CarlosSchults Archives - Software Quality Blog

Visual Studio Extensions: 7 You Should Check Out

November 26, 2019Carlos SchultsNo Comments

Visual studio extensions illustrated by hands If you’ve been a .NET developer for any reasonable amount of time, then you’re surely aware of what Visual Studio extensions are. If you haven’t, well, they’re pretty much what it says in the name: pieces of software (plugins, if you will) that you can add to your Visual Studio IDE to extend its capabilities.

Today’s post features a list of eight extensions that we believe are worth your time. By the end of the article, you’ll have a good grasp of the available extensions out there, and will potentially adopt some of them to make your life easier. Let’s get started.

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Code Cleanup: 7 Simple Daily Steps That Pay off in the End

October 29, 2019Carlos Schults1

Code cleanup with a vaccum cleaner “Code cleanup” is a phrase that sounds like it’s a lot of work. Well, sometimes it may be an arduous task, indeed. But that doesn’t mean it’s the way it should be. As with many things in software development—and in general life—it’s often more comfortable, less painful and more productive to do an unpleasant task every day, little by little than let it accumulate and become a monster.

That’s what today’s post is about. We’ll present seven simple code cleanup tasks that you can perform daily, to keep your codebase readable, easy to navigate, and maintain. We don’t necessarily expect you to perform all of the steps every day. On some days, you might be able to pull it off, but on others, it might be harder to do so.

Think of the seven tips you’ll read as a practical embodiment of the scouting principle: leave the code better than how you’ve found it. Let’s get started.

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C# Documentation: A Start to Finish Guide

October 15, 2019Carlos Schults1

a treasure map signifying c sharp documentation If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that code documentation is a topic we tend to cover with a certain frequency. Another common topic is concepts related to the C# language. In today’s post, we make these two common subjects converge, by presenting a guide on C# documentation.

We’ll show you a step-by-step guide that will walk you through the necessary steps you need to take to create documentation for your C# code. You’ll start by adding documentation to your code using special XML comments and end by seeing how to generate rich documentation created from these comments. You’ll learn about the importance of code documentation, see how Visual Studio can turn the documentation you create into useful help messages, and get to know some tools that can help you in this work. Let’s get started!

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C# Inheritance: A Complete but Gentle Introduction

October 1, 2019Carlos Schults2

Time for another dive into a concept of the C# language. Today’s post will cover inheritance, a concept that will make us analyze the object-oriented side of C#.

Example of c# inheritance As the title of the article makes clear, this post is a gentle introduction to the concept of inheritance. It’s aimed at beginners that still haven’t mastered inheritance. That means that, despite being a complete introduction, we’ll not venture into more advanced aspects of the concept. By the end of the post, you’ll not know everything there is to know about C# inheritance. Instead, you’ll have a solid working knowledge, upon which you can keep building more and more.

Let’s get started.

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XML Comments: Using Them in XML and Other Languages

September 5, 2019Carlos SchultsNo Comments

XML_comment_sign_with_java_c_sharp_language_logos Does the term “XML comments” confuse you? Well, rest assured. You’re not alone. “Does that refer to comments inside an XML file?” you might wonder. Or maybe you have this vague notion that it has something to do with some kind of documentation for programming source code. Both assumptions are kind of right. But you’re still reading this post, which means that “kind of” isn’t going cut for you, right?

So this post is all about XML comments. You’re going to learn what this term actually means, what XML comments are (and aren’t) good for, and learn a thing or two about software documentation. If you’re ready, then let’s get started!

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What to Look for in a C# Documentation Generator

September 3, 2019Carlos SchultsNo Comments

Printer spitting out paper signifying c# documentation generator “Everything automatable will eventually be automated.” Have you heard that saying? I’d prefer to tweak it a little bit and say that everything automatable should be automated. If you’re a regular reader of the SubMain blog, you’ll know that we enthusiastically advocate for automation. In today’s post, we continue that trend, focusing on documentation generation. More specifically, we’ll walk you through some essential features you should consider when trying to pick a C# documentation generator. (more…)

C# Constructor: Usage, Examples, Best Practices, and Pitfalls

August 21, 2019Carlos SchultsNo Comments

c# constructor code We’ve already covered so many C# concepts, and most of them relate to objects. This is hardly surprising, C# being an object-oriented language. What is surprising is that, up until this point, we haven’t covered the “thing” responsible for creating objects!

Today’s post will remedy this problem by covering the C# constructor. The post will roughly follow the same pattern we’ve followed through much of the series. We start by defining the concept, then proceed to show several usage examples. We part ways with general tips on best practices to follow and pitfalls to be aware of. Let’s begin!

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Automated Documentation: What It Means and 3 Tools to Help

July 23, 2019Carlos SchultsNo Comments

If you’re a software developer, then I’d bet you use some kind of automated testing. And if you don’t, you certainly should. But what about “automated documentation?” Do you know what this means? Are you putting this technique to work for you? Most likely you’re not. And if that’s the case, you’ve come to the right place.

We’ll start out by exploring the role documentation plays in the modern software development world, which has, by and large, embraced agile methodologies. The post will show that yes, documentation is important and valuable even today.

Then we’ll proceed to cover automated documentation. We’ll start by examining the growing trend of using automation to improve the software development process itself, showing how automation has become a must for companies struggling to remain competitive. After that, we’ll define automated documentation and talk about the benefits it provides.

Finally, we’ll get to the tools, where we’ll briefly cover three tools that can help you and your team with your automated documentation strategy, sharing some final tips after that.

Let’s get started.

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The 3 Most Common C# Data Types: Explanations and Examples

July 9, 2019Carlos Schults1

Gold medal If you’re a regular reader of the SubMain blog, you’ll know that we often publish posts about fundamental concepts of the C# language. Today’s post adds yet another chapter to this ongoing series. The topic we’ll cover is, in fact, as fundamental as it can get: C# data types.

As the title suggests, this post will cover the three most common C# data types. For each one of the types, we’ll start out by offering some justification on why the type deserves to be on the list. Then, we’ll proceed to show you some interesting facts you need to know about the type. When relevant, you’ll also see some code examples.

But before we start, there are two questions that need answering. First, what is our definition of a C# data type? And what does it actually mean for a type to be “common”?

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Code Review Tools: The Different Kinds and 3 You Must Have

May 14, 2019Carlos SchultsNo Comments

A butler, a bouncer, and a nerd Code review is one of the most common topics here on the SubMain blog. Today’s post covers this subject again, this time attacking a very specific angle: code review tools. If you’ve been a software developer for a while, you’re probably familiar with at least a few of them.

But do you know the different types of tools out there? Would you know how to categorize them? Knowing how to do so might be the difference between adopting the right tool for the right situation or being paralyzed by doubt. Which situation would you prefer?

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