Michael Sorens

Michael Sorens is passionate about productivity, process, and quality. Besides working at a variety of companies from Fortune 500 firms to Silicon Valley startups, he enjoys spreading the seeds of good design wherever possible, having written over 100 articles, more than a dozen wallcharts, and posted in excess of 200 answers on StackOverflow. You can also find his open source projects on SourceForge and GitHub (notably SqlDiffFramework, a DB comparison tool for heterogeneous systems including SQL Server, Oracle, and MySql). Like what you have read? Connect with Michael on LinkedIn

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07 March 2016
07 March 2016

The Zen of Code Reviews: Review As If You Own the Code

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A code review is a serious business; an essential part of development. Whoever signs off on a code review agrees, essentially, that they would be able to support it in the future, should the original author of the code be unavailable to do it. Review code with the energy you'd use if you owned the code. Michael Sorens runs through the principles of reviewing C# code.… Read more
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19 February 2016
19 February 2016

Using C# to Create PowerShell Cmdlets: The Basics

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Although PowerShell Cmdlets are usually written in PowerShell, there are occasions when the level of integration with existing C# or VB libraries is awkward to achieve with PowerShell. Yes, you can write Cmdlets in C# perfectly easily, but until now it has been tiresome to discover how. Now Michael Sorens shows you the simple route to writing effective C# Cmdlets.… Read more
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17 November 2015
17 November 2015

Documenting Your PowerShell Binary Cmdlets

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Whereas it is easy to provide inline documentation for a normal scripted PowerShell cmdlet or function so as  to provide comprehensive help at the command-line or IDE, the same isn't true of binary cmdlets written in C#. At last, there is an open-source utility to assist with this that is being actively maintained and updated. At last, binary cmdlets need no longer be the poor cousins of scripted cmdlets in their documentation… Read more
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14 September 2015
14 September 2015

Build Your Own Resource Monitor in a Jiffy

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It's great to be able to monitor a counter or any other changing metric while engaged in development work. You'd think that the two alternatives would be using a third-party tool or hacking a PowerShell script. Well no, because there could be an existing open-source PowerShell module that would do it for you, and with a little customization could give you precisely what you need.… Read more
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24 August 2015
24 August 2015

The Zen of Code Reviews: Best Practices

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If you don't feel that you are getting helpful and comprehensive feedback from code reviews, it may well be your fault. Unless you are considerate to your reviewers in a number of ways, they might find it difficult to check your code and provide helpful advice. What ways? Michael Sorens outlines the eight golden rules that, if you follow them, might even even make your code a pleasure to review!… Read more
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12 August 2015
12 August 2015

When to Quote in PowerShell

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The one question about PowerShell that trips up almost everyone is about when and how to quote strings. Because PowerShell replaces the old command shell, it has to be able to work the way that it did with string parameters, but it also has to behave like a .NET scripting language to replace VBA. PowerShell grapples with this apparent contradiction, and manages to square the circle. Michael Sorens explains the how and when of PowerShell quoting.… Read more
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25 June 2015
25 June 2015

The Poster of the Plethora of PowerShell Pitfalls

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One of the downsides of learning a new computer language is that transfer of training doesn't always work to your advantage. In fact, the habits you picked up in the past may now cause confusion. In this poster or wall-chart for long walls, Michael Sorens selects the thirty-six most common causes of confusion for anyone getting to grips with PowerShell. Forewarned is forearmed.… Read more
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10 March 2015
10 March 2015

The Zen of Code Reviews: Pre-Review Comments

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Code Reviews can have a great deal of benefit if they are done well and thoroughly. They are done best if it it isn't a chore for the reviewers. If you make as easy as possible for them by explaining the background to the edits and pointing out the significant changes, then the process goes far better for all: But how would you go about doing that? Michael Sorens explains.… Read more
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05 November 2014
05 November 2014

Practical PowerShell Unit-Testing: Checking program flow

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Pester offers a relatively small number of commands to Unit-test PowerShell scripts, but these commands have tremendous capabilities. Pester even gives you the means to validate data and test program flow. It uses 'mocks' to provide hooks to validate program flow, so you can be more confident that a function is doing things they way you intended.… Read more
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04 November 2014
04 November 2014

Practical PowerShell Unit-Testing: Mock Objects

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Pester allows you to automate the testing of PowerShell scripts. It can test the output of a function as you develop it by validating simple data (scalars) and arrays, Pester allows you to focus on the one function you want to test by using 'mocking' to fake all the other functions and Cmdlets, It also uses Parameterized tests save you from writing essentially the same test over and over with just a different input valu… Read more
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03 November 2014
03 November 2014

Practical PowerShell Unit-Testing: Getting Started

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By the time you're using PowerShell to automate an increasing amount of the system administration, database maintenance, or application-lifecycle work, you'll probably need to automate the unit-testing of the PowerShell scripts themselves. Michael Sorens introduces you to Pester, the leading test framework for PowerShell, and shows how it can make it easier to produce reliable scripts… Read more
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01 August 2014
01 August 2014

A TDD Journey: 3- Mocks vs. Stubs; Test Frameworks; Assertions; ReSharper Accelerators

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Test-Driven Development (TDD) involves the repetition of a very short development cycle that begins with an initially-failing test that defines the required functionality, and ends with producing the minimum amount of code to pass that test, and finally refactoring the new code. Michael Sorens continues his introduction to TDD that is more of a journey in six parts, by implementing the first tests and introducing the topics of Test doubles; Test Runners, Constraints and assertions… Read more
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01 August 2014
01 August 2014

A TDD Journey: 5- Tests vs. Code; Refactor Friendliness; Test Parameterization

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Test-Driven Development (TDD) has a workflow of writing some test code, and then writing some production code to make the test pass. That is necessary but not sufficient-you must also make sure the test and the code together are doing what you think! Michael Sorens continues his series by introducing Test case parameterization for avoiding code duplication with no additional code complexity. … Read more
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31 July 2014
31 July 2014

A TDD Journey: 2- Naming Tests; Mocking Frameworks; Dependency Injection

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Test-Driven Development (TDD) relies on the repetition of a very short development cycle Starting from an initially failing automated test that defines the functionality that is required, and then producing the minimum amount of code to pass that test, and finally refactoring the new code. Michael Sorens continues his introduction to TDD that is more of a journey in six parts, by implementing the first tests and introducing the topics of Test Naming, Mocking Frameworks and Dependency Injection… Read more
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