TAG | .NET
So over the last few days I’ve been screwing around with C# extension methods in Visual C# 2008 Express and I have to say they are fast becoming my favorite addition to the .NET framework. What started me on extensions was the fact that in Perl you can do the following with string manipulation:
I know I’m not the first .net programmer to ask this question and I don’t think I’ll be the last. Why, oh why must we constantly include the runat=”server” attribute in our custom and pre-compiled web control declarations? To me it seems like this is unnecessary bloat that could be re-tooled to save developers more time and reduce headaches caused by forgetting it’s inclusion. (more…)
.NET · Programming · Work
On the way out the door on friday my boss handed me two copies of “CoDe Magazine” for me to look at because they had sent him too many copies. I briefly glanced at the covers and saw some interesting things. The very first thing I noticed was that one issue had, on the cover, an image of the Master Chief from Halo3 with “XNA: Ready for Prime Time?” in a huge, bold font. The other front page bullets for that issue indicated that the issue focused intensely on XNA and game development. The second thing I noticed was that the other issue included a “13-step Crash Course for Using LINQ”.
I tried desperately to hide the drool that had started to form at the corners of my mouth as I said “Sure, I think these might be alright”. So I stuffed them into my backpack like a theif with a fist full of unmarked bills and headed home. I just got done reading both issues and enjoyed their content, albeit one more than the other, so much that I felt compelled to note it here.
I figure I would go over them in order of their publication (one covers July/August, the other September/October).
July / August (vol. 8, issue 4)
Sadly this is the issue that I was least impressed with. Not because it was a “horrible” publication. it just didn’t cover as many topics that interested me as the other issue. In fact it only covered one. Linq. Linq is Microsofts’ latest “wow” feature for .NET 3.5 (codename: “Orcas”) and is quite possibly the coolest god damned thing I have ever seen but since this is just a review of a magazine I’ll save my fanfare for LINQ for another day. The article, for those interested can be found here.
September / October (vol. 8, issue 5)
This issue had a lot to offer that interested me. There was a great write-up featuring productivity tips SQL 2005 which I think every developer should read. Items of note: Pivot, Output Into, CTEs and Recursive Queries. Really, really cool stuff.
The next part was all about Microsofts’ XNA game development framework. There were two great articles covering XNA “XNA: Ready for Prime Time?” and “Introducing XNA Game Studio Express” both worth reading if you have any interest in game design and programming or if you just want to get a really good grasp on why there is so much resistance to managed code frameworks.
There was also a great article covering Lambda Expressions which are another great upcoming feature in .NET 3.5.
In most of our customer-oriented kiosk applications it is necessary to hide the system task bar so that in case of a crash the end user won’t be able to muck around with the computer. Yes, we restrict the user’s account via registry edits but the task is still available to them if the application exits. (more…)
Brian Keller posed a question to the readers of his blog asking what we thought, if there were such a thing, the “that” keyword should do in C#. What a fantastic idea! My suggestion – the that keyword would be used to allow access to inherited classes from the base class. (more…)
