I had an interesting dispute with my colleague weather to use only qualified type names in code or not. He insisted that we should not use the using directive to introduce a namespace but to write the fully qualified name every time it is necessary. I had quite opposite opinion but I agreed to give it a try. So I started to write public class MyClass { public static void Main() { System.Console.WriteLine("Foo"); } } instead of using System; public class MyClass { public static void Main() { Console.WriteLine("Foo"); } } Unfortunately over time it proofed no value to me. I was not happy with this rule, but I thought…

Microsoft Technology Summit 2008 (8th and 9th November), the biggest  Microsoft technology event in Poland went quite well. It was my first MTS and I was trying not to expect anything special. And indeed I haven’t experienced anything  earth shaking but altogether it was quite interesting and a good investment of time. I surely learned a few new things and meet interesting people there. I was astonished by the sheer number of attendees that gathered in there. I presume the old communist “castle” in the center of Warsaw the “Palace of Culture and Science” was the only place to accommodate this whole crowd, but it is not a cushy place.…

Lets say we have two nullable integers like this: int? i = null; int? j = 0; Is null smaller than 0 Console.WriteLine(i < j); False – no it is not. So probably null is greater than 0 Console.WriteLine(i > j); False – no it is not greater as well. All right! So null is equal 0. It has to be, JIT has no other choice, right? Console.WriteLine(i == j); Well False too! This two little fellows are not equal too. What? Is it raining frogs and we about to experience Armageddon? No! We have to use Nullable.Compare() and we will by back in normal world: switch (Nullable.Compare(i, j)) {…

I have a little tip for you. Let’s say you have an enumeration. You need a enumeration constant out of string variable. simply use System.Enum.Parse(). Here a small Snippet Compiler source code. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; public class MyClass { public enum FooBar { Foo, Bar, FooBar } public static void Main() { WL(FooBarFactory("Foo")); RL(); } public static FooBar FooBarFactory(string init) { try { return (FooBar)System.Enum.Parse(typeof(FooBar), init); } catch { // Do something throw; } } #region Helper methods private static void WL(object text, params object[] args) { Console.WriteLine(text.ToString(), args); } private static void RL() { Console.ReadLine(); } private static void Break() { System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break(); } #endregion }