:: CODE Magazine - Online Content ::

	*Category: C#*
	139 Articles found and displayed in this view. C# 5.0 UNLEASHED - CHAPTER 3 - Getting Started with .NET Development Using C# Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Monday, April 22, 2013 Quick ID: 1304053 C# 5.0 Unleashed By Bart De Smet Published Apr 22, 2013 by Sams. Part of the Unleashed series. Copyright 2013. To purchase book click here: http://www.informit.com/store/c-sharp-5.0-unleashed-9780672336904 App Only Permission Policy Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2013 May/Jun Release Date: Saturday, April 06, 2013 Quick ID: 1305021 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. Creating Collections of Entity Objects Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2013 May/Jun Release Date: Saturday, April 06, 2013 Quick ID: 1305031 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. Hello, Arduino: Write Code That Interacts with the Real World Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2013 May/Jun Release Date: Saturday, April 06, 2013 Quick ID: 1305081 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. Fluent C#: Chapter 1 - Application Development Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Monday, March 25, 2013 Quick ID: 1301023 Fluent C# By Rebecca M. Riordan, Published Oct 12, 2011 by Sams. Copyright 2012. Sample Chapter is provided courtesy of Sams Publishing. A Windows 8 Look and Feel for WPF, Part 3 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2013 Mar/Apr Release Date: Wednesday, February 06, 2013 Quick ID: 1304031 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. Workflows in SharePoint 2013, Part 1 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2013 Jan/Feb Release Date: Monday, December 10, 2012 Quick ID: 1301021 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. A Windows 8 Look and Feel for WPF, Part 2 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2013 Jan/Feb Release Date: Monday, December 10, 2012 Quick ID: 1301031 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. Building Windows 8 Apps with C# and XAML - Introduction to UI Design Patterns for Windows 8 Apps Chapter Excerpt Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Sunday, November 11, 2012 Quick ID: 1211053 In this excerpt from Building Windows 8 Apps with C# and XAML, learn about the various parts of MVVM and how to apply it with a special focus on testing. By Jeremy Likness, Published Oct 25, 2012 by Addison-Wesley Professional. Part of theMicrosoft Windows Development Series series. Copyright 2013 ISBN-10: 0-321-82216-1 ISBN-13: 978-0-321-82216-1. To Purchase go to: http://www.informit.com/store/building-windows-8-apps-with-c-sharp-and-xaml-9780321822161?w_ptgrevartcl=%20Introduction%20to%20UI%20Design%20Patterns%20for%20Windows%208%20Apps%20_1960915. A Windows 8 Look and Feel for WPF, Part 1 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Nov/Dec Release Date: Thursday, October 04, 2012 Quick ID: 1211021 Many people will not be able to upgrade to Windows 8 right away for various reasons. However, there is nothing to stop you from designing your WPF applications to have a similar look and feel. “Napa” Development Tools for SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Nov/Dec Release Date: Thursday, October 04, 2012 Quick ID: 1211031 One of the biggest issues in getting started with SharePoint development are the 2091097 steps you need to go through, and the heavy duty machine you need to invest in, to create a development environment for a SharePoint and Office developer. This is not unlike the fact that creating and running a production SharePoint farm can be extremely time-consuming. Tasks and Parallelism: The New Wave of Multithreading Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Nov/Dec Release Date: Thursday, October 04, 2012 Quick ID: 1211071 Since the beginning of .NET, developers have been able to take advantage of multithreading when developing applications. In fact we’ve been given more than one programming model to accommodate just about any requirement that might come across. There’s the Thread class, the Thread Pool, the Async Pattern, and the Background Worker. Well, as if that isn’t enough, we now have a couple of more patterns that bring with them another genre - parallel programming. LINQ to XML Instead of a Database Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Sep/Oct Release Date: Thursday, August 16, 2012 Quick ID: 1210021 When people think of having to store data for their applications, a database such as SQL Server immediately comes to mind. However, XML files are very handy for storing data without the overhead of a database. Using XML files to cache often-used, but seldom changed data such as US state codes, employee types and other validation tables can avoid network roundtrips and speed up your application. In addition, XML files are great for off-line applications where a user needs to add, edit and delete data when they can’t connect to a database. Understanding Dependency Injection and Those Pesky Containers Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Sep/Oct Release Date: Thursday, August 16, 2012 Quick ID: 1210031 We seem to be an industry enamored with buzz words. Even though XmlHttpRequest has been around since the mid-90s, mainstream programmers didn’t give it a second thought until someone attached the term AJAX to it. The same is true for the never-ending quest to put as many different words as we can in front of “driven-development.” Another term that hit the scene in recent years is dependency injection. Intro to Metro Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Jul/Aug Release Date: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 Quick ID: 1208061 Ten years after the release of the .NET Framework, Microsoft is stirring the pot again with a new development platform that set’s to focus your talents on what everyone is betting is the next big thing, mobile devices; specifically in this case, tablets. The Windows Runtime, or WinRT, is the foundation for the development of applications designed to target Windows 8-driven touch-enabled devices, but what does that mean for .NET developers and their existing skill sets? SharePoint Applied: Large Files in SharePoint 2010 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Jul/Aug Release Date: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 Quick ID: 1208021 When a team at Microsoft first conceived of SharePoint, the product team decided that the content database was the best place to store file uploads in SharePoint. Before you pull out daggers, consider that there were many advantages to this choice. You can never have a virus corrupting the server in an upload that goes into the database. No filename issues. Transaction support. Easy backups, etc. Also, believe it or not, for a certain file size (smaller the better), databases can actually offer better performance than traditional file systems for storage. In addition, the product team decided to rely heavily on GUIDs and clustered indexes inside the content database - again, a choice with positives and negatives. Getting Rid of Your Code Behind Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Jul/Aug Release Date: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 Quick ID: 1208031 You know you should be moving code out from behind your forms, windows and web pages and into stand-alone classes. Everyone preaches that this is what to do, everyone shows you examples of ViewModel classes, but no one really shows you a real-world example of how to get rid of the code behind. ASP.NET MVC 4 Highlights - Part 2: Bundling and Minification Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Jul/Aug Release Date: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 Quick ID: 1208071 In the first installment of this series, I explored a few of the new features in ASP.NET MVC 4, including the new default project templates, mobile templates, and display modes. Since that article, ASP.NET MVC 4 has been released to beta. For brevity’s sake, when I refer to MVC the design pattern, I’m referring to the ASP.NET implementation of the pattern. In this installment, I’m going to focus on one of MVC’s most useful features: integrated JavaScript and CSS bundling and minification. Debugging Hard to Reproduce Issues Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Jul/Aug Release Date: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 Quick ID: 1208091 Software developers live and breathe debugging. It’s an essential and integral part of our day-to-day job. Whenever we are confronted with any bug in code, our typical first question is, “How can I reproduce this issue?” Any problems that cannot be reproduced are generally considered tricky to resolve. In order to really understand the challenges with debugging hard to reproduce issues, let’s walk through a few scenarios here. Extension Methods Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Jul/Aug Release Date: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 Quick ID: 1208101 Many developers find that keeping up with new technologies can be challenging and a drain to limited resources. Sometimes a review of basic .NET and C# skills is useful. This review of extension methods addresses the basic concept and implementation. Thousands of implementations are most certainly found in the industry, but in this article I want to address a few popular and useful ones. An Introduction to ASP.NET Web API Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 May/Jun Release Date: Thursday, April 19, 2012 Quick ID: 1206081 Microsoft