DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by gavinjoyce

Automatically minify and combine JavaScript in Visual Studio

Thu, 21 May 2009 05:06:38 GMT

As you begin developing more complex client-side functionality, managing the size and shape of your JavaScript includes becomes a key concern. It's all too easy to accidentally end up with hundreds of kilobytes of JavaScript spread across many separate HTTP requests, significantly slowing down your initial page loads. I hope you'll find that this technique is a good compromise between the tedium of using manual minification tools and the overwrought complexity of setting up some of the more "enterprisey" automation solutions.

ASP.NET MVC Domain Routing

Wed, 20 May 2009 20:09:52 GMT

Ever since the release of ASP.NET MVC and its routing engine (System.Web.Routing), Microsoft has been trying to convince us that you have full control over your URL and routing. This is true to a certain extent: as long as it's related to your application path, everything works out nicely. If you need to take care of data tokens in your (sub)domain, you're screwed by default.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 for MSDN Subscribers

Tue, 19 May 2009 07:46:09 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 is now on MSDN along with .Net 4 Beta 1. Some highlights from the information: .Net 4.0 Cloud Development - Windows Azure which is basically utility computing where you pay by the hour for your usage. Parallel Development - Not sure if this only means PLINQ for .Net developers or if they are only talking about C++ devs. TDD Improvements - Editor changes for building test cases first, and then writing the code. ASP.NET - CSS grids and design surfaces changes, more Javascript debugging improvements. C++ Compiler - Lots of changes for C++ development, including MFC. Sharepoint templates New Project Templates Windows 7 - MFC updates for Ribbon UI, and WPF changes. Application Model Changes - Reverse existing codebases, and lots of changes in Architect Edition to support more model types (including Class Libraries finally). Test Runner - This is potentially huge as it allows testers to submit bug reports complete with callstacks and traces that you can actually use to resume an app at the error point to avoid the dreaded No Repro on bug reports. I have seen this demo and it is quite impressive. We will see how it actually works though.

Kona 3: Learning Behavior Driven Development (BDD)

Fri, 15 May 2009 22:46:26 GMT

Holy cow! Another *DD - man I really must have an IV with that Alt.NET Punch just coursing like a train in my veins! I ask for your patience with this one - cause I think BDD is a really good tool to know - whether you use it or not - knowing the workings of it will allow you to have some intelligent conversation the next time you're in Austin :).

Using Predicate<T>

Thu, 14 May 2009 21:30:39 GMT

Making use of the Predicate<T> delegate in a reusable fashion to cut down the amount of inline code you need to maintain and / or create.

ASP.NET MVC Subdomain Routing

Fri, 15 May 2009 02:31:02 GMT

One of the propagated "great features" for ASP.NET MVC is the full control you have over the routing and url's of your webapplication. In order to demonstrate this, let's walk through a sample that specifically handles subdomain routing.

Keywords as variables/identifiers. Why?

Thu, 14 May 2009 06:59:17 GMT

Code like string @string = "" will compile. Is it a good idea.

NAudio: .NET Audio and MIDI library | TechArtifact

Wed, 13 May 2009 19:24:10 GMT

Open source library to add audio capabilites in .net application

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

Wed, 13 May 2009 21:16:05 GMT

In the last post we learned how to find and fix a simple multi-thread problem. Now we will see a more complex scenario and see how CHESS wil find the solution.

How Rapid is Rapid? How Quick is Quick?

Thu, 14 May 2009 02:31:02 GMT

An unusual take on the importance of raw performance in logging systems. Sometimes less is more. Rather, in logging, as in most software design challenges, keeping the big picture in mind is the most important thing. Concepts extend to other design topics.

UppercuT - The Insanely Easy to Use Automated Build Framework

Tue, 19 May 2009 07:02:36 GMT

Automated Builds as easy as (1) solution name, (2) source control path, (3) company name for most projects!!! UppercuT is for developers who want a powerful build framework without a lot of set up work. UppercuT is for anyone who needs a standard way of building applications across an entire organization. UppercuT is for anyone who wants to concentrate on just writing code. What can UppercuT do for you? -Compiles your application -Versions the local code build -Runs your unit tests -Runs NCover -Runs NDepend (you will need a license - does not come with UppercuT) -Creates environment configuration files (using ENV.settings files and config.template files) - more on this later -Packages your application for deployment -Along the way, it can run custom tasks for you.

