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  • Good way to backup code projects

    - by rkmax
    I work as a developer, and I have many projects for most of them use GIT for versioning the code, I have some projects that are not code such as interfaces sketches, idea, etc.. currently I have a disorder with the backups before Dejadup used, but the downside comes when I want to restore my backups from Windows. Periodically change of operating system (Windows or Linux). my question is which is better, copy each folder (project) directly to my external disk or create a repository (git - bare init) for each project I need or should do?

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  • svn: Syncing main source code with committed source code

    - by alam
    To manage my source code I have created SVN subversion server by using command svnadmin create /myrepos svn import /root/MySourceCode file:///myrepos I have created user and provided rw access to him. User can easily commit their changes in repository. How can I update my sourcecode (/root/MySourceCode) used in command svn import ? Is there any svn command to update my MySourceCode with commited code?

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  • Multiline code in Word 2007

    - by WaelJ
    I am using word 2007 and am inserting code into the document. I have a style with a fixed-width font and light grey background and all, and I use Notepad++ for syntax highlighting. My problem is with a "line" of code that is too long to display, so is there a way to auto-insert an arrow symbol at the beginning of a such lines to indicate that it is the same line (kind of like hyphenating, except on long lines instead of long words) So for e.g. something like this: public static void foo(String abcdefg, Boolean 123, ?String xyz)

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  • What is a good program for storing "chunks" of commonly used source code

    - by Rob Wiley
    I've looked at CodeLocker (poorly styled and relatively unflexible, but free) and Source Code Library (Overzone software - very nicely styled, looks flexible, but very expensive - $80). Ideally, I'm looking for a relatively simple, inexpensive program (not an online website) that I can save text data (source code) with a title and keywords, maybe even a description. It would also have some type of search functionality.

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  • Inline code from iPhone keyboard [closed]

    - by lc
    When I'm writing a post here or on any of the sister sites (especially SO), I want to use the backquote for inline code blocks. Now, as far as it looks, there doesn't seem to be a backquote (backtick) on the iPhone keyboard. Under the single quote key, I've found two curly/angled quotes, but those (’ and ‘) don't seem to do the trick... So, how do I create an inline code block from iPhone/Safari?

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  • How can I connect to server using SSL(secure socket layer) on .NET Compact Framework

    - by net
    Hello. I want to change .NET framework v3.5 to .NET compact framework v3.5. But I can't change SSL Stream class to compact framework version. For resolving this problem, I already read some article and msdn library. http://blogs.msdn.com/cgarcia/archive/2009/08/21/enable-ssl-for-managed-socket-on-windows-mobile.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/cgarcia/archive/2009/08/22/getting-a-managed-socket-to-talk-ssl.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa916117.aspx but I got an error that is "Unkown error 0x0ffffff", when invoking 'socket.connect(endPoint)' method based on thease article. In order to find the proper method, I try to use TcpClient class. but i can't solve this problem. When I try to connect to server on .NET compact framework, TcpClient class didn't work(Smart Device project and windows ce). As you can see below, I've got the error. In other hand, this code is work on .NET framework(C# console project). I can't understand why this socket can not access to server. Thanks for reading my question.

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  • Generating code -- is there an easy way to get a proper string representation of nullable type?

    - by Cory Larson
    So I'm building an application that is going to do a ton of code generation with both C# and VB output (depending on project settings). I've got a CodeTemplateEngine, with two derived classes VBTemplateEngine and CSharpTemplateEngine. This question regards creating the property signatures based on columns in a database table. Using the IDataReader's GetSchemaTable method I gather the CLR type of the column, such as "System.Int32", and whether it IsNullable. However, I'd like to keep the code simple, and instead of having a property that looks like: public System.Int32? SomeIntegerColumn { get; set; } or public Nullable<System.Int32> SomeIntegerColumn { get; set; }, where the property type would be resolved with this function (from my VBTemplateEngine), public override string ResolveCLRType(bool? isNullable, string runtimeType) { Type type = TypeUtils.ResolveType(runtimeType); if (isNullable.HasValue && isNullable.Value == true && type.IsValueType) { return "System.Nullable(Of " + type.FullName + ")"; // or, for example... return type.FullName + "?"; } else { return type.FullName; } }, I would like to generate a simpler property. I hate the idea of building a Type string from nothing, and I would rather have something like: public int? SomeIntegerColumn { get; set; } Is there anything built-in anywhere, such as in the VBCodeProvider or CSharpCodeProvider classes that would somehow take care of this for me? Or is there a way to get a type alias of int? from a type string like System.Nullable'1[System.Int32]? Thanks!

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  • JQuery code in ASP .NET content pages

    - by user2645830
    I have made a very simple sample project where I want to toggle an asp .net calendar control through jquery. Could anyone please point out why it is not working. I have made no changes to master page from the sample project provided for ASP .NET web application. <%@ Page Title="Home Page" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Site.master" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="WebApplication5._Default" %> <asp:Content ID="HeaderContent" runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="HeadContent"> <script type="text/javascript" src="scripts/jquery-1.4.1.min.js"> </script> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> // <![CDATA[ function Button1_onclick() { alert( $('<%=Calendar1.ClientID%>')); $('<%=Calendar1.ClientID%>').toggle(); } // ]]> </script> </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="BodyContent" runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent"> <h2> Welcome to ASP.NET! </h2> <p> To learn more about ASP.NET visit <a href="http://www.asp.net" title="ASP.NET Website">www.asp.net</a>. </p> <input id="Button1" type="button" value="button" onclick="return Button1_onclick()" /> <asp:Calendar ID="Calendar1" runat="server"></asp:Calendar> <p> You can also find <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/? LinkID=152368&amp;clcid=0x409" title="MSDN ASP.NET Docs">documentation on ASP.NET at MSDN</a>. </p> </asp:Content>

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  • Visual Studio Talk Show #120 is now online - Visualisation et analyse de code dans Visual Studio 201

    - by guybarrette
    http://www.visualstudiotalkshow.com JP Duplessis: Visualisation et analyse de code dans Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Mario profite de sa présence au campus de Microsoft à Redmond au États-Unis pour discuter de visualisation et d'analyse de code avec Jean-Pierre Duplessis. Pour l'occasion Mario est accompagné d'un coanimateur d'un jour soit Étienne Tremblay qui lui aussi se trouvait au campus de Microsoft au même moment. Jean-Pierre Duplessis est architecte chez Microsoft dans la division Visual Studio. Il est un vétéran de longue date de Microsoft. Il a débuté avec l'équipe de développement de Microsoft Host Integration Server. Ensuite, il a été responsable de concevoir la connexion aux réseaux sans-fil sous Windows NT. Ces dernières années, son travail avec l'équipe Visual Studio lui a permis de retourner à sa première passion soit l'analyse de code pour permettre de visualiser et comprendre l'architecture d'une application existante. var addthis_pub="guybarrette";

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  • What's a good approach to adding debug code to your application when you want more info about what's going wrong?

    - by Andrei
    When our application doesn't work the way we expect it to (e.g. throws exceptions etc.), I usually insert a lot of debug code at certain points in the application in order to get a better overview of what exactly is going on, what the values for certain objects are, to better trace where this error is triggered from. Then I send a new installer to the user(s) that are having the problem and if the problem is triggered again I look at the logs and see what they say. But I don't want all this debug code to be in the production code, since this would create some really big debug files with information that is not always relevant. The other problem is that our code base changes, and the next time, the same debug code might have to go in different parts of the application. Questions Is there a way to merge this debug code within the production code only when needed and have it appear at the correct points within the application? Can it be done with a version control system like git so that all would be needed is a git merge? P.S. The application I'm talking about now is .NET, written in C#.

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  • Where does C# and the .NET Framework fail?

    - by Nate Bross
    In my non-programming life, I always attempt to use the approprite tool for the job, and I feel that I do the same in my programming life, but I find that I am choosing C# and .NET for almost everything. I'm finding it hard to come up with (realistic business) needs that cannot be met by .NET and C#. Obviously embedded systems might require something less bloated than the .NET Micro Framework, but I'm really looking for line of business type situations where .NET is not the best tool. I'm primarly a C# and .NET guy since its what I'm the most comfertable in, but I know a fair amount of C++, php, VB, powershell, batch files, and Java, as well as being versed in the web technologes (javascript, html/css). But I'm open minded about it my skill set and I'm looking for cases where C# and .NET are not the right tool for the job. The bottom line here, is that I feel that I'm choosing C# and .NET simply because I am very comfertable with it, so I'm looking for cases where you have chosen something other than .NET, even though you are primarly a .NET developer.

