Howdy readers, Lafe here. About once a month, my partner in crime, Rich Seeley, has been doing technical takeovers of this blog. Here's his latest post, which takes a look at Visual Studio reporting.
So the company you are coding for wants a nice report showing how sales of their line of jeans featuring simulated motor oil and grease stains are selling in various markets. All the information they want is stored somewhere in the sales database. It's just a matter of getting all the names and numbers to line up right so the sales reps, managers, and executives can see how they're doing.
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Posted by Lafe Low on 05/26/20170 comments
If you missed our most recent Visual Studio Live! Washington, D.C. preview webcast on Tuesday, May 9, fear not. You can always log on and listen in here. Or even if you did attend this webcast, you can always listen again to review what was covered. Ben Hoelting gave us a free preview of his sessions coming up at the Washington, D.C. event on June 12-15. His webcast was entitled "Web Dev with MVVM and Aurelia: #VSLive Washington, D.C. Preview."
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Posted by Lafe Low on 05/23/20170 comments
SQL Server can be a complex beast to tame. Thankfully, there are numerous tutorials covering all aspects of managing and developing for SQL Server. So if you need to brush up on any aspect of SQL Server development, there’s a wealth of how-to on any of these tutorial sites.
The Microsoft Virtual Academy serves up a whole menu of developer courses; including many SQL Server tutorials. From the main MVA page, you can choose courses by topic, then by product. When you get to the list of SQL Server tutorials, you’ll find plenty of specific topics broken into beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. The MVA course videos also come with transcripts, content lists and other resources. The advanced courses include topics like:
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Posted by Lafe Low on 05/12/20170 comments
Howdy readers, Lafe here. About once a month, my partner in crime, Rich Seeley, has been doing technical takeovers of this blog. Here's his latest post, which looks at a few Visual Studio unit testing examples.
Unit tests are not universally popular among developers and not everyone uses them. But those who use the method seem to love the process.
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Posted by Lafe Low on 05/04/20170 comments
Developers are developers. Designers are designers. It reminds me of the quote, "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," from Rudyard Kipling's poem The Ballad of East and West. While that is indeed true with compass points, you can't develop websites without an eye to design. If a site looks clunky or is tough to navigate, no one will go there. I once again turn to the blogosphere to see what I can find.
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Posted by Lafe Low on 04/25/20170 comments
Howdy readers, Lafe here. About once a month, my partner in crime, Rich Seeley, has been doing technical takeovers of this blog. Here's his latest post, looking at some of the themes available for Visual Studio.
Everybody wants a nice work environment. One that is suited to their tastes and temperament and helps them feel positive about their job.
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Posted by Lafe Low on 04/18/20170 comments
Technology continues to change at a dizzying pace. While that is of course true, it's also practically a cliché. What also changes, and indeed more significantly, are the development practices that go along with those technological advancements. Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), agile, DevOps—those have all evolved along the way as well. ALM has been around long enough so there are some venerable references, should you feel the need to beef up your collection of ALM books. If you're thinking of adding a few titles to your development bookshelf, here’s a look at a few ALM books you might want to consider.
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Posted by Lafe Low on 04/12/20170 comments
If you’re developing apps or services for the web, you’re bound to be using ASP.NET. This language framework is one of Microsoft’s gifts to the development world for building dynamic web sites, apps and services. It has been around since early 2002. It actually succeeded Microsoft's Active Server Pages (hence the ASP in ASP.NET) technology.
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Posted by Lafe Low on 03/31/20170 comments
Howdy readers, Lafe here. About once a month, my partner in crime, Rich Seeley, will be doing technical takeovers of this blog. Here's his look at some of the new features in Visual Studio 2017.
Microsoft filled hours of YouTube space this month with the launch of Visual Studio 2017 including this kickoff by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who touted the release as designed to empower developers to build any app on any platform.
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Posted by Lafe Low on 03/27/20170 comments
Visual Studio Magazine Editor-in-Chief Michael Domingo found this Visual Studio 2017 infographic helpful, and we hope you will too!
Microsoft added a ton of new features and updated functionality to Visual Studio 2017. There is also a lot of partner technology now incorporated directly into the IDE, like Redgate’s database features and Parasoft’s integrated unit testing. There has been a lot going on in the development pipeline throughout the last year since Build 2016. It’s a lot to keep track of, so having a summarized list of all Visual Studio 2017’s new and updated features—both the standard features you use every day, and some unique hidden gems—can help keep you on track.
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Posted by Lafe Low on 03/21/20170 comments