Code Faster: 15 Essential Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcuts

This quick reference guide shares 15 must-know shortcuts for improving efficiency and productivity in Visual Studio. Master shortcuts for debugging, refactoring, formatting, searching, and more!

Posted on 02/26/20240 comments

Getting Started with GitHub Copilot

As a small teaser for my upcoming Copilot Engineering Everywhere workshop at VSLive! Las Vegas, I thought I'd give you an introduction to GitHub Copilot.

Posted by Mickey Gousset on 02/23/20240 comments

Variables of the Veracious Variety: How to Better Name your Variables

You wouldn't really name a variable "x," would you?

But it happens.

And it's not just "x." It's "usrdb," "item," "foo," "test," "blah" and more. These are real variable names that have been encountered in production-grade codebases.

"And that's just scary!" says Adrienne Braganza-Tacke.

Posted by David Ramel on 02/20/20240 comments

Developing Modern Data Applications Using the Power of AI with Azure Databases

Creating AI-powered applications is a natural fit for the Microsoft Azure cloud, but sorting out all the different options for the backing data stores can seem daunting.

All developers are looking for an edge to build applications that are data-driven and harness the power AI, and Azure Databases provide a range of options for secure, scalable and highly available data applications using all the latest languages.

Posted by David Ramel on 02/05/20240 comments

The Year of AI, and Other Developer Predictions for 2024

Hey, everyone! I'm Mickey Gousset, a staff DevOps architect at GitHub, and I am thrilled to be contributing to the VSLive! blog as a monthly how-to columnist. While every month you can expect tips, tricks and best-practices advice from the development world, for this installment, I thought I'd share some of my predictions for 2024 in the field of software development. 

Posted by Mickey Gousset on 01/17/20240 comments

Building ETL Workflows in Microsoft Fabric, Step-by-Step

Microsoft Fabric was described as "the AI-fication of Microsoft's data business" by RedmondMag writer Joey D'Antoni when it was unveiled at the company's Build 2023 developer conference.

He listed these highlights of the new offering:

Posted by David Ramel on 01/15/20240 comments

This Is the Perfect Time to Up Your Web Coding Skills

The consensus is that we are entering a new world following the COVID-19 pandemic, so this might be the time for developers to add to their skillset. The more skills you have the better you are positioned for jobs in the future where multifaceted developers will be in demand.

Companies restarting their business may not have the budget for hiring different developers for different tasks. They may need old-fashioned Jack-or-Jill-of-all-trades. Combining classic application development expertise with Website abilities may be just the ticket for success when the economy begins reopening.

Posted by Richard Seeley on 04/22/20200 comments

GitHub Actions: Go With the Workflow

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) is great in theory but like its Agile and DevOps companions it is not the easiest thing to put into practice.

GitHub Actions, introduced in the past year, are intended to make CI/CD easier for developer teams to implement. If you are struggling to keep your DevOps culture on track and make Agile work, it might be worth seeing if GitHub Actions can help. At least, GitHub and its new Microsoft owners sure hope so. Since Microsoft purchased San Francisco-based GitHub in 2018, some of the Redmond, Washington technology and marketing magic seems to have infused the company.

Posted by Richard Seeley on 03/24/20200 comments

Q&A with Jason Bock: Visual Studio 2019 Features You Need to Know About

We caught up with Jason Bock, a practice lead for Magenic (http://www.magenic.com) and a Microsoft MVP (C#) with more than 20 years of experience working on business applications using a diverse set of frameworks and languages including C#, .NET, and JavaScript.

Bock, the author of ".NET Development Using the Compiler API," "Metaprogramming in .NET," and "Applied .NET Attributes, is leading the full-day “Visual Studio 2019 In-depth” workshop at the upcoming “Visual Studio Live!” conference set for March 30 - April 3 in Austin, Texas.

Posted by Richard Seeley on 02/21/20200 comments

Discovering Cosmos: The Database for the Global Economy

Microsoft’s Cosmos isn’t a new database. It’s been around since 2010. But when coupled with Azure, its globally-distributed database in the cloud model seems ideal for business app developers in 2020.

“Cosmos DB enables you to build highly responsive and highly available applications worldwide,” touts Microsoft in its introduction to its NoSQL database. “Cosmos DB transparently replicates your data wherever your users are, so your users can interact with a replica of the data that is closest to them.”

Posted by Richard Seeley on 02/13/20200 comments