Best Kept Secrets in .NET

by Deborah Kurata

Overview

Author Deborah Kurata has spoken to .NET user groups all over America sharing her Best Kept Secrets in .NET, and she often hears experienced developers say, "I didn't know you could do that with .NET!" This book is a collection of Deborah's insights into .NET secrets that can enhance your productivity and code quality.

For example, did you know that you could manage code snippets in Visual Studio .NET? Have you ever tried the incremental search feature? Have you discovered the ErrorProvider control? Do you know how to short-circuit operators, alias data types, build regular expressions, or improve your type casting? Have you seen all of the database tools available from Server Explorer? Did you know that you could manage your database scripts within Solution Explorer and include your stored procedures under source code control? Have you tried expanding the capabilities of a dataset using ExtendedProperties? With all of the talk about agile methodologies and extreme programming, have you tried to build a test harness with .NET? How about deprecating your methods? This book covers these secrets and much more!

Deborah also presents a collection of very valuable but lesser-known features of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. She provides detailed information about how you can use each of these hidden treasures to improve the efficiency of your software development process and the quality of the resulting software. Whether you are an experienced developer or you're just getting started with .NET, this book will help you to be more productive, create better code, and produce superior software.

The primary goal of this book is to let you in on the secrets and hidden treasures that you can discover in Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. If, as you read through this book and say to yourself, "I didnt know I could do that with .NET!" then this book has met its objective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590594261
Publisher:	Apress
Publication date:	09/13/2004
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed.
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	7.01(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.36(d)

About the Author

Deborah Kurata is a software developer and the bestselling author of Doing Objects with Visual Basic 6.0. She is among the highest-rated speakers at software development conferences worldwide and is the cofounder of InStep Technologies, a leading software consulting and training firm.

Table of Contents

Hidden treasures in Visual Studio.- Rearranging the Layout.- Code Snippets.- To Do List.- Finding Code.- Line Numbers.- Hot Keys.- Solution Configurations.- External Tools.- External Tools in the IDE.- Unit Testing (NUnit).- Window Decorations.- Docking.- Anchoring.- Error Provider.- Code Tricks.- Short Circuiting.- Declaration on the For.- Type Casting.- Undiscovered Regions.- XML Comments.- Configuration Files.- Obsolescing Your Code.- Much ADO.- Microsoft Data Access Application Block.- Data Projects.- Viewing Datasets as XML.- Filtering Datasets into an Array.- Using Aggregates.- Decorating Datasets.- Debugging Tips.

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
Working with .NET? Why not discover some of the hidden tricks it can do to make your life easier? Deborah Kurata gets oohs and ahs when she goes around the country teaching this stuff. Chances are, you’ll ooh and ah, too.

Did you know you can use docking and anchoring to let users resize your forms -- without writing one line of code? Have you thought about how VS ’05’s new features will simplify refactoring? Have you discovered the full power of its keyboard shortcuts yet? Are you managing regular expressions as well as you should? Are you still viewing datasets the hard way, when there’s a better alternative?

Better alternatives: This book’s packed with them. Bill Camarda

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2003 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.

bn.com