DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by rheaney

C# Brain Teaser #3

Wed, 07 May 2008 23:12:10 GMT

What will the following code output? When you think you know, copy the code into Foo.cs and run "csc Foo.cs" and then run "Foo.exe". Did it output what you expected? The brain teaser is to come up with the correct explanation for why the program outputs what it does.

Operator~ and BinarySearch

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:46:07 GMT

Usually, we use Array.BinarySearch to find a value in a sorted array, we all know that this method returns the index of the searched value in the array, if value is found. But most of us don't really know the whole truth about the returned value and how it can be used.

Silverlight: The First Rich Text Editor

Thu, 01 May 2008 17:01:04 GMT

Many people are waiting for a way to type rich text. Even if I think that Microsoft will bring out their own one, nobody knows how long to wait for and which features are included. My RTE ships with various common features and an extensive documentation. Please note that the whole thing is still in BETA state and there are some weird bugs on XP and different ones on Vista. It seems as if they are not caused by my component at all, because Visual Studio would notify me. So wait for the final version of Silverlight 2, until you use this component in any production environment! It is of course possible that some things are still undocumented or documented ones will not behave as expected. Don't hesitate to report such incoherencies.

Variable Scoping in Anonymous Delegates in C#

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:31:02 GMT

On a few occasions anonymous methods still throw me for a conceptual loop. Anonymous methods work like closures and so variable scoping can be extended into these anonymous methods from the calling method scope which is pretty damn useful and the basis for what makes Lambda expressions work in the first place.

Understanding when to use a Finalizer in your .NET class

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:04:58 GMT

Finalization and why it is bad

Why VisualSVN 1.4 Is So Great

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:01:02 GMT

So after the installation of VisualSVN 1.4, I don't think I'll ever look back. Finally a version of Visual Studio source control integration to make me leave the realms of Visual Source Safe forever.

Extension Method Hack To Get Around NullReferenceException's

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:46:02 GMT

Today I came across an interesting extension method pattern that I didn't know how the runtime would react. Because I was calling a method from an object that was obviously null. Check it out it is pretty cool.

The Kinky and Pornographic TextReader

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:58:54 GMT

So I have this bad habit of forgetting that TextReader is abstract. I often say to myself, "Darn, I have this string. And the API I want to use takes a stream. Can't I just create a TextReader to do it?"

I might be an elitist, but you're a misanthrope

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:01:03 GMT

Expresses some of the frustration that comes with a fragmented .NET community; our wobbly triangle of gurus, thought leaders, and the massive base of people who we've let down, in a way, by selling the idea that the tools should do all the work, and drag-and-dropped our colleagues into an expectation of laziness, or at least lulled them into a reluctance to learn new things, which is death to our whole community over the long-run.

Customizing Visual Studio 2008 and other IDEs (Colors, Fonts, Snippet

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:06:22 GMT

So many bloggers have taken the time to write about what makes their Visual Studio experience work for them-and I guess I'm not going to be any exception. I'm mainly putting this all here so that it's easy for me to find in the future really-but I guess anyone can benefit from it. So without further adieu.

Don't Use Double.Nan

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:01:02 GMT

Comparison of a double with double.Nan (Not a Number) will always return false. If we want to check whether a specific double is...

Finding a C# library to decode MP3's

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:46:02 GMT

Mp3Sharp bills itself as being able to "decode MP3 Files natively in .NET using a Managed application written in C#." Perfect! And it does just that. It's pretty darn easy.

On Using an Application Framework

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:35:12 GMT

One of the things that .NET provides us is a great framework with immense amounts of code tucked away in nice little method calls that we can use. The problem is that one of every two .NET developers I meet has no idea what the .NET Framework actually offers them. What's worse with some of these developers is that if you were to take away the framework they were using, they would be caught dead in the water. Frameworks are great, but you need to know what they're actually doing to master them.

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.

On ASP.NET's New MVC Extensions

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:30:20 GMT

Constraining routes to be lowercase only