How To


Create a UWP-Based ChatBot Using the Microsoft Bot Framework Direct Line API

Chatbots are the new mobile application. In this article, Nick demonstrates how you can integrate a bot right into your Universal Windows Platform app via the Microsoft Bot Framework Direct Line API.

Chain of Responsibility and Adapting to Change in Complex Apps

As a company's problems continue to become more complicated, your code will become more complicated. Peter shows how refactoring code can lead you to better designs.

Getting to the File You Want in Visual Studio's Editor Window

Peter gets an improved tip from one reader and some more tips from another, all designed to navigate Visual Studio faster.

You, Too, Can Build Xamarin Apps with F#

Let's break away from C# somewhat and learn how F# is a great fit for crafting mobile applications.

Making Sense of Class Modifiers in C# and Visual Basic

Both are .NET Framework-based, but they don't seem to be speaking the same language.

R Language OOP Using S3

The S3 OOP model is still widely used, so let's use write S3-style OOP code via the R language.

Providing Multiple Solutions to a Problem

Sometimes life is like playing Whack-a-Mole: You write some code that solves a problem, and then someone comes along and makes the problem harder. Here's how to continuously integrate new solutions without having to rewrite your old solutions (much).

Get Rid of the Old ASPX View Engine

Peter didn't bother doing any performance testing but he believes that this change has just got to speed up your ASP.NET MVC application.

TypeScript 2.0: More Power for Defining Classes

The latest version of TypeScript provides developers with tools to create base classes and class hierarchies just like the other object-oriented languages.

Building onto the AWS Cloud with Visual Studio

Amazon offers solutions specifically for Visual Studio developers who want to start deploying services on its cloud. Here's a guide to do it with minimal effort and all it takes is digging into the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio.

Getting to Know Your Assembly by Name and Number

Let's take a quick side trip and see what information we can glean from the .NET assembly.

Find Out What Your Entity Framework Query Is Really Doing

You can turn on logging for your Entity Framework code with a single line. Configuring it to write to a file takes only a little bit more effort.

Coding Without a Plan

I don't believe in coding design tools. I've been programming for more than 30 years now (40 years if you go back to my first class in programming). I think in code. Code is my design language and procrastination is my friend.

Let Other Processes Run When Debugging One Process

When you hit a breakpoint in Visual Studio, everything stops. If you'd rather other processes keep running, you can enable that.

Looking at Entity Framework Core 1.0

There's more (and some less) in Entity Framework Core compared to Entity Framework 6, at least in version 1.0. While you can move to Entity Framework Core now, it might be too early for you.

Build Data Applications for the Universal Windows Platform Using Entity Framework and SQLite

Saving and retrieving data is a fundamental part of all but the simplest of applications. In this article, Nick walks through getting started using Entity Framework with SQLite to persist application data.

Hashing Passwords for Fun and Security

Hashwords can use a pinch of salt for added security. There's a .NET class for that.

Deploy the Android 7 Multi-Window Mode via Xamarin

It's relatively simple to make use of the multi-window mode now that Xamarin supports it. Here's how.

Ensure Consistent Testing with Mock Objects and Moq

If you run an automated test and your test fails then you want to know that it's your fault -- not a problem in someone else's code or the result of a change in your test data. Moq lets you do that in two lines of code, even if your code uses the ASP.NET Session object.

ORM-Less Data Storage with Document Databases and Marten

Document databases are a form of NoSQL database that may store all of the information for a given object in a single instance in the database.

Leverage Joins in Entity Framework To Get Just the Data You Want

Every once in a while you'll need to use the LINQ Join to get the data you want.

Use Custom Visualizers for C++ Objects

Sometimes the default view of objects in the debugger isn't enough, especially if you operate on complex data structures. Here's one way to alter the view and use a customized one.

Logistic Regression Using R

I predict you'll find this logistic regression example with R to be helpful for gleaning useful information from common binary classification problems.

Speed Up Skip and Take in Entity Framework with Lambda Expressions

If you're using Skip and Take in LINQ to page through your data, a tweak to your syntax can cut your response time by as much as 10 percent as you page through your data.

TypeScript 2.0: Even Better Data Typing and Class Discriminants

If you care about data typing and want to avoid null/undefined errors, there's a lot you're going to like in TypeScript 2.0. And, if you like creating general purpose functions that can work with a variety of classes, there's something here for you, too.

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