CODE Magazine News

Publisher's Point: Visual Studio Platform and Extensibility

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

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Publisher's Point E-Column: Visual Studio Platform and Extensibility

As a .NET architect and developer I cannot imagine my everyday work without Visual Studio. I was always in a strange excitement when waiting for a new CTP, Beta or RTM of Visual Studio because I always expected some great new features with every release. During the years I have bought a few third-party add-ins and utilities for Visual Studio to make my development tasks easier and even created small add-ins to produce some useful piece of code. I knew that Visual Studio was extensible; I downloaded the SDKs and tried to get familiar with those hundreds of extensibility interfaces. However, due to lack of good documentation I often got frustrated.

Publisher's Point: What's The Resolution?

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

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Publisher's Point E-Column: What's The Resolution?

Markus Egger discusses screen resolutions.

Publisher's Point: How Many Threads Do You Need?

Mon, 29 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

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Publisher's Point E-Column: How Many Threads Do You Need?

Markus Egger discusses the need to create multi-threaded applications.

Publisher's Point: Beyond the Mists of Avalon

Mon, 6 Feb 2006 00:00:00 GMT

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Publisher's Point E-Column: Beyond the Mists of Avalon

Markus Egger discusses tools used to create WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation, formerly "Avalon") interfaces, in particular, WinFX Extensions for Visual Studio as well as the Microsoft Expression product line.

Publisher's Point: LINQ Up!

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

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Publisher's Point E-Column: LINQ Up!

At PDC 2005, Microsoft announced a new technology called Language Integrated Query (LINQ), which will be available with Visual Studio “Orcas” (the next version of Visual Studio). A lot of exciting new technologies are announced at every PDC, and as a result, LINQ got some attention, but not nearly as much as I think it deserves. LINQ represents the ability to run queries right inside of Visual Basic, C#, or any other .NET language.

Publisher's Point: C-Sharpest

Sun, 4 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

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Publisher's Point E-Column: C-Sharpest

C# 2.0 just shipped with a number of interesting new features: anonymous methods, nullable objects, iterators, partial classes, generics, and others. But the innovation does not stop there! Microsoft (and Anders Hejlsberg in particular) have already allowed us a sneak peek at some of the new features that will be available in C# 3.0.

Publisher's Point: The Quest for the Killer App

Wed, 7 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

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Publisher's Point E-Column: The Quest for the Killer App

Markus Egger discusses the evaluation of new technologies.

Publisher's Point: User Interface Challenges

Wed, 20 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

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Publisher's Point E-Column: User Interface Challenges

Markus Egger discusses user interface technologies developers should familiarize themselves with.

Publisher's Point: Where's Your Logic?

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

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Publisher's Point E-Column: Where's Your Logic?

Markus Egger discusses the role of business logic in modern application architecture.

Publisher's Point: Who's On First?

Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

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Publisher's Point E-Column: Who's On First?

Markus Egger discusses the importance of a solid basis of knowledge.

CODE Magazine: 2013 May/Jun

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

CODE Magazine, Issue 2013 May/Jun is now available!

So many technologies so little time. Sometimes we need to just put together a grab bag of articles exploring new technology and development techniques. This issue has content for everyone. Curious about TypeScript ? Considering building an application using SQL Server on Azure. How about advancing your UI? This issue covers these concepts and more.

Online Article: Building a CODE Framework Service and Consuming It on an iPhone Application

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Building a CODE Framework Service and Consuming It on an iPhone Application

In this article, you will create a CODE Framework RESTful service and an iPhone application from scratch. For the client side, you will utilize XCode (yes, you’ll need a Mac!), which uses Objective-C as the primary language. This article won’t teach you the language; you need to know the basics of Objective-C. Even if you don’t know anything about it but want to code right away, read the article “Building a Twitter Search Client on iOS,” by Ben Scherman, available for all CODE readers in the Xiine application for Windows, Android, and iPhone. For the database, you’ll use any instance of SQL Server 2008. The service will be written in C#, using the latest version of CODE Framework, available on http://codeframework.codeplex.com, where you will find not only the download link, but also a lot of useful information.

Online Article: Hello, Arduino: Write Code That Interacts with the Real World

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Hello, Arduino: Write Code That Interacts with the Real World

Take the first step in raising your robot army and meet the Arduino, the microcontroller designed to be approachable and fun. From blinky lights to motors, temperature sensors to wi-fi, RFID to MIDI, you can make your code do stuff.

