMT

One painful thing when working with design surfaces for domain models in most products is managing very large models. Hundreds or thousands of domain entities are difficult to manage visually. In this post Ivan details how Mindscape LightSpeed now includes filtering - filter for entities based on their name or even tag up your entities to create custom sub views. Particularly powerful is being able to show associated entities and filter by eager load graphs. Can't remember what entities are going to be pulled back by a certain load graph? Just filter it and see!

Mindscape LightSpeed Designer Visual Studio Addin

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:46:02 GMT

The LightSpeed Model designer is integrated directly into Visual Studio so that you don't have to leave your development environment to create a rich domain model. With a sophisticated design surface that supports both model first and database first approaches you can work exactly how you want without having the tools get in your way. The LightSpeed designer is available as part of every edition of LightSpeed. See their website for a free fully functional trial of their Express Edition. See www.mindscape.co.nz for downloads.

CodePlex Project of the Month audio interview: Json.NET

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:31:03 GMT

An audio interview about Json.NET, the March CodePlex project of the month. Interview covers what is JSON and Json.NET as well as the trials and tribulations of managing an open source project.

Unit testing O/R Mappers - Feedback wanted

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:15:33 GMT

This blog post explains how developers can stub out parts of their repository and entities to more easily create in memory tests. It examines one approach, highlights planned future enhancements to make testing LightSpeed easier and asks the question - what would developers like to see to aid in testing their domain models.

Single table and concrete table inheritance with LightSpeed ORM

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:46:02 GMT

One of the benefits of working with an O/R Mapper is the ability to use inheritance and have your objects still persist to the database. In this post, Mindscape explains the difference between two types of relational inheritance - Single Table and Concrete Table. The post also demonstrates how to create these models using the LightSpeed O/R Mapper.

LightSpeed 2.2 Released

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:31:11 GMT

LightSpeed 2.2 O/R Mapper has been released with support for SimpleDB, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, stored procedures support and much more. This post covers many of the new features, all of which are included in the free edition.

Installation of Nagios on Centos 4.7 (RHEL 4) with SELinux enabled

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:20:06 GMT

A HOWTO guide to make the necessary changes in order to solve the post-installation Nagios problems with SELinux

Using SimpleDB from a .NET O/R Mapper

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:01:09 GMT

.NET folk interested in working with SimpleDB can now use the LightSpeed O/R Mapper to work easily with their data in the cloud. This post show how to get started working with SimpleDB and highlights the additional capabilities that an O/R Mapper can bring.

4 essential developer firefox plugins

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:01:23 GMT

A post outlining four of the more handy FireFox add-ins that make web development a lot easier.

SimpleDB tools for Visual Studio

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:31:03 GMT

A new add-in which integrates Amazon SimpleDB into Server Explorer and enables you to view and edit SimpleDB data within Visual Studio is up. It also integrates with the LightSpeed ORM framework and designer.

C# Design Patterns - Abstract Factory Pattern

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:46:04 GMT

We'll be continuing on with our fictional city council that has commissioned us to develop an application that lets them manage their yearly dog registrations. Since the application is all about managing dogs and their owners it makes sense to have a DogFactory class that will create the different breeds of dogs that will be stored in the application.

Username Availability Validator AJAX Control, Release Demo

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:46:02 GMT

Back in September last year (2008), I posted a demo about Username Availability Validator Control. This control developed by the community on a contest initiated by Dave Ward on August 2008 as I remember. At that time the control was in beta. On October 2008 the control was released to public on its first version. And finally I wrote a a very simple documentation on the project Wiki.

Json.NET 3.5 Beta 2 - JSON schema validation

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:29:45 GMT

The big new feature in Json.NET 3.5 Beta 2 is JSON schema validation. JSON Schema is a specification for defining the structure of JSON. Think of it as XML Schema for JSON except it is actually readable.

Build Server Rules

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:40:24 GMT

Breaking the build server is Serious Business. Fortunately there are a set of rules that have been put together by a group of wise and thoughtful men to encourage good build server practice. And beer.

Pavel Nikolov's blog: Visual Studio 2010 (2) - Historical debugger

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:56:44 GMT

My first look at the new Debug History window in Visual Studio 2010.

ASP.NET MVC and Json.NET

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:31:02 GMT

Bringing Json.NET to ASP.NET MVC

LightSpeed 2.1 Released - includes new search API

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:01:02 GMT

LightSpeed 2.1, the performance minded object relational mapping framework, is fresh from the oven with new features like database independent full text search capabilities using Lucene.Net, Visual Studio integrated designer enhancements and a bundle of other new features.

A Serious Challenge for Open Source?

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:46:02 GMT

. . . what Mindscape has done is really quite impressive. To evaluate, accept, and incorporate feedback that quickly into the product and to have the installer ready that afternoon is impressive - for anyone.

How to use NDepend to improve code quality

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:16:09 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.

Faster domain model development with schema round-tripping

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:01:02 GMT

Schema round-tripping is the ability for your domain model entities to be updated seamlessly when schema changes occur or, when your modify your model, for those changes to be propagated back to your database schema without any fuss. This article covers how to leverage schema round-tripping with LightSpeed 2.0's Visual Studio 2008 integrated domain design tool. This functionality is baked into every version, including the free express edition.

Which kind of cast should you use in C#?

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:01:04 GMT

C# offers two casting operators: the prefix-cast and the as-cast. Although the two operators compile to different op-codes in the CLR, the practical difference between them is in how they handle failed casts. Prefix-cast throws an exception on cast failure, while as-cast returns null. It's easier to implement correct error handling when you use prefix cast, because it doesn't require manual checks for null values that can cause problems in distant parts of your program. Prefix-cast should be the default cast operator on your fingertips, that you use for everyday situations - reserve as-cast for special cases where performance matters.

Rich domain modeling with Visual Studio 2008

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:16:03 GMT

LightSpeed 2.0 includes a powerful visual domain model designer that has support for database round tripping (auto update on schema changes, push model changes to the database), creates .NET 2.0 compliant or .NET 3.5 compliant code depending on the target framework of your project and customizable code generation templates. Drag and drop database support for SQL Server, Oracle, My SQL, SQLite and PostgreSQL is also supported right out of Visual Studio 2008. Free version available.

Leveraging LightSpeed specific features from LINQ

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:54:28 GMT

Post about accessing the powerful features that LightSpeed offers through the new LINQ provider supplied with LightSpeed 2.0. Specifically this article deals with leveraging the powerful Named Aggregates feature and Soft Delete functionality.

"Velocity" project - memcached by Microsoft?

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:31:07 GMT

Is the Velocity project by Microsoft simply a me-too framework or are they creating real value for developers on the Windows platform?