Reviews

Data and Services With Silverlight 2 review...

Jay Kimble — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:55:12 GMT

[First of all THIS is my 500th post... nothing more to say there... except that it took me a lot longer than many of my blogging heroes, but this is the pace I have to take and not have lousy content... and yes, sometimes I’ve blogged too often and proved that too often for me == lousy content]

So last night I finished "Data and Services With Silverlight 2" by John Papa. You may be wondering how I could have finished this book since it hasn’t been published. Well, I’m a tech reviewer for the book. I had a lot of the ancillary skills necessary to tech review this book (rudimentary Silverlight 2, REST experience, Web Services experience, and Linq to SQL experience... my Ajax knowledge also came in handy)... the cool part was that while I had enough experience to bring to the table as far as tech reviewing the book, but there was a wealth of information that I knew nothing about. I mean I had wired up a SL2 app to a REST service which was cool, but I knew nothing about XAML Data Binding (which makes the wiring simple... not much effort at all); the WCF stack was something I had limited knowledge of (and now I fell fairly confident having an intelligent discussion about it)

So, needless to say, I learned a lot... I mean a LOT! This book is excellent! It is the one Silverlight2 book that you as an app developer MUST have on your shelf. It will teach you all the business development stuff you need to not only build Silverlight apps today, but will also empower you to make good services/data decisions that will help you build Silverlight apps tomorrow (if you are -- like me -- delaying to build that app).

I know I’m partial as I was a tech reviewer, but it’s the book I’ll be telling all my friends to get. As a business developer you must get it.

Now, that I’ve talked it up, let me tell you what it is NOT. It is not a complete intro of Silverlight 2. It’s a focused book that is about the convergence of the MS Data Frameworks, the MS Services stack (WCF, Web Services, ADO.NET Data Services, etc.), and Silverlight 2 and how they all inter-operate together. It’s practical... if you are trying to say use WCF with Silverlight 2, it will walk you through what you need to do... Wanna ship Entities across the wire to your SL2 app? It’s got that too. You’ll probably need to read the first couple chapters (to learn about XAML Binding and basic services) and then you can skip around to read up on stuff that is more toward your interests/needs (or you can do like me and read the entire thing and grow in knowledge)

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If you want a fuller intro to Silverlight 2, I would recommend that you check out "Hello Silverlight2" by Bill Reiss and Dave Campbell. I honestly haven’t read it, but from what Bill has told me it sounds like an easy book to read/learn from... (Besides I know Bill and I know where his Silverlight2 knowledge is... )

CR/R! Wrap up

Jay Kimble — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:25:47 GMT

It’s been about a month since I took the challenge to replace ReSharper (R#) with Code Rush/Refactor! Pro (CR/R!). In that time I have adjusted well to CR/R!. There are a number of areas where I am MORE productive. Yep, I said that. There are a few things I miss (So Mark of DevExpress pay attention).

Code Analysis could improve

Code Analysis is a fairly new feature of CR/R! and as one would expect it’s not quite as strong as R#'s (I do expect this to get better, BTW). Sometimes it doesn’t find references to ASP.NET Server Controls from the Code Behind for instance which tends to make its analysis on ASPX CodeBehind files somewhat unpredictable. I also ran into some speed issues with JS code, but I think it was the network that day (because I haven’t had any issues since).

The other thing I love about R# is that not only does it analyze my code, but it gives me a convenient keystroke that helps me resolve the problem without having to leave where I am. CR/R! is building some of this stuff so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Embeddings

I still have a few embeddings that I would like to turn off (with no options to do so -- as far as I can tell)... I suspect I need to dig into the XML config files, but am scared to do so.

For the DevExpress Guys to note the main one I want to get rid of is called "Embed Not Parenthesis." What happens is that I’m in a long "if(...)" and I highlight the first "=" of an "==" (because I stupidly set it to "==" and not "!="), when I type "!" it translates my entry to "!(=)=" which would be nice is I had more than 1 character highlighted.

[If you don’t know what they are let me explain them. Basically with CR/R! if you have a section of code highlighted you can easily wrap that selection with say a region by typing CTL+3 (BTW, # = Shift+3 so the sequence makes sense); when you do that a #region/#endregion automagically wraps your selected code and drops you on the line to set the region text. ]

The embeddings in general could really benefit from a different set of key sequences. it’s too easy to highlight a section of code and accidentally type the single character that creates the embedding... I’d prefer a CTL sequence. Yes, I know I can change them myself, but the defaults make the product frustrating for newbies.

