I’ve never used it to its full potential… and I still wouldn’t do without it…

Mar 16, 2004 2 min.

CodeSmith 2.5 is available, and although I’ve mentioned it in a few articles on MSDN already, I have to tell you again… I use this utility all the time. It is fairly obvious, if you look at the code from any one of my articles, that I use Code Smith to generate my strongly typed collections in almost every single project. What isn’t obvious is how often I use it in my own projects that never get published (internal to Microsoft, or for myself)… it is invaluable and I’ve never even created my own templates.

Wow, a huge FAQ for System.Web.Mail…

Mar 15, 2004 1 min.

From Dave Wanta, the guy behind kbalertz.com, a detailed FAQ for the SMTP mail classes in the .NET Framework. If you are using System.Web.Mail, then you’ll want to check it out: http://www.systemwebmail.net/

There’s nothing like a nice control to make development easier…

Mar 15, 2004 2 min.

I’m just playing around with an internal application, just a tool that hits our internal web services for article ratings (you know, the little box that says “7 out of 9” next to MSDN articles…) and displays the results in a grid. Well, there are a lot of things I’ve been hoping to add to the Windows Forms Data Grid, and while I’ve done quite a few of them (3 or 4 custom column types) I’ve never gotten around to adding the really cool stuff….

Shaykat’s Visual Studio 2003 Tips

Mar 14, 2004 1 min.

Shaykat, a PM on the C# Team, has been posting some great tips on VS.NET 2003 so I thought I would collect them here for your linking pleasure; Tip #1: Stop the solution explorer flashiness when opening a project! Tip #2: Macros Tip #3: View exception information with $exception Tip #4: Demo better with the toolbox and task list Tip #5: Intellisense in the immediate window Tip #6: Keyboard Shortcuts Tip #7: Implementing interface stubs automatically If you liked these tips, you can view them all and watch for any future ones by tracking the Visual Studio 2003 Tips category from Shaykat’s blog.

Team Chat on Unit Testing coming up next Thursday (3/18)

Mar 13, 2004 1 min.

A few team members have blogged about this already, but here I go again… Unit testing is a method of testing individual software components. Each function in every class is tested to make sure it does its job correctly, with the hope that if everything works correctly by itself, higher level problems will be less common or much easier to debug. Wondering if it is right for you? Already doing it, but looking for best practices?

Some cool controls from DarthPedro

Mar 13, 2004 1 min.

Ok… so I’m biased here, Pedro used to be my grand-boss at MSDN, and now works on some very cool and very graphical magic as part of the Whitehorse team… but on the side it appears he has been developing some Windows Forms controls, so I would suggest you check them out; This ControlLibrary contains subclassed WinForms controls that I’ve been working on. It contains the source code as well as the test apps for them.

hey… want to come work at MSDN?

Mar 13, 2004 2 min.

Turns out we (MSDN) are looking for a few good testers to come and work with us in Redmond… if you are interested in a position, and the following job description (which you may have also seen on Laura or Kent’s blog…) is appealing, let us know via this link. _Are you ready to join an exciting team? MSDN is revolutionizing the way developers get the resources and information they need.

“Blogs from the C# Team” page now up… enjoy!

Mar 12, 2004 1 min.

This page lists all of the C# team blogs (that I am aware of) and provides you with a list of featured posts that I’ve pulled out of the various individual blogs … check it out at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp/team/blogs and let me know what you think.

The eagerly awaited Part 5 of Scott Mitchell’s Data Structure series is now live

Mar 11, 2004 1 min.

Check it out here In this fifth installment of the article series we’re going to examine graphs. Graphs are composed of a set of nodes and edges, just like trees, but with graphs there are no rules for the connections between nodes. With graphs, there is no concept of a root node, nor is there a concept of parents and children. Rather, a graph is a collection of interconnected nodes.

Have you seen Joe Hummel’s webcasts yet?

Mar 11, 2004 2 min.

Well, if you haven’t managed to see any of them live yet… don’t fret, they are all available on-demand as well (after the live presentation that is). If you are a VB6 programmer interested in learning .NET or if you are already programming in VB.NET, you have to check them out… Session 1: Program Execution in the 21st Century Session 2: OOP and Class Design Session 3: Working with Classes and Class Libraries Session 4: Windows Forms: What’s New in GUI Programming Session 5: Defensive Programming Session 6: Databases (part 1 of 3) _