Visual Studio “15” Preview 4 was recently released, so I decided to take it for a spin. In the upcoming C# 7.0, of the features being implemented, pattern matching is probably the most interesting. Consider how often we’ve designed code that uses a switch statement with complex cases, but then when we go to implement the design, a nested if-then-else statement must be coded instead because switch labels … Continue reading C# v7.0 pattern matching

A few days ago, I wrote a server in Node.js, the purpose of which is to email me when an API found in Nuget is updated. I thought the project would take a few hours, but as it turned out, it took several days. You may ask “How is this possible for such an easy problem?” Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what API to use to read a text file, and how to use the API. It led me to an understanding of a fundamental problem with Javascript known as “callback hell” (1, 2).

Continue reading “Alternatives to Deeply-Nested Callback Functions in Javascript”

WebSockets is a communication protocol on TCP between a web browser (or other client) and a server. It is full-duplex, event-driven. One important advantage of the technology is the elimination of the client polling of the server. The following post lists some resources for C# WebSockets (1). C#/WebSocket Resources System.Net.WebSockets (client only) https://www.nuget.org/packages/System.Net.WebSockets/ First release Monday, June 27, 2016 http://www.infoworld.com/article/3088338/application-development/how-to-work-with-web-sockets-in-net.html Cannot target NET Portable 4.5 framework. WebSocket4Net (client only) … Continue reading Resources for C# WebSockets

With the release of NET Core, the acquisition of Xamarin and Mono, and the 15 or so years of development of the NET Framework, we now have three platforms to choose from for C#. Why are there three platforms? What are the differences between each? And, what is the performance of the three to each other? From the NET Core Roadmap, it’s clear that Microsoft is trying to focus … Continue reading Runtime Performance of NET Core vs. NET Framework vs. Mono

I’d like to start with a short story. I’m trying to write a simple Hello World program. I want it to run on Android, and it must use Xamarin Forms, and use XAML to describe the UI. Should be easy, 5 minutes to do, right? Not in my case. I go into Visual Studio and create a blank app (Xamarin.Forms Portable). I then “Add New/Forms … Continue reading The Mysteries of XAML

Mongo is a popular NoSQL database nowadays. It has several advantages compared to relational databases (schema-less, key-value store, scalable, distributed, propagated consistency) but the main advantage, IMHO, is that JSON is the lingua franca for the data structures it stores and the queries you use. JSON is a nice, simple data structure representation. It can be easily passed between the database and the application; and it can … Continue reading Mongo, Restheart, and Dokku