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  • If you were developing shareware softwares for windows, would you target the .Net Framework or use n

    - by bohoo
    For the sake of the question, by 'shareware' I mean a software which is relatively small in size (up to few dozens of mb) and available for download and evaluation through a web site. I'm asking this question, because I don't understand something regarding the current state of windows commercial desktop development. It seems to me that: There is no reliable statistic regarding the extent of windows systems with .Net Framework installed. It makes no sense to force the end user to install the 20-60mb .Net for an application which may be smaller. Applications conforms to the term 'shareware' above have a big share on the win os market. Much of them don't need the capabilities of low level languages like c++, and therefore ideally they should be developed with a RAD enviroment. So, One would suppose there will be a blossom of RAD enviroments for native win code. But I know about only one - Delphi, and Delphi is so unpopular. How is that?

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  • URL Routing in ASP.NET 4.0

    In the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, Microsoft introduced ASP.NET Routing, which decouples the URL of a resource from the physical file on the web server. With ASP.NET Routing you, the developer, define routing rules map route patterns to a class that generates the content. For example, you might indicate that the URL Categories/CategoryName maps to a class that takes the CategoryName and generates HTML that lists that category's products in a grid. With such a mapping, users could view products for the Beverages category by visiting www.yoursite.com/Categories/Beverages. In .NET 3.5 SP1, ASP.NET Routing was primarily designed for ASP.NET MVC applications, although as discussed in Using ASP.NET Routing Without ASP.NET MVC it is possible to implement ASP.NET Routing in a Web Forms application, as well. However, implementing ASP.NET Routing in a Web Forms application involves a bit of seemingly excessive legwork. In a Web Forms scenario we typically want to map a routing pattern to an actual ASP.NET page. To do so we need to create a route handler class that is invoked when the routing URL is requested and, in a sense, dispatches the request to the appropriate ASP.NET page. For instance, to map a route to a physical file, such as mapping Categories/CategoryName to ShowProductsByCategory.aspx - requires three steps: (1) Define the mapping in Global.asax, which maps a route pattern to a route handler class; (2) Create the route handler class, which is responsible for parsing the URL, storing any route parameters into some location that is accessible to the target page (such as HttpContext.Items), and returning an instance of the target page or HTTP Handler that handles the requested route; and (3) writing code in the target page to grab the route parameters and use them in rendering its content. Given how much effort it took to just read the preceding sentence (let alone write it) you can imagine that implementing ASP.NET Routing in a Web Forms application is not necessarily the most straightforward task. The good news is that ASP.NET 4.0 has greatly simplified ASP.NET Routing for Web Form applications by adding a number of classes and helper methods that can be used to encapsulate the aforementioned complexity. With ASP.NET 4.0 it's easier to define the routing rules and there's no need to create a custom route handling class. This article details these enhancements. Read on to learn more! Read More >

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  • URL Routing in ASP.NET 4.0

    In the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, Microsoft introduced ASP.NET Routing, which decouples the URL of a resource from the physical file on the web server. With ASP.NET Routing you, the developer, define routing rules map route patterns to a class that generates the content. For example, you might indicate that the URL Categories/CategoryName maps to a class that takes the CategoryName and generates HTML that lists that category's products in a grid. With such a mapping, users could view products for the Beverages category by visiting www.yoursite.com/Categories/Beverages. In .NET 3.5 SP1, ASP.NET Routing was primarily designed for ASP.NET MVC applications, although as discussed in Using ASP.NET Routing Without ASP.NET MVC it is possible to implement ASP.NET Routing in a Web Forms application, as well. However, implementing ASP.NET Routing in a Web Forms application involves a bit of seemingly excessive legwork. In a Web Forms scenario we typically want to map a routing pattern to an actual ASP.NET page. To do so we need to create a route handler class that is invoked when the routing URL is requested and, in a sense, dispatches the request to the appropriate ASP.NET page. For instance, to map a route to a physical file, such as mapping Categories/CategoryName to ShowProductsByCategory.aspx - requires three steps: (1) Define the mapping in Global.asax, which maps a route pattern to a route handler class; (2) Create the route handler class, which is responsible for parsing the URL, storing any route parameters into some location that is accessible to the target page (such as HttpContext.Items), and returning an instance of the target page or HTTP Handler that handles the requested route; and (3) writing code in the target page to grab the route parameters and use them in rendering its content. Given how much effort it took to just read the preceding sentence (let alone write it) you can imagine that implementing ASP.NET Routing in a Web Forms application is not necessarily the most straightforward task. The good news is that ASP.NET 4.0 has greatly simplified ASP.NET Routing for Web Form applications by adding a number of classes and helper methods that can be used to encapsulate the aforementioned complexity. With ASP.NET 4.0 it's easier to define the routing rules and there's no need to create a custom route handling class. This article details these enhancements. Read on to learn more! Read More >

