Learn how Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) 4.0 changes everything you thought you knew about workflow. Also, learn why using string primary keys is a bad idea; find out where to get a data grid for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF); overcome the annoying issue of files not loading at runtime; and copy files into the executable directory.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 01/01/2009
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
VB and C# share many similarities, but also have a handful of significant differences; learn what you need to know to program effectively in VB as a C# programmer.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 12/01/2008
Chances are C# is not your first programming language. Here are several tips that can help you leverage C# better if you already know VB.NET.
Learn how LINQ, extension methods, and lambda functions can help you add a bit of distinction, simplicity, and robustness to your code.
- By Bill McCarthy
- 11/01/2008
Take control of casting exceptions, determine whether parent records have children in LINQ to SQL, and resolve cref references in XML comments.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 11/01/2008
Mixing generics and functional programming simplifies writing some extensibility libraries tremendously. For example, combining these techniques makes it easy to create a generic Undo library.
Hard-coded messages don't scale well, and .NET's inherent error messages are user-unfriendly. Learn how to create a more scalable and user-friendly data-driven messaging system.
- By Paul D. Sheriff
- 10/01/2008
Sometimes it makes more sense to separate functionality you use repeatedly into its own component. Learn how to create a special command-line processing component.
Visual Studio Team System's Code Metrics feature isn't perfect, but if you understand what it's measuring and how, you can use it to gain insight into your apps' overall complexity and to spot potential problem areas.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 10/01/2008
Learn how to exclude attributes from the code that Entity Framework generates for you automatically.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 09/01/2008
Take advantage of C#'s Item Templates to automate tasks that you find yourself having to perform on a regular basis.
Learn to access enterprise data stored in Oracle database servers by calling PL/SQL stored procedures from ADO.NET client applications and discover implementation strategies for dealing with common business scenarios.
- By John Charles Olamendy Turruellas
- 09/01/2008
Language features aren't good or bad. The choice of language feature depends on what you're doing. In this issue, we dive into the methods vs. properties debate.
Customize your application startup screen and add log-in functionality; learn how to view derived types in your projects; check for improper GUIDs; and drill down on extension methods.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 08/01/2008
Drill down on how arrays work and learn some cool tips and tricks for taking advantage of them in .NET.
- By Bill McCarthy
- 07/01/2008
Microsoft readies its new "cloud database" by hosting beta versions of REST and SOAP protocols for performing CRUD operations on clustered, customized SQL Server 2008 instances. These instances are organized as massively scalable, super-reliable, highly available Web services.
- By Roger Jennings
- 07/01/2008
Learn how to work around a couple bugs in Excel to return double values; drill down on lists with anonymous types; and learn the
difference between Build and Rebuild.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 07/01/2008
You probably write a lot of code to test object state. A better approach might be to make your objects report their own state.
Use .NET's inheritance or extensibility to improve VB's textbox layout.
- By Bill McCarthy
- 06/01/2008
Clear out textboxes using recursion and LINQ; use VB literals to transform an XML document; and eliminate an annoying artifact of VB internals.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 05/01/2008
Take advantage of the System.AddIn namespace to handle logic external to your application; don't get caught by Excel's one-based indexes; and make LINQ extension methods work with ArrayLists.
- By Kathleen Dollard
- 04/01/2008
Take advantage of new features in C# 3.0 that let you treat code as data -- and save time over more traditional, imperative approaches to programming.
Utilize table-valued parameters to write less code and to achieve higher application performance.
- By Paul Delcogliano
- 04/01/2008
Use PInvoke to take advantage of Windows APIs that aren't part of the .NET Framework.
- By Bill McCarthy
- 04/01/2008