recently released the ASP.NET MVC 4.0 beta and along with it, the brand spanking new ASP.NET Web API. Web API is an exciting new addition to the ASP.NET stack that provides a new, well-designed HTTP framework for creating REST and AJAX APIs (API is Microsoft’s new jargon for a service, in case you’re wondering). Although Web API currently ships and installs with ASP.NET MVC 4, you can use Web API functionality in any ASP.NET project, including WebForms, WebPages and MVC or none of the above. You can also self-host Web API in your own applications. Grokking the DLR: Why it’s Not Just for Dynamic Languages Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 May/Jun Release Date: Thursday, April 19, 2012 Quick ID: 1206091 Many .NET developers have heard of the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) but they don’t quite know what to make of it. Developers working in languages like C# and Visual Basic sometimes shirk dynamic programming languages because they fear the scalability problems that have historically been associated with using them. Also of concern is the fact that languages like Python and Ruby don’t perform compile-time type checking, which can lead to runtime errors that are very costly to find and fix. These are valid concerns that may explain why the DLR hasn’t enjoyed more popularity among mainstream .NET developers in the two years since its official release. After all, any .NET Runtime that has the words Dynamic and Language in its title must be strictly for creating and supporting languages like Python, right? Working with Windows Phone User Interfaces, Part 2 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Mar/Apr Release Date: Saturday, February 18, 2012 Quick ID: 1203031 In Part 1 of this article you learned how to work with orientation changes on the Windows Phone and how to create horizontally scrolling pages using Panorama and Pivot pages. In Part 2 you’ll see how to interact with some of the built-in applications on the phone through the use of the Launcher and Chooser applications. Getting Started with RavenDB Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Mar/Apr Release Date: Saturday, February 18, 2012 Quick ID: 1203041 You might have heard some things about NoSQL; how Google and Facebook are using non-relational databases to handle their load. And in most cases, this is where it stopped. NoSQL came about because scaling relational databases is somewhere between extremely hard to impossible. Smashing the Myth: Why You Must Learn F# - Even If You Aren’t Writing Rocket Science Apps Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Mar/Apr Release Date: Saturday, February 18, 2012 Quick ID: 1203081 If you are a .NET software developer, you have heard of F#. You may have read an article, seen a talk at a user group, or otherwise heard the buzz. However, if those means of reaching you have failed, at the very least, you have noticed it conspicuously appear in the list of languages you can base a solution on in Visual Studio 2010. If you write code on the .NET Framework, you would have to be living under a rock to have not heard of F#. Working with Windows Phone User Interfaces, Part 1 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2012 Jan/Feb Release Date: Wednesday, December 21, 2011 Quick ID: 1201051 Developing for Windows Phone is easy if you have been doing any XAML at all. That’s because you use Silverlight for Windows Phone development. C# 4.0 Unleashed - Chapter 2 -Introducing the C# Programming Language Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Thursday, December 01, 2011 Quick ID: 1110133 This excerpt is from the book, C# 4.0 Unleashed, authored by Bart De Smet, Published Jan 4, 201 by Sams. Part of the Unleashed series. ISBN 0672335522, Copyright 2011. For more info, please visit the publisher site http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn= 0672330792. Visual Studio Unleashed - Chapter 2 - The Visual Studio IDE Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 Quick ID: 1109103 This excerpt is from the new book, ‘Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Unleashed’, authored by Mike Snell and Lars Powers, published in the Sams Unleashed Series, August 2010, ISBN 0672330814, Copyright 2010. For more info, please visit the publisher site http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0672330814 Building CodeTweet for Windows Phone Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 Sep/Oct Release Date: Tuesday, August 09, 2011 Quick ID: 1109061 In this article, we take a look at what’s involved with building a simple Twitter Search client for Windows Phone. We will cover what tools you need, where to download them, how to design, build and test the app and finally, how to publish it to the Windows Phone Marketplace. Objects - Chapter 1 Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 Quick ID: 1107073 “This excerpt is from the book, ‘Windows 7 Device Driver’ by Ronald D. Reeves, Published Nov 16, 2010 by Addison-Wesley Professional. Part of theAddison-Wesley Microsoft Technology Series series.l, ISBN 139780321670212, Copyright 2011. For more info please visit the publisher site: http://www.informit.com/title/0321670213 MVP Corner: Looking Back on the Great VB/C# War Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 Jul/Aug Release Date: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 Quick ID: 1108031 Recently, I received an email comment on a blog post I wrote roughly 3 1/2 years ago. I had completely forgotten about writing the post, but as soon as I saw the title I remembered every word of it. It also got me thinking about who the guy was that wrote it... then and now. Using Custom Controls to Enhance LightSwitch Application UI Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 Jul/Aug Release Date: Monday, July 04, 2011 Quick ID: 1108091 Developers of LightSwitch applications are not limited to the set of standard UI controls that come “out of the box.” If your application has specific requirements that are not covered by the standard control set, you can use third-party LightSwitch controls or use regular Silverlight controls (also called “custom controls”) to enhance your UI. In this article I will show you how to get started with custom controls and how to make custom controls and screens work together (interact). The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Power Tips for Using SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 Jul/Aug Release Date: Sunday, July 03, 2011 Quick ID: 1108101 With each new version of SQL Server Reporting Services, Microsoft continues to offer new functionality for reporting. SQL Server 2008 R2, released to manufacturing in mid-2010, represents Microsoft’s fourth major release of Reporting Services in the last 10 years. This fourth release focuses on map generation and various business intelligence/data visualization features. In this article, I’ll demonstrate 13 significant features in SSRS. Six Silverlight ListBox Tips Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 Jul/Aug Release Date: Sunday, July 03, 2011 Quick ID: 1108081 The Silverlight ListBox is much more than you may think. When most people think of a ListBox they typically think of just a simple control that displays rows of text. However, the Silverlight ListBox is one of the most flexible controls you will find. I tend to think of the ListBox as similar to the ASP.NET Repeater control as it too is very flexible. In this article, I will show you six different ways to display data in a Silverlight ListBox. Post Mortem: Developing the OSS Project AutoMapper Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 May/Jun Release Date: Thursday, March 31, 2011 Quick ID: 1105041 Jimmy explores what went right and what went wrong with version 1.0 of AutoMapper. Using Configurations to Manage SQL Server Extended Properties Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 May/Jun Release Date: Thursday, March 31, 2011 Quick ID: 1105061 Before you start hard coding parts of your project to work with metadata in SQL Server, make sure that the functionality you want isn’t already part of the product. Understanding the Data Validation Framework in Visual Studio LightSwitch Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 May/Jun Release Date: Thursday, March 31, 2011 Quick ID: 1105091 Any application that deals with data needs data validation. Prem walks through aspects of data validation in Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch and provides insight into certain details of the underlying framework and design. The Razor View Engine Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 Mar/Apr Release Date: Friday, February 11, 2011 Quick ID: 1103041 The new view engine for ASP.NET MVC and WebMatrix combines simplicity and functionality to facilitate clean view development. In this article, I’ll dive into the Razor View Engine, the new default view engine for the ASP.NET MVC framework and WebMatrix products. Razor’s main goal is to simplify view development and to improve developer productivity while providing a clean view infrastructure. Inside Visual Studio LightSwitch Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 Mar/Apr Release Date: Friday, February 11, 2011 Quick ID: 1103051 Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch uses a model-centric architecture for defining, building, and executing a 3-tier LightSwitch application. Getting the Most Out of the Save Pipeline in Visual Studio LightSwitch Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2011 Mar/Apr Release Date: Friday, February 11, 2011 Quick ID: 1103071 Visual