ADO.NET provider 7.0.0.0 for Firebird is ready
New version 7.0.0.0 of ADO.NET provider for Firebird is ready for download. The main focus of this release is wire encryption.
Entity Framework Core’s ultimate escape hatch
In 2007 then Principal Software Architect on Data Programmability team Mike Pizzo wrote in a “random” forum reply about Entity Framework’s DefiningQuery being the “ultimate escape hatch”. This was later mentioned in Julia Lerman’s famous book Programming Entity Framework. Just to make sure you understand this archeology (and yes, I spent quite some time digging the reply back – kudos to MSDN forum people keeping it still running), Entity Framework (the first version) was released in 2008.
Friday’s This<T>
Last week on Friday I was working on some code, I don’t even remember what it was, and there was excessive usage of this. And my personal pet peeve is writing most readable code in most succinct way possible. For sure this hurts this (no pun intended). The following class is a result of that Friday’s frustration.
ADO.NET provider 6.7.0.0 for Firebird is ready
New version 6.7.0.0 of ADO.NET provider for Firebird is ready for download. This release improves the Entity Framework Core support and Firebird Embedded support.
Introducing D.ebug
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of debugging often in code that needs to be executed certain way, from certain place and sometimes is also modified post-build a little. And sometimes more stuff, which I’ll not bother you with. And this makes debugging a tiny bit more difficult.
FbNetExternalEngine 2.0 released – functions and performance
It has been few exciting weeks and days lately and today I’m happy to introduce you to FbNetExternalEngine version 2.0. This version adds support for functions and also improves performance (on top of previous improvements).
FbNetExternalEngine 1.0.1 with performance improvements
Today I’m releasing first small update to the FbNetExternalEngine. The focus is just on performance. No new features were added.
WUG: C# 8, 7.x, .NET Core 3, Visual Studio 2019, .NET 4.8 a ostatné novoty (Košice)
V .NETu se dějou v posledních měsích velké změny. Trochu toho zmatku si srovnáme na WUGu v Košicích 18.6.2019 of 17:00. Tak neváhejte a doražte. Beztak bude pršet a Tatry jsou daleko. 😉
Empty try with finally
The finally block has a little unknown feature, that frankly isn’t even remotely needed for regular day-to-day development, but you already know content on this blog is usually little geeky.
Is it better to "!= 0” or ”== mask” when working with enums (C#, RyuJIT)
First thing first, I know there’s an Enum.HasFlag method, yet I’m not interested in it (or optimizations around it). What I like to know is whether one of these two ways – (EnumValue & mask) != 0 and (EnumValue & mask) == mask – to check for a (single value) flag in an enum is better.
Generics, structs and nulls – the JIT is smart so you don’t have to
Few days back I learned geeky little piece about JIT. This is exactly the type of knowledge you don’t have to use, maybe ever, yet it’s crucial the JIT handles it (so you don’t have to), because every smart instruction is performance gained. Literally, every instruction or every CPU cycle counts.
Update Days: Corestart 3.0
.NET Core 3.0 se blíží a s ním i další várka změn a novinek. A protože jde o další major verzi, není toho málo. Tomáš Herceg a jeho team připravili konferenci Update Days: Corestart 3.0, která se koná 6. – 7. června 2019.
Comparing speed of Blob Storage, AppService and CDN on Azure for static file serving
For no particular reason and with no particular goal I decided to see how “fast” some selected services, with the ability to serve a static file, on Azure are. I was interested in the time to serve the file and requests per second. The services I selected are AppService in B1 and S1 plan, Blob Storage GPv2 and CDN in Standard plan from Verizon and Microsoft.
Extravaganza using ConfigureAwait, await and await foreach
As I was writing previous post I got some idea to “nest” awaits in the using definition and make it little bit confusing.
Using await using (IAsyncDisposable) with ConfigureAwait
C# 8 is bringing asynchronous disposables via new IAsyncDisposable and although the basic concept is easy to grasp, other rules of awaiting still apply here. And one of these is the usage of ConfigureAwait call.
NT konferenca 2019
In less than a month (21st-23rd of May 2019) the biggest Slovenian conference – NT konferenca 2019 – will happen. And I’m so stoked to be part of it with my session about What to expect from Entity Framework Core 3.0 and Entity Framework 6.3.
WUG: Co čekat ve světě .NETu v roce 2019 (Olomouc)
Nový rok 2019 nám začal, a tak nebude od věci se podívat co nás čeká (a asi ani nemine) za novinky a změny ve světě vývoje .NET aplikací na WUGu v Olomouci 25.4.2019 od 17:00. Představíme si praktický dopad jednotlivých novinek z různých pohledů, jejich očekávanou časovou dostupnost i jak se na jejich příchod již nyní připravit.