Online Article: Five Ways to Advance Your User Interface

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Five Ways to Advance Your User Interface

Software applications have a lifespan. Some, like utility applications that do nothing more than patch an existing application to fix a bug, are quite short. Others, like games, live only slightly longer. Then there are those applications that live on for decades, such as Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop. Internal business applications that are used to automate and track processes often have long lifespans as well. As developers, we add to or adjust the application’s user interface to account for new features, but rarely do we reconsider the interface as a whole. Why? Likely because we get used to the original user interface we created and don’t see any reason to change it. But complacency is generally not viewed as a virtue.

Online Article: Managed Coder: On “Done”

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Managed Coder: On “Done”

Writing software is hard, particularly when the schedules keep programmers’ “nose to the grindstone;” every so often, it’s important to take a breather and look around the world and discover what we can find. Ironically, what we find can often help us write software better.

Online Article: Scripts for All Reasons

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Scripts for All Reasons

May/June 2013 Editorial by Rod Paddock

Online Article: App Only Permission Policy

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: App Only Permission Policy

Apps are the biggest change in SharePoint 2013. Over the past many years, SharePoint developers have been trying to figure out how to make applications work securely with each other, without users dealing with excessive passwords. Ideally, enterprises should have the confidence that installed software isn’t doing more than what they think it is doing. All this is being solved with SharePoint Apps.

Online Article: Creating Collections of Entity Objects

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Creating Collections of Entity Objects

Almost every programmer knows (unless you have been living under a rock for the last five years or so) that you should be using classes for all of your programming. You should also be using collections of objects instead of using a Data Reader, a DataSet, or a DataTable in your applications. The reasons for using collections are many and are explored in this article.

Online Article: The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Windows Azure SQL Database

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Windows Azure SQL Database

In virtually every CODE article I’ve written since 2004, the proverbial 99% of the content has been based on things I’ve done in production. Well, every technical person has to “go back to school” at some point,-and my return to school has been in the last month as I finally took a look at SQL Azure. This article represents my findings as I recently finished “kindergarten” and am now ready for the trials of first grade!

Online Article: Simplest Thing Possible: Introduction to TypeScript

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Simplest Thing Possible: Introduction to TypeScript

TypeScript is a new Microsoft offering that seeks to change the way we write JavaScript. As the name implies, TypeScript associates a strongly typed layer in conjunction with JavaScript. TypeScript also associates an object-oriented layer with JavaScript.

Online Article: Creating a Robust Web Application with PHP and CodeIgniter

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Creating a Robust Web Application with PHP and CodeIgniter

Some time ago, a client called me and asked me to tell him when someone had logged in and out of the network. It was a reasonable request but it presented a challenge for which I had to develop a quick solution.

CODE Magazine: 2013 Mar/Apr

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

CODE Magazine, Issue 2013 Mar/Apr is now available!

Knowledge of JavaScript is a requirement for any modern web developer, but there's a new twist in Windows 8! You can build Windows 8 applications using JavaScript as well. This issue explores some new ideas in building apps with JavaScript as well as our usual content for SQL Server, Sharepoint and other tools!

Online Article: Software Development and Filmmaking Parallels

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Software Development and Filmmaking Parallels

March/April 2013 Editorial by Rod Paddock

Online Article: SharePoint Applied: Workflows in SharePoint 2013, Part 2

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: SharePoint Applied: Workflows in SharePoint 2013, Part 2

In my last CODE Magazine article, I professed my love for SharePoint 2013 style workflows. I must say, having been spurned by SharePoint 2010 style workflows, falling in love with a technology with the same name was not easy. In that article, I talked about how workflows can now finally scale and perform; I talked about how to setup workflows and how to use them in SharePoint designer. Microsoft introduced numerous enhancements in SharePoint designer 2013 surrounding workflows, but in this article, I wish to switch gears a bit and talk about the Visual Studio side of things

Online Article: A Windows 8 Look and Feel for WPF, Part 3

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: A Windows 8 Look and Feel for WPF, Part 3

In Part 1 of this article you learned how to create a Windows 8 look and feel for your WPF applications. In Part 2 of this article you learned to create a few of the user controls that went into making the shell application. In this final article in this series, you will learn how to create the last few user controls that I used to create the Windows 8 Shell application. In this article, you will learn to put together a WPF Image button, an Image button with text and finally the main Tiles used for the primary navigation system.

Online Article: The Easiest Path to Windows 8: HTML + CSS + JavaScript

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: The Easiest Path to Windows 8: HTML + CSS + JavaScript

Sometimes it happens that a new version of an operating system introduces a new type of application completely incompatible with older versions of the same system. The last time it happened I think it was with Windows 95. More than 15 years later, Windows 8 comes with support for a completely new segment of applications named Windows Store apps.