Wish List

Beyond what I have already mentioned I really have 1 wish. I want either an alternate set of keystroke shortcuts for things like Embeddings and single character templates [CR/R! has some single character templates that you type like "c{space}" and a class shell automagically appears] that I can set as the default (so choose something other than what has been the standard) or the ability to package up my settings and be able to easily share them...

Yes, Rory, I have thought about contributing an addin for your community project.

Script# Compatibility

BTW, CR/R! works with Script#! Well, I ran into a few minor difficulties, but I could use it with the product which is all I would have asked for. No crashes, and no real warts.

Final words

Well, the good news for the CR/R! crew is that I’m a convert. I waited too long for VS 2008 from R#, and in that time I realized that there is a different place to go to.

Finding that I can refactor all kinds of things (like HTML code and JS code as well as C# and VB code now if it only did Python... just kidding, Mark... I don’t need it) really sealed the deal.

If you are trying out CR/R! you should get the Rory’s latest zip file containing all the community plugins. You should especially install "Refactor_Resolve" from this zip file (You’ll want it!). This is the plugin that was written by Koen Hoefkens. BTW, these plugins I think all run with DXCore, so if you don’t have a license to any kind of Refactoring product then you might want to consider installing DXCore (it’s free) and then installing these plugins... they can make your life a little easier.

Review: Gurock SmartInspect

Jay Kimble — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:10:27 GMT

About a year ago, I was blogging at CodeBetter and I was given a product in hopes that I would review it. In fact I had won a copy of this product in the past. I promised and promised that I would take a look at it, but I never got around to it.

Mainly because I didn’t have a use (or thought I didn’t have a use) for a logging product at the time. Logging isn’t really all that "sexy" and I was trying to dive deep into all kinds of things.

Well, with my day job we ran into a some problems that after I analyzed the errors I realized that I was missing an important piece of the puzzle... So I started thinking about what I might need. Enter that product that I hadn’t had a chance to review...

Logging isn’t "sexy" or is it?

It’s only "sexy" when you NEED it. And when you need it you need something good. SmartInspect is really, really cool, and IMO after finally taking a day with it, I can say it’s also "sexy." It really brings your logging to life.

I’m an ASP.NET guy, so what I need is to be able to track a user through a site and see there path up to the error. SmartInspect allows you to create "sessions" of logs that follow a user via their session. You can also use a default session (if you are using something more single-processed/threaded).

You can colorize different things in the log and can even see the properties of an object that you throw into the log (you simply tell it to log the full object passing just the variable).

The best part for me was it was pretty simple. I did a fairly advanced thing with it in relatively short order (Sessions, logging our SQL calls), and it really wasn’t that much work. The code that you have to inject into your app (yes, you have to inject code into your app) is pretty trivial.

Remote Logging viewing

What I really liked was that the SmartInspect log console feels like VS and is a TCP/IP server which means that you can point an app at a machine to log via TCP/IP. The version that I was given even included source for the logging library (and I think everything else). Yes, you can log to a file and other more traditional log destinations... but the TCP/IP server is so "sexy."

Sold

Anyway, my workplace will be purchasing a copy of it... and it’s a tool you’ll probably need at some point. Here’s the web site (go check it out for yourself) - http://www.gurock.com/products/smartinspect/

BTW, it’s for Delphi, and Java, too.

Core Addin Challenge: 2 weeks with CodeRush/Refactor Pro (CR/R!)

Jay Kimble — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:43:58 GMT

[As previously mentioned I have committed to switching from ReSharper (R#) to CR/R!... the end result will be a regular guy’s comparison of the 2. DISCLAIMER: By no means is this meant to be a slight on R#, but more of me looking at CR/R! a little closer -- I think a number of us took a cursory look at CR/R! and while we found value a surface look doesn’t really give you the full picture... I’m going through the challenges of using CR/R! because it IS different from R# and hopefully I can help folks who are trying to compare between the two and decide which is best for their situation]

Turning the corner (sort of)