Global Azure Bootcamp 2019
Global Azure Bootcamp 2019. Jeden den, Azure po celém světě. A taky v Praze. I já přispěju svojí troškou do mlýna a povím vám něco o Azure Cosmos DB.
Cloud DeveloperDays 2019
In less than two months (28th-29th of May 2019) the Cloud DeveloperDays 2019 conference will happen. I was lucky to have two sessions selected and I hope to meet you there.
Gopas TechEd 2019
Web ještě nehlásí vyprodáno, takže je stále možnost urvat vstup. Na letošní TechEd jsem připravil tři přednášky:
- .NET Core 3.0, .NET Framework 4.8 a proč vše kolem je největší změna od zrodu .NETu
- Jak měřit výkon .NET kódu správně
- Entity Framework vs. SQL Server – co jste mohli udělat a neudělali; a co jste dělat neměli a přesto udělali
Using Data Protection in Entity Framework Core with Value Converters
When I wrote the post Using value converter for custom encryption of field on Entity Framework Core 2.1 the encryption there was non-existing. My intention was to show the skeleton. But in comments somebody asked how to wire up Data Protection.
ADO.NET provider 6.6.0.0 for Firebird is ready
New version 6.6.0.0 of ADO.NET provider for Firebird is ready for download. This release fills all the holes in the Entity Framework Core support. To be precise now Migrations are fully supported and query pipeline has been massively improved. Just to give you an idea, about 4100 tests were added. If you want to use Entity Framework Core with Firebird, now is the time.
ADO.NET provider 6.5.0.0 for Firebird is ready
New version 6.5.0.0 of ADO.NET provider for Firebird is ready for download. This is a mostly release with bug fixes, although one new feature was added and that is support for SourceLink.
How many keywords I can fit into a single C# expression? – results
When I wrote the yield return await and await foreach geekery post I had no idea it would be so interesting for so many people. But it really spiked up. And I feel a need to point out some interesting ideas people posted on Reddit, in comments or on Twitter.
Size of struct and size of class in .NET
I was playing with structs and classes recently and found something I had no idea .NET does. Although it’s not something groundbreaking, I’ll share it with you anyway.
WUG: Co čekat ve světě .NETu v roce 2019 (Zlín)
Nový rok 2019 nám začal, a tak nebude od věci se podívat co nás čeká (a asi ani nemine) za novinky a změny ve světě vývoje .NET aplikací na WUGu ve Zlíně 21.2.2019 od 17:30. Představíme si praktický dopad jednotlivých novinek z různých pohledů, jejich očekávanou časovou dostupnost i jak se na jejich příchod již nyní připravit.
How many keywords I can fit into a single C# expression?
As I was playing few days ago with “yield return await“ I got an idea to try fit as much “keywords” as possible into one “expression”. I mean as much blue words (in Visual Studio’s default colors) as possible together (not separated by semicolon, comma, colon, bracket, etc.).
yield return await and await foreach geekery
This is just a pure geekery, but as I was playing with asynchronous enumerables I realized I can combine the await and yield return together. In fact, I can even throw await foreach into the mix.
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem has a generic overload (and a new parameter)
Although nowadays people, including me, are working mostly with tasks and async/await, sometimes going one level lower is helpful, because there’s less to worry about. And as I was today calling trusty ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem I found new overload. Overload that is generic.
C#’s discards don’t need var
From the “Today I found out and it’s even in the documentation” series. Did you know that when you’re using discards in C# (the _) you don’t have to use var? Let’s see it in action.
Switch to errors instead of warnings for nullable reference types in C# 8
Nullable reference types coming in C# 8 are a great addition to anyone’s toolbox. But if you tried it you probably know “just” warnings are produced. And sometimes you’d like to have errors instead of warnings, so the build fails hard or something like that. It’s surprisingly easy to do so.
G2B•TechEd 2019 a ShowIT 2019
Za několik málo týdnů se konají opět konference G2B•TechEd v Brně a ShowIT v Bratislavě. V Brně budu mít dvě přednášky a sice Developer Keynote aneb .NET Core 3.0 a proč je to největší změna od zrodu .NET Core a Lua pro C# vývojáře a proč by se mi to mohlo hodit a V Bratislavě pak .NET Core 3.0 a proč je to největší změna od zrodu .NET Core a Přehled výkonnostních vylepšení v .NET Core a proč je určitě chcete.
Ať už v tom či onom městě vás zvu a rád zodpovím vaše případné dotazy.
Interpolated verbatim string in C# 8
As I was talking yesterday about new big features in C# 8, I learned about a small feature coming to this version as well that simplifies usage of interpolated verbatim strings.