Online Article: Simplest Thing Possible: Introduction to Knockout.js

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Simplest Thing Possible: Introduction to Knockout.js

It seems you cannot turn in one direction or another and not hear about a new JavaScript library or CSS framework that promises to be the silver bullet-to be THE thing that will make web-based application development a breeze. This article will introduce you to Knockout.js (http://knockoutjs.com/). Knockout.js is an open source library (under the MIT License) that is pure JavaScript that works with any existing web framework and every mainstream browser. Further, Knockout.js is fully documented with a complete set of online tutorials. What does Knockout.js do? It simplifies the task of building data-aware web UIs through the application of the Model-View-View-Model (MVVM) pattern. Regardless of the business problem your web applications are built to solve, all web applications, and just about every other application for that matter, shares the following characteristics:

Online Article: The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Tips for Basics of Data Warehousing and Dimensional Modeling

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Tips for Basics of Data Warehousing and Dimensional Modeling

Imagine you’re working for a company that has accumulated a tremendous amount of transaction data. The business users want to perform all sorts of analysis, monitoring and analytics on the data. Some OLTP developers might reply with, “Just create views or stored procedures to query all the data the way the users want.” Many companies initially take that approach - however, just like certain technologies and system hardware configurations don’t scale well, certain methodologies don’t scale well either. Fortunately, this is where data warehousing and dimensional modeling can help. In this article, I’ll provide some basic information for developers on the basics of data warehousing and dimensional modeling - information that might help you if you want to provide even more value for your company.

Online Article: An Overview of the Windows Phone 8 SDK

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: An Overview of the Windows Phone 8 SDK

It didn’t take long after the introduction of Windows Runtime (WinRT, the set of APIs that allow Windows Store apps to communicate with the Windows 8 operating system), for Microsoft to unveil the next generation of its mobile operating system, Windows Phone 8, which conveniently includes some of the APIs coming directly from WinRT. It’s easy to imagine the APIs merging together at some point, as that would make writing applications for on-the-go devices such as tablets and mobile phones much easier.

Online Article: The Skeptical Coder: Fixing Windows 8 and WinRT

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: The Skeptical Coder: Fixing Windows 8 and WinRT

Here’s a bit of news for you: Despite all the criticism and despite all the naysayers, Windows 8 is actually a very good operating system. Improvements to the desktop are good and welcome. A lot of the underlying tech for WinRT is quite impressive. Microsoft should be applauded for their willingness to invent and change. However, because of a long list of puzzling decisions, and due to a lack of polish and packaging, Windows 8 just doesn’t add up to a good product that serves all the market segments it aims to serve. That’s a tall order, of course, but anything less has to be seen as a dramatic failure for any version of the Windows operating system.

Online Article: Managed Coder: On Greatness

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Managed Coder: On Greatness

Mar/April 2013 Manager Coder Article

Online Article: CODE Framework: Documents, Printing, and Interactive Document UIs

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: CODE Framework: Documents, Printing, and Interactive Document UIs

The CODE Framework WPF features (based on MVVM and MVC concepts) have become very popular amongst .NET developers, thanks to ease of development paired with a high degree of freedom, control and reuse. Another CODE Framework module takes these concepts and extends them into the domain of documents and printing. Many applications use third-party reporting products to create print and report output, and those products certainly have a good reason for existence and aren’t entirely replaced by the CODE Framework Document features. However, the CODE Framework Document features can replace some functionality that would otherwise be handled by reporting packages, and in addition, the CODE Framework Document features add a significant number of new features including the ability to create more naturally flowing documents and printouts and use those not just for print, but also use them as interactive user interfaces.

CODE Magazine: 2013 Jan/Feb

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

CODE Magazine, Issue 2013 Jan/Feb is now available!

In this issue we explore cloud computing. Take a look at examples from Windows Azure and Amazon Web Services.

Online Article: Introducing Windows Azure Hosted Node.js

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Introducing Windows Azure Hosted Node.js

In a previous article, I wrote about how simple it is to deploy an ASP.NET MVC Web Application to Windows Azure using Team Foundation Service hosted at tfspreview.com. In this article, I will build on those concepts and show you how to build and deploy a simple Node.js website to Azure using Git as the source code repository. One of Azure’s core strengths is its openness. In addition to the .NET SDK, Azure has SDKs for Java, PHP, Python and for the purposes of this article, Node.js. That openness also extends to Azure hosted Virtual Machines where Ubuntu, openSUSE and SUSE Linux are supported in addition to core Microsoft server technologies such as Windows Server 2012/2008 and SQL Server. In this article, I’ll provide a brief primer on Node.js, Git and how those technologies are first class citizens in Azure. One technology you will not find in this article is Visual Studio! We’ll use Notepad as our sole developer IDE!