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  • Translate jQuery UI Datepicker format to .Net Date format

    - by Michael Freidgeim
    I needed to use the same date format in client jQuery UI Datepicker and server ASP.NET code. The actual format can be different for different localization cultures.I decided to translate Datepicker format to .Net Date format similar as it was asked to do opposite operation in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8531247/jquery-datepickers-dateformat-how-to-integrate-with-net-current-culture-date Note that replace command need to replace whole words and order of calls is importantFunction that does opposite operation (translate  .Net Date format toDatepicker format) is described in http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/62031/JQueryUI-Datepicker-in-ASP-NET-MVC /// <summary> /// Uses regex '\b' as suggested in //http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6143642/way-to-have-string-replace-only-hit-whole-words /// </summary> /// <param name="original"></param> /// <param name="wordToFind"></param> /// <param name="replacement"></param> /// <param name="regexOptions"></param> /// <returns></returns> static public string ReplaceWholeWord(this string original, string wordToFind, string replacement, RegexOptions regexOptions = RegexOptions.None) { string pattern = String.Format(@"\b{0}\b", wordToFind); string ret=Regex.Replace(original, pattern, replacement, regexOptions); return ret; } /// <summary> /// E.g "DD, d MM, yy" to ,"dddd, d MMMM, yyyy" /// </summary> /// <param name="datePickerFormat"></param> /// <returns></returns> /// <remarks> /// Idea to replace from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8531247/jquery-datepickers-dateformat-how-to-integrate-with-net-current-culture-date ///From http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Datepicker/$.datepicker.formatDate to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4.aspx ///Format a date into a string value with a specified format. ///d - day of month (no leading zero) ---.Net the same ///dd - day of month (two digit) ---.Net the same ///D - day name short ---.Net "ddd" ///DD - day name long ---.Net "dddd" ///m - month of year (no leading zero) ---.Net "M" ///mm - month of year (two digit) ---.Net "MM" ///M - month name short ---.Net "MMM" ///MM - month name long ---.Net "MMMM" ///y - year (two digit) ---.Net "yy" ///yy - year (four digit) ---.Net "yyyy" /// </remarks> public static string JQueryDatePickerFormatToDotNetDateFormat(string datePickerFormat) { string sRet = datePickerFormat.ReplaceWholeWord("DD", "dddd").ReplaceWholeWord("D", "ddd"); sRet = sRet.ReplaceWholeWord("M", "MMM").ReplaceWholeWord("MM", "MMMM").ReplaceWholeWord("m", "M").ReplaceWholeWord("mm", "MM");//order is important sRet = sRet.ReplaceWholeWord("yy", "yyyy").ReplaceWholeWord("y", "yy");//order is important return sRet; }

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  • ASP.NET Hosting :: ASP.NET File Upload Control

    - by mbridge
    The asp.net FileUpload control allows a user to browse and upload files to the web server. From developers perspective, it is as simple as dragging and dropping the FileUpload control to the aspx page. An extra control, like a Button control, or some other control is needed, to actually save the file. <asp:FileUploadID="FileUpload1"runat="server"/> <asp:ButtonID="B1"runat="server"Text="Save"OnClick="B1_Click"/> By default, the FileUpload control allows a maximum of 4MB file to be uploaded and the execution timeout is 110 seconds. These properties can be changed from within the web.config file’s httpRuntime section. The maxRequestLength property determines the maximum file size that can be uploaded. The executionTimeout property determines the maximum time for execution. <httpRuntimemaxRequestLength="8192"executionTimeout="220"/> From code behind, the mime type, size of the file, file name and the extension of the file can be obtained. The maximum file size that can be uploaded can be obtained and modified using the System.Web.Configuration.HttpRuntimeSection class. Files can be alternatively saved using the System.IO.HttpFileCollection class. This collection class can be populated using the Request.Files property. The collection contains HttpPostedFile class which contains a reference to the class. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; using System.IO; using System.Configuration; using System.Web.Configuration;   namespace WebApplication1 {     public partial class WebControls : System.Web.UI.Page     {         protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)         {         }           //Using FileUpload control to upload and save files         protected void B1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)         {             if (FileUpload1.HasFile && FileUpload1.PostedFile.ContentLength > 0)             {                 //mime type of the uploaded file                 string mimeType = FileUpload1.PostedFile.ContentType;                   //size of the uploaded file                 int size = FileUpload1.PostedFile.ContentLength; // bytes                   //extension of the uploaded file                 string extension = System.IO.Path.GetExtension(FileUpload1.FileName);                                  //save file                 string path = Server.MapPath("path");                                 FileUpload1.SaveAs(path + FileUpload1.FileName);                              }             //maximum file size allowed             HttpRuntimeSection rt = new HttpRuntimeSection();             rt.MaxRequestLength = rt.MaxRequestLength * 2;             int length = rt.MaxRequestLength;                     //execution timeout             TimeSpan ts = rt.ExecutionTimeout;             double secomds = ts.TotalSeconds;           }           //Using Request.Files to save files         private void AltSaveFile()         {             HttpFileCollection coll = Request.Files;             for (int i = 0; i < coll.Count; i++)             {                 HttpPostedFile file = coll[i];                   if (file.ContentLength > 0)                     ;//do something             }         }     } }

