Stop Catching Exceptions!

gen5.info — Too many programmers catch exceptions too often, causing both mainline and error handling logic to be complex and error-prone. Although C#, PHP and other languages don't make the mistake that Java made with Checked Exceptions, Java trained a generation of programmers in bad habits. A strategy that (i) uses finally as the first resort for containing corrupting and maintaining invariants, (ii) uses catch locally when the exceptions thrown in an area are completely understood, and (iii) surrounds independent units of work with try-catch blocks is an effective basis for using exceptions that can be built upon to develop an exception handling policy for a particular application. read more...

add a comment | category: C# | Views: 30

Building Reliable Silverlight Apps With Model-View Separation

gen5.info — When people start developing RIA’s in environments such as Silverlight they often write asynchronous communication callbacks in an unstructured manner, putting them wherever is convenient — often in a instance members of user interface components. Several problems almost invariably occur as applications become more complex that force the development of an architecture that decouples communication event handlers from the user interface: a straightforward answer is to create a model layer that’s responsible for notifying interested user interface components about data updates. read more...

add a comment | category: Silverlight | Views: 27

The Weird And Wonderful World Of Extension Methods in C#

gen5.info — Extension methods are the most controversial feature that Microsoft has introduced in C# 3.0. Introduced to support the LINQ query framework, extension methods make it possible to define new methods for existing classes. Although extension methods can greatly simplify code that uses them, many are concerned that they could transform C# into something that programmers find unrecognizable, or that C#’s namespace mechanisms are inadequate for managing large systems that use extension methods. Adoption of the LINQ framework, however, means that extension methods are here to stay, and that .net programmers need to understand how to use them effectively, and, in particular, how extension methods are different from regular methods. read more...

add a comment | category: C# | Views: 260

How To Access The User Interface Thread In Silverlight 2

gen5.info — Silverlight 2 Beta 2 introduces a major change in the concurrency model for asynchronous communication requests. Unlike SL2B1, where asynchronous requests executed on the user interface thread, SL2B2 launches asynchronous callbacks on multiple threads. Although this model offers better performance and responsiveness, it requires Silverlight programmers to explicitly transfer execution to the UI thread before accessing UI objects: most SL2B1 applications will need to be reworked. This article introduces a simple static class, UIThread, which makes it easy to schedule execution in the UI Thread. read more...

add a comment | category: Silverlight | Views: 12

Dropping Primary Keys In SQL Server

gen5.info — This article introduces a simple stored procedure that makes it easy to drop the primary key index on a table without knowing the name of the key. read more...

add a comment | category: Database | Views: 7

Three Ways To Keep Track Of Context In Silverlight Callbacks

gen5.info — You don't need to think much about context in synchronous programming because the pre-call and post-call parts of a method share a local scope. That's not true in asynchronous programming, where you need to make conscious decisions of where to keep context information. This article describes three effective strategies for keeping track of state. read more...

add a comment | category: Silverlight | Views: 17

Single Code Path For Asynchronous Functions

gen5.info — Sometimes a function that does an asynchronous action can return without doing asynchronous action: for instance, if an error occurs or it retrieves a value from a cache. If it calls the callback directly, this has a major impact on the flow of execution in the program and can cause subtle bugs to appear. By always initiating an asynchronous callback, you can avoid this problem. read more...

add a comment | category: Silverlight | Views: 0

Get Control of Silverlight Callbacks With Asynchronous Functions

gen5.info — This article presents a simple C# library that can be used to return both exceptions and arbitrary return types, making it possible to compose asynchronous actions out of smaller asynchronous actions read more...

add a comment | category: Silverlight | Views: 21