Posts by Morgan

Code smells: How to produce clean and meaning code

May08
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Morgan

Today, I would like to start a new series of article about one field I appreciate a lot and which concerns (I hope that) all developers: Clean and meaning code.

Did you ever see a piece of code and said

“Hum there is a problem here … I can’t put a word on it but it smells not good …”

Wait for it! You said “smell not good” ? That’s the word I wanted!

When you want to detect or understand clean and meaning code, you can refer to the “code smells” list! You can find this list and some example on CodingHorror website and a definition on Wikipedia.

I think that every developer have to keep in mind all these principle. Some of these odors can be very simple or obvious for you but in our job there is, unfortunately, some developer for whom clean and meaning code isn’t their problem … What is important for them is “It’s working then it’s done”! No matter how it has been implemented!

So we all need to transport the good word about code smells around us!

Let's go guys !

Posted in Agile software development, C#

Microsoft Techdays 2011 : Videos are available !

Mar19
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Morgan

Today, it’s a raining day … Not very funny isn’t it?

Why don’t use this week-end to improve your skill with more than 100 videos about Microsoft technologies?

Microsoft has published this week all the conferences recorded during the Techdays 2011 in Paris.

Cloud computing, Development, Software architecture, you can discover and learn a lot about Microsoft environment!

Videos are in French and the PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded.

For information, this year I’ve been at these presentations:

Have fun !

Posted in .NET

Deployment : Using resource during Unit Test

Mar19
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Morgan

Today I’d like to share with you a tip. This is perhaps not a tip for some of you but until yesterday I didn’t know how to solve this problem!

I’m currently working on a projet with TDD methodologie and I’m working on substitution of SqlLite by Sql Server CE in the context of Unit Tests.

To show you how deployment setting works, let’s implement a little test !

1 – Add the local database in the project

Add a local Database

2 – Add a test project, a test method which test if the database exist and implement the method.

        [TestMethod]
        public void IsFileExist()
        {
            string fileToTest = "MyLocalDatabase.sdf";
            Assert.IsTrue(Program.IsFileExist(fileToTest));
        }

        public static bool IsFileExist(string file)
        {
            return File.Exists(file);
        }

2 – Launch the unit test.
You are getting an error because the file isn’t deployed in the unit test context.

If you use an espion during the test debug, you can see where the test is executed with the Environment.CurrentDirectory instruction.

The Unit Test context

Even if your file is in the folder Debug or Realease of your program, the unit test runs in a particular context (TestResult/DateOfTheTest/Out/ …) where the file (Here the database) isn’t existing.

The solution is to use the Local.testsetting file created automatically in the solution Items folder when you add test project.

Open the Local.testsettings. In the Deployment tab you can select dependency and resource you need to deploy in the unit test context. So we select the local database.

The unit-test deployment setting

Finally, run the unit test … It’s working ! The local database has been correctly moved to the unit test context.

Do you have another solution to solve this problem ?

You can download this project example here.

Las vegas

Posted in .NET, Unit test

Agile software development : A new way of thinking

Mar13
2011 1 Comment Written by Morgan

Hello everybody !

Today in want to start a serie of articles about agile software development. I’m currently working on a projet where agility is in the middle of all thoughts. It is my first experience in this field as a developper and I’d like to share with you some of my thoughts and question about agility.

As some of you, a month ago, I didn’t know exactly what agility (in software developement) means. I had previously heard some words like SCRUM, TDD or XP … but it sounded mostly acronyms for me !

After some training session, I’m now able to speak about agility and I’m gonna work with it in the next few months.

For this first post, I just want to share some thoughts, links and readings you can have if you want to learn more about agility.

In a sofware development, you can use a lot of methodologies to reach you goal. The agile sofware development (called here agility) is a regroupment of methodologies that you can chose to build your software. [1]

All these methodologies are based on a common manifesto written by the Agile alliance.

If we take a look at this manifesto, we can found the four principles of all these methods :

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

The complete list of the principles behind agile development is available on the Agile Manifesto website. [2]

I don’t know if you already worked in a “classic” sofware development project, but for me, when I read these taglines I said : “Whaoo, If someday we can do all these things on a sofware development project, It could be amazing !”

In a lot of compagny, agile sofware development can’t be used because managers are not yet able to understand these principles. Agility cannot be applied without convictions. Agility is a new way of thinking and it’s not easy to say “Okay, I always worked this way and now I need to erase all my principles and learn a new way to see things …”. You know what I mean ?