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  • ruby nl2br outside <code> ... </code>

    - by Julien P.
    Hi everyone, I've been struggling on this thing for a week without being able to find what I'm looking for. Here is what I'd like to do: I'm setting up a wiki where I can post all my knowledge to (yes, I know a couple things :p) but I can't render it the way I'd like to. The bodies of my posts are text fields. In order to render them the right way I run the following command: @post.body.gsub("\n", "<br />") I also have some tags with some code inside that looks like this < code my code < /code. Here come's the issue. Every line between the < code and < /code tags are changed to but it doesn'r render properly since I'm using a code render template. Therefore, I'd like to know if there is a way to change all \n to < br / except for those between < code and < /code Thank you everyone for reading this and helping me out. PS: Please do not consider the spaces after the < in each tag. I had to do this to "espace" them. Julien

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  • What would be the equivalent VB.NET code for this C# FluentNHibernate component mapping?

    - by Will Marcouiller
    I'm a C# programmer constrained to write VB.NET code. While exploring NHibernate further for my current client, I encountered FluentNHibernate, which I find real attractive. But now, I wonder how to "translate" this C# code for component mapping into VB.NET code: Component(x => x.Address, m => { m.Map(x => x.Number); m.Map(x => x.Street); m.Map(x => x.PostCode); }); I know from here: Component(Of Client)(Function(c) c.Address, ...) what I miss is how to continue with the brackets in VB.NET, since there's no Begin End keywords or so. EDIT 1: Following Mr. JaredPar instructions, I figured that his solution might work. If we take the time to read his answer, we may notice that we both don't know what the MType is within his solution. I might have found out that the MType is: FluentNHibernate.Mapping.ComponentPart(Of TComponent) Thus, TComponent is, from my understanding, an anonymous type that I shall parameter to use. From this point of view, since I wish to map the properties of my Address object, replacing TComponent in my help method signature seems not to work. Private Sub MapAdresseHelper(Of Adresse)(ByVal a As FluentNHibernate.Mapping.ComponentPart(Of Adresse)) a.Map(Function(m) m.Number) a.Map(Function(m) m.Street).Length(50) a.Map(Function(m) m.PostCode).Length(10) End Sub The error I get is that my Address class doesn't have a property member named Street, for instance. It sees my Address type, it recognizes it, but it seems buggy somehow. I guess VBNET is poorly designed for lambda expressions and is less evolved than C# (Sorry, a bit of frustration due to the constraint of working with it and not being capable of doing things VERY easily done in C#.) Thanks!

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  • How should I unit test a code-generator?

    - by jkp
    This is a difficult and open-ended question I know, but I thought I'd throw it to the floor and see if anyone had any interesting suggestions. I have developed a code-generator that takes our python interface to our C++ code (generated via SWIG) and generates code needed to expose this as WebServices. When I developed this code I did it using TDD, but I've found my tests to be brittle as hell. Because each test essentially wanted to verify that for a given bit of input code (which happens to be a C++ header) I'd get a given bit of outputted code I wrote a small engine that reads test definitions from XML input files and generates test cases from these expectations. The problem is I dread going in to modify the code at all. That and the fact that the unit tests themselves are a: complex, and b: brittle. So I'm trying to think of alternative approaches to this problem, and it strikes me I'm perhaps tackling it the wrong way. Maybe I need to focus more on the outcome, IE: does the code I generate actually run and do what I want it to, rather than, does the code look the way I want it to. Has anyone got any experiences of something similar to this they would care to share?

