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CodeIt.Right Rules Explained, Part 22

Carlos SchultsArticles, CarlosSchults, CodeIt.Right, Rules, RulesExplainedNo Comments

CodeItRight_Rules_22Welcome back to the CodeIt.Right Rules Explained series. For those of you who haven’t seen an installment in this series, let’s explain what it’s all about. CodeIt.Right is a tool that performs automated code review for .NET. It checks your code against a set of rules, giving you valuable feedback on its quality. Throughout the series, we’ve been explaining these rules, always three at a time.

In every post in this series, we start with the following two rules of thumb:

  • Never implement a suggested fix without knowing what makes it a fix.
  • Never ignore a suggested fix without understanding what makes it a fix.

Trust me—we don’t phrase it this way to sound funny or anything. It’d be the same thing to say “figure out why the tool is suggesting this.” But we don’t. And here’s why.

Each time CodeIt.Right shows you a warning, you must decide to either address it or ignore it. Make that choice for the right reasons. Ignore the warning when you’re truly convinced it doesn’t apply to your situation or doesn’t provide enough benefits. Don’t ignore it because you don’t understand it very well and don’t feel like handling it.

Now that you understand what this post is all about, let’s get to today’s three rules.

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Released: GhostDoc v2018.2

Serge BaranovskyGhostDoc, News, ReleasesNo Comments

A minor feature update build v2018.2.19030 is now available

Changes in v2018.2

  • GhostDoc now uses Async integration with Visual Studio with background load enabled. This minimizes the GhostDoc load on Visual Studio startup.
  • Added new setting Options -> Solution Options -> General -> “Use <inheritdoc /> tag for inherited comments”. When checked, GhostDoc will insert the <inheritdoc /> tag instead of copying the base member documentation. Note: When using the <inheritdoc />, remember it is a custom tag and you must use GhostDoc to generate help documentation and VS Intellisense files.
  • Modified Properties, Methods, Indexer, Event and Constructor T4 templates to insert the <inheritdoc /> tag instead of copying the base member documentation – when UseInheritdocTag setting is True.
  • Encryptions within GhostDoc are now FIPS compliant.
  • Abbreviations dictionary now allows abbreviations with an empty value. This enables skipping abbreviations and word parts like prefix, suffix etc.
  • Now a new XML Comment template is generated when Visual Editor opens using Ctrl-Shift-D for the member that does not have XML Comment.
  • Numerous fixes and improvements

For the complete list of changes, see What’s New in GhostDoc v2018

Download GhostDoc

Feedback

We appreciate your feedback on the new features; please email us at support@submain.com or post in the GhostDoc Forum.

 

5 Ways You Might Be Failing at Software Doneness

Vlad GeorgescuArticles, CodeBasics, VladGeorgescuNo Comments

Meat_thermometer_not_reading_even_close_to_rareOne of the most anticipated acts at a circus is the juggler—a performer who can move five or six or more balls in the air at the same time. The really complicated juggling acts, however, add something extra to wow the crowd. The juggler first climbs some stairs, high up but still close enough for everyone to see. He’s on a platform. The overhead lights are dim while one bright spotlight is on the juggler as he starts to juggle—one, two, three, four, five, and six balls moving effortlessly through the air, all in balance. He’s good!

But now, a new spotlight illuminates everything to his right … and everyone is amazed. It’s a tightrope that runs across the entire stage to another platform. The juggler then turns and faces the tightrope while juggling the six balls, and he starts walking slowly across. Step by step, balancing and juggling, he gets to the other side. He then turns to face the crowd, catches each ball, and bows. The crowd roars in delight! He’s done!

In many ways, a software developer is a juggler who is keeping many balls in the air while simultaneously walking on a tightrope. If you drop any balls or you walk in the wrong direction, you will fail. If, on the other hand, you get to the right destination with all the balls in the air, you get to stop, take a bow, maybe get some applause, and be done with your software.

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C# Interface: Definition, Examples, Best Practices, and Pitfalls

Phil VuolletArticles, CodeBasics, PhilVuollet1 Comment

C_sharp_interface_code.The C# interface isn’t exactly intuitive. Interfaces, in general, are common. We use them all the time. You’re using at least one interface right now as you read this article. Keyboards, mice, and screens are interfaces to your operating system. It’s the same concept with C# interfaces.

In this article, I’ll start with these familiar device interfaces as a metaphor for explaining the C# interface. I’ll use examples and alert you to some of the pitfalls. You’ll also learn about industry best-practices when using C# interfaces. By the end, you should have a clear picture of the C# interface.

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How to Document Code: 5 Ways to Help Maintenance Programmers

Vlad GeorgescuArticles, Documentation, VladGeorgescu5 Comments

Maintenance_guy_with_how_to_manualImagine you’re a software developer working on a financial application. One day you’re assigned (or, if you’re agile, you pick yourself) to implement changes to the overtime computation logic so your company can sell the application in France. In France, the official work week has 35 hours (lucky them) instead of the 40 hours in the US. Being new to the team, you’re not sure where to begin, so you start searching the codebase for the keyword “overtime.”

Let’s see the search results. No, no, no, maybe, no, no, maybe. Hmmm. OK, looks like it’s in this file, and then in this other file as well. Let’s take a look inside.

I see final static int HOURS = 8. What’s that? Looks like eight hours per day…maybe? Then final static int WEEK_HOURS = 40. Looks like 40 hours per week…maybe? Or maybe it’s in this method called getOvertime? I’m not sure where to find the logic I’m looking for.

This is a typical scenario when the meaning of the code is unclear. And it’s a time suck.

What would help you as a developer when modifying and fixing existing code? It’s easy to complain about code written by someone else, but what about the code you write yourself? What do you include so you can help the maintenance programmers who’ll come after you?

