The art of simplicity

Although there are a lot of different ways to optimize your ASP.NET MVC web applications, some are cheaper then others. Here are some very simple tips that still can make a significant difference: Run in Release mode Always make sure that your application is compiled in Release mode and that your web.config file is configured with <compilation debug="false" /> . Use the web.config transformations feature to automatically change this value in release mode. Use only the View Engines that you need As you probably know the MVC framework supports multiple view engines. This means that each time MVC is trying to find a view it’s searching through all these view engines. In MVC 3 two view engines are registered by default (WebForms and Razor). So if you use only one view engine, remove the ones you are not using: protected void Application_Start() { ViewEngines.Engines.Clear(); ViewEngines.Engines.Add(new RazorViewEngine()); } Use the CachedDataAnnotationsMode...

You want to write Powershell scripts inside Visual Studio? Thanks to the  PowerGUI Visual Studio Extension this becomes very easy. Here is the list of available features: PowerGUI Console Tool Window PowerShell Project Type IntelliSense support through a custom PowerShell editor Syntax highlighting and script analysis Supports PowerGUI settings Supports PowerGUI imported modules Supports PowerGUI Snippets PowerShell debugging PowerGUI Console Tool Window PowerShell Project Type

While browsing through some Channel 9 videos, I discovered the following session: Damian Edwards, a member of the ASP.NET team at Microsoft talks in this episode about the JScript Editor Extensions(Microsoft calls it JScript because Oracle owns the rights on the name JavaScript) and about what can be expected in Visual Studio vNext. This JScript Editor Extensions bundles the following functionality: Brace Matching Adds support for automatically highlighting the matching opening or closing brace to the one currently at the cursor. Supports matching parenthesis: (), square brackets: [], and curly braces: {}. Braces in strings, comments and regular expression literals are ignored. Outlining / Cold-folding Adds support for automatically creating outlining regions for JScript blocks. Blocks are detected via opening and closing curly braces. Braces in strings, comments and regular expression literals are ignored. Current Word Highlighting Adds support for highlig...

Last week I was creating a demo application to show some ASP.NET features when I kept getting the following error: “The type or namespace name 'Linq' does not exist in the namespace 'System.Data'” I had the System.Data.Linq DLL referenced in my application and verified through the Object Browser that this namespace was indeed part of this assembly. Although a very stupid error it took me some time to figure out why it wasn’t working…. I was finally able to solve the issue by adding the following line in my web.config: <add assembly="System.Data.Linq, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089"/>

Interested in some of the curiosities inside the JavaScript programming language? Have a look at Mike Taulty’s blog where he walks through a lot of (little known) JavaScript features. JavaScript OMG! #1 to #5 OMG #1 – Optional Semi-Colons OMG #2 – JavaScript Type System OMG #3 – JavaScript and Underflow, Overflow, Div Zero OMG #4 – JavaScript and RegExp OMG #5 – Truthy and Falsy JavaScript OMG! #6 to #10 OMG #6 – The Global Object OMG #7 – “Expando Objects” OMG #8 – Wrappers OMG #9 – Type Conversions OMG#10 – Object to Primitive Conversions JavaScript OMG! #11 to #15 OMG #11 – Variable Scope and Hoisting OMG #12 – Bitwise Operators OMG #13 – Equality and Strict Equality OMG #14 – “use strict” OMG #15 – Magic of Short-Circuiting ANDs and Truthy/Falsy JavaScript OMG!: #16 to #20 OMG#16 – Function Arguments OMG #17 – Nested Functions OMG #18 – ...

After registering an account on TFS Preview , I immediately wanted to add some code and start playing with it. However just entering [your account name].tfspreview.com  in Team Explorer had no effect. So what do you need to do to get this working? First you need Visual Studio 2010 with SP1 applied. Secondly you need to install KB2581206 . After installing the hotfix, a connection can be made through the “Add Team Foundation Server” dialogue in VS2010: URL of Team Foundation Server = [your account name].tfspreview.com Connection Details: Path = tfs Port = 443 Protocol = HTTPS You’ll get a connection dialog to connect through Live Id: That’s it!

After 2 weeks of vacation I’m working myself through all the information that was released at the Microsoft BUILD conference . If you couldn’t be there(like most of us) certainly start with the 2 keynotes( Keynote #1 & Keynote #2 ). This will inspire you enough to browse through all the other sessions( http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011 ).  One nice thing I noticed is that if you have an HTML5 enabled browser, the videos are shown using the HTML 5 <video> tag giving you the option to change the play speed(most sessions are still watchable at 1.4x speed). Unfortunately a full screen option is not available(yet), but you can always switch back to the Silverlight player. Continue your journey by downloading and experimenting with Windows 8 Developer Preview Windows Developer Preview with developer tools English, 64-bit (x64) Windows Developer Preview English, 64-bit (x64) Windows Developer Preview English, 32-bit (x86) ...

