DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by mihai.guta

C# Structs

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:16:02 GMT

What are the benefit of structs in C#? When can they improve performance and memory use? See examples and benchmarks as well as screens from CLRProfiler and the Visual Studio debugger. Is this is the best struct article in the world? Maybe!

Why Software Estimates are So Bad

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:50:17 GMT

When will we admit that we just don't know?

High Quality Image Resizing with .NET

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:16:02 GMT

Even though you just shrinks images, the quality of produced images is usually worse than the quality of original images. Learn how to use interpolation to resize images with a better quality.

Bad advice on exceptions from Joel

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 05:46:02 GMT

Starting from some comments on my exception handling series of articles I run into a couple of blogs pointing to this post on joelonsoftware.com. I think this is the worst advice on exception handling I have ever read, sorry Joel. I know this is an old post, I know Joel is entitled to his own opinion and I know he has the right to write his code as he sees fit. But as an opinion leader he influences others.

Lutz Roeder's Weblog: The Future of .NET Reflector

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:16:02 GMT

After more than eight years of working on .NET Reflector, I have decided it is time to move on and explore some new opportunities. I have reached an agreement to have Red Gate Software continue the development of .NET Reflector. Red Gate has a lot of experience creating tools for both .NET and SQL Server. They have the resources necessary to work on new features, and Reflector fits nicely with other .NET tools the company offers. Red Gate will continue to provide the free community version and is looking for your feedback and ideas for future versions.

A Serious Challenge for Open Source?

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:46:02 GMT

. . . what Mindscape has done is really quite impressive. To evaluate, accept, and incorporate feedback that quickly into the product and to have the installer ready that afternoon is impressive - for anyone.

Over 60 Free Controls from DevExpress

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:16:02 GMT

Once you register, you will be forwarded an Email with your login credentials to our product download portal. With this information in hand, you will be able to download and install all the controls and tools listed above free of charge. The applications you create with these controls can be distributed royalty free (see the EULA that accompanies the products for more information). Note that the installation you download will include evaluation versions of our entire product line. You can install these trials if you wish during the setup process. Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 are fully supported.

Your Software Can't Heal Itself

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:46:03 GMT

Stop pretending that you can guess how a 100k line application is going to fail, and stop putting in tons of code to account for failures that you don't know are going to happen. How come we often ignore YAGNI in the face of writing robust software?

Scale Cheaply - Sharding

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:16:05 GMT

There are a lot of expensive ways to scale your database - all of which are highly touted by the big three database vendors because, well, they want to sell you all types of really expensive stuff. Despite what an "engagement consultant" might tell you though, most of the high-traffic websites on the web (google, digg, facebook) rely on far cheaper and better strategies: the core of which is called sharding.

What makes me NOT want to leave a company/client/shop

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:16:09 GMT

What makes me NOT want to leave a company

The 5 types of poor software architects

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:31:06 GMT

The types of software architects you never want to meet in your career

15 Tools to Help You Develop Faster Web Pages

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:16:14 GMT

Response times, availability, and stability are vital factors to bear in mind when creating and maintaining a web application. If you're concerned about your web pages' speed or want to make sure you're in tip-top shape before starting or launching a project, here's a few useful, free tools to help you create and sustain high-performance web applications.

Working in Opposite Land - The Logic of a Debuggin Strategy

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:31:11 GMT

"There are a number of interesting things that come up in computer science and computer engineering where reasoning suddenly jumps into opposite land. It seems that the more human the operation, the more likely we are to go to opposite land. For example, it has been measured that it is more efficient to send your engineers home at a reasonable hour when a project is late than it is to have them work long hours. Efficiency doesn't scale with time spent, but exhaustion sure does."

How to check if a string is empty

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:26:27 GMT

Interesting article that shows different ways of checking if a string is empty and explains the pros and cons.

Writing code that you're proud of

Fri, 16 May 2008 23:46:03 GMT

Are you proud of the code you write? Take some extra time now and save yourself time down the road.

Why I'm a better software developer than you

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:46:03 GMT

What makes one developer better than another? Shouldn't we all be performing at the same level? Of course not, we're not sewing buttons on an assembly line. We're using every bit of our intelligence to create something that we can only being to understand.

Quick Tip: Use Hashbytes to create a Hash from TSQL in SQL 2005

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:17:00 GMT

Just a quick tip, SQL Server 2005 has built in support for creating SHA1 and MD5 hashes from within TSQL code and the function is called HashBytes!

I might be an elitist, but you're a misanthrope

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:01:03 GMT

Expresses some of the frustration that comes with a fragmented .NET community; our wobbly triangle of gurus, thought leaders, and the massive base of people who we've let down, in a way, by selling the idea that the tools should do all the work, and drag-and-dropped our colleagues into an expectation of laziness, or at least lulled them into a reluctance to learn new things, which is death to our whole community over the long-run.

From Developer to Technical Manager

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 04:16:03 GMT

Organizations with an outdated organizational structure have got to wake up and change before it's too late. They will either lose or ruin their people. Either way, the company loses because people are the company.

Using aliases for better code readability

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:46:02 GMT

Here's a quick way to reduce overall code bloat while making your code even more readable.

Things you MUST dispose

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:46:02 GMT

When the .NET Framework instantiates an object, it allocates memory for that object on the managed heap. The object remains on the heap until it's no longer referenced by any active code, at which point the memory it's using is reclamed by the Garbage Collector (GC). Before the GC deallocates the memory, the framework calls the object's Finalize() method, but developers are responsible for calling the Dispose() method.

Retaining Good Developers - 10 Things To Keep Them Happy

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:46:02 GMT

This is a great article. I just wish some of my previous employers would have done just a few of these things. I probably would have stuck around longer.

Why asp.net MVC is so awesome.

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 05:16:03 GMT

The number one reason why asp.net MVC is the best thing ever.

Capturing the Screen Contents in .NET 2.0

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:01:02 GMT

When supporting installed software, descriptions of problems can be enhanced greatly by viewing the contents of the user's screen. In this article we will explore how to perform a screen grab and display the captured image in a Windows Forms application.

Something you probably don't know about enums in C#

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:31:02 GMT

Do you think the use of an enum in your code is limiting the possible values that can be used? Think again. Maybe we need to learn to be more careful about checking our enums for valid values.