DotNetKicks.com - Stories tagged with software

Get function return and profiling information in .NET using Winbg

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:30:00 GMT

Steps to get function return values and profiling information in .NET using windbg. Steps to debug within a function. This is similar to debugging with VS.NET in production environment.

How to measure quality in your software deliveries

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:41:42 GMT

Are you struggling at work measuring the quality of your software deliveries? Read this blogpost and you'll quickly be able to define what parts of your codebase you should pay the most attention to and whether it needs improvement or not. Got a load of questions about software quality and no answers? They are just one click away....

Software Engineering is Dead?

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:52:22 GMT

It's as if a crushing weight has been lifted from my chest. I can publicly acknowledge what I've slowly, gradually realized over the last 5 to 10 years of my career as a software developer: what we do is craftsmanship, not engineering. And I can say this proudly, unashamedly, with nary a shred of self-doubt.

Avoiding The Database Deployment Nightmare

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:01:25 GMT

So, I have written before about how to put your database into version control using database projects in Visual Studio. Even while having the scripts in the solution, there can be times when you can't exactly remember what you changed and needs to go out with your project deployment to the production database. Deploying files is easy because of tools like WinMerge, however deploying things to a database can get quite complicated. You could script both schemas and use WinMerge to see the differences between the development database and the production database. But even doing that, you will still have to write a custom script to get the production database schema up to date.

Software Engineering and Ethics

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:38:21 GMT

Software is the core for any computer-based system, which affect all aspects of our life. Software development is a complex, expensive, and ethical engineering task which requires qualified SWE professionals. Ethical and professional principles for software engineering professionals were adopted by professional committees such as IEEE and ACM.

Business for geeks: Naming your software company

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:31:03 GMT

A second post in the series about starting a software development tools company covering the process undertaken in picking the name of the company. Covers points to consider when picking a name for your own software brand. This isn't strictly code but might be interesting for entrepreneurial .net geeks out there.

Business for geeks: Naming your software company

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:31:03 GMT

RadPop Free Caller ID and Web Monitor windows application

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:48:01 GMT

RadPop is a free Caller ID monitor for on your windows computer. Apparently no one dug a Web Monitor so I found a more practical use for a very cool pop-up. I have added Caller ID monitoring to the RadPop application. There are plenty of additionally things I can think to add to this application but the really cool thing was I deployed this with one click deploy. So if anyone did install my application once they rerun the application the new revision will be installed automatically.

Prototyping in Software Development - 4

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:21:34 GMT

Who should be involved, how far you should go and when do you have to do Prototyping in a Software Development Project?

Prototyping in Software Development - 3

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:20:54 GMT

Tips and Techniques in User Interface Prototyping during Software Development

Prototyping in Software Development - 2

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:20:17 GMT

Tools and Technologies that can be used in Usability Engineering, prototyping during Software Development

Prototyping in Software Development - 1

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:19:39 GMT

This article addresses the needs of prototyping in Software Development , this will be the first part in the series of articles on Prototyping in Software Development.

Lean Software Development

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:40:16 GMT

Very good article and some good steps on Lean Software Development

Lean Software Development

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:40:16 GMT

Very good article and some good steps on Lean Software Development

Process Implementation and TFS(Team Foundation Server)- Part1

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:28:26 GMT

I am going to focus this post to explore the process implementation capabilities and features of TFS. Let me start by sharing my understanding of a Process and then see how TFS can help me implement it.

WPF performance profiling tools

Thu, 01 May 2008 02:46:10 GMT

The WPF Performance Suite is a set of performance profiling tools that allow you to analyze the runtime behavior of your WPF application.

Explore Silverlight project hierarchy with Silverlight Spy 2

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:31:17 GMT

Silverlight Spy will automatically pick up any Silverlight application embedded in the page and display it in the XAML Explorer

Reality-driven development

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:48:24 GMT

A way to think about software development as evolution directed by users and technical quality.

Richard Feynman, the Challenger, and Software Engineering

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:16:04 GMT

When Richard Feynman investigated the Challenger disaster, he issued a brilliant report with many insights into the nature of engineering. These apply directly to modern software development. Not sure if this one is on topic - it's about general software engineering.

Microsoft Gives Students Technical Software at No Charge

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:28:32 GMT

DreamSpark offers millions of students access to professional-grade software developer and designer tools.

Microsoft DreamSpark - Free software for students!

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:00:26 GMT

Microsoft DreamSpark enables students to download Microsoft developer and design tools at no charge. Now, for the first time, Microsoft is giving its valuable software developer and design tools directly to students worldwide at no charge! Visual Studio 2008 Pro, Expression Studio, Windows Server 2003, XNA GameStudio...

LINQ and Stored Procedures

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:02:46 GMT

Just starting off with LINQ, I've already found a strange behavior. In my SP, I have to select some blank columns, that used to exist in the table. Now, they're only there to stop old apps from crashing: Select '' as inst from footable This made Linq return only a cryptic error message: System.FormatException: String must be exactly one character long. at System.Data.Linq.DBConvert.ChangeType(Object obj, Type type) But when I replaced the '' in the SP with a ' ' (that is, added a blank space) - everything works. So it looks as if Linq is trying to type every column in the result, and if it's empty, it dies. Oh, and if you have a variable named @@foo in your script - I don't know why it was called @@foo, it just was - Linq will not be able to run it! It presumes that all variables are named @foo, which probably is the correct SQL, by the way. But - the error message, again, is not so helpful: The procedure expects the parameter "foo", which was not provided.

Using using

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:02:29 GMT

When writing code that makes use of alot of unmanaged memory resources, all objects should be disposed of before exiting methods and such. The keyword using is often forgotten, and also sometimes seen as messy. example: using (Bitmap bitmap1 = new Bitmap(100, 100)) { Console.WriteLine("Width:{0}, Height:{1}", bitmap1.Width, bitmap1.Height); } should basically be the same as Bitmap bitmap1 = new Bitmap(100, 100) Console.WriteLine("Width:{0}, Height:{1}", bitmap1.Width, bitmap1.Height); bitmap1.Dispose(); shouldn't it? No, not really... The using-clause does a little more than this. Actually, my using-example is equivalent to the following block of code. Bitmap bitmap1 = new Bitmap(100, 100); try { Console.WriteLine("Width:{0}, Height:{1}", bitmap1.Width, Bitmap1.Height); } finally { if (bitmap1 != null) { bitmap1.Dispose(); } } Console.ReadLine(); Imagine writing nested using-clauses, and try writing the expanded code for that :) Using using really cleans up your code, and your memory. So use it! Edit: Oh, as Stian commented. Using should be used for all objects that implements the IDisposable interface. But remember - if you plan on implementing this interface on your own classes, you need to make sure it fully implements all the necessary methods for cleaning up. Otherwise it will all be to waste :)

Session_End and SessionState mode="SQLServer"

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:01:52 GMT

A webapp I'm working on now needs to keep track of the number of logged in users at any time. We used to rely on Session_End for deleting sessions. However, this turned out to work only if the SessionState mode was set to InProc. For other scenarios, Session_End is simply not called. Ever. So we programmed a background service that polls the database now and then, and deletes from our table the rows that don't exist in the AspState-database (AspState obviously keeps track of timed out sessions and removes them from the table). Clean and simple solution.

Online MachineKey Generator

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:01:42 GMT

Found this today, when creating MachineKey for a web farm on ASP.NET: http://www.orcsweb.com/articles/aspnetmachinekey.aspx Will save you some time when creating webapps that run in a web farm environment, and it does work.