Studio LightSwitch applications consist of three tiers: presentation, logic and data. This article discusses the logic tier and its save pipeline. The save pipeline is where developers write business logic that runs as changes are processed on the logic tier and saved to the data storage tier. The save pipeline is automatically generated with every LightSwitch application. Understanding the processing done in the save pipeline is not required to successfully build and deploy applications with LightSwitch, but adding save pipeline business logic provides additional flexibility and control when data is saved. Hour 3 - Understanding Classes and Objects the C# Way Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Sunday, September 12, 2010 Quick ID: 100193 This chapter teaches the basics of both object-oriented and component-oriented programming, moving on to creating a class in C# and examining how it fulfills the goals of object-oriented and component-oriented programming. The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Examples of Functionality in SQL Server 2008 Integration Services Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Jul/Aug Release Date: Monday, June 28, 2010 Quick ID: 1008061 A skilled database developer might find it difficult to accept that other tools can increase productivity. When Microsoft released SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS 2005), I did not think that any tool could possibly make me more productive than the C# and T-SQL code I was writing by hand. After some reconsideration (and subtle persuasion from peers), I discovered that SSIS 2005 contained many features that indeed reduced my development time - WITHOUT sacrificing flexibility. Microsoft added new functionality in SSIS 2008 to make a strong product even better. In this article, I’ll present 13 different examples that demonstrate the power of Integration Services. Centering Text on a WPF Shape Using a User Control Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Jul/Aug Release Date: Sunday, June 27, 2010 Quick ID: 1008021 WPF excels at creating great looking applications. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 - A Platform for Packaged Software? Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Jul/Aug Release Date: Sunday, June 27, 2010 Quick ID: 1008051 Since its introduction in 2008, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 has been touted as a platform for rapid application development.We’ve always been hard core C# and ASP.NET snobs, but we were intrigued by the value that Dynamics CRM promised. We set out to build our next generation software product on that platform, and learned a lot about what’s real and what’s not so real. In this article, we will share the rollercoaster ride of our experience developing our software product on this new CRM “platform.” Chapter 12: Delegates and Lambda Expressions Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 Quick ID: 100123 PREVIOUS CHAPTERS DISCUSSED extensively how to create classes using many of the built-in C# language facilities for object-oriented development. The objects instantiated from classes encapsulate data and operations on data. As you create more and more classes, you see common patterns in the relationships between these classes. Chapter 8 Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Monday, April 05, 2010 Quick ID: 100093 C# is an evolving language. This chapter looks at the new features added into C# 4.0 that combine to improve code readability and extend your ability to leverage LINQ to Object queries over dynamic data sources. The examples in this chapter show how to improve the coding model for developers around reading data from various sources, including text files and how to combine data from a COM-Interop source into a LINQ to Objects query. Chapter 2: Creating Versatile Types Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Sunday, March 21, 2010 Quick ID: 100083 Whenever you create your own classes, you need to consider the circumstances under which they could be used. For example, will two instances of your Item struct ever be compared for equality? Will your Person class need to be serializable, or sortable? ASP.NET MVC and the Spark View Engine Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Mar/Apr Release Date: Friday, February 12, 2010 Quick ID: 1003051 Getting friendly with HTML in ASP.NET MVC just got a whole lot easier.In this article, I’ll delve into the Spark View Engine, an alternate view engine for the ASP.NET MVC Framework. Spark’s main goal is to allow HTML to dominate the flow of view development while allowing code to fit in seamlessly. Using the Amazon Web Service SDK for .NET Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Mar/Apr Release Date: Friday, February 12, 2010 Quick ID: 1003071 The richest set of cloud computing services comes from a little e-commerce company known as Amazon.com. Developers can access the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform using numerous tools including the .NET platform.Amazon.com is a major player in the cloud computing space and has numerous services available to developers. In late 2009, Amazon released the AWS SDK for .NET. This article will demonstrate using the AWS SDK to create a custom backup service using the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). A Practical Use of Indexers Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Mar/Apr Release Date: Friday, February 12, 2010 Quick ID: 1003121 Consider this hypothetical: You need to track different ways it is permissible to contact a customer.Or perhaps there are multiple attributes you wish to attach to an entity. Further, perhaps you want to define new attributes that can vary from entity to entity. From a database perspective, this can present a thorny problem. Fortunately, indexers in C# provide an elegant solution to the problem. In this article, I will show you how to use indexers to expand an organization’s data and at the same time, have minimal impact on an organization’s database structure. I will also show you how to incorporate this technique with NHibernate and how to verify your results with the MBUnit and TestDriven.net unit testing frameworks. Developing Database Agnostic Applications with Entity Framework Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Mar/Apr Release Date: Friday, February 12, 2010 Quick ID: 1003101 Microsoft released Entity Framework, an ORM (Object Relational Mapping) tool, in 2008.Entity Framework gives developers the ability to be abstracted from the underlying relational database management system and allows them to talk to a database using familiar LINQ-based syntax. Supercharging ASP.NET MVC with MvcContrib Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Mar/Apr Release Date: Friday, February 12, 2010 Quick ID: 1003111 Hot on the heels of the groundbreaking release of ASP.NET MVC CTP 1 in December of 2007, an open source project called MvcContrib came to life.MvcContrib has enjoyed tens of thousands of downloads since it started in December of 2007. In this article, I will explain MvcContrib; it’s major components, how to use it, and how to get involved in its continued development. Can a Fish Use a Bicycle? Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Jan/Feb Release Date: Friday, December 11, 2009 Quick ID: 1001011 S.O.L.I.D. Software Development, One Step at a Time Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Jan/Feb Release Date: Friday, December 11, 2009 Quick ID: 1001061 Derick outlines how to achieve the benefits of low coupling, high cohesion, and strong encapsulation. He also shows how the five S.O.L.I.D. design principles can get you there.Most professional software developers understand the academic definitions of coupling, cohesion, and encapsulation.However, many developers do not understand how to achieve the benefits of low coupling, high cohesion and strong encapsulation, as outlined in this article. Fortunately, others have created stepping stones that lead to these goals, resulting in software that is easier to read, easier to understand and easier to change. In this article series, I will define three of the primary object-oriented principles and show how to reach them through the five S.O.L.I.D. design principles. Reinventing Error Handling Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Jan/Feb Release Date: Friday, December 11, 2009 Quick ID: 1001081 Ned introduces the most significant advance in error handling since exceptions and he shows you a new way to look at errors.This article introduces the most significant advance in error handling since exceptions.You get improved tools for today and a glimpse of radical possibilities for tomorrow. You get a framework which supports more expressive error handlers and gives them equal access to error context information. You get a roadmap for adding improved error handling capabilities, including class-level error handlers and the ability to fix errors at run time. Above all, you get a new way to look at errors. Introducing Advanced Code Contracts with the Entity Framework and Pex Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2010 Jan/Feb Release Date: Friday, December 11, 2009 Quick ID: 1001101 Martin introduces Design by Contract and Code Contracts, and gives you a sneak preview of Pex—Microsoft’s new test-suite generator. Along the way, he will show you how to add contracts to ADO.NET entities and some interesting coding strategies, good practices, and pitfalls you may encounter while making a deal with your code.With Code Contracts, Microsoft delivers its own flavor of Design by Contract for the .NET Framework. But wait, what is this thing sometimes called Contract-First Development? How will it change the way you develop software and write your unit tests? And first and foremost, how do you use Code Contracts efficiently?In this article, I will introduce Design by Contract and Code Contracts, as well as give you a sneak preview of Pex-Microsoft’s new test-suite generator. Along the way, I will show you how to add contracts to ADO.NET entities and some interesting coding strategies, good practices, and pitfalls you may encounter while making a deal with your code. ASP.NET MVC 2 in Action Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2009 Nov/Dec Release Date: Friday, October 23, 2009 Quick ID: 0911081 Hot on the heels of the groundbreaking release of ASP.NET MVC 1.0, the ASP.NET MVC team at Microsoft has already released the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of version 2.I have already predicted that Microsoft’s MVC Framework will become the new way to develop Web applications on top of ASP.NET. In this article, I will give a first look at the plans for version 2 and some of the features that already work in the first CTP. What’s New in Visual C# 4.0? Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2009 Nov/Dec Release Date: Friday, October 23, 2009 Quick ID: 0911071 Visual C# version 4.0 offers new features that make it easier for you to work in dynamic programming scenarios.Besides dynamic programming, you have support for optional and named parameters, better COM interop support, and contra-variance and covariance. This article will show you how each of these features work and provide suggestions of how they can be applied to help you be more productive. Silverlight 3: The Highlights Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2009 Nov/Dec Release Date: Friday, October 23, 2009 Quick ID: 0911091 From its earliest beginnings, Silverlight has tried to excite and inspire.Now that Silverlight 3 has shipped, it is time to determine if this is the magical version that every developer should finally take a look at. In this article, I will show you the changes Microsoft has made in hopes of helping you make that decision for your own organization. Post Mortem: Tower48 Software Escrow Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2009 Sep/Oct Release Date: Friday, August 21, 2009 Quick ID: 0909041 Getting Back to Basics Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2009 Sep/Oct Release Date: Sunday, August 16, 2009 Quick ID: 0909021 Our industry is constantly changing. So much so, that it is difficult to keep up sometimes. Essential LINQ Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 Quick ID: 090083 LINQ is one of Microsoft’s most exciting, powerful new development technologies. Essential LINQ is the first LINQ book written by leading members of Microsoft’s LINQ and C# teams. Writing for architects, developers, and development managers, these Microsoft insiders share their intimate understanding of LINQ, revealing new patterns and best practices for getting the most out of it. The C# Programming Language - Chapter 7 Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Sunday, May 24, 2009 Quick ID: 090063 More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C# - Chapter 5 - Working with LINQ Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Monday, May 11, 2009 Quick ID: 090043 The driving force behind the language enhancements to C# 3.0 was LINQ. The new features and the implementation of those features were driven by the need to support deferred queries, translate queries into SQL to support LINQ to SQL, and add a unifying syntax to the various data stores. Chapter 4 shows you how the new language features can be used for many development idioms in addition to data query. This chapter concentrates on using those new features for querying data, regardless of source. ThoughtWorking: Functional Programming in C# 2.0 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2009 May/Jun Release Date: Monday, April 27, 2009 Quick ID: 0906101 Writing software is hard, particularly when the tools you use force you to think at too low a level; it’s time to start thinking about changing the way you write code… by making it easier to write code.Taking on new ways to program doesn’t always mean tossing away your favorite programming language or environment. Sometimes it just means taking a new look at how you’re using your language and trying out a few new ideas. It’s time to take a hard look at your favorite language and see if it’s possible to “fall in love all over again”. CHAPTER 1 - Introducing the .NET Platform Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 Quick ID: 080093 Building Domain Specific Languages in C# Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2009 Jan/Feb Release Date: Friday, December 19, 2008 Quick ID: 0902041 At the JAOO conference in Aarhus, Denmark this year, domain specific languages came up in virtually every conversation. Every keynote mentioned them, a lot of sessions discussed them (including a pre-conference workshop by Martin Fowler and myself), and you could hear “DSL” in most of the hallway conversations. Why this, and why now? An Introduction to jQuery, Part 1 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2009 Jan/Feb Release Date: Friday, December 19, 2008 Quick ID: 0902051 jQuery is a small JavaScript library that makes development of HTML-based client JavaScript drastically easier. With client logic getting ever more complex and browsers still diverging in features and implementation of features, jQuery and other client libraries provide much needed normalization when working with JavaScript and the HTML DOM. The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Miscellaneous C#, SQL, and Business Intelligence Development Tips Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2009 Jan/Feb Release Date: Friday, December 19, 2008 Quick ID: 0902071 No, the title isn’t a misprint-this installment of the Baker’s Dozen will visit both sides of the planet. These days, many .NET user group meetings focus on database and business intelligence topics as well as hardcore .NET content. Over the last several months, I’ve spent roughly half my time modifying my own development framework for WCF. The result is some basic but functional factory classes I’d like to share. The other half of the time, I’ve been looking at different capabilities in the SQL Server 2005 and 2008 Business Intelligence stack, and solving requirements that BI developers often face. So rather than pick one side and make the other side wait two months, I decided to combine the two. Languages Re-Unleashed Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2008 Sep/Oct Release Date: Friday, August 22, 2008 Quick ID: 0809011 Sept/Oct 08 Editorial by Rod Paddock Polyglot Programming: Building Solutions by Composing Languages Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2008 Sep/Oct Release Date: Friday, August 22, 2008 Quick ID: 0809041 Polyglot programming refers to leveraging existing platforms by solving problems via solutions that compose special purpose languages.This concept leverages the multi-language nature of the CLR to create simpler solutions to vexing problems. This article delves into the motivation, benefits, and challenges of writing applications in this style. From Delegate to Lambda Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2008 Sep/Oct Release Date: Friday, August 22, 2008 Quick ID: 0809081 The key to understanding lambda expressions is understanding delegates. Delegates play a tremendously important role in developing applications for the .NET Framework, especially when using C# or Visual Basic. Events, a special application of delegates, are used all over the framework. And the application and possibilities of delegates has only grown over time. C# 2.0 introduced the concept of anonymous methods and C# 3.0 and VB 9 take anonymous methods to the next level with lambda expressions. This article reviews the evolution of delegates and examines possibilities and syntax of delegates and lambdas in .NET 3.5. Getting Started with Windows Mobile Development Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2008 Jul/Aug Release Date: Friday, June 06, 2008 Quick ID: 0807071 In today’s world of fast food, fast cars, and instant gratification, people expect to be in touch at all times.We have become conditioned to staying in touch with businesses, friends, and families. Because of this desire for instant data, we have the Internet, cell phones, Wi-Fi, MP3 players, and DVD players. As the equipment needed to drive this thirst has become smaller and smaller, we find ourselves looking for portable replacements for our bulky desktop computers. Beyond the Reach Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2008 Jul/Aug Release Date: Friday, June 06, 2008 Quick ID: 0807111 July August 2008 .Finalize(): column by Ken Getz. MVP Corner: A Baker’s Dozen of Reflections Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2008 Jul/Aug Release Date: Friday, June 06, 2008 Quick ID: 0807021 July August 2008 MVP Corner by Kevin S. Goff Chapter 38: The Payroll User Interface: Model View Presenter Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Saturday, March 15, 2008 Quick ID: 070203 from Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# As far as the customer is concerned, the Interface is the product.