Software

  • Introducing Observal – Paul Stovell shares a new library called Observal, extracted from a recent project this library provides easy means for tracking and responding to changes in entities and collections which are part of complex or deep hierarchies.
  • FastSharp 2.0 – Matt Manela shares the latest version of FastSharp, a lightweight IDE for trying out simple pieces of code in C#, F# or VB.NET
  • TiltContentControl for Windows Phone – Jeff Wilcox shares another un-official piece of code for Windows Phone 7, this time mirroring the tilt behaviour of the standard UI controls in the Operating System and brings that capability to your applications in Silverlight.

Information

  • IronRuby and the Reactive Extensions Together Again – Taming User Input – Matthew Podwysocki continues exploring the integration for IronRuby with the Reactive Extensions for .NET, addressing some of the concerns about IronRuby’s future, and exploring the use of Throttle to slow down user input to manageable levels.
  • Optional named parameters work pretty well – Bertrand Le Roy follows on from Rob Conery’s post linked to yesterday with a look at using optional and named parameters to handle a similar situation in a more strongly typed way.
  • Redlining C#’s Dynamic Features – Rob Conery continues looking at making C# more dynamic using a variety of techniques to make more areas completely dynamic, in a way similar to that of Ruby and Python.
  • Running RavenDB on Azure – Mark Rendle takes a look at getting the RavenDB Document Database up and running in a Windows Azure worker role, sharing his fork of the RavenDB source which adds the ability to run on Azure, and explains how he did it.
  • Windows Azure-Compatible NoSQL Databases: GraphDB, RavenDB and MongoDB – Roger Jennings takes a look at various efforts to get other NoSQL / Document Database up and running on Azure, rounding up posts from various sources discussing the process.
  • Sprite and Image Optimization Framework & DotNetNuke – Rob Chartier explores implementing the new Sprite and Image Optimization Framework from the ASP.NET Team inside a DotNetNuke site, showing a useful example of how this works and can easily be integrated.
  • HTML5 Support In Visual Studio 2010 – Raihan Iqbal looks at the support for HTML5 in Visual Studio, showing how you can get IDE support and validation by moving an XSD for HTML5 into the correct location in your VS install.
  • An example of packaging web application containing database upgrade SQL file – Xinyang Qiu walks through the process of packaging a Web Application along with a database upgrade script using the datanbase project features of Visual Studio 2010
  • Programmatically Invoke the C# Compiler – Doug Holland shares a simple example showing how you can dynamically compile C# code at runtime, checking for errors and warnings and ending up with an assembly you can use as usual.
  • Getting the Silverlight Toolkit Controls to work on WP7 – Derik Whittaker shares a method of getting the Silverlight Toolkit Controls compiled in a form you can then use on the Windows Phone 7 version of Silverlight
  • Code Coverage: Did we run the right tests? – Bj Rollison continues an exploration of Code Coverage from a testing point of view, highlighting how it is easy to achieve high code coverage in real tests without actually testing sufficient cases to find problems in that code.
  • Searching and skimming code – ‘stevencl’ highlights an interesting paper about how developers orient themselves in unfamiliar code and go about trying to fix bugs
  • Everybody thinks about garbage collection the wrong way – Raymond Chen kicks off his CLR week of posts with a look at some of the misconceptions about Garbage Collection, and what that can mean for you as a programmer. Check out the comments for further discussion.
  • How to Post Code To Your Blog and other Religious Arguments – Scott Hanselman takes a look at the various different methods of embedding code samples in your blog posts (a common problem for Developer-Bloggers) examining the pros and cons of each method.
  • Common Programmer Health Problems – Garry Shutler highlights a good article from Zed Shaw on the many health problems associated with being a Software Developer, and suggesting things you should do to help avoid them.

Community

  • Calendar: Upcoming Meetup list – Canary Wharf .NET User Group (London, England) – The Canary Wharf .NET Usergroup will be meeting on the 18th August at 6:30pm where Neil Foster will be sharing the Microsoft roadmap for High Performance Computing, with Steve Harris showing how HPC techniques can be applied to Excel. The Group will also be meeting on the 1st September for a look at Expression Blend for WPF Developers where Sam Bourton will be guiding you round the tools.
  • MSDN Firestarter Events Coming Soon – Chris Bowen highlights a series of events across the US for developers interested in learning about the latest Microsoft offerings in Cloud, Web and Client technologies
  • Register for DevCon London, the European conference on .NET technologies – The UK MSDN blog shares a 30% off discount code for the DevCon London conference. Standard conference rates range from the £349 1 day early bird, through to £699 for all three days, so this discount is substantial.

1 Comment »