Colin Ramsay -

PTOM: Breaking Free from HttpContext

The System.Web.HttpContext class is a real heavyweight of the .NET Framework. It holds a wealth of information on the current server context, from the details of the current user request to a host of details about the server. It's accessible from...

Published Tue, May 05 2009 5:08 AM by cramsay

Castle MicroKernel Fluent Event Wiring

The Castle MicroKernel Registration API is also used in Windsor, and both have a facility to allow a components to subscribe to events exposed by each other. Right now, the only way to use the fluent API to configure the facility is to go right down and...

Published Sun, Jan 25 2009 7:32 AM by cramsay

Filed under: c#, microkernel, windsor

The State of Windows Mobile

“Have you done any Windows Mobile development?” “A tiny bit. Isn’t it just like Winforms but on a phone?” And from such an innocent beginning, a world of pain did explode into my universe. Just like Winforms on a phone is...

Published Wed, Jan 14 2009 1:57 PM by cramsay

Filed under: windows mobile, compact framework

Parsing XML-like Files

The quantity of data now stored in XML, HTML, and other similar formats must now be absolutely huge. Fetching that data from XML-like files is largely seen as a solved problem on many platforms, but I'm going to look at the various alternatives and...

Published Sun, Dec 07 2008 11:23 AM by cramsay

Filed under: xml, xpath, fizzler, html, css

Open Source Documentation

Recently I've set up a network attached storage computer on my home network. As well as providing RAID storage for all the devices in the house, it acts as a central download server for everyone to use. Key to this strategy is SABnzbd , a Python application...

Published Sun, Nov 23 2008 4:49 PM by cramsay

Common Interfaces for Tool Families

There are a load of different tool "families" in use in the .NET ecosystem which I'm sure LosTechies readers will take advantage of pretty much every day. IoC containers. Logging infrastructures. URL routing mechanisms. Each of these families...

Published Thu, Nov 13 2008 11:05 AM by cramsay

Filed under: softwaredesign

Application Configuration

I had cause to recently revisit an old ASP.NET application I'd written way back when I was a development newcomer. Digging around the web.config I found the appSettings section: <appSettings> <add key="systemEmailAddress" value...

Published Wed, Nov 12 2008 10:13 PM by cramsay

Filed under: configuration

Your Development Environment

When I first started working in "the real world", I had a development environment which I'd describe as typical: average Dell computer and peripherals, one monitor, Windows XP with all my applications installed, including VS2003 and VS2005...

Published Fri, Jun 13 2008 12:00 PM by cramsay

Design Dithering

When you break out of the "new programmer" mindset and begin thinking in terms of organisation, patterns, and good design, I think there's a real danger of hitting a development wall. What actually is the correct way of implementing a shopping...

Published Mon, Jun 02 2008 8:40 PM by cramsay

Filed under: practices pragmatism

Javascript Patterns & Practices

My previous post on Javascript gave an insight into using the language in a more structured manner than you may have been used to in the past. I'm going to talk about a few more methods which I use a lot, and that help me keep my JS workable. Pattern...

Published Thu, Jan 17 2008 11:17 PM by cramsay

Filed under: javascript, practices

You Have Nothing To Fear From Javascript

Building a web application consists of a number of discrete layers: server code, client code, HTML, and styling. If you cannot sit down with one of those layers and work on it, you are not fulfilling your role. If I hire a web developer, I don't expect...

Published Sat, Dec 08 2007 11:46 AM by cramsay

Filed under: javascript

Working with Interfaces Part Three - Windsor

Castle Windsor is an Inversion of Control container which uses interfaces as a key concept. When working in the manner I described in my previous articles on interfaces, you get a decoupled application but may end up with a lot of "wiring-up"...

Published Wed, Nov 21 2007 7:00 PM by cramsay

Working with Interfaces Part Two - Decoupling

In the first part of this mini-series I talked about the basic use of interfaces, which is to provide a contract for your developers to work to. In this part, I'm going to try and demonstrate how interfaces can be used to make your application more...

Published Tue, Oct 09 2007 10:47 PM by cramsay

Filed under: c# practices interfaces

Why ALT.NET?

DISCLAIMER: This post was inspired by, and contains material from, a recent post on my personal blog entitled " Abandon ALT.NET ". For a few months the term "ALT.NET" has been gaining traction on the blogs I read, starting from a post...

Published Mon, Oct 08 2007 12:56 PM by cramsay

Working with Interfaces Part One - Contracts

I hold my hands up - I am a programmer who doesn't have a computer science background. My education only skimmed programming and was totally bereft of any architectural considerations. I almost stumbled into my first programming job, and I such I...

Published Mon, Oct 01 2007 11:15 PM by cramsay

Filed under: c#

Colin Ramsay

Syndication

Recent Posts

Tags

Archives