DevOps Code Sharing Part 2: Automatic Semantic Versioning of NuGet Deploys How to automatically incorporate semantic version information into NuGet libraries during building, packaging, and publishing of .Net libraries to private NuGet feeds.
DevOps Share Code Like a Boss Part 1 - Private NuGet Feeds in Azure DevOps If you've ever tried to share code like an API proxy, math calculations, or validation logic between multiple projects, you'll know there are many options. In this post I'll summarize the most common, then dig into the most versatile for .Net projects: private NuGet feeds
Video How to Create Printed Circuit Boards (PCB's) 101 I just posted Episode 18 of Code Hour. In this show I demonstrate how to build a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) from prototype, to design, to manufacture.
CI Code Coverage is Finally Easy in .Net Core A couple of months ago calculating code coverage on the command line was quite challenging in ASP.Net Core. Fortunately, as of last month and Visual Studio 15.8, generating the metric is easy.
Best Practices How to Increase Quality with a Code Coverage Hack In this post I'll summarize what code coverage is, how it can be abused, but also how it can be leveraged to gently increase design and architecture quality, reduce bug regressions, and provide verifiable documentation.
DevOps Why Cake? 4 Reasons. When building a devops pipeline you can go two main directions: put logic into a text-based make-like tool such as Cake [https://cakebuild.net/], or embed your logic exclusively in a Continuous Integration server like Team City or Visual Studio Team Services. The CI route provides an incredible amount of
Windows IOT How To Push Updates to Raspberry Pi UWP Apps In Prod Updating Raspberry Pi apps in the field can be tricky. This post covers the general problem and address some specific side-loading problems you are likely to run into.
UWP Securing Communications via Certificate Pinning in UWP If you're writing an app, your risk of man-in-the-middle attacks isn't limited to curious developers willing to install a Fiddler root certificate in order to hide all HTTPS snooping errors.
Best Practices Your Code Sucks, Get Over It Horrifying. That about describes my first art class. As a computer science major with virtually no art experience I was surrounded by students who had devoted nearly every waking moment to drawing, painting, sculpting, and bending metal into non-functional shapes. The second class was the worst. Our assignment was to
Xamarin What is the Xamarin platform? We love tools that help our clients save time, but some of them are easily misunderstood. Here's the scoop on Xamarin.
Xamarin Introducing ELXF: A UI Framework For Concise, Maintainable & Fast Programmatic UI's For Xamarin.Forms EasyLayout.Forms - or ELXF - is a new UI framework to replace XAML with clean and concise layout code.
Xamarin Six Disastrous Mistakes for Cross-Platform Mobile Projects "I'm starting a cross-platform mobile project. What problems should my team solve before we begin?" What an enlightened question, I thought. The individual standing next to me at a local developer conference had a software architecture background. He clearly understood that laying a solid foundation at
Resharper 24 Resharper Tips Every .Net Developer Should Know ReSharper can massively boost productivity and improve code quality, while teaching you to be a better developer. In this presentation from NOVA CodeCamp last fall, I distill years spent mastering the tool into a discreet set of 24 tips to help you immediately get more done in less time. (Read
Xamarin Kill AXML - Programmatic ListViews in Xamarin Android Displaying list data in Android using a custom layout is traditionally accomplished by inflating an AXML file for each row of data. However, in my article introducing EasyLayout.Droid I made the case that AXML files slow development speed and decrease cross platform re-usability. In this article, I'll
Xamarin Introducing EasyLayout.Droid If you've done much Xamarin iOS work you've probably run into Frank Krueger's awesome framework, EasyLayout, that makes manually coded auto layouts considerably easier to read and maintain. If you've ever wanted the same type of functionality for Xamarin Android either for
HoloLens 3 things you'll love about the Hololens We absolutely love the Hololens, so much in fact that we decided to launch a video series on the Hololens. In this video, Lee Richardson discusses three elements of the Hololens that he feels users will come to appreciate.
git Benefits of Git Rebase In the first article in this series (Git: Rebase vs Merge) I covered the tactics of rebasing. I discussed what merge commits are, and how to avoid them with rebasing. In this post I'll cover the benefits of rebasing, including how its use speeds up finding hard to
Resharper 24 Resharper Tips I firmly believe ReSharper is the best thing to happen to .Net since Visual Studio (NCrunch is a close second). In evangelizing it I managed to convince my program to purchase copies for every developer. One caveat: I had to train everyone. So next week I'm doing a
git Git: Rebase vs Merge Distributed version control (git): Check. Feature branches: Check. Rebasing: Ugh, seriously? On multiple projects I've attempted to introduce the concept of rebasing commits. It rarely goes well (at first). The initial reaction tends to be reluctance and confusion. Reluctance, because it adds complexity and appears to give nothing
Xamarin 4 Xamarin Misconceptions Debunked (aka What Even Is Xamarin) This article explains what Xamarin is, the basics of how it works, and dispels four common misconceptions.
UWP How To Fade An LED With PWM in Windows IoT Motors, dimmable LED's, speakers, multi-color LED's and a variety of other components have a requirement that's easy for an Arduino, but that turns out to be a little tricky in Windows IoT.
Windows IOT Getting Started With Windows IoT and Raspberry Pi 3 This is the first post in a series exploring Windows IoT on Raspberry Pi 3. In this post I'll cover the what and the why of Windows IoT, then show how to install it on a Raspberry Pi 3 and finally how to deploy a first app to
Xamarin Xamarin vs Ionic: A Mobile, Cross Platform, Shootout Ever faced with choosing among competing frameworks; needing to make a decision you/your customer won't regret? If those frameworks are for building cross-platform mobile apps and are Xamarin and Ionic, hopefully this article will help.
Xamarin Xamarin: 5 Reasons I'd Do It Again In a Heartbeat Why I'd choose Xamarin again in a heartbeat despite having built pure native apps for every major platform, and having built a mobile app in JavaScript with PhoneGap and Ionic.
