DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by mrkurt

Thinking in Concurrently in .NET

Wed, 14 May 2008 14:46:22 GMT

Matthew Podwysocki discusses several present and future approaches to handling concurrency in .Net. From the article: "We need not only a better way to handle concurrency, but a better way to describe them as well. This is where Pi-calculus comes into the picture... But before we get down that beaten path, let's look at a few options that I chose."

Building an F# powered indexing system (part 2)

Wed, 14 May 2008 02:01:02 GMT

The second development chunk focuses on creating documents to index, and munging them into a format to hand off to an external library. There are examples of calling a .NET library from F#, mutable values, function composition, and several other spiffy sounding things.

Lazy instantiation one-liner with the coalesce operator

Wed, 14 May 2008 09:31:33 GMT

The one-liner for lazy instantiation of instance fields using the coalesce-operator

Beware of List(T).Find

Tue, 13 May 2008 14:46:12 GMT

Llist(t).Find returns the first element found that matches a given criteria, but what happens if no such element found?

Why is it so F#...ing Difficult to Buy Visual Studio!?

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:01:03 GMT

Have you tried upgrading Trial edition of Visual Studio or buying it through the official site while living outside of United States? I wasted half a day and failed.

Building an F# powered indexing system

Thu, 08 May 2008 08:46:02 GMT

When I first started dabbling in F#, I really struggled to understand how someone (in particular, me) would sit down and start writing an application from scratch. Project Euler puzzles are a great way to learn syntax (and probably the best place to start), but I would have loved to see a real application's source with a sort of "here's how it was built" narrative. So that's what I'm going to do!

Q: Is IQueryable the Right Choice for Me?

Tue, 13 May 2008 16:16:02 GMT

IQueryable<T> is just one way to create custom LINQ providers, but this post outlines different approaches that are attractive for less-complicated query providers.

Yet Another Project Euler Series (YAPES)

Tue, 06 May 2008 18:31:02 GMT

For the past several months, I've been using F# to solve at least two Project Euler problems each week. I find this is a great way to sharpen my math skills and my F# skills simultaneously. If you're looking for a way to flex your programming muscles, you really should check out Project Euler.

New F# Compiler Released

Sat, 03 May 2008 02:01:02 GMT

The new version of the F# Compiler was released May 1, 2008. Go download it now.

10 Hours in F#: Exploring Concurrency Through An Ant Colony Simulation

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:46:03 GMT

"I gave an hour long talk today, on Concurrency in F#. It featured some slides and a small ant colony simulation to demonstrate different kinds of threading. Overall, I liked developing in F# quite a bit; however, puzzling through the interpreter errors was a brutal process indeed."

F# vs. C#: refactoring in parallel and generics

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:57:00 GMT

In an attempt to avoid out parameters (which suck) in C#, I refactored a bit of contrived code to bury them elsewhere. I also worked on the equivalent F# code, and found more things about C# that may or may not suck.

Functional Programming in C# - Higher-Order Functions

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:40:15 GMT

This is the second in a series on the basics of functional programming using C#. I explore Higher-Order Functions this time. Higher-Order Functions are functions that themselves take or return functions. Meta-functions, if you like. This is a more code intensive post, that builds on the ideas that I explored last time.

The insanely scalable ReaderWriterGate lock

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:46:02 GMT

Wintellect's Jeffrey Richter, the Win32 threading guru, has written a library containing a new kind of lock: the ReaderWriterGate. Unlike other locks, this lock is highly scalable and fast with very few thread context switches. Works well with ASP.NET web apps as well.

Trying out PowerCommands 1.1 for Visual Studio 2008

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:46:03 GMT

Generally, I don't like to install any Visual Studio extensions at all, but I thought I should give this one a chance. I installed PowerCommands 1.1 for Visual Studio 2008, and went to play with the new functionality. Here is what I found as the most useful...

Upcoming Changes In Routing

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:31:02 GMT

Phil Haacked details the changes (some of them breaking) to Routing in ASP.NET MVC.

Out parameters suck, tuples rule, F# wins

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:46:02 GMT

The TryParse method found on many value types is nice and useful. Unfortunately, you're forced to use out parameters to make use of them. Ugh.

37 More Shocking jQuery Plugins

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:46:02 GMT

Interesting plugins for jQuery Javascript library.

Algorithm #105

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:03:42 GMT

What's the best way to cut small pieces of paper out of a larger piece while keeping paper scrape to a minimum?

ASP.NET & Comet: Bringing Sockets back

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:45:45 GMT

How do we communicate with the Web Browser without it making a request first? One solution is to have the Web Browser keep open a socket connection directly to the server using a small light-weight Flash component.

Removing Duplicate Code in Functions

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:43:16 GMT

This is a great article on a practical use of AOP and delegates. Man, this is just slick coding.

Configuring and customizing the health monitoring system of ASP.NET

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:42:54 GMT

This article illustrates how to configure and customize the health monitoring system of ASP.NET.

InternalsVisibleToAttribute and strong named assemblies

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:19:56 GMT

This one gets me every time, and Google's top hits are either wrong or incomplete. This is a step by step in order to make internal classes of strong named assembly A visible to assembly B. Makes testing a bit easier, and is useful for keeping prying eyes out of your DLL's APIs.

Apples And Oranges

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:16:03 GMT

"[A] recent blog post caused quite a stir on the F# mailing list. The post presents two solutions for Project Euler Problem 14: one in C# and the other in F#. The C# version clearly is hand-optimized for speed (and is indeed very fast), but the F# solution isn't. Instead, the F# code appears to be written with elegance and brevity in mind. Robert Pickering presented a challenge to create a faster F# solution, and the F# mailing list (which had been dormant for a couple of weeks) literally exploded with ideas. . . ."

I've got 99 Problems But a Glitch Ain't One : Problems 1-10 (F#)

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:58:43 GMT

The first milestone: Solutions to Problems 1-10 of Dr. Werner Hett's 99 Problems in F#.

I've got 99 Problems But a Glitch Ain't One : Problem 8 (F#)

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:10:07 GMT

Solution to Problem #8 of 99 Problems in F# (Eliminate consecutive duplicates of list elements).