DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by david

Configuration changes in NHibernate 2.0

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:39:51 GMT

A quick summary of the web/app.config changes required when moving from NHibernate 1.2 to the newly released 2.0.

Test Doubles: When To (Not) Use Them

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:19:00 GMT

Provides some guidelines on how to answer the question "Do I need to mock this object for this test?".

Log4PostSharp - logging with AOP

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:31:03 GMT

How to inject log4net logging code using PostSharp and Log4PostSharp. Shows you how to add logging to an application with a minimum of effort!

Brackets, braces, parentheses, and other such creatures

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:29:49 GMT

An interesting story about a common task in text-manipulation done with TDD. The problem is stated as such: This aim of this challenge was to determine whether any given string has a legal bracket structure. Basically, make sure all the '(', '[', '{', and '<' have matching ')', ']', '}' and '>'. We also need to take nesting into account, so that "({)}" is incorrect, and "({}<{}>)" will pass.

Arrange Act Assert and BDD specifications

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:46:11 GMT

With Rhino Mocks 3.5 just around the corner, I've started using it to create much more readable tests. One of the things that always bothered me with Expect.Call, constraints and the like was that it mixed in the Arrange with Assert. For those that haven't heard of AAA, it's a pattern for authoring unit tests: * Arrange - set up the unit under test * Act - exercise the unit under test, capturing any resulting state * Assert - verify the behavior through assertions As I moved towards BDD context/specification style tests, working with Rhino Mocks didn't fit the picture very well. But with the new AAA syntax of Rhino Mocks 3.5, I can very cleanly separate out the behavior I want to observe from the mechanics of setting up the test.

Building a WPF Application: Part 1

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:56:39 GMT

The first in a series on building a FriendFeed client in WPF using TDD, MVP, DI, etc.

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#.

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.

How To Write Testable ASP.NET WebForms

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:16:15 GMT

Microsoft's upcoming ASP.NET MCV framework makes it easy to write tests for your application layer logic. But what about those of us who are stuck with ASP.NET WebForms? You can still write highly testable ASP.NET WebForms with only a little bit of extra effort. But that extra effort really pays off in the long run. In this post, i'll give a detailed description of one approach that has worked for me really well.

Intro to NHibernate

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:49:09 GMT

This article takes someone through setting up NHibernate for the first time using the AdventureWorks database.

Foundations of Programming Ebook

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:46:04 GMT

Covering the basics of good programming.

Separation of Concerns by example: Part 2

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:30:22 GMT

Jimmy Bogard walks through eliminating dependencies in part 2 of his excellent series.

What makes me NOT want to leave a company/client/shop

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:16:09 GMT

What makes me NOT want to leave a company

Seperation of Concerns

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:15:18 GMT

Jimmy bogard shows how to attack a static method to break out its concerns

WSS/SharePoint Extension 1.2 for Visual Studio 2008

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:10:43 GMT

Finally it's out, get it while it's hot. Now you SharePoint developers no longer need to hesitate to upgrade to Visual Studio 2008 if you haven't. Some tips are provided if you need to install the extension on your XP/Vista machine (i.e. not having WSS 3.0 preinstalled).

A jQuery Client Status Bar

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:46:03 GMT

Status bars are very useful in client applications to display well status information and having a reusable and easily callable and configured status component to display messages is extremely handy. Here's an implementation that uses jQuery plus a bit of CSS to make short work of displaying status content.

Rhino.Mocks Beta Bits are Running Turbo-Charged!

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:11:11 GMT

A new Rhino.Mocks beta dropped a couple weeks ago to little fan-fare... but perhaps we should take a closer look because tests running on the new bits are executing about 50% faster!

Introduction to Mocking with Moq

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 01:16:03 GMT

Short screencast introduction to Mocking with Moq

MVC Storefront: Dependency Injection

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:01:02 GMT

This is a long one! I sat with Jeremy Miller (of StructureMap/CodeBetter fame) for over 2 hours, talking about DI, Singletons, kids, and other things and what came of it is, in my opinion, the best webcast in this series.

Alt.NET Podcast Launched!

Tue, 13 May 2008 23:01:04 GMT

The Alt.NET Podcast has a new podcast. The premier episode is a conversation with David Laribee, Jeremy D. Miller, and Chad Myers about continuously improving yourself, your code, and your team. Give it a listen!

Writing a Simple Role Playing Game with C# .NET and the State Pattern

Thu, 01 May 2008 21:31:03 GMT

Learn how to use the State design pattern in C# .NET by writing a basic role playing game, with a main character who explores a forest, finds magical items, slays monsters, and gains experience points.

jQuery AJAX calls to a WCF REST Service

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:46:02 GMT

Here's an overview of how to call WCF REST services with jQuery. The basic process is very easy, but if you want to handle the formats that Microsoft sends down reliably, you have to make some format choices and deal with JSON encoding and decoding that is not native to jQuery.

Beware of the mysterious params in C#!

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:01:03 GMT

The 'params' keyword may behave different than you might think it should! This one is a must for every C# developer out there!

Using DataLoadOptions with LinqToSql

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:58:50 GMT

By default LINQTo SQL uses lazy loading. This post looks at using the DataLoadOptions class to get more control over the fetch process, including immediate loading using LoadWith() and filtering data using AssociateWith().

When Linq and ref Parameters Meet

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:07:53 GMT

In this post we look into a curious quirk of C#: you can't use parameters passed as "ref" inside a Linq query (or a lambda expression or anonymous method either). By analysing the intermediate code produced by the C# compiler, we learn how anonymous methods are compiled when they need lexical scoping semantics. Finally, an attempt to change the IL to get the desired semantics reveals why C# forbids this.