General .NET

A Great Metaphor

Bryan Corazza — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:55:00 GMT

I was doing what I typically do in my very small amount of down time I was reading my blog feeds from some of my favorite bloggers. One blog that I read religiously is Brian Button. I've had the pleasure to take part (a small one) in a C# design patterns group in NYC where on occasion Brian chimes in with some great advise and knowledge. I particularly liked this article about 'Eating Toast' and thought it was a great post. Read here.

PWOPPLOPPER released

Bryan Corazza — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:56:00 GMT

So here's the application I built to download the torrents for my favorite podcasts. Get it here.

Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 3.0

Bryan Corazza — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:14:00 GMT

What would you like to see? Seems the team is ramping up again to tackle the next version of the Ent Lib libraries. Great stuff. I love enterprise libraryand use it in almost every project I do. Keep it up.

-B

.NET 3.0 Announced

Bryan Corazza — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 12:45:00 GMT

Here's a post from Somasegar about WinFX being renamed to .NET Framework 3.0. Seems to make sense to keep the same naming going forward, since WCF and WWF are getting confusing enough, I liked Avalon, Longhorn, and Indigo myself.

-B

.NET 2.0 Assembly Version Redirection

Bryan Corazza — Tue, 23 May 2006 19:15:00 GMT

Have you ever wanted to upgrade a version of an assembly and not have to recomplie code? One way to accomplish this is using assembly binding in your configuration file. First make sure that both the old assembly and the new one use the same strong key file and are both in the GAC. Then add the following to your application configuration file:

<assemblyIdentity

name="DevelopMentor.Mandelbrot"

publicKeyToken="be418bc72a93105f" />

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0"

newVersion="2.0.0.0" />

</dependentAssembly>

</assemblyBinding>

</runtime>

</configuration>

Next time the application configuration is refreshed and run, the new version will be loaded instead of the old one. This is a great way to perform updates in a production-like environment without recompiling the assemblies involved. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen versioning cripple a .NET project, especially once assemblies are in production. Enjoy.

-B

Avanade Integration Pack for Microsoft Enterprise Library & more...

Bryan Corazza — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 23:18:00 GMT

If you are like me (and who isn't?) then you want everything in one place. You don't want to have to use 30 different tools that generally performs the same set of functions (MS is notorious for doing this). So when I heard about getting the Enterprise Library console tool integrated with VS2005 I was excited. Here it is to download. I've only been playing around with it for a week or so and I like it alot. I also wanted to let you know that my buddy Hisham Baz recently finished his update for the Rolling File Trace listener for Enterprise Library 2.0, get that here. Enjoy.

-B

How to create a simple code snippet for VS2005.

Bryan Corazza — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 01:26:00 GMT

At its simpliest form a code snippet is nothing more than an xml file.

Here's a sample of the schema:

<CodeSnippets
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
    <CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
        <Header>
            <Title>
                My Snippet
            </Title>
        </Header>
        <Snippet>
            <References>
                <Reference>
                    <Assembly>System.Windows.Forms.dll</Assembly>
                </Reference>
            </References>
            <Code Language="VB">
                <![CDATA[MessageBox.Show("Hello World")]]>
            </Code>
        </Snippet>
    </CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>

In the Code element, the Language attribute takes the following values: VB, CSharp, VJSharp, and XML.

The SnippetType element takes the following text: SurroundsWith, Expansion, Refactoring. These specify the way Visual Studio is going to insert the snippet.

So with this, all you need to do is create an xml file with the following schema and insert your own code and you're ready to go. Make sure that the file has a .snippet extension on it and it is placed in the snippet directory that Visual Studio is pointing to. By default its placed in the My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Code Snippets\ folder, under its particular coding language. Enjoy.

-B

VS 2005 Default Code Snippets

Bryan Corazza — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 00:57:00 GMT

Here's a great list of the code snippets that come out of the box for VS2005. After typing in the shortcut then hit tab to let the snippet execute.

#if
Creates a #if directive and a #endif directive.
Anywhere.

#region
Creates a #region directive and a #endregion directive.
Anywhere.

~
Creates a destructor for the containing class.
Inside a class.

attribute
Creates a declaration for a class that derives from Attribute.
Inside a namespace (including the global namespace), a class, or a struct.

checked
Creates a checked block.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

class
Creates a class declaration.
Inside a namespace (including the global namespace), a class, or a struct.

ctor
Creates a constructor for the containing class.
Inside a class.

cw
Creates a call to WriteLine.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

do
Creates a do while loop.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

else
Creates an else block.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

enum
Creates an enum declaration.
Inside a namespace (including the global namespace), a class, or a struct.

equals
Creates a method declaration that overrides the Equals method defined in the Object class.
Inside a class or a struct.

exception
Creates a declaration for a class that derives from an exception (Exception by default).
Inside a namespace (including the global namespace), a class, or a struct.

for
Creates a for loop.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

foreach
Creates a foreach loop.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

forr
Creates a for loop that decrements the loop variable after each iteration.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

if
Creates an if block.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

indexer
Creates an indexer declaration.
Inside a class or a struct.

interface
Creates an interface declaration.
Inside a namespace (including the global namespace), a class, or a struct.

invoke
Creates a block that safely invokes an event.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

iterator
Creates an iterator.
Inside a class or a struct.

iterindex
Creates a "named" iterator and indexer pair by using a nested class.
Inside a class or a struct.

lock
Creates a lock block.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

mbox
Creates a call to System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show. You may need to add a reference to System.Windows.Forms.dll.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

namespace
Creates a namespace declaration.
Inside a namespace (including the global namespace).

prop
Creates a property declaration and a backing field.
Inside a class or a struct.

propg
Creates a property declaration with only a "get" accessor and a backing field.
Inside a class or a struct.

sim
Creates a static int Main method declaration.
Inside a class or a struct.

struct
Creates a struct declaration.
Inside a namespace (including the global namespace), a class, or a struct.

svm
Creates a static void Main method declaration.
Inside a class or a struct.

switch
Creates a switch block.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

try
Creates a try-catch block.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

tryf
Creates a try-finally block.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

unchecked
Creates an unchecked block.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

unsafe
Creates an unsafe block.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

using
Creates a using directive.
Inside a namespace (including the global namespace).

while
Creates a while loop.
Inside a method, an indexer, a property accessor, or an event accessor.

-B

Microsoft Expression Designer CTP Released.

Bryan Corazza — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 04:31:00 GMT

A good friend on mine actually got me interested in this type of software recently so I've been keeping a pulse on it from time to time and it was announced today that the Microsoft Expression Designer January CTP was released. This is the first release build for the product team, and here's a video explaining the product a little more. This is very kewl stuff that I can watch forever and cannot wait to have on my PC. Enjoy.

-B

Enterprise Library for .NET 2.0 Released

Bryan Corazza — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:17:00 GMT

This just in. The patterns and practices team just released Enterprise Library for .NET 2.0. Get it here. There are some significant changes to the overall architecture, you can reading about them here. Download and enjoy.

-B