The simple answer is that you have to document your code so your logic is clear, easy to understand, and easy to change.

This article will explain how to do that. We’ll explore what software maintenance is. Then we’ll talk about how to document our code so we can help the other developers who’ll be fixing and modifying the code we write. And since we often get to fix and modify our own code, this will be an article about how we can help ourselves, too.

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Code Contracts: A Technique to Cut Down on Bugs

Carlos SchultsArticles, CarlosSchults, CodeQuality1 Comment

Two Hands Handshake signifying code contractsRent, employment, house buying: you name it. If you’re an adult, chances are that you’ve signed several contracts in your life (and will probably sign many more). A contract is an agreement that defines the rights and obligations of two or more parties in order to accomplish something.

Having a proper contract in place is a powerful tool to clear doubts about what you’re allowed or not allowed to do to the apartment you live at, for instance. A contract also defines penalties for the parties that fail to fulfill their part of the agreement. If you don’t put down your house payments when they’re due, you’re pretty much guaranteed to suffer some consequences.

Contracts are everywhere in the real world. But what would it look like if we could use something similar to contracts in our code? For instance, what if we could specify “clauses” that defined the conditions required at the start and end of a function? Or maybe that specified and enforced the invariants of our objects? In this case, I’d say our programs would definitely improve in readability, safeness, and self-documentation.

And now, what if I told you something like this already exists?

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exasperated programmer with her head on a desk resenting code review practices

The 4 Code Review Practices That Make Devs Quit

Carlos SchultsArticles, CarlosSchults, CodeReviewsNo Comments

If we start with the premise that having code reviews is better than not having them, the next step is to figure out how to make them better. And though we’re all aware that code reviews are a good thing, they can quickly degenerate into toxic scenarios. We don’t want that.

In this post, we’re going to see four code review practices that can make developers feel frustrated and alienated. In the more extreme cases, developers might even leave a company to escape from what they perceive as tyrannical, nonsensical demands. Keep reading to learn what those practices are, how to avoid them, and how to leverage the benefits of automation in your code reviews to prevent many of these toxic scenarios from happening in the first place

Once you know that, you’ll be empowered to turn your code reviews into healthy processes that lead to higher code quality and more happiness for the developers in your team. Let’s get started! (more…)

CodeItRight_Rules_21

CodeIt.Right Rules Explained, Part 21

Carlos SchultsArticles, CarlosSchults, CodeIt.RightNo Comments

Welcome to another installment of the “CodeIt.RightRules Explained” series. If the previous sentence doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t despair—here’s a quick recap.

CodeIt.Right is one of the SubMain’s offerings. You can think of it as an automated code review tool, which puts it into the category of static code analyzers. CodeIt.Right checks your source code against a set of rules, which could be the default set or ones customized by you.

In this ongoing series, we focus on the standard, pre-packaged sets for obvious reasons: those are the ones that will apply to everyone. In each installment of the series, we explain three CodeIt.Right rules so that you know why you should or shouldn’t deactivate the rule when using CodeIt.Right.

Speaking of which, we tend to start these posts with the following sentences:

  • Never implement a suggested fix without knowing what makes it a fix.
  • Never ignore a suggested fix without understanding what makes it a fix.

Basically, you can condense these two rules into: “Always understand a suggested fix.” But we prefer to present them as two separate rules to emphasize the choice you have in front of you: ignore the warning or implement a fix. If you decide to ignore the warning, do it only when you understand the implications. If you go for the fix, make sure you know what you’re doing and why implementing the fix benefits your code.

With that out of the way, let’s get to today’s rules.

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Datetime mistake

“String Was Not Recognized as a Valid DateTime.” Why It Happens and How to Avoid It.

Carlos SchultsArticles, CarlosSchults, CodeQualityNo Comments

Ah…error messages. Sometimes very useful, other times not so much, but always present in a developer’s life. And that’s what today’s post is about. Not “error messages” in general, but one message in particular: “String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.”

As a developer, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have to write code that handles date and time. Which means you’re also bound to have some problems while parsing strings to DateTime values, and that’s what this post will cover.

We’ll start out by talking about the causes of the issue. You’ll learn about globalization and how big a role it plays in the consistency and correction of your application. Then, we’ll close with practical advice on what you can do to prevent such problems from happening in the first place. Let’s get started!

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Man shrugging, trying to figure out why intellisense isn't working

Visual Studio IntelliSense Not Working? What To Do.

Carlos SchultsArticles, CarlosSchults, General2 Comments

There are certain tools that have become indispensable for developers in this day and age. These tools often start as “nice-to-haves” but quickly graduate to “must-haves” due to the benefits they provide. Once you get used to relying on them, it’s terribly frustrating when you’re prevented from using them for some reason. And there’s a very specific tool in that category I want to talk about today. It’s called Visual Studio IntelliSense.

This intelligent code completion tool present in Visual Studio is definitely a must-have for a .NET developer. The .NET Framework BCL (Base Class Library) is just too large for a human brain to grasp. There’s no way you could remember all those classes, interfaces, and methods. Being able to put a period after some variable and get a nice list of all the possible members you can call isn’t only a nicety: it’s a survival need. So, what to do when you need Visual Studio IntelliSense but, for whatever reason, it’s not working? That’s what this post is about.

We’ll start out by doing a quick overview of Visual Studio IntelliSense. We’ll cover a little bit of history, plus a few definitions, so you can grasp why this tool is more than a simple autocomplete. Then we’ll proceed to cover the different solutions you can try to get you out of this nightmarish scenario.

We’ll then close the post with quick advice on how to get IntelliSense to work for your own classes and types.

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