DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by r3zim

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.

Creating Visual Studio Templates from your Web Projects

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:16:03 GMT

Visual Studio has the nice capability to create project templates from existing projects and with a little bit of work it's real easy to create a project environment that's ready to roll without having to dig for related components first. This applies to Web projects more than anything for me as I have a fair bit of generic utility code that is project specific and needs to be added to just about all projects. Templates make this real quick and easy. Here's how.

Cleaning Up Your C# Closet, Making Messy C# Code More Readable

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:01:05 GMT

Struggling with an existing code base and want to tidy things up? This article gives some great tips on how to do this along with a real world example. The end result is much more readable code that is easier to maintain.

Not doing TDD is worst than doing it wrong in the beggining.

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:16:02 GMT

Check this out, and make a learn from it.

Getting rid of strings (2): use lambda expressions

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:31:02 GMT

In the first article of this series I talked about the problems with strings in code. This article will show you how you can use lambda expressions and expression trees as another tool to avoid strings

Nice VS 2008 Code Editing Improvements

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:16:02 GMT

Good improvements to take notice of when utilizing VS 2008

7 tricks to simplify your programs with LINQ

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:31:03 GMT

Ever since I learned about LINQ, I keep discovering new ways to use it to improve my code. Every trick makes my code a little bit faster to write, and a little bit easier to read. This posting summarizes some of the tricks that I came across. I will show you how to use LINQ to: initialize an array, iterate over multiple arrays in a single loop, generate a random sequence, ...

11 More Visual Studio Shortcuts You Should Know

Tue, 06 May 2008 21:16:02 GMT

Following our First Visual Studio Shortcuts post here is another batch of shortcuts.

Being a "nice" programmer

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:16:02 GMT

Being a C# developer by trade, I naturally spend a lot of my working life programming computers. Whilst I by no-means profess to be a "guru" of any kind, I do notice that there is one aspect of software development that is often neglected from discussion, and most programmers will hopefully agree with me as I explain.

Do You Really Want to Be a Development Team Leader?

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:31:02 GMT

Ask any up and coming developer what they would like to do in the next year or so and you'll invariably hear, "I'd like to become a Development Team Leader". Hopefully most will have actually considered the change of role and be looking for new challenges and ways to contribute more to their chosen profession. However, for some this is an automatic response to a question that is particularly difficult to answer in an industry with no clear career path. For others it's simply a way to move up the pay scale.

Empty try blocks

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:01:02 GMT

The article explains why you might see functions that do nothing in the "try" block.

The static Keyword

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:31:05 GMT

We all use the static keyword, but do we really know what the possibilities are?

Stop creating custom delegate types!

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 03:16:03 GMT

If you declare even a single delegate type in your code (and you're using .NET 3.5), stop and make sure there isn't already an Action or Func delegate that works for you.

JavaScript ForEach Equivalent

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:29:28 GMT

One thing with the For Loop in JavaScript is it doesn't seem to be very well documented that you can use it to do an equivalent of a ForEach loop. Here's a short example of doing the ForEach loop equivalent in JavaScript using the "in" keyword.

I Repeat: Do Not Listen to Your Users

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:01:03 GMT

Listening to users is a tricky thing. Users often don't know what they want, and even if they did, the communication is likely to get garbled somewhere between them and you.

Sound of one man testing

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:16:02 GMT

Recently I was chatting with a friend of mine and he asked if a single developer could be successful following TDD on a team that does not follow TDD. My simple answer was YES, they can. But there are a few things you must consider.....

Top 10 Best Practices for Production ASP.NET Applications

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:01:02 GMT

A list of some things to pay attention to when dealing with production ASP.NET applications.

The Most Useful VS Feature No One Seems To Use

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:46:02 GMT

Speed up your debugging time by using the Exceptions dialog box.

Build Providers: Strongly typed page urls in ASP.NET

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:46:02 GMT

A look at using a build provider to generate IntelliSense for pages within your project.

Custom Controls Design Time Support Part 2: More Design Time Attribute

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:16:02 GMT

Custom Controls Design Time Support Part 2: More Design Time Attribute

SQL Server 2008 will have IntelliSense

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:31:02 GMT

Hurray!

Copying and pasting rectangular blocks of code in Visual Studio and Ma

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:46:02 GMT

Did you know that the Visual Studio and Management Studio editors allow you to copy and paste rectangular areas of code (not just lines of code)? This blog demonstrates how. Very handy when copying and pasting variable names!

Refactoring: Replacing Enums with the Strategy Pattern

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:46:07 GMT

Here's a simple way to remove all of those ugly switch statements and enums and to buy yourself a little more flexibility and testability as an added bonus!

Render User Control as String Template

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:03:34 GMT

An interface that can be implemented in user controls that you would like to render to a string. Makes use of a MVC pattern and Generics.

The expando attribute

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:31:02 GMT

It can set JavaScript properties on any element you would normally reference with document.getElementById('elementID'). That means you can control the state of your HTML elements from the code-behind in a very easy manor. It also means you can control HTML elements that don't have a runat="server" attribute.