Tuesday I turned the corner I thought that there was no coming back (more on that in a second). The thing about CR/R! is that it’s truly a learning experience. CR takes over your environment in such a way that, while it still looks like Visual Studio, you need to re-educate yourself a little to all its nuances. It can actually get in your way (and there have been a couple times with Mark and Rory (and Koen HanHoefkens, the author of the excellent --and free-- CR_Resolve plugin) where I have asked "how do I turn xxx feature off." The most annoying one for me is that I tend to highlight code and start to overwrite with new code... for the most part there are no pains here, except when the character you type is a "(" which is often the character I am typing when changing an "if" statement. What happens is that this embeds your selection in a set of parenthesis. This was actually easy to turn off... the feature is called "embeddings" which is found in the shortcuts section of the options (there are lots of options with CR/R!). Before I shut them all down I discovered some really rich stuff here... for instance you can highlight code, type "c" and your code is instantly surrounded by a try catch with your cursor setting in the catch block. I still turned off the parenthesis, but I left the rest of them on.

I’ve also started figuring out some of the templates.

I’m still learning here, but the topic is very deep!

BTW, I’ve found that this product enhances your experience while working with ASP.NET HTML, JavaScript, VB, C#, and even Script# (C# variant that creates JS files).

My One hiccup

I have experienced one hiccup over the last several days: PERFORMANCE/MEMORY FOOTPRINT. I’ve had VS crash a few times. I finally think I have the problem figured out (a not so well behaved plug-in I installed... I installed some really old plugins... well they didn’t seem that old).

Currently the only DXCore plugins I have running (besides CR/R!) are CR_RESOLVE, and the "Highlight Current Line" both from the community plugins (mentioned in the last post). I also have turned off the Code Analysis (temporarily).

I am still watching this closely (and am sure that Mark Miller will chime in either personally or publicly with a few more suggestions, but I don’t think he needs to... this lesson should be heeded that you need to be careful which addins you install in VS... they can make things run less than smoothly, and adding a bunch of them all at once makes it even harder to determine where the problem really lies).

Core Addin Challenge : Hello CodeRush/Refactor Pro

Jay Kimble — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:09:57 GMT

[Disclaimer: Before I start this series I want you all to know that I love Resharper! It has made me a better developer, and if you pay attention you will see why I think that. At the same time I love Dev Express. As a company they are constantly giving back to the community. While I’m not a fan of Mark Miller’s humor, their addin framework is about the best you will find IMO... and Scott Hanselman (ScottHa from here on) loves CodeRush/Refactor. I love ScottHa; he has shown me all kinds of cools utility that I couldn’t live without... he is angelic... I went looking for a halo for his picture... nahh been done <grin />. Anyway, this article series I hope will do a good job of comparing and contrasting the 2 VS2008 IDE adds in their current forms (which CR is at 3.0.8 and R# is at 4.0)... and this is really from my personal perspective on what I use]

I’ve been using R# for quite awhile and honestly I have felt that it made me a better developer. I know I’m not a TDD guy, but there are so many goodies in it that I just simply loved it. BUT, my license ran out. I was in a debate about what I was going to do.

As it turns out (late) last year, I was given a license to CodeRush/Refactor Pro. I had been intrigued by their lengthy list of Refactoring and how they were doing ASP.NET refactorings. Well, about that time the betas of R# started happpening and personally I was going through the collapse of my business (and the amount of development I was doing dwindled, so honestly I did the bad thing and forgot to blog about it.

Like I said my R# ran out, but I remembered that I had CR/RFP, so I decided to re-install it and look around (and really look around), so for the next 30 days I will be exclusively using CR/RFP and will be looking to see how it compares to the features of R# that I actually use (you might use other things), and will of course be blogging about it.

The number 1 feature of R# that I use is it’s code analysis I love being able to look at my C# code and at a glance am able to tell if there are issues with the code at a glance. I have actually learned things from the suggestions it gives me... so I can’t live without that.

Guess what, I remembered reading a veiled reference to CR’s Code Analysis on Dave Hayden’s blog. It’s off by default, so if you are playing with CR... here’s how to turn it on. Bring up the DevExpress menu’s options, turn on Expert mode (I think you need that), and type "Code Issues" in the Search Text box. Check the enabled check box when the Code Issues options appears and Viola! You now have analysis on your code.

My initial knee jerk reaction is that the Code Analysis is almost as good as R# (almost), but then sometimes R# recommends things that I’m not really interested in doing (I know you can tweak it’s suggestions).

On the other hand, CR doesn’t seem to bog down the environment for me!

So take your pick... CR has come a long way from when I last used it. It used to have some annoying "features" that seemed to have been tuned. (their auto-complete used to annoy me/get in my way... I would say that it neither gets in my way nor annoys me)