DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by bradygaster

Running your TeamCity builds from PowerShell for any Git branch

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:46:55 GMT

I love TeamCity and use it since a while to automate my build/release processes. As human we should never do the work a machine can do, we have certainly better and more interesting things to do. The habit I saw in the different projects I worked for is to create new TeamCity builds for the branches you work on. It take quite some work to do, even with templates. So I came with another way of doing it. It is leverage Git, PowerShell and the possibility to run TeamCity builds by "Accessing Server by HTTP"

NCrunch, The Incredible TDD Tool!

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:46:55 GMT

A review of the TDD tool 'NCrunch'.

Lucene.net - Ultra-fast search for MVC or Webforms

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:44:03 GMT

Mikhail T. has put together an article showing how you can integrate the Java-based Apache Lucene project with your .Net based MVC or WebForms sites, giving you ultra-fast and slick search capabilities.

Cleaning Up Your Git Repository For NuGet 1.6

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:50:08 GMT

Provides an article detailing how to clean up the packages directory to get your project and repository ready for NuGet 1.6.

Web Testing with MbUnit and WatiN: Testing Asynchronous AJAX calls

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:39:41 GMT

Concluding his look at combining MbUnit and Watin to produce clean web integration tests, Yann Trevin looks at testing asynchronous calls

NetBash - An Alternative to Admin Pages in Asp.Net Web Apps

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:25:35 GMT

NetBash is a drop in (think mvc mini profiler) extendable command line for your web application.

SpecsFor.com Launched, SpecsFor 2.2 Released!

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:25:35 GMT

I'm pleased to announce that SpecsFor.com is now live. I've also shipped a new version of SpecsFor that simplifies the painful task of creating multiple mocks of the same type for injection into IEnumerable parameters.

Best of DNK - November 2011 - What's All the Hubbub, Bub?

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 06:01:58 GMT

We're closing in on the new year; it's hard to believe the next time we put together a best-of it will be 2012! It's been a fantastic year thus far and November was no exception. We've had a lot of fresh blood join the ranks lately, as well as a few familiar faces who've come back for more, hot .Net action! Check out our picks after the jump!

The Fastest Webserver? - Web Performance

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:44:00 GMT

Looking for the snappiest, fastest web server software available on this here internet? So were we. Valid, independent, non-synthetic benchmarks can be difficult to find. Of course, we all know that benchmarks don't tell us everything we need to know about real-world performance; but what's the fun of having choices if we can't pick the best? Exactly. I decided to do a little research project of my own.

Building a Windows Azure App using Azure Queue, Azure Table

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 02:08:34 GMT

Demonstrate a Windows Azure app using Azure Queue, Azure Table and a ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Role application. This post is explaining few initial steps for building a demo Azure app where asynchronous commands (write operations that changes the data) put into Azure Queue and an Azure Work Role will persist the data into Azure Table from Queue messages for the read operations.

Home Security with Kinect, Azure Service Bus, and SignalR

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 10:54:08 GMT

Suppose you had a some scary-looking hoodlum walking around your house when you were out? You'd want to know about it, wouldn't you? Take one Kinect, mix in a little Windows Azure Service Bus, sprinkle in some SignalR, and mix it all together with some elbow grease, and you could watch in near-real-time as sinewy folks romp through your living room. Here's how.

JSON-based WCF in Windows Azure

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 10:10:34 GMT

Developers need to grok Windows Azure, especially developers who want to distribute consumption of an application in a web-based API. A great use for Microsoft Azure, obviously, is to use it to host an application's web service API layer. This post will demonstrate how to host WCF services in an Azure worker role in a manner that will offer REST-like JSON API support.

What is new in .Net framework 4.5?

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:20:34 GMT

The post has all the new features in .Net framework 4.5 in a single poster. What is nice about the poster is that it marks the feature as a significant improvement, a performance improvement, asynchronous improvement wherever applicable. It is definitely nice poster to zoom and print.

