Getting good answers on StackOverflow – part 12 of n
Tip #12 – Code that shows the problem When posting a code sample, make sure that it is representative of the problem you are having. This means that it needs to be syntacticly correct (otherwise,...
View ArticleGetting good answers on StackOverflow – part 13 of n
Tip #13 – What have you tried? when describing your problem, make sure to include details of what you already tried. This will help ensure that you do not get answers that go into more depth and that...
View ArticleAsking and answering questions on StackOverflow
The estimable Jon Skeet had posted a great blog about asking the perfect question, this is a follow on to his post on answering technical questions. Good stuff, most of which is generally applicable to...
View ArticleDate and Time format strings in .NET – Introduction
One of the most common misunderstandings I see on StackOverflow regarding the DateTime structure is the difference between the value of a DateTime instance and how it is displayed. A DateTime instance...
View ArticleDate and Time format strings in .NET – IFormatProvider
Several of the overloads of ToString and the different Parse methods (Parse, ParseExact, TryParse and TryParseExact) defined on DateTime take an IFormatProvider parameter. This interface defines a...
View ArticleDate and Time format strings in .NET – CultureInfo
As mentioned in my last post, the IFormatProvider interface in the context of DateTime is mostly used for formatting a DateTime to a specific representation and for parsing a string into a DateTime...
View ArticleDate and Time format strings in .NET – InvariantCulture
If you wish to have a deterministic format, but do not want to use a specific culture, you can use InvariantCulture. InvariantCulture represents no culture at all – it is associated with the English...
View ArticleDate and Time format strings in .NET – Understanding format strings
Date and Time format strings come in two flavors – standard and custom. Whenever these are used, the CultureInfo that is used with them comes into play. If an IFormatProvider is not specified, the...
View ArticleClass libraries do not have configuration
Why is that? If one takes the time to think about it, class libraries only ever execute in the context of an application – a web application, a console application, a unit test runner or some other...
View ArticleDid you know? A .NET CSV parser that comes with Visual Studio?
In the Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO (Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll) namespace lives the TextFieldParser class. This useful little class can be used to parse structured text files – either delimited or...
View ArticleAnatomy of a XSS vulnerability on Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow has had a mobile version of the site for quite a while now, and to make life easy for our users, we have a switcher in the footer – allowing one to toggle between the mobile and the full...
View ArticleWhat Developers Need to Know about SQL – Introduction
I will be starting a series of blogs, inspired by a twitter conversion Brent Ozar had with other database folks and the highlights of which he collated as a blog post, titled What Developers Need to...
View ArticleWhat Developers Need to Know about SQL – Set Based Programming
Here is one stand alone tweet from What Developers Need to Know About SQL Server, which is rather information dense and worth expanding on: @BrentO Just like you had to graduate from imperative to OO,...
View ArticleWhat Developers Need to Know about SQL – SQL is not for everything
Here is another intersting tweet from What Developers Need to Know About SQL Server: @BrentO @SQLRich Stop parsing strings, splitting lists and formatting dates in T-SQL. There are much more efficient...
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Design for developers – the journey begins
So I decided to take a design course. Graphic design, that is. Not design patterns, not architecture. Graphic design. Why would I, a programmer for well over a decade, decide to do that? Because design...
View ArticlePro Git 2nd Edition – a review
I found the book to be quite a good introduction as well as a suitable book for power users. The book starts with the basics – the common uses that most users will have of git, it then goes into...
View ArticleDesign for developers – how it went
It has been a while since I went through the course, and I wanted to report back on how it went. Some things went well, some no so well… The good: The course is a great introduction to design. I...
View ArticleGitHub for windows – git bash – remembering the passphrase
I seem to hit this issue every time I setup GitHub for Windows on a new machine. I setup my SSH connection to the git server, but every single time I use git over the SSH transport, I need to re-enter...
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Software Estimation and Planning done right
I’ve been recently asked about my approach to software estimation (with a follow on regarding planning), here are my thoughts on the matter. When talking to whomever is asking for the estimate/plan, it...
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