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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.

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.

ASP.NET MVC Tip: Turn on compile-time View Checking

Mon, 04 May 2009 22:01:05 GMT

I like the compiler to catch as many errors as possible before I start debugging or release my application. This also applies to code nuggets in ASP.NET MVC views, especially since these are not unit-testable. This article shows how to enable compile-time View checking for ASP.NET MVC projects.

Implementing a simple genetic algorithm

Fri, 01 May 2009 19:01:02 GMT

In this blog post I'll give a quick introduction to what genetic algorithms are and what they can be used for. We'll implement a genetic algorithm that attempts to guess an RGB color by evolving upon a random set of initial guesses, until it at some point evolves into the correct RGB value.

NHibernate Unit Testing

Sat, 02 May 2009 23:31:14 GMT

Good introduction to unit testing with NHibernate and SqlLite from Ayende.

Static Method Interception in .NET with C# and Mono.Cecil

Sat, 02 May 2009 04:01:02 GMT

Interested in Mono.Cecil? A very short introduction to a very cool and powerful tool.

Solving deadlocks through locking hints

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:01:45 GMT

Deadlocks in any database can be a hard beast to weed out, especially since they may hide latently in your code, awaiting that specific moment when they explode. An API website, exposing a series of webservices, had been working fine for months, until I decided to run my client app with a lot more threads than usual.

Using Squid as a reverse proxy with a .NET url rewriter

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:17:55 GMT

Once you start receiving visitors from all over the world, a new kind of scaling issue arise. This article looks at how we can use the open source Squid proxy to alleviate the problem.

Sorting projects and solution folders in VS 2008

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:59:46 GMT

How to get projects & folders sorted correctly in VS2008!

Deciphering a SQL Server data page

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:44:29 GMT

SQL Server stores all of it's data in what is basically a large array of "pages". Each page is exactly 8kb and can contain various kinds of data, depending on the page type. In this entry we'll explore how to decipher a data page.

Query Optimization - A Case Study

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:29:57 GMT

What is the normal process of determining the need of an optimization, and how to actually do it? This is a case study from today.

Utilizing transactional NTFS through .NET

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 05:00:57 GMT

We're used to using transactions when dealing with the database layer. Transactions ensure we can perform multiple queries as one atomic event, either they all succed or they all fail, obeying the rules of ACIDity. Until Vista, performing transactional file operations haven't been possible.

Generic Dijkstra's Algorithm

Wed, 14 May 2008 05:22:11 GMT

Through various projects, I've had to do some shortest-path finding in a connected graph. An efficient and straight-forward way to do this is using Dijkstra's Algorithm. While I've used the algorithm on several occasions, it's only now that I've rewritten it in generic form.

Spawning threads in ASP.NET can be dangerous

Fri, 02 May 2008 07:35:13 GMT

In my earlier blog post about the dangers of using Response.TransmitFile, I gave an example of a workaround involving spawning a new thread in the ASP.NET page. While this does solve the issue at hand, it presents us with a new way to kill our application even quicker than last.

Mapping datareader to objects using Reflection.Emit

Fri, 02 May 2008 07:33:41 GMT

I've previously written of how to automatically map a DataTable into a strongly typed collection of objects. There's a problem though, it's not fast... I wanted to improve on it, and this is what I ended up with.

Response.TransmitFile + Close will kill your application

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:35:53 GMT

Just before last weekend I noticed that a website I'm responsible for started spitting out "Server is busy" messages, not something you want to see on a website with millions of visitors per day. The quickfix was to recycle the application pool, and thus I solved the symptoms by setting a 15 mins recycle cycle on all the application pools. Not exactly optimal, but sometimes pissing your pants is the way to go.

XmlOutput vs XmlSerializer performance

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:16:04 GMT

I got quite a lot of comments for my XmlDocument fluent interface, and I'm very glad I did. I'm always open towards new ways to solve problems, and I got a couple of suggestions to my post that I afterwards experimented with. One of those is using the XmlSerializer to serialize strongly typed classes (or structs - performance is the same) into XML. Here's a performance comparison.

Setting up and testing Active Directory failover

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:17:59 GMT

Shows how to setup an Active Directory failover machine and the effects it has on your AD dependent WCF services.

Why asp.net MVC is so awesome.

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:16:03 GMT

The number one reason why asp.net MVC is the best thing ever.

XmlDocument fluent interface

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:46:02 GMT

A simple fluent interface for creating XmlDocuments & strings.

Understanding IoC Container

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:16:02 GMT

Very nice explanation of base principles of IoC container with sample implementation.

Is MVC right for you?

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:31:02 GMT

Interesting question... and interesting writeup ... asking if MVC is right for you. Will be an interesting discussion to follow no doubt.

.NET with an attitude

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:46:05 GMT

Signs that .NET is getting "wiser" by the version... :D

Weighted random selections in SQL Server

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:46:51 GMT

There are no built-in functions for selecting weighted averages in SQL Server. Fortunately it's a simple task to do so oneself.

Automatically mapping datatable to objects

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:45:58 GMT

I often need to transfer data from my business layer to my presentation layers in a strongly typed way. In this example I'll use the following very struct and corresponding DataTable to represent the data I need to transfer.