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  • .NET: Avoidance of custom exceptions by utilising existing types, but which?

    - by Mr. Disappointment
    Consider the following code (ASP.NET/C#): private void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!SetupHelper.SetUp()) { throw new ShitHitFanException(); } } I've never been too hesitant to simply roll my own exception type, basically because I have found (bad practice, or not) that mostly a reasonable descriptive type name gives us enough as developers to go by in order to know what happened and why something might have happened. Sometimes the existing .NET exception types even accommodate these needs - regardless of the message. In this particular scenario, for demonstration purposes only, the application should die a horrible, disgraceful death should SetUp not complete properly (as dictated by its return value), but I can't find an already existing exception type in .NET which would seem to suffice; though, I'm sure one will be there and I simply don't know about it. Brad Abrams posted this article that lists some of the available exception types. I say some because the article is from 2005, and, although I try to keep up to date, it's a more than plausible assumption that more have been added to future framework versions that I am still unaware of. Of course, Visual Studio gives you a nicely formatted, scrollable list of exceptions via Intellisense - but even on analysing those, I find none which would seem to suffice for this situation... ApplicationException: ...when a non-fatal application error occurs The name seems reasonable, but the error is very definitely fatal - the app is dead. ExecutionEngineException: ...when there is an internal error in the execution engine of the CLR Again, sounds reasonable, superficially; but this has a very definite purpose and to help me out here certainly isn't it. HttpApplicationException: ...when there is an error processing an HTTP request Well, we're running an ASP.NET application! But we're also just pulling at straws here. InvalidOperationException: ...when a call is invalid for the current state of an instance This isn't right but I'm adding it to the list of 'possible should you put a gun to my head, yes'. OperationCanceledException: ...upon cancellation of an operation the thread was executing Maybe I wouldn't feel so bad using this one, but I'd still be hijacking the damn thing with little right. You might even ask why on earth I would want to raise an exception here but the idea is to find out that if I were to do so then do you know of an appropriate exception for such a scenario? And basically, to what extent can we piggy-back on .NET while keeping in line with rationality?

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  • 10 Essential Tools for building ASP.NET Websites