-Jef Raskin WPF Meets the iPhone Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2008 Mar/Apr Release Date: Thursday, February 28, 2008 Quick ID: 0803061 The iPhone is one of the most compelling and exciting user interfaces to appear on any consumer electronic device, with many innovations that make it a pleasure to use. How can you deliver a similar experience with your .NET applications?This article demonstrates how you can implement these features in your .NET applications in a step-by-step format as you recreate the iPhone interface using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) technology with both Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft Expression Blend. Visual Basic and Respect Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2008 Jan/Feb Release Date: Friday, December 28, 2007 Quick ID: 0801111 Ken Getz Jan/Feb 08 FInalize article. C# 3.0 Syntax Additions-Design Guidelines Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2008 Jan/Feb Release Date: Friday, December 28, 2007 Quick ID: 0801061 C# 3.0 includes a few syntactical additions to the language. For the most part, Microsoft added these language additions to support Language Integrated Query (LINQ). These features include (but are not limited to) lambda expressions, extensions methods, anonymous types, implicitly typed local variables, automatic properties, and object initializers. Chapter 11: Generics Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Book Excerpts Release Date: Thursday, November 01, 2007 Quick ID: 070083 Essential C# 2.0 is a clear, concise guide to C#—including the features new to C# 2.0. The book clearly presents material for beginners and experts and provides contrasts and comparisons between C# and other languages. The C# language is covered comprehensively and each important construct is illustrated with succinct code examples. Complete code examples are available online. Mark Michaelis has organized the material for quick access. Graphical “mind maps” at the beginning of each chapter show what material is covered and how each topic relates to the whole. Microsoft XNA: Ready for Prime Time? Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2007 Sep/Oct Release Date: Friday, August 10, 2007 Quick ID: 0709041 Microsoft opened the doors of game development to the .NET developer community in December 2006 with the first release of XNA Game Studio Express.No longer constrained to enterprise systems, database-driven applications or Web service layers, .NET developers can now spread their digital wings and let their pixelized imagination run wild as their favorite development platform and language now enable them to explore new worlds and new challenges of their own making, all in full high definition (HD) at 60 frames per second! But who is XNA for? Is it a serious enough initiative, platform, and set of tools for professional game developers in the gaming industry? Eager to answer those questions, I (virtually) sat down with a number of professional game designers, studio directors, and developers for a chat in order to find out: Is Microsoft XNA ready for prime time? Introducing XNA Game Studio Express Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2007 Sep/Oct Release Date: Friday, August 10, 2007 Quick ID: 0709051 What does XNA stand for? It’s a recursive acronym that stands for “XNA’s Not Acronymed”. Aren’t developers fun? The Baker’s Dozen: A 13-Step Crash Course for Using LINQ Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2007 - Jul/Aug Release Date: Friday, June 29, 2007 Quick ID: 0707051 How many software tasks DON’T involve reading through data? Answer: very few. Developers work all the time with database data, XML data, DataSets, collections, lists, and arrays-all with different syntax and functionality for each one. Developers who write T-SQL code often covet set-based language statements when they work against other types of data. Additionally, developers who have coded against strongly-typed custom collections wish they could write SQL database queries with IntelliSense. Language Integrated Query (LINQ), a set of extensions to the .NET Framework for the next version of Visual Studio codename “Orcas”, brings the promise of integrated and uniform query capabilities to increase developer productivity when working with different types of data. While LINQ is a large topic worthy of books, this edition of The Baker’s Dozen will provide a crash course to learn what’s under the LINQ hood. Create a Custom DataGridView Column Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2007 - Jul/Aug Release Date: Friday, June 29, 2007 Quick ID: 0707061 Creating custom column types for the DataGridView control isn’t nearly as tricky as it once was.In this article, you’ll learn how to take advantage of inheritance to create your own bar graph column in a grid cell. The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Steps for Building a Lookup Page Using ASP.NET 2.0, SQL 2005, and C# 2.0 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2007 - Mar/Apr Release Date: Friday, March 02, 2007 Quick ID: 0703041 Lookup and navigation screens initially seem like no-brainers, when compared to other parts of an application-yet by the time a developer has met all the user requirements and requests, he/she has expended much more time than expected. This issue of The Baker’s Dozen will build a lookup Web page using ASP.NET 2.0, SQL Server 2005, and C# 2.0. The lookup and results page will contain optional lookup criteria and custom paging of the result set. The solution will utilize new language features in SQL 2005 for providing ranking numbers to correlate with custom paging, and new capabilities in .NET generics to pump the results of a stored procedure into a custom collection. Just like Mr. Mayagi taught Daniel the martial arts by doing exercises, the example in this article will demonstrate some common design patterns, such as factory creation patterns, using .NET generics. The article also subtly presents a general methodology for building database Web pages. Everyday Use of Generics Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2007 - Mar/Apr Release Date: Friday, March 02, 2007 Quick ID: 0703061 You may think of generics as a Ferrari that you only take out for special occasions; but they are better compared to your trusty pickup, perfectly suited for everyday use. The Missing LINQ Magazine/Issue: CoDe Focus Magazine, 2007 - Vol. 4 - Issue 1 - Sedna: Beyond Visual FoxPro 9 Release Date: Monday, January 29, 2007 Quick ID: 0703032 Visual FoxPro’s (VFP) Data Manipulation Language (DML) is one of VFP’s most compelling features. It is also the most obvious feature VFP developers miss in .NET languages such as C# and Visual Basic. However, Language Integrated Query (LINQ), a new query language for .NET developers is a new feature in the upcoming releases of C# 3.and Visual Basic 9.0 that addresses these shortcomings. The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Productivity Tips for Generating PowerPoint Presentations Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2006 - Nov/Dec Release Date: Friday, October 20, 2006 Quick ID: 0611071 This installment of “The Baker’s Dozen” finds the Baker expanding from pastries to eye candy: generating PowerPoint output. Many power users build presentations using data from Excel or other data sources. This article shows how to automate Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 from within a Visual Studio 2005 application. The article presents a class called GenPPT, which creates several different types of slides, including slides that integrate tables and charts. GenPPT is written in Visual Basic 2005, and the demo program that calls it is written in C#: this demonstrates using multiple .NET languages in a solution. LINQ Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2006 - Mar/Apr Release Date: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 Quick ID: 0603021 At PDC 2005, Microsoft introduced brand new technology known as LINQ, which stands for “Language Integrated Query.”The feature-set hiding behind this acronym is truly mind-boggling and worthy of a lot of attention. In short, LINQ introduces a query language similar to SQL Server’s T-SQL, in C# and VB.NET. Imagine that you could issue something like a “select * from customers” statement within C# or VB.NET. This sounds somewhat intriguing, but it doesn’t begin to communicate the power of LINQ. LINQ Up! Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Publisher's Point Release Date: Monday, December 19, 2005 Quick ID: 050133 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. C-Sharpest Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Publisher's Point Release Date: Sunday, December 04, 2005 Quick ID: 050123 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. LINQx Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2005 - Nov/Dec Release Date: Friday, October 28, 2005 Quick ID: 0511121 Microsoft demonstrated a new technology at PDC called LINQ (Language Integrated Query). The following note from Alan Griver, a member of the LINQ team at Microsoft, offers some details related to the LINQ project. In future issues of CoDe Magazine we will have more details on LINQ.Microsoft demonstrated a new technology at PDC called LINQ (Language Integrated Query). The following note from Alan Griver, a member of the LINQ team at Microsoft, offers some details related to the LINQ project. In future issues of CoDe Magazine we will have more details on LINQ. .Finalize(): Seek and Ye Shall Find: AutoComplete in Windows Forms 2.0 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2005 - Sep/Oct Release Date: Thursday, August 25, 2005 Quick ID: 0509111 Finalize Column Sept/Oct 2005 Ken Getz Ask the Doc Detective Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2005 - Jul/Aug Release Date: Monday, June 20, 2005 Quick ID: 0507101 Doc Detective - July/August 05 Pest Control Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Publisher's Point Release Date: Monday, February 07, 2005 Quick ID: 050033 Brian Kernighan [1] once said, "Debugging is twice as hard as writing code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." This quote gets a little giggle out of most developers, but on the serious side, there is a lot of truth in it. Writing code that does cool or useful things certainly is much easier than writing code that does cool or useful things reliably. Great Reasons to Ring In 2005! Magazine/Issue: Online CoDe Magazine, Publisher's Point Release Date: Thursday, January 06, 2005 Quick ID: 050013 Wow, another year has gone by, and as you read this, you are probably returning to the office after a few more or less relaxing holiday time spent with friends and family and a New Year's celebration. Interesting things have happened in our industry in the last 12 months, but I predict that the next 12 months will be quite a bit more interesting! Seldom before have I been as excited about new technologies and developments as I am now. Sorting Objectively Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2005 - Jan/Feb Release Date: Friday, December 24, 2004 Quick ID: 0501021 Jonathan Goodyear (the Angry Coder) January/Febuary 2005 Sorting Custom Collections Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2005 - Jan/Feb Release Date: Monday, December 20, 2004 Quick ID: 0501051 Have you ever wanted to use a strongly-typed collection to bind your data presentation controls to, only to find that you have very limited sorting capabilities, if any at all?If you are trying to stick to good object-oriented design and shrink the amount of data that you keep in memory, transfer from your data source, or serialize to clients, you likely have run into this situation because you are using strongly-typed collections of your domain objects. So what do you do if you need to sort those collections for presentation or faster searching? 'For-Each' Of My Own Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - September/October Release Date: Friday, August 20, 2004 Quick ID: 0409091 The .NET Framework provides many new collection classes that you can iterate (for-each) through.But did you know that you can also iterate through values in any of your classes, not just those that use or inherit from collections? Building a Better Configuration Settings Class Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - July/August Release Date: Sunday, June 20, 2004 Quick ID: 0407081 Configuration settings make it possible for users and administrators to configure an application before it is run for the first time and while it runs..NET provides a good rudimentary mechanism for storing and retrieving configuration settings in the application's .config file with the ConfigurationSettings class, but this mechanism is missing a number of essential features. This article describes how to improve on the base functionality using a class that provides strong typing, allows for writing of keys, and provides optional encryption of keys. Overload Operators to Operate on Your Objects Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - July/August Release Date: Sunday, June 20, 2004 Quick ID: 0407041 Operator overloading provides an intuitive way to support mathematical and comparative operations on your objects.Operator overloading is one of those features that you don't need very often, but when you need it, operator overloading is very nice to have. You will find operator overloading in C# now, but you won't find it in Visual Basic until the upcoming Visual Studio 2005 release. Async-Up Your Objects Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - May/June Release Date: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 Quick ID: 0405051 Encapsulate asynchronous functionality directly into your business objects.The .NET Framework facilitates calling object methods asynchronously through the use of delegates. You may already know how to do this using helper code, but there is a cleaner and much cooler way of packaging this kind of functionality right inside your business objects. Behold WSE 2.0: Removing Another Layer of WS-Pain Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - May/June Release Date: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 Quick ID: 0405061 The official release of Microsoft's Web Services Enhancements (WSE) toolkit promises to help developers deal with at least some of the pain and suffering accompanying the emerging Web services' standards.Updated to support the OASIS WS-Security specification and a promising WS-Policy specification, developers will be able to build standards-compliant Web services in less time and with less code. Use Generics to Create an Audit Trail Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - May/June Release Date: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 Quick ID: 0405041 Building an audit trail into your application provides a mechanism for tracking who updated what when, and the new generics feature in Whidbey helps you build that trail.The Whidbey release of .NET will include a new Common Language Runtime (CLR) feature called generics. Generics allow you to use a variable to represent a desired data type, and thereby create very generic code (hence the name) that works with any data type.You define the data type for the generic variable at run time and the CLR substitutes that data type for the variable everywhere in the code that it is used; basically providing you with strongly typed generic code. Asynchronous Windows Forms Programming Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - March/April Release Date: Friday, February 20, 2004 Quick ID: 0403071 Windows Forms applications often require some sort of asynchronous invocation option.You rarely want to block the user interface while a lengthy operation executes in the background. Windows Forms pose a set of complicated design and implementation issues when it comes to asynchronous method invocation and multithreading due to the underlying Windows messages processing. Although .NET does provide a uniform asynchronous invocation mechanism (described in my article, "Asynchronous .NET Programming", CoDe Magazine, May 2003) you cannot apply it as-is in a Windows Forms application. To address this problem, the next version of .NET (version 2.0, code-name Whidbey) provides a new component designed to ease the task of developing asynchronous Windows Forms applications. This article starts by describing the current asynchronous programming model available to Windows Forms developers. Then, not only does this article describe the Whidbey solution, it also provides a .NET 1.1 implementation of the solution so that you can take advantage of this superior programming model today and ease the transition into Windows Forms 2.0 in the future. Integrating the Google Web Service Into ASP.NET Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - March/April Release Date: Friday, February 20, 2004 Quick ID: 0403091 Google now offers the functionality of its search engine through a Web service.Over the past couple years, Google has become the most popular search engine used on the Web. Building upon its popularity, Google has developed additional search accessories and interfaces for both personal and commercial use. The most powerful interface offered by Google is exposure of its database and search capabilities through the use of a Web service. Give Your Forms a Base Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - March/April Release Date: Friday, February 20, 2004 Quick ID: 0403031 Create a base form class to ensure that all of the forms in your application behave consistently. This technique minimizes the amount of repetitive code you need to write to manage the user's interaction with your forms. An Introduction to Visual Studio .NET Whidbey Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - January/February Release Date: Monday, January 05, 2004 Quick ID: 0303022 When I was asked to write a few pages on what's coming in the next version of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET (code named Whidbey), the biggest issue I had was how to limit this article to a few pages.I opted to list a few categories and drill down into each. I'm not going to cover everything, just some key items in each area. Please note that not all of these changes are implemented in the PDC build that attendees are receiving, and that some of these features are still in the planning stages. That said, here are the categories that I'd like to discuss: Creating Skinned Controls for ASP.NET Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - January/February Release Date: Monday, January 05, 2004 Quick ID: 0401051 Skinned controls make a user interface very flexible.With skinned controls, the functionality and the presentation of a server control are effectively separated, making it very easy to change the presentation of the control. If used properly, you can use skinned controls to change the look of an entire Web site by just selecting a separate set of skins. C# 2.0 Code Refactoring Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - January/February Release Date: Monday, January 05, 2004 Quick ID: 0401071 The next version of C# will feature a code refactoring engine built into the Visual Studio environment.A term coined by Martin Fowler, code refactoring allows you to change the code structure without changing or