.NET Framework


Redmond, 'Start-up' Your Engines

Microsoft's needs to make its cutting-edge products and research more visible if it hopes to capture young organizations that today often align with the LAMP stack.

Visual Studio Solution Architecture for a WPF Application

Complex applications require careful architecting to reduce the amount of code movement between Visual Studio projects and the renaming of corresponding namespaces and folders.

Not Just a Designer: Code First in Entity Framework

Code First is a new development approach in the Entity Framework 4.1 stack that can simplify the understanding and maintenance of your domain model.

Performance Tips: Speed up Data Access

Faster performance in business applications comes down to reducing the "critical two" -- disk I/O and trips to the server. Doing that means doing a lot of things right, starting with your database design -- and tweaking your ADO.NET code helps, too.

Tale of the Cryptic Encoding

Someone named Robbie had created a posting asking for assistance in resolving a problem with a simple Visual Basic .NET console application. It was used to retrieve and process product registrations and credit card transactions via the Internet for a piece of niche shareware.

Is Visual Studio LightSwitch the New Access?

The LightSwitch RAD platform generates apps with "no coding required." What's in it for you? .NET apps that are easier to maintain and extensions built on the Managed Extensibility Framework.

ViewModel Questions

Benjamin Day's exploration of leveraging the ViewModel in Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 development ("6 MVVM Tips") generated plenty of feedback.

SQL or No SQL for Big Data in the Cloud?

The relational model and SQL dominate today's database landscape, but NoSQL is gaining adherents in the era of "big data." But Roger Jennings says SQL and NoSQL may not be as exclusive as many developers think.

All Things to All People

Bigger is better. At least, that seems to be the philosophy at the Microsoft Developer Division.

Visual Basic and C# at the Crossroads

How the Microsoft co-evolution strategy has shaped the two flagship languages of the .NET Framework, and what it means for developers going forward.

Upgrading to Visual Studio 2010 SP1

Assuming you don't have any beta software installed, what will you get when you apply service pack 1 to your copy of Visual Studio 2010?

Make Objects Look Alike... and Tell Them Apart

Here's everything you need to know to simplify your code about how to make classes look alike and then, when you need to, tell them apart.

Deleting all Data from a SQL Server Database (Part 2)

In part 2 of a series, On VB columnist Joe Kunk provides a Visual Basic program to generate a SQL script that clears all the data from a SQL Server database.

Extending a C# Application Through a Scripted DLR Language

The DLR Hosting API allows a DLR language to be scripted from a CLR language such as C# and VB.NET, extending the functionality of an application through scripts coded in one of the many DLR supported languages.

Introducing Team Web Access for TFS 2010

Mickey Gousset offers an introduction to the new Team Web Access console for Team Foundation Server 2010.

Agile Development and the Daily Standup Meeting

This is the first installment of a new online column written by Aaron Bjork, senior program manager at Microsoft working on Agile experiences and tooling within TFS. This month Aaron looks at daily standup meetings.

Inside the NuGet Package Manager

The popular, open source Nuget Package Management system makes quick work of installing, configuring and updating third-party components in.NET projects.

ASP.NET: Extending the Config File with Custom Sections

If you want to do a better job of managing your configuration settings than just throwing random data into appSettings, you can extend your config file with your own custom XML and actually edit your settings.

IE 10 Platform Preview Released

First pre-release version of IE 10 released at MIX11 event appears just four weeks after the production version of IE 9 shipped.

MIX11: Microsoft Releases IE10 Platform Preview, Entity Framework and MVC 3 Updates

Dean Hachamovitch and Scott Guthrie headline Microsoft's 11th Web dev conference, emphasizing HTML5 interoperability and strong ties to open source solutions.

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