DotNET Talks, vol.2
Ups. Úplně jsem zapomněl na druhou edici DotNET Talks. Akce se koná dneska, tedy máte ještě půl dne udělat si čas. 😃 Já vám řeknu něco o tom co čekat od C# 8 v “Co čekat v C# 8.0 v kostce”. Podle webu ještě místa jsou, tak přijďte.
FbNetExternalEngine version 1.0 released
I’m so excited to finally reach point where I can call FbNetExternalEngine ready and release version 1.0. It’s finally happening. I remember starting in June 2016 and being excited when Firebird first loaded the stubs I had in place and today all the initial ideas are in place and working.
WUG: Co čekat ve světě .NETu v roce 2019 (Brno)
Nový rok 2019 nám začal, a tak nebude od věci se podívat co nás čeká (a asi ani nemine) za novinky a změny ve světě vývoje .NET aplikací na WUGu v Brně 15.1.2019 od 17:00. Představíme si praktický dopad jednotlivých novinek z různých pohledů, jejich očekávanou časovou dostupnost i jak se na jejich příchod již nyní připravit.
Exploring C#’s ref return to better understand it
I felt a bit fuzzy on the topic of ref returns in C#. I used it intuitively few times, but it felt I needed to fill some gaps and play with it in a little bit more structured way. This is my exploration of the topic. No particular order. No deep explanations. Just my thinking what should work and what not and trying it.
Making failed sleeping node dead to remove it from OpenZWave
Yesterday I found out that one of my NodOn Soft Remotes was dead as a doornail, maybe even deader than a doornail. That was problem. Because the Z-Wave controller has no way detecting this node is dead, because it’s a sleeping node. How to get out of this situation?
FirebirdDbComparer with Firebird 3 packages support
It already happened on Friday, but you might have missed this release. The new version of FirebirdDbComparer was published and this version contains among small bug fixes and performance optimizations also one big new feature and that’s support for packages in Firebird 3.
UnixEpoch field in DateTime and DateTimeOffset in .NET Standard 2.1 (and .NET Core 2.1)
When I need to put some default value somewhere, I often use Unix epoch. It’s more reasonable, in my eyes, than DateTime.MinValue. But there’s no field for that value thus I always had to create it “manually”. Well, not anymore.
Vertikální půlkilometr na schodech
Dostali jsme s Davidem Gešvindrem takový “zajímavý” nápad. V budově Gopasu v Praze je docela dost pater a po obědě, v rámci lepšího trávení a protažení, chodíme nahoru po schodech. Ve skutečnosti jdeme většinou z -2. až do 11. patra pro extra body. 😃 No a co třeba zkusit chodit nahoru a dolů…
Microsoft Developer Days & Azure DevOps Bootcamp 2018
Následující pondělí se koná akce s názvem Microsoft Developer Days & Azure DevOps Bootcamp 2018. Já vám povím něco o Azure CosmosDB jako možnosti jak škálovatelně ukládat a hlavně získávat data. Kromě toho je na konci akce (a samozřejmě i v průběhu) vyhrazen čas na konzultace a “networking”. Máte-li tedy chuť něco prodiskutovat, nezapomeňte dorazit.
ICTech Day
I almost forgot to tell you about this. This week, Thursday, I’m speaking at ICTech Day in Belgium. And about the topics I’m very passionate about. First session is “Tasks and Await from the ground up” and other is “Async and Await”. If you’re in the area, maybe you can still try to make time and come (you have to be a guest of somebody from PeopleWare or Elmos).
MonkeyFest Bootcamp Prague 2018
Za necelý týden se koná akce s názvem MonkeyFest Bootcamp Prague 2018, což je podobně jako Global Azure Bootcamp akce konající se v jeden den na celém světě. MonkeyFest je zaměřen na svět Xamarinu a příbuzných technologií. No a protože Xamarin je také o C#, připravil jsem si přednášku s názvem “Co čekat od C# 7, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 a 8.0”. Pokud vás novinky C# zajímají, nezapomeňte dorazit.
ADO.NET provider 6.4.0.0 for Firebird is ready
New version 6.4.0.0 of ADO.NET provider for Firebird is ready for download. Among regular bug fixes and improvements I’d like to talk about one performance improvement done in this version.
Exploiting multiplication by zero optimization (and failing), yet learning about equals to zero shortcut (Roslyn)
Basically by accident I found out that multiplication by zero is optimized in Roslyn compiler. That got me thinking… Can I abuse it and make it fail?
Comparing speed of ToUpper, ToUpperInvariant, ToLower and ToLowerInvariant in .NET Framework and .NET Core
While I was reviewing some code week or two back, I got idea to test what’s the speed difference between ToUpper, ToUpperInvariant, ToLower and ToLowerInvariant. Of course, these methods are not doing the same thing, but sometimes it doesn’t really matter and if any is sufficient then, maybe, performance wins. Or at least I thought it’s going to be interesting to see whether there’s a difference and how much.
