Dave Zych

debug

The case against EntityDataSource

Why does Microsoft insist on developing the EntityDataSource [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/cc488502(v=vs.100).aspx]? I really don’t see the benefit. It’s just adding bloat to Entity Framework, especially since most people are moving away from Web Forms in favor of MVC. It

b

Why use strong and em over b and i?

One question I see around the interwebs a lot is why strong and em should be used over b and i. If we look at the HTML 4 spec [http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/cover.html#minitoc], it lists b and i under the Font style [http://www.w3.

asp.net

Building the Castle Windsor Dependency Injection Populator for ASP.NET vNext

As I blogged about previously [http://davidzych.com/2014/07/28/asp-net-vnext-dependency-injection-with-castle-windsor/] , I built a Castle Windsor populator for ASP.NET vNext. For this post, I’ll walk through some of the more interesting pieces of it. Installer In Castle Windsor, an installer is a class that implements IWindsorInstaller [http:

comment

Discourse V1 has been released

As promised by the team [http://blog.discourse.org/2014/06/discourse-v1-0-next-month/], Discourse has just hit V1.0 [http://blog.discourse.org/2014/08/introducing-discourse-1-0/]. As Jeff Atwood says the version number is mostly arbitrary, but it shows that the software is ready for rapid adoption in communities everywhere. > Version

completion

Progress Indicators are Always a Good Idea

Progress bars. You know them. You love them. They tell you when the computer is going to be done with a task, or when you are going to be done with a task. Sometimes they’re accurate, sometimes not so much [http://xkcd.com/612/]. Regardless of accuracy, studies have

coincidence

Don't be a Tweek Tweak Programmer

My previous post, Please learn to ask questions [http://davidzych.com/2014/08/20/learn-to-ask-more-questions/], asks developers to start asking more questions and try to understand the code behind many framework tools they use. A sibling of this topic is programming by coincidence. PbC (as it will henceforth be referenced

abstraction

Learn to ask more questions

I recently installed sod in my backyard along with an automatic sprinkler system. I performed all the work myself (with the help of some friends and family when necessary, of course) and that included laying the sprinkler pipe and hooking it up to the copper mainline. I didn’t know

crash

The investigation of a site crash

When I woke up this morning I noticed by site had crashed with the following error: > Error establishing a database connection. Awesome. What a helpful error message. WordPress is basically saying: [https://davidzych.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/shrug.jpg] Thanks WordPress. I ssh’d into the server to see

discourse

Discourse: The way software should be

As you may have heard, I recently set up Discourse as my blog commenting system: > Installed @discourse [https://twitter.com/discourse] on @digitalocean [https://twitter.com/digitalocean] for my blog. Amazingly easy. http://t.co/U13jkoLssD — Dave Zych (@DaveZych) August 15, 2014 [https://twitter.com/DaveZych/statuses/500315843167662080] I have

asp.net

Specifying package dependency versions in ASP.NET vNext

This post was inspired by this question on StackOverflow. [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25232344/managing-dependencies-in-vnext] Noel [http://stackoverflow.com/users/195910/noel] asks: > At the company I work at we do the following when we need references to third party dlls in our projects: * Use nuget to get package * Pull

jack dorsey

Simplicity requires complexity

A major goal of a programmer is to try to map a complex analog world in a digital form. It’d be easy to follow in complexity’s footsteps and provide shoddy solutions to these problems. We have to remember, though, that simplicity is essential to the success of an

bluehost

What are the last 4 characters of your password?

I used to have this blog hosted on Bluehost [http://www.bluehost.com]. I set up the hosting account years ago to host a gaming community and it had served it’s purpose well. I had no downtime that I can remember and my site was always pretty responsive. A

asp.net

ASP.NET vNext Dependency Injection with Castle Windsor

In a previous post [http://davidzych.com/2014/06/02/dependency-injection-in-asp-net-vnext/] I explained how to set up and use the built in dependency injection container in ASP.NET vNext. Today we’re going to look at setting up and using the popular Castle Windsor DI container. In order to use

keyboard

How important is typing ability?

As a programmer, I spend a lot of time in front of a keyboard and naturally I’ve gotten pretty good at typing. Out of curiosity I took a typing test to see how fast I am [http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php?] (surprisingly I haven’t taken one

asp.net

Dependency Injection in ASP.NET vNext

One of the big headlines of ASP.NET vNext is that dependency injection is built into the framework. It’s a pretty basic implementation of DI, but although it’s very basic I’m sure it will suffice for most applications. I’ll show how to set up and use

asp.net

ASP.NET vNext Links

ASP.NET vNext was announced a few weeks ago and there are now some great resources available explaining what it is, why it’s here and why it’s a really freaking important change. Github All of ASP.NET vNext is open source and available on Github. The Home project

.net

Getting started with ASP.NET vNext

ASP.NET vNext is the next version of the ASP.NET web framework. The focus this time around is strip out unnecessary bits and make a leaner, meaner, easier-to-use framework. A few of the things done include: * Side by side deployment of .NET – you can deploy all code, dependencies and

git

Difference between git reset soft, mixed and hard

The reset command. Confusing. Misunderstood. Misused. But it doesn’t need to be that way! It’s really not too confusing once you figure out what’s going on. Definitions First, let’s define a few terms. HEAD This is an alias for the tip of the current branch, which

buzzfeed

Twitter isn't a blogging service, so let's kill the tweetstorm

There’s a new way of posting on Twitter that’s gaining in popularity – The Tweetstorm™. Coined by BuzzFeed (as far as I know), a Tweetstorm is a message or rant that spans multiple tweets, with each tweet commonly being prefixed by #/. BuzzFeed describes it as such: [http://www.buzzfeed.

api

The Universe is not programmable, but we can document what we can

Wired posted an article [http://www.wired.com/2014/04/the-universe-is-programmable/] with the idea that the entire universe is an API and explained how we need to tap into its potential. The basic premise of their argument is that an API “lays out the code’s inputs and outputs” and

apt-get

Get some packages with Microsoft OneGet

Are you a Windows user? Do you see people using apt-get [https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Howto] and Homebrew [http://brew.sh/] and get filled with rage? Are you not a fan of chocolate? [https://chocolatey.org/] Well, then, you are in luck! Introducing, OneGet. What is OneGet? OneGet

design

Users see the UI, not the code

UI design is hard. Like, it’s way hard. And it’s also a very important piece of the software puzzle. In fact, some might say it’s the most important piece because to users, it is the software: [http://www.serviceassurancedaily.com/2006/12/the-enterprise-ui-part-1-why-ui-design-is-important-%E2%80%93-and-so-difficult-%E2%

git

Migrating from SVN to Git; How we did it

My team migrated from SVN to Git about 3 months ago. After a few tweaks, a few bugs and a little elbow grease we’ve been stable ever since. And you know what? It was one of the best moves we’ve ever made. Developers are more efficient and we

authors

Migrating from SVN to Git

So you’ve done it – you’ve finally made the decision to switch to Git. SVN does some things very well, and has been a great source control system since it’s creation in 2000. But the features that Git brings – distribution, performance, easy branches, easy merges, stash – are hard

.net

Microsoft releases a preview of the .NET Compiler Platform, codenamed Roslyn

Microsoft released a public preview of the .NET Compiler Platform, codenamed Roslyn, on April 3rd, 2014. The code is available at http://roslyn.codeplex.com/ for you to bask in all of it’s glory. You can clone the .NET Compiler Platform Git repository using this command: > git clone https: