What’s new for Prism 5.0 for WPF?

• WRONG:
  If an image is on the Internet/Bing it is in the public domain
• WRONG:
  If there is no copyright notice, I don’t need permission
• WRONG:
  If I don’t profit from the use, I don’t need permission
• WRONG:
  If I remove the image after notice, I don’t owe any money
• WRONG:
  If I alter the image X% I don’t need permission
• WRONG:
  If I only use a part of the image I don’t need permission
• WRONG:
  If I only include a hyperlink and click it to show the image I don’t need permission

Having said that

Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases.

• http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/royalty-free
• http://www.gettyimages.com/creativeimages/royaltyfree
• http://www.superstock.com/

The news

Rejoice. Yesterday, Tuesday, February 25, 2014, on the Visual Studio User Voice, Mads Torgersen, the C# Language PM, responded on behalf of the Visual Studio Project Team. He said, “We are seriously considering this feature for C# and VB, and will be prototyping it in the coming months.”

The truth is, talk about this operator has been going on for a long time. Simplified syntax that favors readability and maintenance has been the name-of-the-game for each C# iteration. Your code does more and your syntax gets less and less. To their credit, C# is the most well thought-out, refined software language in existence – and it shows by its popularity and fandom.

Another inherent implication of Mad’s comment is the confirmation of the next version of C#. Of course, I think we all knew there would be another version of C#, but we can’t be certain until there’s something publically announced. Other conversations have occurred, this is just another. Long live CSharp.

What is it? Here’s the scenario

Consider getting the grandchild of a parent object like this:

var g1 = parent.child.child.child;

Okay, so, this is some poor coding because the value of child could be null. If I attempt to ask for the value of child and the containing object is null, a NullReferenceException will be raised and my app will crash.

Here’s what I mean. Consider this:

var g1 = [parent].[child].[null].child;

In this case, I was lucky enough to get two levels in before I hit a null object. But I did hit a null object, and as a result the runtime will thrown an exception.

Instead, you might add some error checking and do this:

// variation 1

var item = this.Parent;
item = (item == null) ? null : item.child;
item = (item == null) ? null : item.child;
var g1 = (parent == null) ? null : item.child;
if (g1 != null) // TODO

// variation 2

var g1 = (Child)null;
var item = this.Parent;
if (item != null)
{
    item = item.Child;
    if (item != null)
    {
        item = item.Child;
        if (item != null)
        {
            g1 = item.Child;
        }
    }
}
if (g1 != null) // TODO

Good. Now, this is safe and effective coding. The sample above shows two of many potential approaches. The first using the ternary operator in C#, the second using simple conditional blocks.  As we know, we cannot ask for a child property from an object that is null. So, we must check each level.

The conditional code is not difficult to write, but it certainly impacts the size of your code, the complexity of your code, and the readability of your code. Having said that, it’s what we all do today. Code like this shows up all the time and there is nothing wrong with that; but, what if there were a better way.

How the new operator workS

Consider getting the grandchild of a parent object like this:

var g1 = parent?.child?.child?.child;
if (g1 != null) // TODO

Wow! That’s the equivalent of testing every single level, but in a single line of code. The “?.” operator is basically saying, if the object to the left is not null, then fetch what is to the right, otherwise return null and halt the access chain.

It’s a wonderful addition to the language’s syntax.

Furthermore

Mad’s Visual Studio User Voice comment continued with a little more explanation of the operator’s implementation. He said, “If the type of e.x (etc) is a non-nullable value type S, then the type of e?.x is S?. Otherwise the type of e?.x is the same as that of e.×. If we can’t tell whether the type is a non-nullable value type (because it is a type parameter without sufficient constraints) we’ll probably give a compile-time error.” This comment, and the idea that a method call or indexer can be to the right of the operator are just candy.

> Now, let’s add NonNullable reference types and we’re really cooking.

Best of luck!

He explained two reasons for communication. The first, information. This practical, utilitarian task comes up from time to time, but isn’t the reason the world needs excellent communicators. It simply set a level across participants. If you were successful, people knew more. It’s as simple as that.

The second reason for communication was to motivate. The task was always preceded with one key question…

Read the whole article here

This course steams through the myriad of C# features and concepts, giving a comprehensive survey of the topic to would-be students. It was brilliant for me to have to remember all these things that made me love C# in the first place, and a chance to introduce new developers and remind seasoned ones.

Read the whole article here.

To be completely open, Outlook.com is Microsoft’s attempt to shed that Hotmail vibe. Though Hotmail was great, people started to see Hotmail like Gmail and AOL. Perception is reality, after all. To some, Hotmail looked less professional to send your resume from – solely based on the domain. Enter Outlook.com. A new email domain that ships with a wholly updated backend service.

Read the whole article here.

The ways in which Microsoft supports local communities has varied through the years. Today, it’s 100% through technical communities (MSTC) and your local developer evangelist. MSTC is a site where community leaders can “register” their community group and schedule their monthly or special events. MSTC rewards community events with $250 sponsorships (twice a year), gobs of swag (for every event), and Facebook or LinkedIn marketing (for every event) – all 100% free. This sort of lush support helps simplify any community leader’s plate of work. If you aren’t using MSTC, you’re missing out.

Let me show you how to get it.

Read the whole article here.

Is this for you?

Do you want to see Blend in action and learn how to incorporate its bountiful power easily into your current projects? Windows 8 projects, you bet! Silverlight projects, you bet! Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) projects, too? You bet! Blend is a tool for XAML developers, not just Windows 8 developers. In fact, in some cases, Blend does more for the Silverlight and WPF developer. So, enjoy.

Read this whole article here.

In this article we’ll discuss how to create the assets you need, and how to use those assets to simulate a Winter Wonderland. This will include the dynamic creation of controls and their animations.

Read the whole article here

Seriously, I am not being serious. But if you are wanting to build a Windows 8.1 app that uses the new Render Target Bitmap capability, then look no further than this simple demo that will walk you through creating a Christmas tree, arranging the ornaments and saving the result.

Read the whole article here.