WUG: C# 7, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 a 8.0 (Zlín)
Máte rádi C#? A ztrácíte se v aktuální rychlé kadenci verzí? Mám pro vás řešení – WUG 25.10.2018 od 17:30 ve Zlíně. Všechno dáme do kupy a srovnáme si to v hlavě.
C# v poslední době velmi rychle přidává nové funkce. Malé funkce v minor verzích, ale připravuji se i velké změny do major verze (verzí). Co je tedy dostupné v C# 7, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 a jak to začít používat. A co nás čeká dál a hlavně ve verzi 8.0?
Faster MS SQL database existence checking with Entity Framework Core and Entity Framework
Bit out of frustration when demoing features newest versions of Entity Framework Core, I’ve found out a new feature of SqlClient (SqlConnection to be precise) that’s available since .NET 4.5.1 that might affect speed when working often without existing database.
WUG: Asynchrónne a paralelné programovanie v .NET-e (Košice)
Tak to vypadá, že se podívám do Košic. Na WUGu si povíme něco o asynchronních a parallelních věcech a jak to celé do sebe zapadá a co je “pod tím”.
Naposledy jsem tam byl na maratonu v roce 2012 a poměrně dobře si pamatuju segment 30. – 35. km. “Lehce” 😃 jsem potkal “zeď”. Naštestí jsem to do cíle “dotlačil”. Tak snad WUG zvládnu lépe. 😃 Určitě přijďte.
DotNET Talks, vol.1
Už příští týden se uskuteční nová akce s názvem DotNET Talks. Moje přednáška “Unit Testing s Entity Framework Core” se podívá na to jak “unit” testovat kód, který využívá Entity Framework Core. Díky “čerstvosti” Entity Frameworku Core jsou možnosti o poznání lepší než tomu bylo u Entity Frameworku 6. Jak to vypadá, tak ještě pár míst můžete urvat, tak neváhejte…
GET.NET (Gdańsk)
Next month in Gdańsk GET.NET conference is going to happen and I’m happy to speak there about a topic I’m passionate about.
Step into a specific call when debugging in Visual Studio
Last week, as we were wrapping the first day of .NET Developer Days conference, I was sitting in the “Ask The Expert” area quietly by myself, reading the poems, waiting for questions with Kendra Havens chatting about Visual Studio shortcuts and enjoying the pre-party beer. As it turned out, there’s one super handy shortcut for debugging that most people – Kendra included 😉 – are not aware of (and which I wasn’t able to cover in my 60 minutes of allotted time). Thus, I must spread the word.
Keyboard shortcuts from .NET DeveloperDays 2018
As I promised during my session “Turn on Turbo Mode for Your Visual Studio Usage and Debugging” on .NET DeveloperDays 2018, I’m posting the shortcuts I was showing.
ADO.NET provider 6.3.0.0 for Firebird is ready
New version 6.3.0.0 of ADO.NET provider for Firebird is ready for download. This version had a single focus and that was seemingly random exceptions, usually around blobs. It took me almost 4 days of trying and debugging, time supported by company behind Bauradar for which I’m thankful, to hunt down the issue.
ADO.NET provider 6.2.0.0 for Firebird is ready
New version 6.2.0.0 of ADO.NET provider for Firebird is ready for download. This version closes the gap with support for DROP PACKAGE and DROP PACKAGE BODY. And better support for encrypted databases – in services and creating databases.
View captured variables for lambdas and local functions
I don’t know how long this feature is in Visual Studio – maybe because I’m more keyboard-focused -, but I just noticed it and it’s a complete game changer. I mean, now I can’t imagine not having it. 😃
Exploring .NET’s – Java inspired – “synchronized” methods
I was recently talking about first versions of .NET, C# and the world of development technologies of that time. As I briefly touched J# (anybody remembers?) I realized there’s one Java feature that was added to C# because of inspiration by Java and I wanted to explore it. It’s not much used or even known in C#, but it’s still there. And because it’s about “threading and synchronization” I couldn’t resist and immediately jumped in. It’s synchronized methods.
.NET DeveloperDays 2018
In less than two months the .NET DeveloperDays 2018 conference will happen. According to the organizers it’s “the biggest event in Central and Eastern Europe dedicated exclusively to application development on the .NET platform” and I’m excited to speak there together with other great speakers.
How is Thread.SpinWait actually implemented?
I’m always drawn into disassembling stuff and learning how something works under the hood. The Thread.SpinWait is something I’m going to explore. Because .NET Core is open source I can attack this from side of both sources as well as pure disassembly.