DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by sdorman

Nullable DateTime and Ternary Operator in C#

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 03:11:31 GMT

Just Recently when i was working on a solution to assign Null values to the Datetime , i was struck up for some time in doing this though the solution was simple . I had to cast to the right type ( Nullable of Datetime ) . The stuff that i was doing was assigning a value null directly to the variable when used with the Ternary or coascalence operator . This post talks about the diffe...

ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM Released!

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 03:12:31 GMT

ASP.NET MVC 3 is a framework for developing highly testable and maintainable Web applications by leveraging the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. The framework encourages developers to maintain a clear separation of concerns among the responsibilities of the application - the UI logic using the view, user-input handling using the controller, and the domain logic using the model. ASP.NET MVC applications are easily testable using techniques such as test-driven development (TDD). The installation package includes templates and tools for Visual Studio 2010 to increase productivity when writing ASP.NET MVC applications. For example, the Add View dialog box takes advantage of customizable code generation (T4) templates to generate a view based on a model object. The default project template allows the developer to automatically hook up a unit-test project that is associated with the ASP.NET MVC application. Because the ASP.NET MVC framework is built on ASP.NET 4, developers can take advantage of existing ASP.NET features like authentication and authorization, profile settings, localization, and so on.

Hosting the Razor Engine for Templating in Non-Web Applications

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 03:18:07 GMT

In this article I describe a set of classes that provide a wrapper around the Razor View Engine so you can use it easily in your own applications to provide templating functionality.

Monadic Parser Combinators using C# 3.0 - LukeH's WebLog - Site Home -

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 02:00:32 GMT

Parser combinators are an idea that I enjoy every time I go back and look at again. They are an approach to building parsers by composing very simple atomic parsers into bigger and bigger units which can ultimately express real world grammars. This idea has been particularly popular in functional languages where the parsers can naturally be thought of as functions from input strings to parse trees, and composition of parsers is just function composition. This approach often leads to a simple syntax which makes the resulting parsers pleasantly declarative in that internal-DSL kind of way.

Create Custom Speech Bubbles in Silverlight.

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:05:32 GMT

I had a reader email me the following question: "How do you create Speech Bubbles in Silverlight/WPF without adding any extra .dlls? Right off the bat, I know at least two ways to create the speech bubbles that look just like the ones in comic books. Using the Callout Shapes included with Blend 4. Using the free 3rd party control named FreeBubbles (I used this before Blend 4). Unfortunately, we cannot use either of these as they will both add extra .dll's to the project.

Why software development is fun?

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 04:11:33 GMT

Why software development is fun, programming and engineering.

Microsoft Visual Studio - From Past to Present

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:15:38 GMT

Recently I've been working at a client site where they are using Visual Studio 2005 for their main project. I've gotta say that I was a bit surprised since I haven't come across VS2005 for a few years. I immediately became nostalgic and decided to share. So I'm proud to present, Visual Studio - from past to present!

Debugging with Async in C# 5.0

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 20:50:31 GMT

There is very small support for Debugging with Async. Lets explain a few facts on this note.

Back to Basics - Null-Coalescing Operator

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:58:49 GMT

Yesterday during an EF4 course that I'm giving at a customer I showed an example for a property that is set using the null-coalescing operator. Since some of the students asked me what is this operator, I gave a small explanation and thought that it's something that I can share here in the blog. So here it goes...

Top 6 Coding Standards & Guideline Documents For C#/.NET Developers

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:30:44 GMT

Some time back, I collated a list of 7 Must Read, Free EBooks for .NET Developers, and a lot of people found it useful. So, I thought about putting together my "Top 6" list of Coding Standard guidelines/checklists for .NET /C# developers as well...They are useful not just from a review perspective - going through these documents can definitely help you and me to iron out few hidden glitches we might have in the programming portion of our brain. So, here we go, the listing is not in any specific order.