Is Continuous Delivery the Key to Software Success?

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:54:30 GMT

Paul Stack discusses the importance of Continuous Delivery, the method of delivering software early and often. This is akin to Continuous Integration, and may be the key to success in selling and shipping your software. Paul also puts to bed the concept that shipping early means sacrificing quality.

I, Interface

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:45:32 GMT

The wonderful things that decorating a trivial interface can produce.

C#/.NET Little Wonders: The Generic Action Delegates

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:45:05 GMT

Back in one of my three original "Little Wonders" Trilogy of posts, I had listed generic delegates as one of the Little Wonders of .NET. Later, someone posted a comment saying said that they would love more detail on the generic delegates and their uses, since my original entry just scratched the surface on them. So over the next few weeks, I'll be looking at some of the handy generic delegates built into .NET. For this week, I'll give a quick overview of delegates and their usefulness. Then I'll launch into a look at the Action generic delegates and how they can be used to support more generic, reusable algorithms and classes.

Embedding RavenDB into an ASP.NET MVC 3 Application

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:40:20 GMT

Learn how to use the embedded version of RavenDB in an ASP.NET MVC 3 web application.

5 Tips and Techniques for Avoiding Automatic Garbage Collections

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:51:31 GMT

We've seen a few articles lately on ensuring that your memory is properly cleaned up during garbage collection, but today Michael McLaughlin comes in with tips to avoid automatic collection of your objects. Generally speaking, this is for performance reasons. Garbage collection in .Net 4 and earlier happens automatically and blocks program execution, which can be disastrous for certain types of applications (games, real-time analysis, etc).

Best of DNK - .Net Articles of October 2011 - Fresh Off the Presses!

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:39:35 GMT

We've been seeing fantastic growth, month after month at DNK. October was no different with great articles and even more participation from the community. We've seen an increase in the number of comments on articles, as well as an increase in authors coming to DNK to join in on the discussion on their work.

C#/.NET Little Wonders: The Complete Collection

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:46:58 GMT

I will be giving my C#/.NET Little Wonders presentation to the St. Louis .NET User Group this week (www.stlnet.org). In preparation, I wanted to repost the index of all the Little Wonders and Little Pitfalls posts and presentations so that they would be readily visible for anyone new to these series. I also linked in my C#/.NET Fundamentals presentation "Of Lambdas and Linq", a short primer for those just starting with LINQ and lambda expressions.

The CQRS Dilemma and Related Random Thoughts

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 04:16:32 GMT

Anoop Madhusudanan writes about CQRS and why he is no longer a skeptic, and answers the question "Do I need CQRS?"

Some Myths of Textbook TDD and Why They Are Wrong

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:31:32 GMT

Thomas Weller brings up some interesting points regarding testing in the real world vs. what you're told TDD should be in your textbooks. A good read for anyone doing TDD, from beginner to expert.

Mocking Frameworks in .NET

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:46:33 GMT

There are several open source tools to apply mocking principles in .NET. Tools like Rhino Mocks and Moq allow us to create mocks and stubs within our test method. These tools have a learning curve, but this video presents techniques that can ease you into these frameworks and help you automated your unit testing process.

Layout adjustments Snapping and OrientationChanges in Metro Applicatio

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:46:30 GMT

Layout is the most important part of any application. The best design for an application gets more credit and love from the users than applications that are designed bad. Metro style applications runs in full screen. Your application does not include a Title Bar, status bar or anything. Microsoft gave us some of the basic layout guidelines that one needs to follow. Lets talk about them here to make you understand how you should layout your application in Metro Applications to utilize maximum flexibility of it.

Better Web Forms with HTML5 Forms

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:32:32 GMT

In addition to text and the handful of existing types we've had for years, HTML5 adds 13 new values for the input type attribute, as well as a host of other attributes that will speed up your forms development. This series of articles take a look at how recent updates to Visual Studio 2010 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 enable HTML5 Forms and ASP.NET Web Forms play well together.