Derik Whittaker

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• How to have a Single Config File for multiple developers

  In my last post I talked about how you can share a single config file among multiple project in a solution.  One of the feedback comments I got was how to have a single config file for multiple developers or even multiple environments.  So,... Posted Apr 16 2008, 08:13 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net IDE, .Net, HowTo

• Thoughts on Testing an API

  Over the past few weeks I have worked on a few products for my client that will be used as API's.  These API's will be used by either their own (external) clients or other internal departments.  Working on these projects made me think... Posted Apr 14 2008, 07:32 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Development, Agile, .Net, TDD

• Simple extension methods to help with Asserting values

  In the past I have written about the Fail Fast principle.  This is a principle I try to live my development life by.  I would rather explicitly check for possible failure points then have a runtime error crop up.  In the past when writing... Posted Apr 10 2008, 07:49 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net, Opinion, Featured

• Sorting List's the .Net 3.5 Way

  This post is another in the recent string of How-to's. But it is just so hard to resist. .Net 3.5 has so many cool features, it is just fun to explore them all. Ok, so here is the issue we are going to solve today. We have a list of entities and we... Posted Mar 28 2008, 09:09 PM by Derik Whittaker with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net, Opinion, HowTo, Linq, Lambda

• Simple way to Convert IEnumerable<Entity> to List<IEntity>

  Today I ran into a case where I needed to convert a result set of IEnumerable<Entity> from a Linq2Sql command to a List<IEntity> in order to return the data back to the caller.    We all know that giving the following code public... Posted Mar 28 2008, 12:04 PM by Derik Whittaker with | with 13 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net, Lambda

• Using System.ComponentModel Attributes to your advantage

  The System.ComponentModel namespace (more information here ) in .Net contains an array of various attributes that every .Net developer should know about.  These attributes provide a way for the developer to implement design-time and run-time behavior... Posted Jan 30 2008, 07:03 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net IDE, .Net, UI, WinForms, HowTo

• Why using the index for data retrieval is evil

  Today I was refactoring some sql procs along with the corresponding .net code that called the procs. My primary focus was to implement some new business rules (ways to get totals) in the proc.  In doing so, I completely re-wrote the proc.  In... Posted Dec 28 2007, 01:26 PM by Derik Whittaker with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net, Opinion, Best Practice, Rant

• Using Anonymous Delegates to handle Async Web Service Calls

  I just thought I would share a little trick I used today to back in Async web service calls into existing code using anonymous delegates. Here was my problem: I have a library that makes use of an existing web service that I do not control (so I cannot... Posted Oct 15 2007, 08:27 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net, HowTo, Featured

• MOSS Development: Getting your environment up and running.

  I thought I would post a quick 'Getting-Started' guide for MOSS development. This post comes from my experience learning how to develop for MOSS. This post is a quick listing of what is needed to get your environment up and running. As you may... Posted Sep 22 2007, 04:29 PM by Derik Whittaker with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net, asp.net, HowTo, SharePoint

• Using XPath when there is Namespace information in the XML document

  If you have ever worked with XML, you know that XPath is your friend. Today I working with an XML document that was generated via MSWord and the generated document was well formed and included namespaces. Now, I have worked with namespaces in XML in the... Posted Aug 03 2007, 12:28 PM by Derik Whittaker with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net, HowTo

• Using RhinoMocks with StructureMap to mock expected calls

  What do you do when you are writing a test for a piece of code that calls out to an ‘out of your control’ service such as a web service or email server? If you are like most of us, you simply allow your test to make the call and ‘hope’ that the service... Posted Jul 24 2007, 09:32 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Development, Agile, .Net, StructureMap, Rhino Mocks

• StructureMap Tip: Using Concrete classes as a PluginFamily

  Have ever wanted to use a concrete class as both the the PluginFamily and Plugable (information on StructureMap's attributes here ) type in StructureMap ? I know I have, just today in fact (not the first time, but thought I would post about it this time... Posted Jul 23 2007, 05:43 PM by Derik Whittaker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Development, Development Tools, Agile, .Net, TDD, StructureMap

• Using Sharepoint's Web Services to QueryDocuments.

  For the latest thing I am doing at work I need to be able to grab some data from Sharepoint. I have chosen to do this by consuming SPServices.asmx server that is available. Because I was not able to find a decent post on the net on how to use/consume... Posted Jul 21 2007, 09:30 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net, HowTo, SharePoint

• C# 3.0 Extension Methods, a Simple HowTo#

  I finally got around to installing Orcas on my laptop this weekend. You are probably asking yourself, what took so long? Simple, my laptop did not have the spare 14gigs needed in order to get it up and running. It took some pretty major house cleaning... Posted Jul 08 2007, 10:11 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Development, .Net, HowTo

• Switch Statements with Enums best practice

  Over the years I have come to the conclusion when working with switch statements that switches on enum values, a DEFAULT block MUST be required. Not only should it be required, I think it should throw a developer exception. *** NOTE *** My stance on this... Posted Jun 26 2007, 07:08 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: Development, Methodology, .Net, Opinion, Best Practice