June 2011

Monthly Archive

The Morning Brew #878

Posted by on 22 Jun 2011 | Tagged as: .NET, Development, Morning Brew

Software

Information

  • How to Run Unpatched CLR Side-by-Side – Jeroen Frijters discusses the steps to allow you to run multiple copies of a particular .NET Framework version on your machine – a useful trick for exploring the differences between different patch versions, and also useful for testing your applications on different minor versions.
  • Exploring CoffeeScript Part 1 – And Then There Was Coffee – Jan Van Ryswyck kicks off a series of posts looking at the CofffeeScript programming language which compiles down to JavaScript, discussing reasons why this language is interesting, and exploring the process of writing and compiling some coffee script by way of a Hello World example.
  • Windows Azure AppFabric SDK – June CTP – Download issues – Charles Young highlights some issues he has been having getting the June CTP of the Windows Azure AppFabric SDK from the Microsoft Downloads site. If you are also having problems, either try patience or let Google (or Bing) help you out
  • C# Light Syntax – Phil Trelford takes a look at reducing C# down by removing some of the braces and unnecessary keywords, and making white space important, ending up showing that it would be very similar to F#, and how F# makes defining business entities concise, and that they can be consumed by C# (and any other .NET language)
  • Design, Code, Release: 100% Coverage is not enough – Nathan Gloyn discusses the trend towards 100% code coverage by tests, discussing the places where testing doesn’t add value, or is disproportionally expensive, and discussing that even with 100% coverage using Unit Tests you still need to consider actually using the system, be it manually or via automated UI tests to verify that everything works as intended.
  • Mercurial Cheat Sheet – Greg Duncan highlights a nice simple cheat sheet for the Mercurial (Hg) Distributed Version Control System from Robert MacLean, providing a nice 1 page summary of the command line commands
  • The Importance of Feedback in Software Development – Brian Harry discusses the agile principles and how feedback is so important in agile software development, looking at how the Visual Studio and TFS v.Next release helps enhance the feedback cycles in development.
  • Metro In Motion #8 – AutoCompleteBox Reveal Animation – Colin Eberhardt continues his series of posts looking at creating his own versions of native UI features in Windows Phone Applications, allowing him to use the effects in his own applications. In this post, Colin explores the creation of a fluid auto complete reveal effect like that used in the Windows Phone email client.

Community

  • SQLBits – Query across the Mersey – 29 Sep 2011 – 1 Oct 2011 – Liverpool – The SQLBits team announce their 9th conference, to be held in my current home of Liverpool between the 29th September and 1st October. As usual there will be two days of low cost in depth SQL sessions on the Thursday and Friday, followed by the free event on the Saturday.
  • Continuous Delivery & DevOps – The team over at ThoughWorks share a recording of one of the sessions from their UK Quarterly Briefing, where Sam Newman and Nick Hines discuss the theory and application of continuous delivery of projects

The Morning Brew #877

Posted by on 21 Jun 2011 | Tagged as: .NET, Development, Morning Brew

Software

  • Announcing the Windows Azure AppFabric June CTP! – The Windows Azure AppFabric team announce the release of the June CTP release of the Windows Azure AppFabric. This release aims to make multi-tier application building and managing easier and contains the AppFabric Developer Tools, AppFabric Application Manager, support for compositional applications, support for Windows Work Flow and WCF.
  • Chutzpah – Chutzpah – A JavaScript Test Runner Released – Matthew Manela announces the release of Chutzpah, a JavaScript test runner for Visual Studio. The tool is both a Visual Studio Extension and a command line tool allowing you to run your JavaScript tests from the IDE and build server
  • Announcing datajs version 0.0.4 – Marcelo Lopez Ruiz, of the WCF Data Services Team, announces the release of datajs 0.0.4. This release adds support for the Reactive Extensions for JavaScript, along with extended metadata, improved cache filtering and a number of performance improvements. The next planned release is the v1.0.0 release, so this is effectivly the final CTP release.
  • New dotPeek Early Build + Pioneering dotPeek Plug-ins – The JetBrains team announce an updated Early Access Program build of dotPeek, their .NET disassembler. The team also highlight two plugins for the tool from the community which extend the functionality of the tool.
  • ReSharper 6.0 Beta 3 – The JetBrains team also announce their 3rd beta release of ReSharper 6 which addresses feedback from previous betas, offering improved memory footprint, improved performance across the new JavaScript and Razor support, along with a number of other fixes.