    - by Stephen Walther
    I recently put together a simple public website created with ASP.NET for my company at Superexpert.com. I was surprised by the number of free tools that I ended up using to put together the website. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to create a list of essential tools for building ASP.NET websites. These tools work equally well with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. Performance Tools After reading Steve Souders two (very excellent) books on front-end website performance High Performance Web Sites and Even Faster Web Sites, I have been super sensitive to front-end website performance. According to Souders’ Performance Golden Rule: “Optimize front-end performance first, that's where 80% or more of the end-user response time is spent” You can use the tools below to reduce the size of the images, JavaScript files, and CSS files used by an ASP.NET application. 1. Sprite and Image Optimization Framework CSS sprites were first described in an article written for A List Apart entitled CSS sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death. When you use sprites, you combine multiple images used by a website into a single image. Next, you use CSS trickery to display particular sub-images from the combined image in a webpage. The primary advantage of sprites is that they reduce the number of requests required to display a webpage. Requesting a single large image is faster than requesting multiple small images. In general, the more resources – images, JavaScript files, CSS files – that must be moved across the wire, the slower your website. However, most people avoid using sprites because they require a lot of work. You need to combine all of the images and write just the right CSS rules to display the sub-images. The Microsoft Sprite and Image Optimization Framework enables you to avoid all of this work. The framework combines the images for you automatically. Furthermore, the framework includes an ASP.NET Web Forms control and an ASP.NET MVC helper that makes it easy to display the sub-images. You can download the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework from CodePlex at http://aspnet.codeplex.com/releases/view/50869. The Sprite and Image Optimization Framework was written by Morgan McClean who worked in the office next to mine at Microsoft. Morgan was a scary smart Intern from Canada and we discussed the Framework while he was building it (I was really excited to learn that he was working on it). Morgan added some great advanced features to this framework. For example, the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework supports something called image inlining. When you use image inlining, the actual image is stored in the CSS file. Here’s an example of what image inlining looks like: .Home_StephenWalther_small-jpg { width:75px; height:100px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAEsAAABkCAIAAABB1lpeAAAAB GdBTUEAALGOfPtRkwAAACBjSFJNAACHDwAAjA8AAP1SAACBQAAAfXkAAOmLAAA85QAAGcxzPIV3AAAKL s+zNfREAAAAASUVORK5CYII=) no-repeat 0% 0%; } The actual image (in this case a picture of me that is displayed on the home page of the Superexpert.com website) is stored in the CSS file. If you visit the Superexpert.com website then very few separate images are downloaded. For example, all of the images with a red border in the screenshot below take advantage of CSS sprites: Unfortunately, there are some significant Gotchas that you need to be aware of when using the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework. There are workarounds for these Gotchas. I plan to write about these Gotchas and workarounds in a future blog entry. 2. Microsoft Ajax Minifier Whenever possible you should combine, minify, compress, and cache with a far future header all of your JavaScript and CSS files. The Microsoft Ajax Minifier makes it easy to minify JavaScript and CSS files. Don’t confuse minification and compression. You need to do both. According to Souders, you can reduce the size of a JavaScript file by an additional 20% (on average) by minifying a JavaScript file after you compress the file. When you minify a JavaScript or CSS file, you use various tricks to reduce the size of the file before you compress the file. For example, you can minify a JavaScript file by replacing long JavaScript variables names with short variables names and removing unnecessary white space and comments. You can minify a CSS file by doing such things as replacing long color names such as #ffffff with shorter equivalents such as #fff. The Microsoft Ajax Minifier was created by Microsoft employee Ron Logan. Internally, this tool was being used by several large Microsoft websites. We also used the tool heavily on the ASP.NET team. I convinced Ron to publish the tool on CodePlex so that everyone in the world could take advantage of it. You can download the tool from the ASP.NET Ajax website and read documentation for the tool here. I created the installer for the Microsoft Ajax Minifier. When creating the installer, I also created a Visual Studio build task to make it easy to minify all of your JavaScript and CSS files whenever you do a build within Visual Studio automatically. Read the Ajax Minifier Quick Start to learn how to configure the build task. 3. ySlow The ySlow tool is a free add-on for Firefox created by Yahoo that enables you to test the front-end of your website. For example, here are the current test results for the Superexpert.com website: The Superexpert.com website has an overall score of B (not perfect but not bad). The ySlow tool is not perfect. For example, the Superexpert.com website received a failing grade of F for not using a Content Delivery Network even though the website using the Microsoft Ajax Content Delivery Network for JavaScript files such as jQuery. Uptime After publishing a website live to the world, you want to ensure that the website does not encounter any issues and that it stays live. I use the following tools to monitor the Superexpert.com website now that it is live. 4. ELMAH ELMAH stands for Error Logging Modules and Handlers for ASP.NET. ELMAH enables you to record any errors that happen at your website so you can review them in the future. You can download ELMAH for free from the ELMAH project website. ELMAH works great with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. You can configure ELMAH to store errors in a number of different stores including XML files, the Event Log, an Access database, a SQL database, an Oracle database, or in computer RAM. You also can configure ELMAH to email error messages to you when they happen. By default, you can access ELMAH by requesting the elmah.axd page from a website with ELMAH installed. Here’s what the elmah page looks like from the Superexpert.com website (this page is password-protected because secret information can be revealed in an error message): If you click on a particular error message, you can view the original Yellow Screen ASP.NET error message (even when the error message was never displayed to the actual user). I installed ELMAH by taking advantage of the new package manager for ASP.NET named NuGet (originally named NuPack). You can read the details about NuGet in the following blog entry by Scott Guthrie. You can download NuGet from CodePlex. 5. Pingdom I use Pingdom to verify that the Superexpert.com website is always up. You can sign up for Pingdom by visiting Pingdom.com. You can use Pingdom to monitor a single website for free. At the Pingdom website, you configure the frequency that your website gets pinged. I verify that the Superexpert.com website is up every 5 minutes. I have the Pingdom service verify that it can retrieve the string “Contact Us” from the website homepage. If your website goes down, you can configure Pingdom so that it sends an email, Twitter, SMS, or iPhone alert. I use the Pingdom iPhone app which looks like this: 6. Host Tracker If your website does go down then you need some way of determining whether it is a problem with your local network or if your website is down for everyone. I use a website named Host-Tracker.com to check how badly a website is down. Here’s what the Host-Tracker website displays for the Superexpert.com website when the website can be successfully pinged from everywhere in the world: Notice that Host-Tracker pinged the Superexpert.com website from 68 locations including Roubaix, France and Scranton, PA. Debugging I mean debugging in the broadest possible sense. I use the following tools when building a website to verify that I have not made a mistake. 7. HTML Spell Checker Why doesn’t Visual Studio have a built-in spell checker? Don’t know – I’ve always found this mysterious. Fortunately, however, a former member of the ASP.NET team wrote a free spell checker that you can use with your ASP.NET pages. I find a spell checker indispensible. It is easy to delude yourself that you are capable of perfect spelling. I’m always super embarrassed when I actually run the spell checking tool and discover all of my spelling mistakes. The fastest way to add the HTML Spell Checker extension to Visual Studio is to select the menu option Tools, Extension Manager within Visual Studio. Click on Online Gallery and search for HTML Spell Checker: 8. IIS SEO Toolkit If people cannot find your website through Google then you should not even bother to create it. Microsoft has a great extension for IIS named the IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit that you can use to identify issue with your website that would hurt its page rank. You also can use this tool to quickly create a sitemap for your website that you can submit to Google or Bing. You can even generate the sitemap for an ASP.NET MVC website. Here’s what the report overview for the Superexpert.com website looks like: Notice that the Sueprexpert.com website had plenty of violations. For example, there are 65 cases in which a page has a broken hyperlink. You can drill into these violations to identity the exact page and location where these violations occur. 9. LinqPad If your ASP.NET website accesses a database then you should be using LINQ to Entities with the Entity Framework. Using LINQ involves some magic. LINQ queries written in C# get converted into SQL queries for you. If you are not careful about how you write your LINQ queries, you could unintentionally build a really badly performing website. LinqPad is a free tool that enables you to experiment with your LINQ queries. It even works with Microsoft SQL CE 4 and Azure. You can use LinqPad to execute a LINQ to Entities query and see the results. You also can use it to see the resulting SQL that gets executed against the database: 10. .NET Reflector I use .NET Reflector daily. The .NET Reflector tool enables you to take any assembly and disassemble the assembly into C# or VB.NET code. You can use .NET Reflector to see the “Source Code” of an assembly even when you do not have the actual source code. You can download a free version of .NET Reflector from the Redgate website. I use .NET Reflector primarily to help me understand what code is doing internally. For example, I used .NET Reflector with the Sprite and Image Optimization Framework to better understand how the MVC Image helper works. Here’s part of the disassembled code from the Image helper class: Summary In this blog entry, I’ve discussed several of the tools that I used to create the Superexpert.com website. These are tools that I use to improve the performance, improve the SEO, verify the uptime, or debug the Superexpert.com website. All of the tools discussed in this blog entry are free. Furthermore, all of these tools work with both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. Let me know if there are any tools that you use daily when building ASP.NET websites.

