My second Toolbox column in the February 2006 edition of MSDN Magazine is now available online. The February issue of Toolbox examines the following three products:
The article also explores Framework Design Guidelines : Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries, a highly recommended book by Microsoftees Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Adams. Here's a snippet from the Toolbox column:
While the mechanics of building a reusable .NET library are trivial, it is anything but to design an easy-to-use library that will gracefully handle future changes and additions. The naming conventions, types, members, exceptions, and design patterns that make up the library greatly affect its overall success. Code libraries that aren't intuitive, that are inconsistent, or that deviate from standard conventions are apt to frustrate its users. When designing a code library, then, why not turn to Microsoft for advice? After all, Microsoft has released the largest reusable code library for .NET—the .NET Framework Base Class Library! Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries (Addison-Wesley, 2005), by Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Adams, shares the framework design lessons learned by Microsoft since .NET development began in the late 90s.
You can keep abreast of the latest Toolbox articles through the column's RSS feed or the Toolbox column category here on my blog.
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The most challenging aspect of authoring this monthly column is finding products to review! If you have any ideas or suggestions for products or books to review, please don't hesitate to send them to toolsmm@microsoft.com (which gets auto-forwarded to me).
The only requirements for reviewed products are that:
- They are useful by developers in their day-to-day operations
- The use/run on Microsoft technologies
- They are commercial applications (i.e., not freeware)
- They are not overly complex/costly.
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