I’ve been asked a few times about how to optimize LINQ code. The first step in optimizing LINQ code is to take some measurements and make sure you really have a problem.    It turns out that optimizing LINQ code isn’t that different from optimizing regular C# code. You need to form a hypothesis, make changes, and measure, measure, measure every step of the way. Measurement is important, because sometimes the changes you need to make are not intuitive. Here is a specific example using LINQ to Objects. Let’s say we have 100,000 of these...

I recently had some time on airplanes to read through Bitter EJB, POJOs in Action, and  Better, Faster, Lighter Java. All three books were good, but the last one was my favorite, and was recommended to me by Ian Cooper. No, I’m not planning on trading in assemblies for jar files just yet. I read the books to get some insight and perspectives into specific trends in the Java ecosystem. It’s impossible to summarize the books in one paragraph, but I’ll try anyway: Some Java developers shun the EJB framework so they can focus on objects. Simple objects. Testable objects. Malleable...

Matt Podwysocki invited me to speak at the D.C. alt.net meeting next Thursday evening (July 24th). The topic is LINQ. Matt specifically requested a code-heavy presentation, so expect two slides followed by plenty of hot lambda and Expression<T> action. Hopefully, Matt doesn’t blackout the neighborhood like he did at the nearby RockNUG meeting this week. The White House is two blocks away and the people inside get a little jumpy about blackouts.   DateTime:7/24/2008 - 7PM-9PMLocation:Cynergy Systems Inc.1600 K St NWSuite 300Washington, DC 20006Show Map

In the BI space I’ve seen a lot of SQL queries succumb to complexity. A data extraction query adds some joins, then some filters, then some nested SELET statements, and it becomes an unhealthy mess in short order. It’s unfortunate, but standard SQL just isn’t a language geared for refactoring towards simplification (although UDFs and CTEs in T-SQL have helped). I’ve really enjoyed writing LINQ queries this year, and I’ve found them easy to keep pretty. For example, suppose you need to parse some values out of the following XML:<ROOT> <data> <record> ...

Haiku is a popular poetic form that has evolved over centuries. Restku is Haiku with a  twist. crystal pixels get brighter an abundance of excitement The twist is that the author of a Restku is restricted to using a single verb from this list: get, post, put, and delete. Although traditional Restku insists on present tense usage of the four verbs, adventurous  authors will mix in past tense, future tense, and on occasion, present perfect tense. unexpected dialog a “progress” bar vista has posted the bad news Although...

Herding Code is a podcast about a variety of topics in technology and software development. It’s done roundtable style with myself, Scott Koon, Kevin Dente, and Jon Galloway. The conversations are a blast, and I hope informative, too. Tune in to the feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HerdingCode

Salmon swim upstream, and look at what happens …      Every developer is familiar with the “work around”. These are the extra bits of extra code we write to overcome limitations in an API, platform, or framework. But, sometimes those limitations are a feature. The designer of a framework might be guiding you in a specific direction. Take the Silverlight networking APIs as an example. The APIs provide only asynchronous communication options, yet I’ve seen a few people try to block on network operations with code like the following: AutoResetEvent _event = new AutoResetEvent(false);WebClient...

Pluralsight has a new website, and the new site includes some online training options! See Fritz’s post for more details. Be sure to check out one of the newest classes - the LINQ Fundamentals course, too.