YUI Compressor for Visual Studio

Wed, 13 May 2009 04:01:14 GMT

Add a custom tool in visual studio for YUI Compressor.

Creating Your First MVC ViewEngine

Tue, 12 May 2009 01:46:02 GMT

A question that I have been hearing a lot lately is: How do I change the view location in MVC? But what they really mean to say is: How do I create a new ViewEngine that uses the view locations of my choosing? It is actually very simple to do, and once you see it, I think you will agree with my assessment. The first thing we are going to do to create our custom ViewEngine, is define the paths that we want to use for our master pages, view pages, and shared pages. I have taken the liberty to define the following paths, you can customize them however you wish:

Open Source or Die - The Real Future of Graffiti?

Tue, 12 May 2009 12:16:02 GMT

Telligent's Graffiti hasn't quite flatlined yet, but the signs aren't looking too good. Could OSS be the way to breathe life back into this once-promising CMS platform?

How to test your multi-threaded code (part 2 of 3)?

Wed, 13 May 2009 18:16:03 GMT

Previously we saw how to build a test to find a multi-thread bug our your code. Now we will look at how to reproduce debug and fix it.

Defending code generation

Sun, 10 May 2009 20:47:27 GMT

As a practitioner of code generation in its various guises, I'm always intrigued by anyone who proclaims that code generation is somehow bad or evil. Since this subject has been raised in people's blogs, like, a zillion times, I cannot help but think that anything I write to defend the practice of code generation is like a drop in a lake of tears shed by developers who have had negative experiences with code generation.

Custom Controller Factory in ASP.NET MVC

Sat, 09 May 2009 14:11:38 GMT

Introducing Controller Factory in ASP.NET MVC

Using Flags Enumeration Type in C#

Sat, 09 May 2009 07:04:50 GMT

Flags Enum types are a convenient way of storing multiple enumerated values. This article discusses defining and using Flags enums

Git, SSH, PuTTY, GitHub, Unfuddle, the kitchen sink

Fri, 08 May 2009 02:31:03 GMT

After reading a good number of the guides for getting Git/ GitHub/ Unfuddle working correctly in Windows, I finally got it sorted out. I had to use a bunch of things I had not used before so I realized it's probably a good idea to share my findings, hoping to help someone else (and maybe myself again) in the future.

More ASP.NET MVC Best Practices

Wed, 06 May 2009 21:16:02 GMT

In this post, I'll share some of the best practices and guidelines which I have come across while developing ASP.NET MVC web applications. I will not cover all best practices that are available, instead add some specific things that have not been mentioned in any blog post out there. Existing best practices can be found on Kazi Manzur Rashid's blog and Simone Chiaretta's blog.

Linq-to-SQL vs Linq-to-Entities : Revisited

Tue, 12 May 2009 05:31:02 GMT

After 2 months of nothing but L2E, I feel I can give a decent comparison. Linq-to-Entities is fully capable and can do almost everything Linq-to-SQL can do, it just takes a bit more code some times; the almost is for multiple database utilization. L2E is a great ORM, but many of us were spoiled with L2S, so it is now up to Microsoft to live up to the expectations that they put out for us with this framework that they are deprecating. I hope and assume it will become a superior ORM, but that is in Microsoft's hands now; for the time being, it is not.

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.

Code Generation Should be the Nuclear Option

Wed, 06 May 2009 09:16:02 GMT

So let me first just start off by saying: I do not like code generation. In certain cases I think it can help greatly, but many people are far too eager to jump to this solution. I don't think that there is anything particularly evil about the process of generating code, but I do feel like using code generation as a day to day tool is a very bad practice. Code generation should be the tool of last resort when there is no good way to cleanly implement a solution which doesn't require code to be spread out everywhere.

jQuery UI DatePicker instead of AJAX Control Toolkit CalendarExtender

Thu, 07 May 2009 04:46:01 GMT

The reasons why I abandoned using the CalendarExtender and choose to use the jQuery UI DatePicker instead.

WPF NotifyIcon Released

Mon, 11 May 2009 06:16:04 GMT

This is an implementation of a NotifyIcon (system tray icon) for the WPF platform. It does not just rely on the corresponding WinForms component, but is a purely independent control which leverages several features of the WPF framework in order to display rich tooltips, popups, context menus, and balloon messages.