DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by nsoonhui

Does RentACoder.com Work?

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:04:09 GMT

A lot of people ranted against online consulting sites- such as Elance, guru, RentACoder and so on. Of course, given that the bids on those websites are ridiculously low ( at least by developed world's standard), one would tend to assume that the quality would vary proportionally with the bids. Whether you think those websites are cannibalizing the software craft, or whether online consulting sites are a force that flattens the world, one thing is certain: online consulting sites work.

SubSonic 3.0: ActiveRecord

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:45:00 GMT

Google's project site is down for a while and I have some perf tests running in the background so I thought it might be time to crank out a few more "preview" posts of SubSonic 3.0. This one's about ActiveRecord - one of my favorite patterns for its ease of use and versatility.

Exploring how to use Global Variables and ViewData (Strongly typed and

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:15:03 GMT

Taking a look at how to utilized both global variables and local variables. We will also take a look at how to create and use both strongly typed viewdata and weakly typed view data.

The Most Powerful Development Tool Ever Made

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:00:03 GMT

Justin Etheredge wrote a great blog post about not inventing the wheel everytime a classic programming problem shows up.

Binding in ASP.NET MVC

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:45:00 GMT

Answers to some frequently asked questions about binding data to forms in ASP.NET MVC. Covers Bind(), ModelBinders, and ViewData.Model.

ASP.NET MVC TDD using Visual Studio 2010

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:15:07 GMT

Phil Haack announced yesterday that the tooling support for ASP.NET MVC is available for Visual Studio 2010. Troy Goode already blogged about the designer snippets (which are really really cool, just like other parts of the roadmap for ASP.NET MVC 2.0). I'll give the new TDD workflow introduced in VS2010 a take.

Why Developers should always be Involved in Product Feedback

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:35:17 GMT

Not every developer likes to product feedback on the products they use, but they should. Here are the whys...

LINQ to SQL is NOT dead!

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:00:03 GMT

Ever since Microsoft announced that the Entity Framework was their ORM of choice, people everywhere have been saying, "LINQ to SQL is dead!" A lot of people feel like they're not allowed to use LINQ to SQL anymore and that they have to use Entity Framework instead. In fact, LINQ to SQL is not only alive and well, Microsoft has even announced LINQ to SQL improvements in .NET 4.0, including finally adding using ITable<T> for tables instead of Table<T>, which makes it much easier to test. Combine that with this open source tool that will create an IDataContext interface for you and you're on your way to testable LINQ to SQL. So no, LINQ to SQL is not dead!!

Overview of .NET 4.0 features - C# 4.0 Named and Optional Parameters

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:45:05 GMT

The concept of Optional parameters is not new and exists in other languages such as C++. Infact, the functionality is a part of the .NET framework and exists is in VB.NET. Optional parameters will be introduced in C# 4.0 and can be used to call a method without having to specify all the arguments. The intent of this feature is to assist in writing concise code and in COM interoperability.

IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit (ScottGu)

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:45:05 GMT

"Today we are shipping the first beta of a new free tool - the IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit - that makes it easy to perform SEO analysis on your site and identify and fix issues within it."

Visual Studio 2010: Multiple web.config versions

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:30:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 has support for multiple web.config files. It is one feature of new web application packaging and deployment system. We can create now separate web.config files for each configuration we have for application.

SubMain acquires GhostDoc

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:45:03 GMT

An agreement between SubMain and Roland Weigelt, author of GhostDoc, will place future development of GhostDoc in the hands of SubMain. GhostDoc ( http://submain.com/ghostdoc ) is the popular XML Comments and documentation helper tool which SubMain will continue to maintain as a free product.

A Degradable jQuery AJAX Email Form for ASP.NET MVC

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:45:10 GMT

Pretty much every web site on the Internet features a form for users to provide feedback via email to site owners. Migrating to ASP.NET MVC requires a slightly different approach to that used by Web Forms development, so this article looks at one way to implement a web site contact form using the MVC framework and jQuery that degrades nicely. AJAX functionality is said to be "degradable" if a way is provided for the process to work, even though users don't have Javascript available to them.

CodeSmith 5.1 Released with New Lower Pricing Options!

Fri, 29 May 2009 11:30:00 GMT

CodeSmith is now offering personal licenses for individual developers at $199 (50% savings) when purchasing CodeSmith Professional. Put time back in your day with CodeSmith 5.1. Packed full of new Schema Providers, merge strategies, and updated CodeSmith project management, CodeSmith provides an even better code generation experience.

Tuple, a new type on .Net 4.0

Mon, 25 May 2009 23:46:37 GMT

If you ever played with some language that have the Tuple type I bet you miss it in .Net. Well 4.0 adds it.

The Dynamic Programmer - Tuple, a new type on .Net 4.0

Mon, 25 May 2009 19:00:06 GMT

If you ever played with some language that have the Tuple type I bet you miss it in .Net. Well 4.0 adds it. Let's take a look at the implementation and how to use it.

Visual Studio Tips and Tricks - II

Sun, 24 May 2009 20:05:01 GMT

Learn how to format your code better in Visual Studio

Five Reasons for using an ORM Tool

Sat, 16 May 2009 01:46:03 GMT

Gud intro of as what orm tools do...

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.

10 Reasons for Database Outsourcing

Thu, 14 May 2009 21:16:05 GMT

A simple but to the point list of Top 10 Reasons for Database Outsourcing. This should be bookmarked or saved for personal archieve.

No bandwidth MSDN: Reflector

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:01:17 GMT

How you can use Reflector to browse the insides of the .NET framework classes and why choosing Reflector over MSDN will make you a better developer.

Navigate your codebase like a pro with ReSharper 4.5

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:46:03 GMT

Taking a look at how you can navigate your souce code using ReSharper 4.5

Why I prefer MVC

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:01:06 GMT

I tought about writing a post about why I prefer the MVC framework instead of the old .NET way, webforms, to build my webapplications. But today when I opened my google reader to check out the new posts, I saw this post by Rob Conery which I think has some very good arguments to why you should atleast try it out.

I Spose I'll Just Say It: You Should Learn MVC

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:31:21 GMT

I'm never shy about my opinion - why start now? I've been reading a lot of posts flying about on whether you should learn MVC, Summing up the differences so you can decide when to use it, I even found a post that offers a scorecard approach! I remember reading the latter post thinking to myself "how can you possibly put a number next to Testability? And why it is only 2 more points than "using a RAD designer"? Isn't this missing the entire point?

Software Startup Lessons (Part 6) - Looking back at one failure

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:16:02 GMT

After a few months, we've decided to kill a project and call it a failure. Read more about the project's postmortem note in this article.