Optional and named parameters were added to the C# language for COM and Office interoperability, but these features are actually useful in a variety of ways.
A Junior Developer Learns that Seniority Doesn't Mean Smarter.
- By Alex Papadimoulis
- 08/01/2009
Exceptions are a way of life in the .NET world. You must follow the rules to make your classes easy to use for other developers. Conforming to the standards will make everyone's life easier.
To address licensing questions surrounding the Mono Project, Microsoft has agreed to apply its Community Promise to both C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI).
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- 07/07/2009
Is the open source IDE for cross-platform .NET development a viable alternative to Visual Studio 2008?
- By Krystyna Rosicka-Blonska
- 07/01/2009
Visual Studio Magazine gives a rundown of AVIcode's Intercept uX, Mykonos' 1.0 AJAX security framework, and Borland's TeamDefine.
- By Michael Desmond
- 07/01/2009
As applications take flight beyond the desktop, the .NET Framework is trying to keep pace. The programming environment, which debuted in 2002 and today ships with Windows, SQL Server and Visual Studio, remains the consistent foundation for Microsoft's proliferating toolsets.
- By Kathleen Richards
- 06/02/2009
Covariance and contravariance are precise terms that describe which conversions are safe on parameters and return types. Learn practical definitions for those terms, what new constructs will be supported in C# 4.0 and how to live with the current limitations until Visual Studio 2010 is adopted by your organization.
There are multiple ways to solve every problem. Strive for code that communicates your intent and makes your meaning clear for every developer who uses it.
Learn how to free your application from dependencies and interchange implementations using Managed Extensibility Framework.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 04/01/2009
Look for a third-party market of component tools that allow developers to build business applications based on Adobe's Flex rich client programming platform to emerge this year.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- 03/02/2009
Learn how to display multiple pages in Silverlight and discover the tools and controls that ship with it; track down a bug in a case statement; and take advantage of helpful tips for trying to obtain a clean Code Analysis.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 03/01/2009
Improved support for managed and native code in static-analysis software.
Taking a careful look at the capabilities the compiler gives to anonymous types provides an excellent tutorial on what you should consider when you create your types -- including whether they are classes or structs.
Create a custom tool to provide a flexible and easy way to generate code on demand.
Iterators are a crucial part of modern programming, not least because they provide the basis for collection traversal using For Each loops. Language Integrated Query (LINQ) adds to the importance of iterators, as iterators are the source of IEnumerable(Of T) that forms the backbone of LINQ. Learn how to take advantage of them in your code with several different techniques for creating your own iterators in VB.
- By Bill McCarthy
- 02/01/2009
Lambda expressions are nothing more than convenient syntax for delegates. So why can't you use them where the Framework expects a delegate? And more importantly, what can you do about it?
If programmers are leaving VB and aren't going to C#, where are they going?
- By Daniel Appleman
- 02/01/2009
Developers respond to Microsoft Technical Fellow Anders Hejlsberg's discussion on the future direction of C#.
- By Michael Desmond
- 02/01/2009
LINQ to SQL continues to be a top contender in the .NET object/relational mapping tool market despite Microsoft's promotion of the Entity Framework as one of the "Pillars of SQL Server 2008: Dynamic Development."
- By Roger Jennings
- 12/01/2008