Dr. Dobb's Journal - February 2008 - (Page 26)

d02dino_p6ma 12/7/07 2:13 PM Page 26 Core Technology INSIDE VISUAL STUDIO 2008 continued from page 23 and can easily sum up to tens of lines of code for large procedures. Richer Languages Beyond the Sugar Programming languages are not immutable. Especially when they’re tightly coupled to a runtime environment such as the CLR, they progress as the underlying machinery is refined and enhanced. For example, the .NET Framework 2.0 supplied a C# compiler with additional features compared to the compiler for the .NET Framework 1.x. In Visual Studio 2008 and with .NET 3.5 onboard, you can use a significantly richer C# and Visual Basic .NET languages. Both languages now incorporate features that enable functional programming and add specific keywords for Language Integrated Queries (LINQ). Extension methods are a way to extend the otherwise hard-coded contract of a class Figure 3: IntelliSense shows dynamic extensions to the String type. by adding new methods programmatically without creating a derived or partial class. The idea behind extension methods is bringing the flexibility of duck-typing to a strongly-typed and compiled environment such as the CLR. In practice, you may use extension methods whenever you feel that a given class you’re using lacks a helpful method. If you have no access to the source code of this class, in Visual Studio 2008 you define an extension. Extension methods can be defined for any class, including native classes of .NET. Listing One shows how to extend the System.String class with a few methods such as IsDate, IsInt32, and ToDate. An extension method is defined as a static method on a static class. The binding between the method (say, IsInt32) and type (say, System.String) is established through the this keyword in the method’s prototype: public static bool IsInt32 (this string content) Figure 4: O/R designer modeling the SQL Server's Northwind database. I/O Controls x x x x x High-Speed for Real-Time applications Built-In custom Property Editors Automatic and Custom Sizing. No Restrictive Bitmaps Look and Feel of Real Hardware Includes : Switches, Gauges, Sliders, Led’s, Led Bar, Led Spiral, Integer/Binary/Hexadecimal Displays, Tanks, Valves, Motors, LCD Matrix, Spectrum Display, Percent and Pie Graph, Odometers, Analog Clock, Image Display, Rotation Display, and Mode Combo Box. Plot Control x x x x x x x x High-Speed for Real-Time applications Unlimited Number of Channels & Axes Full Customizable External Toolbar Legends, Tables, Limits, Labels, Annotations, Cursors Gradient Backgrounds Log Files and Data Export and Import Save images to BMP, PNG, JPEG, TIF, GIF and EMF Many built in channel types : Tracy, Trace-XY, Bar, Bubble, Fill, Bi-Fill, Digital, Differential and Sweep Interval (EKG) Std Pack .Net x 28 Controls x Basic I/O Controls ActiveX & VCL Also Available Pro Pack .Net x 55 Controls x Basic & Advanced I/O Controls Single Developer : $1099 Additional Developer : $379 ActiveX & VCL Also Available Plot Pack .Net x Plotting : Scientific, Engineering, Strip-Chart, Digital, EKG, and more ActiveX & VCL Also Available Ultra Pack .Net x 56 Controls x Basic & Advanced I/O Controls plus Plotting Single Developer : $1699 Additional Developer : $579 ActiveX & VCL Also Available Single Developer : $559 Additional Developer : $189 Single Developer : $859 Additional Developer : $289 www.iocomp.com 888-599-2929 +1-407-226-3456 7081 Grand National Drive Suite 112, Orlando, FL 32819 26 Dr. Dobb’s Journal l www.ddj.com l February 2008 http://www.iocomp.com http://www.iocomp.com http://www.ddj.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Dr. Dobb's Journal - February 2008

Dr. Dobb's Journal - February 2008 Contents Hmmmm Alia Vox Developer Diaries Developer’s Notebook South American Software Development Conversations Inside Visual Studio 2008 BibPort: Creating Bibliographic References Continuous LINQ The ZK Framework Static Testing C++ Code The Agile Edge Effective Concurrency Swaine’s Flames

Dr. Dobb's Journal - February 2008

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