The Morning Brew

Normal service has been resumed today – I hope everyone has recovered from yesterdays link overload.

Software

• VisualSVN Server 1.1 Released – VisualSVN Server is a commercial windows based SVN server – 30 day trial is available, and licenses are $49 per user, with free licenses for active members of open source projects
• NullObject.For – Paul Stovell has created a tool for unit testing which creates empty implementations of Interfaces to be used when unit testing in the situation where you don’t care about the interactions with that type – i.e Logging

Information

• yield is elegant – Chris Brandsma talks about a real world use of the yield keyword
• The Parable of the Bathroom – A nice set of analogies for different styles of lock – good reading if you are new to this kind of thing
• Developing a Robust Data Driven UI Using WPF – The DataModel – Eran Kampf looks into building a data model especially suited to use with WPF applications
• Handling, throwing – exceptions and Clean up on error – Thottam R. Sriram looks at the different ways of throwing exceptions and how you can clean up after them
• Linq and AutoIncrement on TinyInt – Derik Whittaker highlights a limitation he encountered using LINQ
• A MSN Messenger Library for Construction of Communication Based Applications. – Derek Bartram works through building a MSN Messenger client application in some depth. This looks really good, however be aware of the modified license – you can’t use this code commercially or in commercial not for profit apps without prior approval – shame really
• 10 Tips to Boost Your Productivity with C# and Visual Studio 2008 – John W Powell outlines 10 tips for productivity – although the title says 2008, most of this stuff applies equally in 2005

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Lots and lots of links from over the long weekend – so many in fact that I’ve had to introduce some extra headings to help organise them all.

Software

• Gallio – Automation Platform for .NET – Gallio Alpha 2 has been released, supporting a number of unit testing frameworks and tool integrations
• Windows Installer 4.5 Beta 2 Now Available! – The Windows Installer team announce the latest beta via Microsoft Connect
• Did you know Red Gate gives SQL Log Rescue for free? – A post highlighting the availability of this RedGate tool for free – the only limitation is that it only supports SQL 2000
• YUI 2.5.1 Released: Improved AIR support, JSON security patch, YUI Configurator, and bug fixes – The title says it all really – updated YUI
• dbverse – A Database Change Management framework which allows developers to maintain and update their database structure in C# Code.
• IIS Admin Pack Technical Preview 1 Released – A collection of extensions for the IIS Manager application, adding functionality like UI for Request Filtering, Configuration Editor, Managing Databases, and much more

Information

• Variations on a Func-y theme – Jimmy Bogard looks at anonymous methods and lambda expressions
• ASP.NET Basics: Foundation of ASP.NET – A quick reference card type overview of ASP.NET
• Performance Effect of Common Table Expressions in SQL Server 2005 – Keyvan Nayyeri shows that Common Table Expressions are not a silver bullet with respect to performance.
• Word 2007: Rich Text Format (RTF) Specification, version 1.9.1 – Microsoft release the latest version of the RFT specification which includes the RTF used in Word 2007
• Distant Shores – A Visual Studio Color Scheme – Another nice colour scheme for Visual Studio
• Adventures in F# – F# 101 Part 6 (Lazy Evaluation) – Matthew Podwysocki continues his series on F#, turning his mind to Lazy Evaluation
• .NET Event Techniques – Rob Eisenberg discovers a neat trick for avoiding problems with unsubscribed events – this is really neat – I’ll have to make use of this trick
• PTOM: The Open Closed Principle – A run through of how the Open Closed principle can be applied to a real(ish) world situation,
• Fun With Physics – The final part in Sacha Barber’s WPF series, with some physics code from Fredrik Bornander – this part pulls together the techniques from the other parts of the series in the production of a demo application.
• Silverlight apps not working/downloading on IIS 6.0? Try your mime types… – A quick tip about getting Silverlight (or any other new type of file) to work correctly over the web