affecting what the code itself actually does. For example, changing a variable name or packaging a few lines of code into a method are code refactoring. The main difference between C# 2.0 refactoring and a mere edit or find-and-replace is that you can harness the intelligence of the compiler to distinguish between code and comments, and so on. This article provides a preview of Visual C# 2.0 code refactoring, to be released with the next version of Visual Studio .NET, code-name Whidbey. Three Cool New Features in C# Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2004 - January/February Release Date: Thursday, January 01, 2004 Quick ID: 0303072 C# has always had a reputation as a clean language with lots of innovation.The Whidbey-release of Visual Studio .NET ships with a new version of the C# compiler that has a number of great new features. Some of them will be implemented as generic runtime features that will show up in other languages as well, and some are truly C#-specific. All of them originated in the C# camp. In this article, I will shed some light on my three favorite new features. Creating Tablet PC Applications with VS .NET Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - September/October Release Date: Monday, September 01, 2003 Quick ID: 0309041 In the Fall of 2002, Microsoft introduced Tablet PCs based on the popular Windows XP operating system.By default, this new platform includes applications with special Tablet PC features enabled, such as Ink Input and Pen-based operation. In order for this platform to become truly popular, third-party vendors will also have to ink-enable their applications. Luckily, this is a pretty straightforward task. Working with .NET Threads Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - September/October Release Date: Friday, August 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0309071 The .NET class Thread defined in the System.Threading namespace represents a managed thread.The Thread class provides various methods and properties to control the managed thread. Unfortunately, there is a significant potential for abusing these mechanisms, and most developers may not even realize they are doing anything wrong. This article describes the dos and don'ts of the Thread class, and then presents a wrapper class that simplifies starting a thread, correctly terminates a thread, and offers a more consistent class interface than that of the raw Thread class. Creating ASP.NET Custom Controls with Style Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - September/October Release Date: Friday, August 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0309091 Having a custom control display properly is a challenge in itself.Getting your custom control to behave the way you want it to is only half the work. Once you get to the visual side of things you have to create the logic that generates the actual HTML shown in the browser. If you want the control to display properly, this can be a tedious task, especially if you want it to render properly in different browsers. Five ASP.NET Controls You Might Be Craving Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - September/October Release Date: Friday, August 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0309051 ASP.NET is a terrific platform for Web applications.That does not mean that tricky coding is always one or two clicks away within a dockable and resizable Visual Studio .NET dialog box. Tricky solutions require tricky coding, just the kind of features that a wizard-driven environment and a general-purpose framework can't provide. In this article, we'll tackle five ASP.NET features that require wicked and creative code. Cryptography the .NET Way Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - July/August Release Date: Sunday, June 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0307051 In real-world applications you just can't do without encryption.The problem with cryptography, though, is that sometimes it may make you use an overly complex API. The .NET Framework classes for cryptography don't require you to become an expert mathematician or a cryptography guru. In the .NET Framework you'll find symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic providers as well as hash providers. Some of these provider classes end up calling into the unmanaged CryptoAPI library while other parts of the .NET cryptography solution are purely managed code. Defining and Using Custom Attribute Classes in C# Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - July/August Release Date: Sunday, June 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0307041 The complex, component-style development that businesses expect out of modern software developers requires greater design flexibility than the design methodologies of the past. Microsoft's .NET Framework makes extensive use of attributes to provide added functionality through what is known as "declarative" programming. Attributes enhance flexibility in software systems because they promote loose coupling of functionality. Because you can create your own custom attribute classes and then act upon them, you can leverage the loose coupling power of attributes for your own purposes. .NET Web Services Security Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - July/August Release Date: Sunday, June 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0307071 Web services are all about connecting businesses in a standard and secure manner.For a real-life Web service, security is intrinsic to every facet of operation and no party would ever agree to interact with a non-secure Web service. Unfortunately, Web services security is still in its infancy; standards such as WS-I are just emerging and there is no built-in support in the development tools for them. That being said, there are quite a few programming techniques you can use today in .NET 1.1 to secure your Web services, and do so in a way that will ease the transition to future standards and protocols. The Basics of GDI+ Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - May/June Release Date: Thursday, May 01, 2003 Quick ID: 0305031 In graphical user interfaces such as Microsoft Windows, drawing on the screen is an important task.Everything displayed on the screen is based on simple drawing operations. Often, environments such as Visual Basic abstract those drawing operations away from the developer. However, the same drawing operations still take place under the hood. In Visual Studio .NET, developers have easy access to that drawing functionality whenever they need it through a technology called GDI+. Using GDI+, developers can easily perform drawing operations such as generating graphs or building custom controls. Using GDI+ in ASP.NET Web Applications, Part 1 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - May/June Release Date: Thursday, May 01, 2003 Quick ID: 03050801 GDI+ is a technology that developers generally associate with Windows Forms applications because they use it to draw anything on the screen from custom controls to diagrams.However, you can also use GDI+ in ASP.NET Web applications whenever you want to serve up dynamic images. You can use GDI+ to create dynamic banners, photo albums, graphs, diagrams, and more. The .NET File System Object Model Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - May/June Release Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0305051 The .NET Framework doesn't change the structure of the file system, nor does it build a new layer on top of it.More simply, but also more effectively for developers, it supplies a new object model for file system-related operations. A managed application can work with files and directories using high-level methods rather than low level understanding of the file system. This article provides an overview of methods and classes contained in the System.IO namespace. Dynamically Adding Wired Controls to Web Forms Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - May/June Release Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0305101 The task of creating dynamic ASP.NET Web Forms whose behavior is based upon user interaction and depends upon the purpose and intended goal of the Web Form.Web Forms that require only controls and functionality provided by the built-in ASP.NET Web server controls are easy to create. But creating Web Forms that require or are designed with extended controls and functionality can be a challenge. GDI+ Drawing Page, Part 1 Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - May/June Release Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0305061 There was a time, not too long ago, when browser-based user interfaces were considered both the status quo and the Next Great Thing.The demand for Windows Forms-based applications started to dwindle as the developer community fully embraced browser/server applications with their centralized server components and ubiquitous user interfaces. .NET, however, brings a much more powerful library of distributed communication technologies (such as Web services and remoting). As a result, .NET developers are seeing some of these traditionally browser-based applications becoming, more simply, Web-enabled and less tied to a browser. In short, developers can now see a very real business case for building distributed applications on Windows Forms technology. XQuery, the Query Language of the Future Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - May/June Release Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0305091 XQuery will likely become the dominant language for querying data from most data sources.Although designed for querying XML data, you can use XQuery to tie together data from multiple data sources. In that respect it is much more powerful than SQL, which will slowly but surely be replaced as the main query language. Asynchronous Calls in .NET Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - May/June Release Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0305071 When you make a method call on an object, typically you must block the client while the object executes the call, and control returns to the client only when the method completes execution and returns.However, there are quite a few cases where you want to call methods asynchronously?that is, you want control to return immediately to the client while the object executes the called method in the background, and then somehow let the client know when the method execution is completed. Such an execution mode is called asynchronous method invocation and the action is an asynchronous call. Asynchronous calls allow you to improve availability, increase throughput and performance, and make your applications more scalable. What's New in Visual Studio .NET 1.1? Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - March/April Release Date: Saturday, March 01, 2003 Quick ID: 0303121 Visual Studio .NET provides a new set of features designed to improve and enhance the development experience. Most of these changes have to do with user ergonomics and are typical of a minor release of a Visual Studio product. Only a few of the changes are related to the underlying platform. This article assumes you are familiar with Visual Studio .NET 1.0 and it presents only the new features of the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) of Visual Studio .NET 1.1, for both C# and Visual Basic .NET. J# is not discussed because it was not part of Visual Studio .NET 1.0. In the interest of space, some minor cosmetic changes (such as reorganization of the Start page) are not listed. A Not-So-Quick Tour of the Web DataGrid Control Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - March/April Release Date: Saturday, March 01, 2003 Quick ID: 0303091 Data-bound controls play a key role in the development of ASP.NET applications. Data-driven controls allow you to associate their whole interface, or individual properties, with one or more columns of a .NET-compliant data source. In this article, I'll delve into the depths of an extremely versatile data-bound control that is a fixed resence in any real-world ASP.NET application - the DataGrid control. I'll focus on the key programming aspects of the control, including data binding, column mapping, paging, and sorting. Getting Started with ASP.NET Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - March/April Release Date: Saturday, March 01, 2003 Quick ID: 0303081 ASP.NET represents a significant leap forward from traditional Active Server Pages (ASP) development. In this article, I'll show you what it takes to begin building ASP.NET Websites with Visual Studio .NET. This article will provide you with the knowledge you need to jumpstart your foray into the world of ASP.NET development. Using the ASP.NET Runtime to Extend Desktop Applications with HTML Scripts Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - March/April Release Date: Saturday, February 15, 2003 Quick ID: 0303131 People often think of HTML as the sole domain for Web applications.But HTML's versatile display attributes are also very useful for handling data display of all sorts in desktop applications. The Visual Studio .NET start page is a good example. Coupled with a scripting/template mechanism you can build highly extendable applications that would be very difficult to build using standard Windows controls. In this article, Rick introduces how to host the ASP.NET runtime in desktop applications and utilize this technology in a completely client-side application using the Web Browser control. Shaped .NET Windows Forms Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2003 - Jan/Feb Release Date: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 Quick ID: 0301061 Since the earliest versions of the Windows operating system, all Windows have been rectangular.However, the number of applications that break out of this boring mold is rising. Even Microsoft, the king of rectangularity, is starting to create applications that use shaped windows, such as Media Player. Unfortunately, creating shaped forms has always been quite tricky. Until now that is! The .NET Framework and the Windows Forms package in particular make it easy to produce forms that have rather sophisticated shapes. Threading Support in the .NET Framework Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2002 - Nov/Dec Release Date: Friday, November 01, 2002 Quick ID: 0211141 This article explains in depth how to implement multi-threading in your .NET applications. Dynamically Executing Code in .NET Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2002 - Nov/Dec Release Date: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 Quick ID: 0211081 This article demonstrates the techniques for compiling dynamic code in your .NET applications. C#: Why Do We Need Another Language? Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2002 - Sept/Oct Release Date: Thursday, August 15, 2002 Quick ID: 0209041 New computer languages are rare and successful ones are rarer still, yet Microsoft decided to create a new language to go along with the .NET Developer Platform. Why weren't existing languages good enough? Ask the Doc Detective Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2002 - Sept/Oct Release Date: Thursday, August 15, 2002 Quick ID: 0209101 Tips and Tricks from the Doc Detective .NET Interface-based Programming Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2002 - May/June Release Date: Monday, April 15, 2002 Quick ID: 0205091 In component-based programming, the basic unit of use in an application is a binary-compatible interface.The interface provides an abstract service definition between the client and the object. This is in contrast to the object-oriented view of the world that places the object implementing the interface at the center. An interface is a logical grouping of method definitions that acts as the contract between the client and the service provider. Each provider is free to provide its own interpretation of the interface and its own implementation. To use a component, the client only needs to know the interface definition and have a binary component that implements that interface. This extra level of indirection between the client and the object provides for interchangeability between different implementations of the same interface, without affecting client code. Retrieving HTTP content in .NET Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2002 - May/June Release Date: Monday, April 15, 2002 Quick ID: 0205081 HTTP content retrieval is an important component for applications these days.Although .NET reduces the need to explicitly retrieve content from the Web through built-in mechanisms in the Web Services framework, ADO.NET and the XML classes, there are still many needs to retrieve Web content directly and manipulate it as text or data downloaded into files. In this article, I will describe the functionality of the HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse classes and provide an easy to use wrapper class. The class simplifies the HTTP access and provides most of the common features in a single interface while still providing full access to the base functionality of the HttpWebRequest class. In the process, I will describe some sticky issues like string encoding and Cookie handling and some related topics like implementing events and running multiple threads to service Web requests. XML to Database using .NET's XmlTextReader Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2002 - Jan/Feb Release Date: Saturday, December 15, 2001 Quick ID: 0201031 As XML becomes more and more prolific in the world of data exchange it's increasingly important that data can be quickly and easily extracted from XML documents and moved into more permanent data stores.Although .NET offers several different ways for performing this task, the XmlTextReader represents the most efficient and scalable solution. Custom .NET Windows Forms Controls Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2002 - Jan/Feb Release Date: Saturday, December 15, 2001 Quick ID: 0201081 The .Net framework provides two base classes for controls; one for Windows forms and the other for ASP.NET server controls.We can extend the existing controls by adding specific functionality to them or develop our own controls from scratch. Such controls are called custom controls. We can also group controls together and create another control, such as an address box, that contains couple of textboxes and labels. Controls that are grouped together and are based on System.Winforms.UserControl are called user controls. This article explains the process of creating a user control and demonstrates how we can extend the functionality of the framework's DateTimePicker control. Building Data Access Components in C# Magazine/Issue: CoDe Magazine, 2001 - Issue 1 Release Date: Monday, January 15, 2001 Quick ID: 0101021 With the functionality provided by the .NET runtime, building data access components with C# (pronounced "c-sharp") is not difficult.In this article, we discuss how to access data stored in a SQL Server database. We will then review the steps necessary to build a Dynamic Link Library and an Executable file in C# to query a table and display the results.