‘If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail’ . My favorite pattern today is the Null object pattern, so I’m applying it everywhere But what’s this pattern exactly and why is it so useful? Let’s consider the following code : class DiscountRepository { public Discount GetDiscountFor(Order order) { } } public abstract class Discount { public abstract int Calculate(Order order); } We have an abstract class that represents our object and a repository. Now what if you have an order for which there is no discount information available in the database. You always have to check for null and having this all over the place make the code less readable. public void ProcessOrder(Order order) { var discount=_repository.GetDiscountFor(order); if (discount != null) discount.Calculate(order); } I don’t like this code.  So let’s apply the Null Object pattern to make the above code prettier and less error-prone. All we need to do is to implement...

One of the little known features of Team Foundation Server 2010 are private builds (a.k.a. “Buddy Builds”).A Private build is just like a Gated check-in build, but without the automatic check-in and enforcement. It’s a way to manually queue a Gated check-in build and provide a Shelveset name. It provides another sanity check beyond F5. You specify a private build by selecting a Shelveset to merge with the latest source code when queuing a build. You queue a private build if you want to build the changes that you have put into a shelveset. You can use a private build (also known as a "buddy build") to validate changes to your code before you check it in. By performing a private build of your changes before you check them in, you can reduce the chance that they will break any builds that your team runs regularly (such as the nightly build). From the MSDN website: How Private Builds Differ from Public Builds The results of a completed private build differ from a...

Microsoft released a new version of the Team Foundation Server Training Kit. “The Introduction to Team Foundation Server 2010 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs and demos designed to help you get acquainted with the features of Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010. This Training Kit contains several demos and hands-on labs that require some additional setup. For instructions, please see the Setup document.” Download available here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27152 . And while you are looking at the current TFS features, also have a look at the following posts by Brian Harry about what’s coming in TFS vNext: Workspace Enhancements Merge Enhancements Version Control Enhancements

For a project we are using Unity 2.0 interception with policy injection to create and manage our NHibernate session. Therefore we created a custom ICallHandler in combination with a HandlerAttribute. [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Method)] public class NHibernateUnitOfWorkHandlerAttribute : HandlerAttribute { private bool _createTransaction; public NHibernateUnitOfWorkHandlerAttribute(bool createTransaction=false) { _createTransaction = createTransaction; } public override ICallHandler CreateHandler(IUnityContainer container) { return new NHibernateUnitOfWorkHandler(Order,_createTransaction); } } public class NHibernateUnitOfWorkHandler : ICallHandler { public NHibernateUnitOfWorkHandler(int order,bool createTransaction) { this.Order = order; this.CreateTransaction = createTransaction; } public IMethodReturn Invoke(IMethodI...

Last week Microsoft released the Workflow Foundation (WF) Activity Pack for Windows Azure. The package is also available via NuGet (Package name=WFAzureActivityPack) and through their CodePlex page . “The WF Activity Pack for Windows Azure CTP 1 is the first community technology preview (CTP) release of Windows Azure activities implementation based on Windows Workflow Foundation in .NET Framework 4.0 (WF4) and Windows Azure SDK. The implementation contains a set of activities based on Windows Azure Storage Service and Windows Azure AppFabric Caching Service , which enables developers to easily access these Azure services within a workflow application.” The current release includes the following Workflow activities: For Windows Azure Storage Service - Blob PutBlob creates a new block blob, or replace an existing block blob. GetBlob downloads the binary content of a blob. DeleteBlob deletes a blob if it exists. CopyBlob copies a blob to a destination withi...

Last week I was trying to change the work item type definition so it will set a default value in the iteration path.  But when I tried importing it back with the TFS Power Tools, I always got the following error: Error importing work item type definition: TF26062:Rule '<DEFAULT from ="value" value="283" />' is not supported for the field 'System.IterationId'. It seems like it is not possible to set a default value for the area or iteration path. In the end I solved this by creating a Work Item Template(part of the TFS Power Tools ) with a default value for Iteration Path. I really like this approach because I can change the value in the template when a new sprint starts. More about Work Item Templates and their usage: Work Item Templates: Advanced Tips Work Item Templates: Bulk Edit

JavaScript, you love it or hate it. It’s ubiquitous, useful, powerful and at the same time clunky and confusing. But … there is no way around it.  Sooner or later you’ll have to (re)learn this language. So you can better start today. Where to get started? Forget all those bad JavaScript samples out there, instead have a look at  JavaScript Garden , a site created by Ivo Wetzel and Zhang Yi Jiang . JavaScript Garden is a growing collection of documentation about the most quirky parts of the JavaScript programming language. It gives advice to avoid common mistakes, subtle bugs, as well as performance issues and bad practices that non-expert JavaScript programmers may encounter on their endeavours into the depths of the language. Add it to your bookmarks!