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  • Moving away from .Net to Ruby and coping without intellisense

    - by user460667
    I am in the process of trying to learn Ruby, however after spending nearly 10 years in the MS stack I am struggling to get by without intellisense. I've given RubyMine a try which does help however ideally I would like to go free which would mean no RubyMine. How have other people leant to cope with remembering everything instead of relying on Ctrl-Space? Any advice is appreciated as at the moment I am feeling very stupid (no jokes about MS devs please ;)) Thanks

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  • ASP.NET MVC Controllers & Actions In Regards To URLs And SEO

    - by user1066133
    The general idea is that if I were to create an MVC site, simple pages such as the contact and about pages will be placed under the Home Controller. So my URL would look like http://www.mysite.com/home/contact, and http://www.mysite.com/home/about. The above works just fine, but I really don't like the idea of having the "home" portion in the URL. So what negatives would there be if I decided to make a controller name of Contact and About and just added a single Index action so that way the URL would be simplified to http://www.mysite.com/contact and http://www.mysite.com/about. This method looks cleaner. Do any of you do the same or something similar? I've been trying to work on SEO for an escort service site I've developed and when you search for the females the link looks like http://www.mysite.com/escorts/female-escorts, and like-wise for males. I'm wondering if I should remove the Escorts Controller and just create a Female_Escorts Controller with an Index Action only so it comes out like the above as http://www.mysite.com/female-escorts.

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  • Is .NET WCF worth the effort?

    - by SnOrfus
    Maybe it's me, but I've never encountered nearly as many problems, annoying challenges, indirect error messages and general frustrations with any other technology as I have with WCF. What are the ACTUAL benefits? Not the MS Press Release benefits of 'a unified architecture for something something that's not going to work anyway.' And are those benefits worth the annoying frustrations? I'm normally a big MS fanboy over here, but I just can't get behind WCF.

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