Online Article: Smartassets.io: Amazon Web Services by Example

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Smartassets.io: Amazon Web Services by Example

My first experience with AWS was building a prototype for a website called Attachments.me. My friend Jesse Miller and I built the site over several weekends, and hosted it on a single EC2 instance. Two years, dozens of EC2 instances, and hundreds of thousands of users later, we’re still on AWS.

Online Article: The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Steps for Building a SQL Server Analysis Services 2012 Tabular Model

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Steps for Building a SQL Server Analysis Services 2012 Tabular Model

For several years, database developers have created analytic (OLAP) databases using tools such as Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services. SSAS includes the MDX programming language for retrieving data and writing custom expressions. These tools remain very powerful for creating analytic applications. However, some view the tools in SSAS/MDX as difficult to learn. In SQL Server Analysis Services 2012, Microsoft has created a second model (known as the tabular model) for creating analytic databases. The new model brings the promise of simplified features and (in some cases) even better performance than traditional OLAP. In this article, I’ll provide an overview for this new model and will walk through a basic example of creating an SSAS 2012 tabular model database.

Online Article: Log Users in to Your Web Application with OpenID or OAuth

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Log Users in to Your Web Application with OpenID or OAuth

Users already have many usernames and passwords for different popular online services, and with OpenID and OAuth, you can leverage those. Why burden users with yet another set of credentials for your site if they can use their Google or Facebook account, or any other OpenID or OAuth account? In this article, I will show you how to do this with ASP.NET 4.5, but more importantly help you understand what’s going on behind the scenes.

Online Article: HTML5 History: Clean URLs for Deep-linking Ajax Applications

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: HTML5 History: Clean URLs for Deep-linking Ajax Applications

The value of URLs for a website cannot be understated. The scheme of URLs can help give clues to visitors and machines alike regarding the structure of your website and well-crafted locations help facilitate search engine indexing, bookmarking and sharing. The role of URLs in Ajax applications becomes even more important as content is often changing on the page while the URL remains untouched.

Online Article: The Simplest Thing Possible: A File Directory-based NuGet Feed

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: The Simplest Thing Possible: A File Directory-based NuGet Feed

Increasingly, we rely on NuGet Packages in our .NET Development efforts. When you need to add a library to your project, whether it is Entity Framework, AutoMapper, jQuery, etc., NuGet makes that task a simple one. What happens when you are on a plane, train, an automobile - in some circumstance where you are not online and consequently, not connected to your NuGet package source? This is where a local NuGet package source comes in handy. Locally, we can easily stand up an IIS-based NuGet package source. While useful, that is not the simplest thing we can do. Fortunately, the NuGet authors had the foresight and wisdom to allow us to create file directory-based NuGet package sources. This brief article will take you through the steps to create your own local NuGet package source.

Online Article: The Future of Continuous Integration

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: The Future of Continuous Integration

Continuous integration (CI) has stood as one of the core pillars of the movement to agile software development best practices during the past decade.

Online Article: Managed Coder: On Skepticism

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Managed Coder: On Skepticism

Jan/Feb 2013 - Managed Coder by Ted Neward

Online Article: The Cloud Networking Effect

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: The Cloud Networking Effect

Rod Paddock Jan/Feb 2013 Editorial

Online Article: Workflows in SharePoint 2013, Part 1

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: Workflows in SharePoint 2013, Part 1

If we have been friends for a while, you must know my opinions about workflows in SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2007. I didn’t think they were very good, especially from a performance and scalability point of view. Frankly I think Microsoft should have called them “workslows.” Though, I don’t think it was the implementation in SharePoint that was the issue, it was fundamental issues with Workflow Foundation, compounded by the nature of SharePoint that acerbated the issues. Well, I am happy to say that Workflows in SharePoint 2013 are something I feel quite comfortable recommending to anyone, and I hope to make that case in this article.

Online Article: A Windows 8 Look and Feel for WPF, Part 2

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: A Windows 8 Look and Feel for WPF, Part 2

In part 1 of this article, you learned how to create a Windows 8 look and feel for your WPF applications. You were shown a high-level overview of the various components that made up the shell for navigating. In part 2 of this article you will learn to create a WPF Button user control, a Message Box you can style, and a simple Message Broker System. All of these components are used to create the “Windows 8 Style” WPF shell you learned about in part 1.

Online Article: CODE Framework: Accelerating Development with Standard Views and Standard View-Models

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Online Article: CODE Framework: Accelerating Development with Standard Views and Standard View-Models

In prior articles, I have shown how to create WPF-based applications using the CODE Framework and the MVVM and MVC patterns. This enabled developers to create quality applications quickly and in a fashion that can easily be understood by developers of all skill levels. In those articles I showed how to use view-models and views to create UIs. In this article, I am going to take this concept further by showing you how you do not even have to create new views and view-models, but instead can use the ones CODE Framework defines for you out of the box.