I’m writting this article because I’m currently in this position. I always worked with the classic process of my enterprise and now I work on a project where this process is totally out of date ! Firstly we can think that agility is much more for managment and project manager but it’s not true, agility can be spread on all project actors.(Developers, Client, Manager, …).

So the word is, if you want to learn agility sofware development, stop thinking old process, erase a lot of things you’ve understand about sofware development (not all …) and try an agility method ! Hard isn’t it ?

Okay now, some readings about agile sofware development.

[1] Agile Sofware Development (Wikipedia)
[2] Agile Alliance

In the second part of this article, I will try to explain some agile methodologies.

Stay Tuned !

How to resolve complexity ?

Posted in Agile software development

Retrieve Sql Server tables and columns metadata with INFORMATION_SCHEMA

Feb23
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Morgan

Hello everyone!

Today, I’d like to share an Sql Server snippet which can helps you when you need to retrieve metadata from your Sql Server database. Sql Server provides many system views that expose metadata.

One of them is the Information Schema view. If you want to retrieve information about the catalog, a table, a column … this is the perfect way to do it!

Let’s try some examples!

Our sample database is the awesome Adventurework database.

First example, I want to select every table name in my database:

select
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES.TABLE_CATALOG,
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES.TABLE_SCHEMA,
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES.TABLE_NAME
from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
order by INFORMATION_schema.TABLES.TABLE_NAME

Retrieve every table in your Sql Server database

Now I want to select all the columns in all the tables and some other information like the type of the column and if it is nullable.

select
INFORMATION_schema.COLUMNS.TABLE_NAME,
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS.COLUMN_NAME,
INFORMATION_schema.COLUMNS.DATA_TYPE,
INFORMATION_schema.COLUMNS.IS_NULLABLE
from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
order by INFORMATION_schema.COLUMNS.TABLE_NAME

Retrieve columns from your Sql Server database

Okay, now, little harder and in a “real” pro-context!

Imagine you want to do like an O/R mapping and generate all the entities for your application … With the INFORMATION_SCHEMA, the database can do a lot of work for you.

In a previous developpment, I needed to retrieve some information about tables and especially columns constraint. Here is a snippet to retrieve these informations.

select
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS.TABLE_NAME
,INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS.COLUMN_NAME
,INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS.IS_NULLABLE
,INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS.DATA_TYPE
,INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS.CONSTRAINT_TYPE
from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
left outer join INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE
on INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE.COLUMN_NAME = INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS.COLUMN_NAME
and INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE.TABLE_NAME = INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS.TABLE_NAME
and INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE.TABLE_CATALOG = INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS.TABLE_CATALOG
and INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE.ORDINAL_POSITION = INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS.ORDINAL_POSITION
left outer join INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS on
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS.TABLE_NAME = INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE.TABLE_NAME
and INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS.CONSTRAINT_NAME = INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE.CONSTRAINT_NAME
order by INFORMATION_schema.COLUMNS.TABLE_NAME

Retrieve constraint type in columns

Posted in Sql Server

PRISM 4 Exception : T must be Nullable

Feb20
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Morgan

Yesterday, I worked on an application which uses PRISM 2.1 (Composite WPF).

This application had to be updated to the .NET Framework 4 and PRISM 4.

There was no problem with the compilation but at runtime, we had this error.

“T must be Nullable”.

We use this syntax to perform our DelegateCommand

DelegateCommand<bool> MyCommand = new DelegateCommand<bool>(MyMethod);

Public void MyMethod(bool parameter)
{
// Do Something.
}

Now, PRISM 4 checks if the type defined in the DelegateCommand is Nullable.

If we take a look at the changelog between PRISM 2.X and PRISM 4, we find an interesting explanation:

“The DelegateCommand now checks for Nullable<T> or a reference type in the constructor. The constructor deliberately prevents the use of value types. BecauseICommand takes an object, having a value type for T would cause unexpected behavior when CanExecute(null) is called during XAML initialization for command bindings. Using default(T) was not selected due to possible confusion in selecting the correct domain values when ICommand methods are invoked with null values. Instead, callers should support a value type by using a nullable value type and checking the HasValue property before using the Value property.”

So, we can change the declaration on the DelegateCommand to use the value type bool as a Nullable type :

DelegateCommand<bool?> MyCommand = new DelegateCommand<bool?>(MyMethod);

Public void MyMethod(bool? parameter)
{
// Do Something.
}

However, be carefull because now, MyMethod can receive null object and change the behavior of the action!

