DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by markheath

Subsonic 3 released

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:45:05 GMT

Just read Rob Conery's Blog and saw that Subsonic 3 is now available for download. For those unfamiliar with Subsonic it really is the ONLY no BS ORM out there, in fact it is so easy to get up and running that it is easy to forget that you ever set it up in the first place. The whole Subsonic ethic is to remove the hoops that other ORM's have you jump through and essentially to get you home earlier.

The Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:45:00 GMT

What happens when you get a few web developers who like puzzles together? Check out Jeff Blankenburg's post on the Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever, and rise to the challenge!

What is Unit Testing?

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:45:02 GMT

good introductory article explaining what unit tests are (and are not) and why you should use them

This Week on Channel 9: Revolution 9 - The Future of Channel 9

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:36:34 GMT

On a very special episode of This Week on Channel 9, Dan is joined by Jeff, Duncan, and Nishant to talk about the recent survey results, and the Revolution 9 project.

Treating Warnings as Errors in Visual Studio

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:00:00 GMT

The compiler used by Visual Studio can produce errors when code cannot be built and warnings when it completes compilation successfully but there are areas of concern. To avoid warnings being missed or ignored, there is an option to treat them as errors.

Learning the Decorator Pattern

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:15:00 GMT

Taking at how we can use the Decorator Pattern in our application. The decorator pattern is a structural pattern which allows you to attach new or additional actions to an object dynamically. Using the decorator pattern provides a very clean and flexible alternative to subclassing (via inheritance) your object and thus creating an unwanted inheritance tree

Visual Studio 2010: Brief view at debug history

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:15:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 introduces also some new debugging features. One of them is debug history. Debug history enables you to track all the points on track of control flow and it also monitors activities that you cannot see otherwise. It makes debugging of hard to find problems much easier, I think. Of course, there are many other new and cool debugging features available.

Fast Add Reference Dialog for VS 2010

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:00:00 GMT

I have spent a couple of days on implementing a fast add reference dialog box for Visual Studio. The time of adding a reference has been a great time to have some coffee, to have lunch, or even a way to save economy (remember, developer time costs money!).

SilverBullet #3 - System.Windows.Input.FocusManager

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:02:27 GMT

When you want to know what element has focus in other situations or if you need to get the focus synchronously, you can use the FocusManager class which can be found in the System.Windows.Input namespace.

Life After Loops

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:15:00 GMT

Eliminating cumbersome looping code using Linq

The "Sim City" effect

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:30:00 GMT

What happens when you turn your back on a software development project.

Vici MVC finally released as part of the Vici Project

Sun, 31 May 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Vici MVC (formerly known as ProMesh.NET) has been released as part of the new Vici Project, an open-source collection of .NET libraries and frameworks.

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...

Why testing for exceptions with NUnit 2.5 is better

Wed, 27 May 2009 17:30:00 GMT

The popular unit testing framework NUnit 2.5 is out. Among lots of changes, one of the most significant ones is the replacement of the [ExpectedException] attribute by the new syntax Assert.Throws. This post discusses some of the benefits of this change.

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 :).

How Do You Deal With Exceptions?

Fri, 15 May 2009 04:01:09 GMT

A little post on my ideas about handling exceptions within applications. How do you handle them?

Windows 7 Tricks and Keyboard Shortcuts

Mon, 18 May 2009 13:01:03 GMT

A summary of Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts and tips.

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.

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.

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.

8 Must Have Tools when Going to the Client's Site

Wed, 06 May 2009 01:01:05 GMT

Have you ever been to a client's site and you are in the middle of a large deployment and something goes wrong. Of course not! yeah ..sure Don't you wish then you had packed with you the source code code, X or Y tool to help you better diagnose the issue...

Top 10 .NET Twitterers

Sat, 02 May 2009 13:46:11 GMT

If your not on Twitter you are missing out - here are some .NET tweeps to get you started.

Keep Your IQueryable In Check

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:16:02 GMT

There is a good chance that you have seen Oren's recent "Repository Is The New Singleton" post. I wanted to have a quick discussion of his approach, and discuss why I don't 100% agree with it. Let me first say that I don't have a problem with the repository pattern. I do have some issue with the way that it is implemented sometimes, but overall I think it provides a good layer in which to encapsulate the queries of your application.

Crazy Wheels - Funny BlogEngine.NET theme

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:16:13 GMT

Crazy Wheels is another free BlogEngine.NET theme by jankoatwarpspeed.com. It is a simple, colorful, three column theme. Is has been published under Creative Commons License which means that you can use it for personal and commercial use as long as you keep the credits.

Creating SOLID Code: Dependency Inversion Principle

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:01:04 GMT

Taking a look at how to create SOLID Code: Creating SOLID Code: Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP). This is a last episode in a series where we will take a look at each of the parts the SOLID Princi