Posts

Evaluating NDepend on current codebase Part 2

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In Part 1 we saw a first approach to NDepend starting off with analyzing a project of 2 assemblies and focusing on the smaller assembly. In this part we will focus on the main executable and the gems NDepend discovered in it TL; DR Memory leak detected... Photo by  Daan Mooij  on  Unsplash Enter 3 years old WPF project - Main executable Going back to the dashboard I see the "usual" long types or methods errors, some immutability warnings, which I would have set as errors and 400 violations of "Avoid namespaces mutually dependent" some with debt time of 4 days. "Oh come on.. what 4 days. How hard can it be..." Drilling down into the code (a wpf application) I realize that there is a single class that is injected in the constructor of every view model and I hardly see any services in the system save for calls to the DAL assembly. Without drilling down into the class I changed it's namespace and made the necessary, albeit sisyphic, chan

Evaluating NDepend on current code base Part 1

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A while ago I was asked by one of NDepend's founders to evaluate any .NET code base I wanted with NDepend and write a blog post about it. It turns out I came up with a two-part post. TL; DR Oh boy.... Photo by geralt on Picabay Enter 3 years old WPF project Without revealing the nature of the specific project I would just say it is a feature rich client, with UI elements customized to the customer's needs. It is written using MVVM, some third party grids and communicates with an SQL Server database via a classic  DAL class library. All and all the project is comprised of one executable and one DAL assembly. So off I went and added the necessary assemblies to a new NDepend project and let the analysis run. Given the size of the project it was pretty swift and started off with a a dashboard (or at least this is the view I chose to start from). NDepend desktop Dashboard At the same time a very nifty HTML based dashboard popped up in my browser NDepend HT

Tests code coverage in Visual Studio Code with C# and .Net Core

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While writing tests for you code goes without saying, there is much to be said about code coverage of tests. How much of your code is actually covered by these tens of tests you just wrote? If you work in a TDD approach most probably you don't have such "mundane" questions. Of course you code is 100% covered. You did make sure every test failed before you added that line in your code to make it pass... and that conditional statement... or did you? While purists would argue there is no chance of no coverage I beg to differ. Let alone if you write your tests after the code is written... After such and such years and experience in the industry when we are nearing deadlines some things are thrown out the window. They shouldn't but they are. TL;DR tools help with coverage. In this case .Net Core Test Explorer with coverlet and Coverage Gutters . Photo by  Startup Stock Photos  from  Pexels Coverlet to the rescue As I blogged a while ago I have made myself a warm

Visual Studio Code setup I use for C# development

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Visual Studio Code has been around a while. However most of the extensions or blog posts out there relate mainly to extensions that facilitate development in JavaScript environments such as Angular, React or NodeJs (to name a few) and even Rust! The IDE is getting great reviews as being fast to load and very responsive as opposed to its bloated and heavy bigger brother, Visual Studio. TL;DR I switched from Visual Studio for good Having worked on Visual Studio since version 4.2 I was used to it being heavy to load and at times even slow to respond. After experiencing VS Code with a little bit of NodeJs development I decided to try and make it my daily driver for .Net Core and C# development. I sought to find extensions to ease my day in the cubicle and see how comfortable will I be with it. I would give it a month on various tasks and workloads. VSCode showing off extensions The month became two months and then 3 months and here I am with a list of very handy (in my opinion)

Using custom health checks with Asp.Net Core 2.2

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I almost burst with cries of joy when I saw the release of .Net Core 2.2 with the much needed built in and standardized health checks. The preview was great and with each version until the release new blog posts emerged eager to show to the world the new wonder. But as I do like my frameworks fully baked and released I waited patiently for the real deal. TL;DR Implement your own service from IHealthCheck and inject it with whatever you want. It just works! Reading the instructions... The best article I found for the new healthcheck API was this one based on preview code and the best code samples where of course the official samples . However by looking at them something was missing. So I went on a quest to achieve what suited my needs. And my needs are simple. I need to be able to inject some testing code to my custom health check module. Healthcheck for your .Net Core2.2 Services On to the code After I practiced a little bit with the concept of tags I just added a heal

Running an Asp.Net Core 2.* Web API as a Windows Service

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At my current workplace there is a healthy hunger for new technologies and a pragmatic view of the software industry in our corner of the planet. As a Microsoft driven shop, previous reservations of moving to different ecosystems and operating systems have melted away with the arrival and wide adoption of .Net Core. After all the language is the same. The developers need "only" to catch up on their containers. When I joined a month ago as a tech lead, little did I know that putting my money where my mouth is would mean having to deal with outdated Microsoft documentation or even S.O answers to questions such as "How do I run an Asp.Net Core app as a windows service without IIS". TL;DR add a reference to the NuGet package  Microsoft.Aspnetcore.Hosting.Windowsservices , publish and register your executable as a service. A Prophecy? Almost a year ago I wrote a blog post about porting  full framework projects to core . Ever since I have written my share of .Net Cor

Adjust the message to the audience

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A couple of weeks ago had my first public speaking chance. Two 12 minute sessions TED style, in front of an audience between 20-70 years old and non technical. Each sitting had 100 people. The session was about crypto/virtual currencies, real money and everything between them. 12 minutes, non technical, make the message count. Go! TL;DR It was a success and K.I.S.S Version 1 The first version, presented to the other lecturers of the evening for feedback, was rejected by the second slide. The words Bitcoin Mining were present in the slide. Shot down in flames? Yes. Discouraged? No. Slightly depressed. Yes. Version 2 Imagine... A world without bank accounts. Yes this is more or less how it started. as a story... with the song Imagine  playing in my head. I took my super technical slide deck and turn it into a story. How did I do it? Well I was given a tip. Tell a story.  Disclaimer: The "tips" here work for me. They are part of my experience. I suggest searc