The Morning Brew

Software

• NerdDinner 3.0 released – John Petersen announces the release of NerdDinner 3.0, a comprehensive sample application for ASP.NET MVC 3 which now contains Razor based views, HTML5, Geolocation, jQuery Mobile, mini-profiler and much more

Information

• Visual Studio vNext Performance Enhancements – Zain Naboulsi continues discussion of the new features and improvements coming in vNext of Visual Studio, discussing some of the areas where performance issues have been addressed, improving both performance and stability of the IDE.
• JavaScript OMG! #1 to #5, JavaScript OMG! #6 to #10, JavaScript OMG! #11 to #15 & JavaScript OMG!: #16 to #20 – Mike Taulty shares a series of posts continuing 20 (so far) interesting and surprising aspects of the JavaScript Language he has discovered in his reading and learning about JavaScript. Each point has some code samples and references to books / articles where you can learn more.
• The .Net community and the negative view on assembly references – Dru Sellers discusses the negative view many .NET developers have about lots of assembly references in projects, discussing modularisation of code, and how this opinion tends to shape the way he develops. Interesting discussions in the comments of this one.
• Test-Driving Backbone Views With JQuery Templates, The Jasmine Gem, and Jasmine-JQuery – Derick Bailey continues his exploration of the testing of Backbone.js views using Jasmine, and discusses some of the problems that using jQuery Templates present in testing the views, and looks at how the Jasmine-JQuery Plugin helps resolve this.
• Steps to write a plugin based application with MEF – Abhishek Sur takes a look at building a compositional application based around plugins wired into your application using the Managed Extensibility Framework. This article takes a step by step approach to create a simple application which can call plugin functionality.
• Cloud Programming Concepts – Ganesan Senthilvel takes a look at the key concepts and evolution of cloud computing in this CodeProject article, examining the theory, the benefits of the cloud and some of the key terminology before exploring the use of Windows Azure.
• Speech Recognition for the Web – Robin Rizvi takes a look at the HTML5 support for speech input using speech recognition in your web applications, discussing the provision made in HTML5 and looking at the creation of a sample application using speech recognition.
• HTML5 WebMessaging Experiment – Wayne Ye takes a look at cross domain communication in client side applications using the HTML5 WebMessaging functionality, working through the workings of a sample application.
• Pair Programming: The disadvantages of 100% pairing – Mark Needham discusses some of the disadvantages of using pair programming 100% of the time, highlighting a couple of other interesting posts on the subject.

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Software

• NServiceBus 2.6 Released – Udi Dahan announces the release of NServiceBus 2.6 which builds on the NServiceBus 2.5 platform rather than the under development V3 providing a number of community requested enhancements.
• NCrunch v1.33b Released! – Remco Mulder announces the new release of NCrunch. Version 1.33b adds support for MSTest, XNnit.NET and MBUnitto this continuous testing extension for Visual Studio. The extension remains free while in this ‘beta test’ period of development.

Information

• Web Forms Model Binding Part 1: Selecting Data (ASP.NET vNext Series) – Scott Guthrie continues his series of posts looking at the features that are coming in the vNext release of Visual Studio and ASP.NET, this time starting a multipart post looking at the new model binding support which is coming to ASP.NET WebForms, looking at how we currently bind data in ASP.NET WebForms and exploring where the new functionality extends and improves this.
• NuGet Package of the Week #10 – New Mobile View Engines for ASP.NET MVC 3, spec-compatible with ASP.NET MVC 4 – Scott Hanselman continues his NuGet Package of the Week series with a look at a package which provides ASP.NET MVC 3 View Engines for creating mobile friendly content. The best part is that this library follows the ASP.NET MVC 4 specification for the functionality coming in the next release so they should be easy to replace when ASP.NET MVC 4 is released.
• Creating Multiple JavaScript Objects when using the Revealing Module Pattern – Dan Wahlin continues his explorations of the patterns in JavaScript with a look at creating multiple instances JavaScript objects using the Reveal Module Pattern, illustrating with an example.
• How to write a small game using HTML5 and JavaScript – BrikBrok – David Catuhe shares a translation of one of his French articles which look at creating a ‘bricks’ game using JavaScript and HTML 5. David discusses some of the key points in the code and shares the full implementation as well as highlighting some further learning resources.
• Modularity via Bottles – Josh Arnold looks at the advanced FubuMVC feature of Bottles, giving an introduction to their use in creating packages which plug into FubuMVC.
• Silverlight 5 RC – MarkupExtensions and DataContextChanged, Platform Invocation, TrickPlay and Media Remote Controls & Low Latency Sound Effects – Mike Taulty takes a look back at some of the new features in Silverlight 5, updating you on what has changed between the beta release when he first investigated the functionality and the newly released Release Candidate.
• What makes a good step definition – Phil Trelford follows on from his post last week on ‘What makes a good feature file‘ with a look at what makes a good step definition in BDD Scenarios