Windows Ribbon for WinForms v2.6 Released - Arik Poznanski's Blog

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:58:41 GMT

Windows Ribbon for WinForms v2.6 Released The Windows Ribbon for WinForms is a ribbon control designed to be used with WinForms applications. Yea, I know, WinForms is so last year, but it turns out people still use it and keep asking for features and bug fixes.. Anyway, it is a managed wrapper around Windows Ribbon Framework, provided by Microsoft in Windows 7 and Vista. More details on this project can be found in the project site: windowsribbon.codeplex.com .So, what's new?Simplified use for ...

The Big View Engine Comparison - Razor vs. Spark vs. NHaml vs. WebForm

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:57:31 GMT

One of the cool things about ASP.NET MVC (and other MVC web frameworks) is its capability to change the default view engine with a Microsoft or a 3rd-party one. In this post I'm going through the basic operations we do with our views and show you how to get them done with the default web forms view engine, Razor, Spark and NHaml.

Dotnetkicks Homepage Updates

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 04:19:13 GMT

Almost a year ago, DotNetKicks underwent some considerable changes including a new overall look to the site. Today, we again launched several new features.

Moderators at Dotnetkicks

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 01:34:32 GMT

DotNetKicks is a community based news site which uses moderators, who are regular members which have some additional capabilities) to prevent SPAM stories from accumulating.

C# Asynchrony - async/await - A simple & quick intro

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:58:14 GMT

This post is a quick and simple introduction towards using the async and await keywords. Let us try some simple 'working' code first, then we'll discuss the concepts involved. Consider the following code, where we start a hotel and call our Cook/Chefs to start cooking various dishes. Each cook will take a random time to cook his dish. See the implementation below...

Microsoft and jQuery

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:58:14 GMT

Microsoft & jQuery

Silverlight is not dead and not undead either

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:58:14 GMT

No, it's alive and kicking. You might have heard about the rumors that came up after the PDC conference and Bob Muglia's interview with Mary Jo Foley. Many people flooded Twitter and other sites with speculations that Silverlight is dead for the web. Microsoft's President of the Server and Tools Division Bob Muglia just clarified the situation. "Make no mistake; we'll continue to invest in Silverlight and enable developers to build great apps and experiences with it in the future."

Lucene.Net needs your help (or it will die)

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:00:52 GMT

The Apache Foundation wants to kill Lucene.net. If you use it please chime in and help. This post explains a bit more in detail why this is happening

Turn your Razor helpers into reusable libraries

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:19:48 GMT

David Ebbo looks at wrapping up helpers using the Razor View Engine into libraries which you can share amongst your projects, using the Razor Single File Generator Visual Studio Extension, and a little T4

StyleCop Compliant Visual Studio 2010 Code Snippets & Templates

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:06:32 GMT

Doug Holland highlights the October 2010 release of the Visual Studio Snippets library which is a library of snippets and template which conform to StyleCop rules, meaning that the use of them will not trigger warnings in StyleCop (unlike the default VS ones)

wcf.codeplex.com is now live

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:45:52 GMT

The WCF Team have been busy building a variety of projects which bring better support for HTTP based services, and better support for JavaScript/jQuery based clients. These projects have all been collected together and are being hosted on CodePlex.

Async, Await and the UI problem

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:14:48 GMT

The new async/await asynchronous programming facilities in .NET solve one of its long standing problems - how to write and an elegant application that uses the UI correctly.

C# 5.0 Asynchronous Made Easy

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 20:06:03 GMT

Asynchrony was just introduced in PDC. The post is the formal introduction to the terms await and async

Async, Await and C# vNext

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 13:53:26 GMT

It would be somewhat naïve not to discuss the new stuff we've been told about at the PDC, so I figure it's a good time to discuss the Async CTP, specifically, but also it's another opportunity to speculate on the subject of C# vNext.

Taking Advantage of Pinned Sites with Internet Explorer 9 and Win 7

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 11:15:22 GMT

PDC 2010: Taking Advantage of Pinned Sites with Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7 Following is a summary of the session "Taking Advantage of Pinned Sites with Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7" presented by Israel Hilerio, Program Manager in Internet Explorer Team at Microsoft, in PDC 2010. This talk shows how you can add integration of your site into the Windows 7 taskbar. Pinned Sites Goals for having pinned sites in Internet Explorer 9:Closer relationship between users and their favorite sitesAl...