Software

  • Firebug 1.5 released! – Alix Franquet highlights the release of FireBug 1.5 king of Firefox developer tools which provides debugging support for CSS, HTML and Javascript. The 1.5 release is a major upgrade with a good number of really useful new features.
  • New Cumulative Updates for SQL Server 2008 RTM & SP1 – Aaron Bertrand highlights the release of new Cumulative Updates packages for SQL Server 2008 in both SP1 and RTM configurations.

Information

  • How many PCs in the world have the .NET Framework installed? – Scott Hanselman shares some of the official numbers about installed base of .NET based on information from Windows Update and other sources. Useful numbers to have one hand.
  • Building an External DSL in C# – Nicholas Blumhardt looks at building a Domain Specific Language using C# and the Sprache parser creation library to create a questionnaire DSL example with source code provided for the sample.
  • Use .NET Built-in Methods to Save Time and Headaches – Shay Friedman looks at common pieces of code that have better alternatives backed into the framework which provide safer and better solutions to this common programming requirements.
  • 10 Advanced Windsor Tricks – 7. How to Write a Facility – Mike Hadlow presses on with his series of posts looking a the Castle Windsor Containers more advanced use cases with a look at creating your own facilities which provide the means of extending the behaviour of the container.
  • Dependency Injection Inversion Rejection – Davy Brion picks up on some of the points in Uncle Bob’s recent post on Dependency injection mostly discussing the flip side of the pointsand how the suggested usage still causes too much coupling to the container. Jimmy Bogard also follows up on the same topic with his post Poor use of DI versus need for DI.
  • Constructor over-injection anti-pattern – Jeffrey Palermo looks at a Dependency Injection Anti-Pattern where constructors require lots of dependent objects passing in and where some (or all) are not required for the operation of the component.
  • LINQ to Rx: second impressions – Jon Skeet follows up on his first discussion provoking post about the Reactive Extensions posting up a summary of some of the discussion clarification setting the record straight.
  • Are ORMs Solving Anything? – Shawn Wildermuth posts a discussion starting post about whether Object Relation Mapping Frameworks are helping or hindering. Lots of interesting discussion in the comments of this one, and I suspect there will be some follow-up posts before too long.
  • Whither Alt.Net? – Ian Cooper discusses the current state of the Alt.Net Movement and reviews the initial progress of the movement, along the way comparing the motives to that of movements like Software Craftmanship. Discussion is starting in the comments and Sergio Pereira follows up with his post On ALT.NET and patience looking at the sorts of people involved in the movement and appealing for a little patience as changing ingrained behaviour takes time.

Community

  • SQL Server Usergroup – Dundee Event Tonight – SQL Server MVPs Tony Rogerson and Allan Mitchell will be running a free event this evening at the Queen Mothers Building in Dundee University this evening with talks on Integration Services, SQL Server tools, along with a discussion about identity keys and a general Q&A Session