My Toolbox column in the November 2009 issue of MSDN Magazine is available online and includes the following reviews:
- BI Documenter - point BI Documenter to the schema of your database and select which database objects to include. Then, with the click of a button, BI Documenter will create a Compiled Html Help File (.chm) or HTML pages that documents the selected database objects. You can also add rich database diagrams created using BI Documenter's built-in diagramming tool, as well as include your own image and Microsoft Word files.
- Blogs of Note: Beth Massi - Microsoftie Beth Massi has a great blog with tips, tricks, and tutorials on Office development, WPF, ADO.NET Data Services, and more. What makes Beth's blog unique is her passion for Visual Basic - all of her code samples are in VB and she often posts about upcoming language features and enhancements.
- CuttingEdge.Conditions - CuttingEdge.Conditions is an open source library that enables developers to define pre- and post-conditions using a fluent interface, which is an API design style that aims at maximizing readability through the use of descriptive names and method chaining. For example, you can define a pre-condition on the input parameter id like so:
public void DoSomething(int id)
{
// Check all preconditions:
Condition.Requires(id, "id")
.IsInRange(1, 999) // ArgumentOutOfRangeException on failure
.IsNotEqualTo(128); // throws ArgumentException on failure
...
}
This issue reviewed ASP.NET MVC Framework Unleashed, by Stephen Walther. An exerpt from my review follows:
Getting started with ASP.NET MVC involves a bit of a learning curve, even for experienced ASP.NET developers, because of the numerous differences between the two frameworks. For example, when creating an ASP.NET MVC application in Visual Studio, you are prompted to create a unit test project. With ASP.NET MVC, you design your Web pages using HTML along with a few helper classes—there are no Web controls to drag and drop onto the page. And unlike Web Forms, there are no baked-in postback or Web control event models. In short, there are a lot of new techniques to learn when moving from Web Forms to ASP.NET MVC. If you are an intermediate to experienced ASP.NET developer who wants to learn ASP.NET MVC, check out Stephen Walther’s latest book, “ASP.NET MVC Framework Unleashed” (Sams, 2009). Walther does an excellent job introducing new concepts and showing how they’re used—without overwhelming the reader with an avalanche of information.
Enjoy! - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335714.aspx