Articles tagged .NET

03 November 2017
03 November 2017

Hacking Visual Studio

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Visual Studio, like any Integrated Development Environment, can host extensions for more specialist languages or development tasks. This sort of work is reasonably straightforward most of the time but occasionally you need functionality that isn't available in the APIs. Michal takes two examples, printing code in an editing window, and gaining access to the Visual Studio Notifications, and explains how to hack Visual Studio to get to the functionality.… Read more
16 March 2016
16 March 2016

Posting Form Content via JavaScript

Web-based applications run smoother if instead of using the traditional form method, they use JavaScript to post data to the server and to update the user interface after posting data: It also makes it easier to keep POST and GET actions separated. SignalR makes it even slicker; it can even update multiple pages at the same time. Is it time to use JavaScript to post data rather than posting via the browser the traditional way?… Read more
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
23 February 2016
23 February 2016

Introduction to Bower, Grunt, and Gulp in Visual Studio

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Developers are now spending much more time writing and debugging JavaScript, CSS, HTML templates etc. Microsoft have responded by adding better tools for front-end development into their development environment, Visual Studio. In this article Jon Smith uses a sample application to demonstrate how he converted an existing ASP.NET MVC5 application to use these new tools… Read more
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
16 February 2016
16 February 2016

Keeping POST and GET Separated

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The occasional problems that you can get with POST and GET are typical of the difficulties of separating any command and query operations. This separation is tricky to achieve, at least in ASP.NET MVC. Dino suggests some ways of avoiding errors and minimising the confusing warning messages.… Read more
13 January 2016
13 January 2016

Data Manipulation in R: Beyond SQL

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Although SQL is an obvious choice for retrieving the data for analysis, it strays outside its comfort zone when dealing with pivots and matrix manipulations. R includes a number of packages that can do these simply. By combining the two, you can prepare your data for analysis or visualisation in R more efficiently.… Read more
07 January 2016
07 January 2016

How to Take an Asp.Net MVC Web Site Down for Maintenance

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Keeping a customer facing web site up and performing well is a challenge, especially when you are still adding new features. While providing an "always on" experience for users is preferred there are times when it is easier to take the site "down for maintenance" and fix those things that are just too difficult and costly to do with the site up. Jon Smith describes his solution to a controlled "down for maintenance" approach for ASP.NET MVC sites.… Read more
23 December 2015
23 December 2015

Script Loading between HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2

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Web pages increasingly suffer from JavaScript-library bloat. Because it is difficult to avoid the awkward wait while these libraries load, there are some techniques for making the loading of these script files less evident to the page-load time. The introduction of HTTP/2 opens up further opportunities to defer script load or do it asynchronously in parallel. Dino explains.… Read more
30 November 2015
30 November 2015

What’s New in C# 6

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The C# language itself has changed little in version 6, the main importance of the release being the introduction of the Roslyn .NET Compiler Platform. However the New features and improvements that have been made to C# are welcome because they are aimed at aiding productivity. Paulo Morgado explains what they are, and how to use them.… Read more
23 November 2015
23 November 2015

Tips and Tricks about Razor Partial Views

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Partial views in ASP.NET MVC allow you to reuse and customise components to act like user controls. They consist of both code and markup. They are an idea that is easy to grasp but they have great potential for the more adventurous developer who is prepared to experiment. Dino Esposito explains.… Read more
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
16 November 2015
16 November 2015

Using SignalR to Create Mobile Applications

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SignalR isn't just for web applications. It can also provide the basic real-time communications for a connected Windows Universal Application or even iOS and Android applications. Christos Matskas demonstrates how to get started with creating applications across a range of platforms that require real-time communication using SignalR… Read more
15 October 2015
15 October 2015

So You Need to Expose JSON Endpoints

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Even the most experienced programmers can be caught unawares by software they've used for years without trouble. Dino Esposito explains why and how the JSON method in an ASP.NET MVC controller class suddenly started to cause an exception on a production server, and how he fixed the problem.… Read more
07 October 2015
07 October 2015

Testing and the Application Lifecycle

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In application or database development, testing is too often given secondary importance. There are advantages to the whole delivery process if testers can get involved in the initial stages of planning and design. Testers have a role throughout the development lifecycle, as Doris Robinson explains… Read more