Want to learn more about PRISM ?

Prism provides guidance designed to help you more easily design and build rich, flexible, and easy-to-maintain Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) desktop applications, Silverlight Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), and Windows Phone 7 applications. Using design patterns that embody important architectural design principles, such as separation of concerns and loose coupling, Prism helps you to design and build applications using loosely coupled components that can evolve independently but that can be easily and seamlessly integrated into the overall application. These types of applications are known as composite applications.

There is everything you need to understand, implement and use PRISM on CodePlex.

Have fun !

Posted in .NET, C#, PRISM

[Techdays 2011] The future of SQL Server

Feb13
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Morgan

Preview: Discover the new version of SQL Server (Code-name “Denali”). Evolution of the engine and overview of the new functionalities like “AlwaysOn”, “Column-Based Query Accelerator (Project code-named “Apollo”)”, SQL Server Developer Tools (code-named “Juneau”), “Crescent”…

Review: I really like SQL Server but I really need to improve my skill in SQL Server management and administration. So this session was just too hard for me! The audience was composed of DBA so the speaker has turned his presentation for …DBA!

The presentation of “Crescent” was just really impressive. You can see below a video made by Microsoft about “Crescent”.

Want to learn more about Sql Server “Denali” ? Let’s go to Microsoft or MSDN and download the Technology Preview 1 (CTP1) !

Posted in Sql Server

How-to-web.net is dead, long live Coding-in.net!

Jan30
2011 3 Comments Written by Morgan

Hello everyone !

As you perhaps saw, how-to-web.fr is now redirected to coding-in.net.

Why this new domain? Because how-to-web was built to talk about web and .NET … And now I’m not “just” coding for the web but also for windows client application. So I decided to change the name of my blog.

And you, what do you think about this new domain: coding-in.net?

Let's have a drink to Coding-in.net !

Posted in Non classé

Optimizing Serialization

Jan22
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Morgan

I’m currently working on a WPF Application which have performance problem. After analyze, we found that our WCF messages are heavy (The Business object are complex). So we have to work on the serialization process.

We could for example personalize the serialization process with the ISerizable interface in our business object.

The second problem is the duration of the serialization process.

We decided to implement in our project a serialization solution found on CodeProjet. The solution is simple but super-fast! The solution is to store the data into a compact unit.

To implement this solution, you have to well-known your business objet.

If you read this article you can see this amazing quote:

“I had a set of reference data from 34,423 rows in a database table, and it was stored in a collection of entities. Serializing this (to a MemoryStreamfor maximum speed) took a whopping 92 seconds, and resulted in a 13.5MB lump of serialized data. Deserializing this took around 58 seconds – not very usable in a remoting scenario!

By using the techniques in this article, I was able to serialize the same data down to 2.1MB, which took just 0.35 seconds to serialize, and 0.82 seconds to deserialize! Also, the CPU usage and memory were just a fraction of that used by the raw .NET serializer.”

After implementation (The V2 version is easy to use) I had a serialization process 10 times faster! So if you have heavy objects to serialize and want to improve performance, read this article !

Posted in .NET, C#

My coding Toolbox

Jan22
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Morgan

After some .NET project, coding meeting and other stuff, developer amasses a lot of tools.

But … Tools for what?

Improve his performance.
Execute (boring) tasks quickly.
Write code with efficiency
Resolve bug
Work happily?
…

Have a complete toolbox isn’t very difficult but … a GOOD toolbox is another one ! So, I decided to start my own coding toolbox. I don’t have ten years of .NET experience but I have some favorite tools!

If you have favorite tools, please comment this post and explain why this software or extension helps you!

Visual Studio Tools :

ReSharper
The best extension for visual studio … but unfortunately not free !

PowerCommand for VS 2008

PowerCommand for VS2010

Windows Communication Foundation

SvcTraceViewer
A tool provided by Microsoft to help developer who use WCF. This tool allows analyze diagnostics traces. If you use WCF, it’s a really good tool!

SvcConfigEditor
Configure WCF service isn’t really easy. Especially if you’ve just started to learn WCF! So, this tool (also provided by Microsoft) allows developer to write effectively the WCF configuration file.

Log Visualization

BareTail
With this monitoring software you could see log files in real-time.

File Generation

MyGeneration
This software can save you a lot of hour of boring work ! There is a lot of generation code software on the market but I like MyGeneration …

Tools is the key of .NET Coding !