Last week I replied to a post about exceptions, it made me think those programming .Net daily take for granted the etiquette of using Exceptions. So I thought I would share some of my thoughts… well it is a sort of a rules’ish list.
Exceptions can be expensive, so avoid using them for normal conditions
One of the many great reasons for choosing Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 as our development platform for Visual COBOL 2010 is it ability to be extended… which we have done but you equally use third party extensions too.
One of my favourite extensions is the spell checker for the editor, which is great for pointing out spelling mistakes, which for me can only be a good thing
To install the extension, it is as simple as downloading it, clicking on the downloaded file, restarting Visual Studio and using it.
The spell checker I use with Visual COBOL 2010 is:
For the last couple of months I have working on Visual Studio 2010 and this include Microsoft CLR v4 and I was recently asked how to write a test that determines at runtime which CLR is being used and what assemblies it uses. I replies would use reflection. So I dropped my friend a mega simple demo… and here it is.
set myAssembly totype"Assembly"::"GetExecutingAssembly"
display"My exe is " myAssembly::"FullName" display"and is using CLR " myAssembly::"ImageRuntimeVersion" display"and is loaded from " myAssembly::"Location" display"the initial method of this program was "
myAssembly::"EntryPoint"::"Name"
My exe is clrver, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
and is using CLR v2.0.50727
and is loaded from d:\clrver.exe
the initial method of this program was _MF_ENTRYThis assembly references ->
-> mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089
-> MicroFocus.COBOL.Runtime, Version=3.6.0.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=0412c5e0b2aaa8f0
I recently tried to find our manual for our “British Gas RC Plus Termostat” on the internet as we have lost our original manual.
Anyway, after some research, I found they British Gas just re-badged them from Drayton Digistat and here is the links to the pages that contain the .pdfs’.
Microsoft have just updated the “Application Architecture”. I can’t say I have read it from cover to cover but it is being downloaded to my ebook reader…
Understand the underlying architecture and design principles and patterns for developing successful solutions on the Microsoft platform and the .NET Framework.
Identify appropriate strategies and design patterns that will help you design your solution’s layers, components, and services.
Identify and address the key engineering decision points for your solution.
Identify and address the key quality attributes and crosscutting concerns for your solution.
Create a candidate baseline architecture for your solution.
Choose the right technologies for your solution.
Identify patterns & practices solution assets and further guidance that will help you to implement your solution