DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by shyvonen

If the .Net BCL is drywall, Extension Methods are spackle

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:46:49 GMT

I know many people get upset at the very idea of Extension Methods, but I already consider them to be an indispensable part of my programming toolkit. I'm seeing so many times where a quick extension method can make code be much more readable. Other times an extension method against even a core BCL type seems to fill in a natural hole in the official API's and knocks out a lot of duplication.

IServiceLocator a step toward IoC container / Service locator detente

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:46:04 GMT

Today we launched an exciting project on CodePlex, namely the Common Service Locator library. What is it? It's a shared interface that applications and frameworks can reference in order to leverage IoC containers / service location mechanisms without taking hard dependencies.

Separate Assemblies != Loose Coupling

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:16:07 GMT

read and learn

$("Microsoft").append("excitement");

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:46:14 GMT

Right now is honestly the most excited that I have ever been about the .net platform. With IronRuby and ASP.NET MVC on the horizon and jQuery being integrated as part of the official Microsoft development platform, I think that Microsoft is finally "getting" web development.

How Do Locks Lock?

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:31:02 GMT

A detailed explanation of how a locks like ReaderWriterLockSlim really work.

Introduction to jQuery Article posted

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:46:05 GMT

I've posted Part 1 in a 2 part series on jQuery today. Part 1 covers the client side features of jQuery from the basics all the way through creating simple plugins and extending jQuery. This is a long article that discusses a host of the really useful features that jQuery brings to the table for client side Javascript development. Part 2 will then follow up with server side ASP.NET integration.

jQuery and Microsoft

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:01:02 GMT

ScottGu announce that Microsoft will be shipping jQuery with Visual Studio going forward. We will distribute the jQuery JavaScript library as-is, and will not be forking or changing the source from the main jQuery branch. The files will continue to use and ship under the existing jQuery MIT license.

Development Tools I Use & Recommend

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:16:03 GMT

Eventually I will get to some technical code Posts. But for now, I'm a bit delayed with some other things at work lately. I will be blogging about Code Generation, OOP, and other topics very soon though. In the meantime, I wanted to share a list of tools I regularly use now or have used in the past as a C# / ASP.NET Engineer listed below:

Getting rid of spaghetti code in the real-world: a Case Study

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:46:10 GMT

A case study of cleaning up entangled code by reducing dependencies. Tips of how to avoid more entangled code to be added. Plugs NCover.

Why you REALLY need to think about your interfaces

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:46:02 GMT

When you write your interfaces in C#, you might be casting them in stone. You REALLY need to think about how you write your interfaces. Avoid interfaces with concrete parameters such as Dictionary<> and List<> and prefer interfaces such as IDictionary<> and IList<>. Here is why!

Avoiding Dependencies

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:46:03 GMT

As a rule, code should not directly depend on external resources such as System.Net.Mail's email sending capabilities. Having code that directly calls out to System.Net.Mail is difficult to unit test as well as difficult to walk through in a test or stage environment without having actual emails sent. Two design patterns can be used to reduce this dependency: Facade and Strategy. The Strategy pattern offers a host of benefits above and beyond what the facade layer provides, as this articles demonstrates with code examples.

Important questions a developer should ask a prospective employer

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:01:08 GMT

A list of questions that software developers should ask a prospective employer during their interview process. Similar to the Joel test, but more in-depth.

Unity - Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control Container

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:01:14 GMT

Dependency injection is a programming technique to reduce component coupling. Dependency injection is also commonly known as "inversion of control" or IoC or sometimes as The Hollywood Principle - "Don't call us, we'll call you". The goal of dependency injection is to separate the concerns of how a dependency is obtained from the core concerns of a boundary. This improves reusability by enabling components to be supplied with dependencies which may vary depending on context.

ASP.NET MVC Application Building: Forums #1 - Create the Perfect App

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:46:03 GMT

n this series of blog entries, I build an entire ASP.NET MVC Forums application from start to finish. The goal is to discover and promote best-practices for building applications with the ASP.NET MVC framework. In this first entry, I discuss the overall goals for the forums application. I discuss the importance of avoiding code smells and how software design principles and patterns can help you write code that is resilient to future change. I also justify my choice to use test-driven development while building the Forums application.

Getting rid of strings (3): take your app settings to the next level

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:31:02 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

Easily build powerful client-side AJAX paging, using jQuery

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:31:14 GMT

An in-depth example of using jQuery to build client-side paging, including progress indicators, to page into any server side data source that can be JSON serialized by ASP.NET AJAX.

10 Invaluable CSS Resources

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:01:13 GMT

First things first. I'm an application (middle tier) developer. My design skills while adequate, are not by any means what I'd like them to be. Like a good geek girl, I've been working on this. I've put together a list of very helpful CSS resources I've stumbled upon in my quest to improve my presentation layer skills. I thought I'd share them:

Only In A Database Can You Get 1000% + Improvement By Changing A Few L

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:01:04 GMT

Only In A Database Can You Get 1000% + Improvement By Changing A Few Lines Of Code

Open popup windows in IE/Firefox and return values using ASP.NET

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:31:16 GMT

This article explains how to transfer values between the Parent page and a Pop-up window. The code has been tested against IE7 and Firefox.

SQL Server 2008 Management Studio tip: Status bar Custom Colors

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:16:02 GMT

"Here is a handy tip for those of you who work often with multiple SQL Server instances: Custom Colors for the connection status bar."

A Practical Review of ASP.NET MVC

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:31:02 GMT

My big project for the summer has been the creation of a content management system for my job. Due to deployment restrictions, I was forced to use the .NET platform for development. After hearing rumors of .NET running Rails via IronRuby, I jumped at the chance to write a Rails application that could be deployed to IIS on Windows. However, after getting a prototype running, I discovered that this would be infeasible for the time table I was looking at. IronRuby simply would not be ready on time. My second choice, then, was the new ASP.NET MVC framework.

Project anti-pattern: Many projects in a Visual Studio Solution File

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:46:06 GMT

I've been hearing from several colleagues about how their Visual Studio solution files have many (i.e. more than 10, and usually more than 30 -- in one case, more than 100!). So far, none of them have been able to give me any good explanation for why this is and most of them hate it but they can't change it because their architect/lead/whatever won't let them. I'm hoping that by getting the discussion going on this in the greater community, we can try to discourage everyone from having lots of projects in a solution.

How To Write Testable ASP.NET WebForms

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:16:15 GMT

Microsoft's upcoming ASP.NET MCV framework makes it easy to write tests for your application layer logic. But what about those of us who are stuck with ASP.NET WebForms? You can still write highly testable ASP.NET WebForms with only a little bit of extra effort. But that extra effort really pays off in the long run. In this post, i'll give a detailed description of one approach that has worked for me really well.

Building a better web forms: Context highlighting using jQuery

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:16:02 GMT

This article shows how to highlight a current context on a complex web forms using jQuery. You can see how to highlight current row or current group of rows, and how easily it could be done by uisng powerful jQuery selectors.

Using jQuery to directly call ASP.NET AJAX page methods

Thu, 29 May 2008 17:01:02 GMT

An example of how to use jQuery to call an ASP.NET AJAX page method, without using a ScriptManager.