ASP.NET MVC

• ASP.NET MVC Source – The source code release of the ASP.NET MVC Framework Preview 2 release
• ASP.NET MVC Source Code Now Available – ScottGu talks about building the MVC framework from source
• The Weekly Source Code 21 – ASP.NET MVC Preview 2 Source Code – Scott Hanselman digs into the ASP.NET MVC source
• A Few Notes About The MVC CodePlex Source Code Release – Phil Haack answers some questions about the ASP.NET MVC Source code release
• ASP.NET MVC – Part 1 – First part of a series which gives a quick tour of the features and ideas behind the ASP.NET MVC framework
• Simplified Asp.net MVC Controller Testing with Moq – Justin Etheredge pulls together a number of techniques for unit testing ASP.NET MVC controllers

.NET 3.5, Visual Studio 2008, WCF, LINQ, etc.

• Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training Kit – Alex Mueller highlights the availability of a training kit for VS 2008 and .NET 3.5
• Visual Basic 2008 Hotfix to fix slow IDE performance/response time after building a Project with lots of XML Comments (either user or designer generated) – Greg Duncan highlights a hot fix to help VB developers using VS 2008
• How to Build a REST app in .NET (with WCF) – Sample code to create REST based services using .NET 3.5 and WCF
• Where is ASP.NET 3.5 on IIS ? – I’ve heard this question a few times recently, and this post gives a nice overview of why there is no 3.5 option in IIS
• LINQ to SQL and SqlConnection ( "when you’re wrong, you’re wrong" 🙂 ) – Mike Taulty looks under the hood of LINQ to SQL to see how the the data context manages the underling SQLConnection

NHibernate

• New NHibernate users mailing list setup, join now! Operators are standing by. – Bil Simser announces an NHibernate Google Group – looks well worth a subscription for anyone working with NHibernate
• Table-per-concrete-class in NHibernate? – Kyle Baley calls out for some help with an NHibernate Dilemma – good discussions ensue in the comments.
• NHibernate Proxy Generator – Some resources for getting NHibernate to play nicely in partial trust environments.

Testing

• NetDug Unit Testing – Chris Brandsma summarises a discussion about unit testing held at a User Group Meeting – some interesting thoughts.
• TDD : Introduction to Rhino Mocks – Stephen Walther runs through the features of Rhino Mocks from the absolute basics of unit testing and mocking through to more advanced situations.
• Comparing Moq to Rhino Mocks – Phil Haack compares two mocking frameworks for state based testing

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I had a good day yesterday, attending the UK ‘Heroes Happen {Here}’ launch event – although I’m now rather tired after a very long day.

Today’s Morning Brew is the last for the week – Friday and Monday are public holidays in the UK, and I plan to skip posts on public holidays. The Morning Brew will return on Tuesday with what I expect will be a bumper edition covering the content from the long weekend.

Software

• DotNetOpenId 0.1.2 Released – David Christiansen highlights the availability of a new version of this .NET implementation of Open ID – now with partial trust support
• Stand alone FXCop download – Brad Abrams highlights the availability of FxCop 1.35 as a standalone application

Information

• What does Windows Vista SP1 Mean for Developers? – Tim Sneath gives an overview of what SP1 will mean to us. Since there is a lot shared with Windows 2008 I suspect the same will apply there too
• Happy Visual Studio Birthday – I hadn’t realised that yesterday was Visual Studio’s Birthday – and since I was at the UK launch event yesterday and no-one mentioned it I don’t think its particularly well known
• My Personal Lambda Crusade – Rob Conery shows his obsession with Lambda expressions
• Anonymous delegates rock – Nigel Morse gives a nice simple example of how anonymous delegates can help improve your code
• Looking at DSLs in .NET – Matthew Podwysocki takes a look at Domain Specific Languages
• Adventures in F# – F# 101 Part 5 (Pattern Matching) – Matthew Podwysocki continues his series on F# with a look at basic pattern matching support
• SQL Server 2008: Interesting Full-Text Dynamic Management Function – Greg Low unearths a useful database function for parsing strings.
• Number of Types in the .NET Framework (2) – Patrick Smacchia does a detailed analysis of the .NET framework in NDepend

Community

• Academic Alliance: Student Zone – Microsoft, in conjunction with WebFusion, are offering eligible UK students free Windows 2008 based web hosting

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