Information

  • Using Syntax to Model the Domain | Girl Writes Code – Sharon Cichelli discusses how the syntax of your domain model can help bridge the gap to the actual business domain, looking at some examples of how using syntax and Semantics and help you build better domain models.
  • Performance Testing Quick Reference Guide – Bryan Group the Performance Testing Quick Reference Guide version 3.5. This ‘e-book’ contains 241 articles (of which 51 are new or updated) which discuss all aspects of performance testing in Visual Studio 2010.
  • Using NuGet for Application Plug-Ins & NuGet with MEF – Matt Hamilton takes a look at programmatically using NuGet to pull in packages which are actually extensions for your application, and explores the use of MEF to have these extensions dynamically loaded into your application.
  • 35+ Use Cases for Choosing Your Next NoSQL Database – Todd Hoff continues looking at the best choices for NoSql Database use, exploring the various types available and the use cases they best support
  • Securing .NET Release Build – Slava Gomzin discusses the securing of your built assemblies to give customer trus in your application, exploring strong naming, digitally signing and obfuscation
  • Trying out jQuery Mobile on our blog – Christiaan Baes highlights the jQuery Mobile project, and takes a look at using it to create a nice mobile experience for the LessThanDot blogs
  • Rendering JQuery Templates With Backbone Views – Derick Bailey continues his series exploring the Backbone.js library, taking a look at combining Backbone with jQuery templates in this post. Full source for all the examples in his series are available to download.

Community

  • Mind Control Your Computer In C# – Guy Smith-Ferrier highlights his new talk which he will be delivering at VBUG Bristol on Wednesday 22nd June, and Fest#11 on Friday 1st July. This session takes a look at controlling your application using the power of your mind (and a neuroheadset) – sounds fascinating

The Morning Brew #876

Posted by on 20 Jun 2011 | Tagged as: .NET, Development, Morning Brew

Software

Information

  • Changed My Mind: Massive Changed To Embrace C# – Rob Conery discusses the evolution of his ‘Massive’ ActiveRecord like Data Access Library, highlighting the improved querying syntax suggested by Jon Skeet (during Rob’s NDC talk), along with support for ordering, and first and last operators.
  • So what went wrong with Citibank? (And how to fix it) – Barry Dorans discusses the vulnerability which allowed access to CitiBank data recently, and looks at what you can do to secure your own code which may be similarly vulnerable, discussing implementing indirect object references and showing how to implement them.
  • What’s new in OpenWrap 2.0? – Sebastien Lambla outlines what is going to be ‘in the box’ for the version 2.0 release of his OpenWrap package manager. Looks like an interesting mix of new features.
  • ASP.NET MVC: Moving code from controller action to service layer – Gunnar Peipman takes a look at how introducing a service layer to your ASP.NET MVC applications can help shrink your controllers back down to a sensible size, and help make your code much more testable and reusable.
  • The Debugger Mindset – John Sonmez discusses the ‘Debugger Mindset’, an over reliance on the use of the debugger to get code to work, and discusses some of the other development anti patterns that this can lead to, sharing some ideas that can help you break out of this way of working.
  • 11 useful classes you’ll love – Nicolas Dorier shares 11 utility classes which solve problems ranging from secuirty impersonation, through to disposing WCF Communication objects. Full source and binaries are available.
  • The busy developers guide to the Kinect SDK Beta – Michael Crump gathers together all the crucial links for the Kinect SDK release last week, and looks at the install and some of the demonstrations.
  • Kinect – Getting Started – Become The Incredible Hulk – Shai Raiten walks throug the construction of his first application using the Kinect SDK Beta, exploring controlling the camera angle, skeleton tracing and augmenting reality with a sample which makes you into the Incredable Hulk
  • Get started with ASP.NET MVC and PetaPoco &PetaPoco with stored procedures – Jalpesh P. Vadgama takes a look at using the PetaPoco Micro ORM project from Top Ten Software in an ASP.NET MVC Application. PetaPoco is inspired by the recent trend in MicroORMs such as Massive and Dapper, and in these two posts Jalpesh explores some simple uses of the library.

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