MSDN Magazine - September 2008 - (Page 13)

lightweight user interface, its many features, and the plethora of examples make it an excellent tool for learning, writing, and testing LINQ queries. Price: Free. LINQPad.net Everyday I make a conscious effort to take steps to become a better developer and to improve my technical competency and programming savvy. I may peruse a respected developer’s blog for coding tips and tricks, read a chapter from a computer trade book, or ask and answer questions at an online forum. But as blogger Rob Waling will tell you, becoming a better developer means more than learning new technical skills. Rob has worked extensively with the .NET Framework and now runs a small development company that consults and sells assorted ASP.NET applications. He’s also an avid blogger. Most developer-focused blogs examine the latest technologies or showcase programming tips and tricks. Rob’s blog is unique in that it addresses the business and interpersonal aspects of being a successful developer. His 11-part series on that topic discusses areas such as team building, understanding your role in the company and in your projects, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and constructively criticizing a coworker’s code. Every developer, regardless of his position or experience, will get something out of this well-written and thought-provoking list. Rob’s blog is full of great information for those who have ever considered becoming a freelance developer or have thought about turning an idea, tool, or application into a product for sale. There is advice on structuring a one-man business, guidelines on how much to charge for your time and products, and suggested tools and business processes that can help ensure your success as a freelance developer or micro-ISV. softwarebyrob.com rect the error. I discussed this in the April 2008 Toolbox column (see msdn.microsoft.com/ magazine/cc500592.aspx) where I looked at two different systems for automatically logging errors in an ASP.NET Web application: the ASP.NET Health Monitoring system and Error Logging Modules and Handlers (ELMAH). But what tools are available for logging error details in desktop applications? What about logging non-error cial, and healthcare applications need to maintain audit logs that record who has accessed the system and what data was viewed or changed. There are many logging libraries available for .NET-based applications, and among the most mature and widely used are the Enterprise Library and log4net. The Enterprise Library is a set of application blocks created by the Microsoft patterns & practices group. Each application block is a set of classes that help perform a common enterprise development task, such as logging, data access, and exception handling. The Logging Application Block makes it easy to record information to any number of log stores. Before you can log information from your Logging Application Block and specify, at minimum, what trace listeners to use. A trace listener is an object that receives and stores information from some source and is the mechanism by which a log entry gets Library ships with built-in trace listeners that store log entries to the Windows Event Log, ® and so on. You can also create and plug in your own custom trace listeners. and formatters. Categories can be used to such as “Data Access Errors” or “Debugging Messages.” Each log entry is associated with a category as well as with a number of properties, such as priority and severity. On the staging server you may be interested in only logging those entries with a priority of 5 or greater, for instance. On the production server you may want to omit log entries belonging to the Debugging Messages September 2008 13 When an error occurs in a production environment, it’s important that the details are logged to some persistent store so that the developers can later explore and cormsdnmagazine.com http://msdn.microsoft.com/magazine/cc500592.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/magazine/cc500592.aspx http://LINQPad.net http://softwarebyrob.com http://www.cete.com http://www.cete.com http://msdnmagazine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of MSDN Magazine - September 2008

MSDN Magazine - September 2008 Contents Toolbox CLR Inside Out Data Points Advanced Basics Office Space Cutting Edge Hierarchy ID New Features for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Prism Data Services Advanced WPF Test Run Security Briefs Foundations { End Bracket }

MSDN Magazine - September 2008

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