Community

• Free Windows Azure Bootcamp – The UK Tech.Days team return with a free boot camp for Windows Azure running on the 23rd September in Manchester and 30th September in London where you can go from zero to deployed Azure application in the space of a one day session. Places are limited, so be sure to register sooner rather than later.
• The Microsoft Windows Phone Camps – Powered by UK Tech.Days Fun, Free & Open to all! – Lee Stott highlights the Windows Phone Camp event, organise by the UK Tech Days team running in London on the 17th September and Manchester on the 24th September which will provide an introduction to all aspects of Windows Phone Development.
• Europe Virtual ALT.NET: Mike Murray on Compositional and Convention-based Web Development With FubuMVC on 20 September 2011 – Mike Murray joins the European Virtual Alt.NET usergroup for a session on compositional web applications using FubuMVC on the evening of Tuesday 20th September. The event is broadcast using LiveMeeting and starts at 7pm GMT (8pm BST)

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Software

• jQuery 1.6.3 Released – The jQuery Team announce the release of jQuery 1.6.3, a bugfix release on the 1.6 codebase. The release includes improvements to the $().data() API, removed use of the requestAnimationFrame API, and fixed a cross site scripting attack vector, along with a number of more minor changes.
• Windsor 3 beta 1 – dozen of Nuget packages and SymbolSource.org support – Krzysztof Kozmic announces the release of a collection of NuGet packages for Castle Windsor 3 beta 1, making it ever easier to get the bits you require to be up and running with Windsor, along with SymbolServer support to aid debugging.
• Update to the OData Library Available on CodePlex and NuGet – Shayne highlights the work his team have been doing on the OData library and announce an updated drop release of both ODataLib and EdmLib, available now on NuGet and CodePlex.
• Google APIs Client Library for .NET Beta is now available for Download – ‘Ginktage’ highlights the release of an updated .NET Client for the Google APIs released on Code.Google.Com. The Google APIs Client Library for .NET provides the ability to interact with Google APIs ranging from search to Analytics.

Information

• Using Lucene.NET search engine library in .NET applications – Gunnar Peipman shares a simple getting started guide to help you get up and running with the Lucene.NET text search engine library, exploring both its use as an indexer and searcher.
• Silverlight 5 Text Clarity and Pixel Snapping, Silverlight 5 (and WPF 4) OpenType Support & Simplifying Async Networking with Tasks in Silverlight 5 – Pete Brown digs into some more of the Silverlight 5 features available in Silverlight 5, exploring the improvements in text rendering, new OpenType support, including ligatures, and shares a modified excerpt from his ‘Silverlight 5 In Action’ book exploring how aysnc networking can be made easier by making use of the Tasks support in Silverlight 5
• Making It More Functional – Chris Eargle follows on from Ted Neward’s latest Working Programmer column in MSDN Magazine taking a look at how you can take Ted’s functional example event further making it more functional.
• Readability in Programming Languages – Alfred Thompson discusses the readability of programming languages by less technical people, showing a few examples of languages with different readbility / userstandability levels and highlights the ’99 Bottles of Beer’ site which has examples of over 1400 programming languages and variants.
• Properties or Fields? – Jeremy Likness discusses one of the great programming debates, looking at the differences, discussing some of the key points and benefits of properties and encouraging discussion (with some good reading in the comments too)
• Quick tip: (free) JScript Editor Extensions for Visual Studio – Katrien DG highlights the JScript Editor extensions for Visual Studio which bring a number of enhancements for JavaScript Development in the Visual Studio IDE, and highlights a Channel 9 video where Damien Edwards discusses the extension and some of the features for JavaScript coming in Visual Studio vNext.
• Custom Jasmine Matchers For Clarity In Testing Backbone.js Models – Derick Bailey continues his series of posts on Backbone.js with a look at improving his Jasmine specifications for testing Backbone.js models and applications with an implementation of a Custom Jasmine Matcher to help reduce duplication in specifications and improve error messages.
• Analyze your Web Server Data and be empowered with LogParser and Log Parser Lizard GUI – Scott Hanselman highlights the LogParser tool, and how it can be used to parse a whole range of different log formats and provide a way to easily extract data from logs using a SQL like language.
• How to map a domain model with NHibernate? – Gabriel Schenker takes a look at the mapping of domain entities to be used in a WCF service, answering a number of common questions about the decisions that need to be made in the mapping process and looking at segregating the parts of the model.

Community

• In The Brain of Damjan Vujnovic: Object-oriented Programming in JavaScript – Skills Matter are hosting an ‘In the Brain of…’ session tomorrow evening (Tuesday 6th September) with Damjan Vujnovic on Object Oriented Programming in Javacript, looking to dispel some of the myths about JavaScript programming and looking at how some of the language features can be used in an OOP way.
• Code Contracts in .NET with Chris Marsh – Chris Marsh joins the Canary Wharf .NET User Group for a session on Code Contracts this Wednesday (7th September), exploring how the Code Contracts library provides first class support for Design By Contract in .NET languages
• Software Craftsmanship Round-table – The London Software Craftsmanship Community are also meeting on Wednesday (7th September) for their monthly ‘Round table’ discussion. Spaces are limited, and currently the attendee list is full with a Wait List in operation.

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