Tired of typing all those underscores_while_writing_your_BDD_specifications? Yeah, I wasn’t really either. However I’ve heard read complaints from some folks that typing the underscore so many times was getting annoying, so they had opted for PascalCasing instead. Just deal with it Maybe its because of my exposure to Ruby and the joy that is RSpec, but I don’t think such minor annoyance is enough of a reason to top using a more readable style. Repetitive Stress Injury, be damned! Or maybe not! The other day while cleaning out my RSS reader I came across AutoHotKey (thanks JP), a...

This may seem like a completely obvious tip to some, and like a complete waste of time to others. But you know what? Its something that I've found extremely useful so I'm going to share it anyhow. Hey, this is my blog and I can do what I want! :) Update: I forgot to explain how to enable Highlight Current Line in the original post. I've now added instructions. Highlight Current Line This feature is not available in vanilla Visual Studio - its part of my favorite zero-friction productivity enhancer, ReSharper....

Visual Studio can be a tremendous resource hog, especially if you have a large solution and you're using a productivity add-in or two. On my current project we're running VS 2008, we've got just under 20 projects in the solution, and several of us are using the ReSharper 4.0 EAP nightly builds to enhance our dev-fu. And you know what... we're restarting VS at least a half dozen times a day to work around a nasty exception we regularly encounter while trying to compile: Not enough storage is available to complete this operation. ...

I just saw that Albert Weinert has upgraded the MbUnit test runner plugin to work in ReSharper 4.0, sweet! Since ReSharper 4.0 is still in pre-beta, there is no guarantee that it will work at all, but I'm running the latest nightly builds and IMO its getting more stable every day. I verified that the MbUnit test runner plugin does work by installing it on against ReSharper 4.0 build 758 and opening the Subtext 1.9 Branch source code. The image to the left shows the ReSharper Unit Test Explorer open and displaying the MbUnit tests from Subtext. ...

Ilya Ryzhenkov just announced (via in the #alt.net IRC channel) that the ReSharper 4.0 EAP nightly builds are now live! Oh, and apparently he hinted at the news yesterday but the bits didn't appear for download until today. Get the latest bits from the Nightly Builds site. I'd also recommend keeping an eye on the the ReSharper 4.0 EAP Notes for up to the minute information on the new 4.0 features. There is some seriously cool stuff in there - like Completion with CamelHumps! Superman, the yellow sun has risen once again! :)...

At the day job I spend the majority of my time in Visual Studio, writing, refactoring, debugging, and banging my face against code. C# code specifically. And what is my #1 complaint about C#? The Compilation Tax. I get over taxed! I have a little problem that causes me to pay that tax more often that I think I ought to. I have some kind of weird internal clock that causes my fingers to issue the Ctrl + S, Ctrl + Shift + B keystrokes every five minutes, causing the IDE to freeze up while it...

Like everyone else, I’ve been playing the uninstall-before-we-install dance in preparation for the new Visual Studio 2008 bits. One hott tip for getting the uninstall part right is to follow ScottGu’s excellent post, Steps to Uninstall VS 2008 Beta2 before installing the VS 2008 Final Release. One pseudo-problem that my co-workers and I have run into is trying to find those particular programs in the huge list of programs in the list of programs on your box. It’s like the old needle in a stack of needles problem. Search Driven Navigation If you’re running on...

I’ve been using Visual Studio 2008 to do my Subtexting and while I’m really digging some of the new features like JavaScript IntelliSense, there is one new feature that is just driving me nuts. Split View. By default VS 2008 opens HTML documents, which includes .aspx, .ascx, and other markup document types, in the split view. Split view is great if you’re interested in working in the design surface and still want quick and easy access to the raw markup responsible for creating the pretty UI. However... I’m deathly allergic to the design surface and try to avoid...

One of the things I’m most excited about with Visual Studio 2008 is it’s ability to target various versions of the .net framework, a feature known as multi-targeting. I recently rebuilt a (hand-me-down) laptop for use at developer group meetings, conferences, and coding from the couch. When building out the machine I decided to only install VS2008 and make use of multi-targeting to work on my various .net 2.0 projects... like Subtext. Today I finally got around to loading Subtext up in VS2008 and I was expecting some heartache. But I did a little research first and...

Recently everyone’s favorite Redmond software company used their notorious Automatic Update service to push out a new security fix. This particular was also know as KB937061 - a fix for Visual Studio 2005 SP1. No big deal, happens all the time... right? Apparently not This particular update targets some security holes in the Crystal Reports component of the VS suite. It is also one of the more invasive updates as it requires you to restart your system before the fix takes effect. But that’s not the really fun part. The part is that even after allowing...

Who here loves ReSharper? I do, I do! Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let me tell you yet one more reason that I <3 ReSharper. While doing a little Subtexting tonight I was looking through a new class and noticed a couple those little yellow ReSharper (R# from now on) warning lights. You know, the ones it so kindly puts next to the vertical scroll bar to let you know there are some things that need your attention. The first one was safe to ignore - a warning about an unused...

My dev box recently decided that all USB devices - along with several other pieces of hardware - were inherently evil and in the end I decided to just repave the machine. It has been about 6 or so months since I first moved to Vista and it was time for a fresh install anyhow. After reinstalling and configuring my box I sat to do some real work (hey, I gotta' pay that mortgage). So I fired up Visual Studio and got busy. I work primarily on web applications and I have a few browsers installed on my box...

I’ve been using SubSonic for a while now and I totally love it. Not only has it made developing in .net fun again, it’s also been a huge productivity booster for me and the guys I work with. And while I appreciate all of the hard work that the team has put into the SubSonic Build Provider for use with WebSite Projects, I just don’t work that way. I like having the actual generated code files included in my project (be it a WebSite or WebApplication) and checked into source control. I gives me the warm and fuzzies. But...

This is a quick note to myself - and all of you as well - for writing code and using classes from outside the standard .net assemblies. Be sure to add assembly references to the project! I was was working on some code today and tried to use a .net class from outside the assemblies that are automatically referenced when a new project is created. In this particular case I was trying to make use of the System.Transactions.TransactionScope class - from the System.Transactions assembly. After several minutes of banging my head into the desk and Googling I threw my...

Brennan recently posted a great tip for changing the RSS Feeds that Visual Studio displays on the Startup page. Finally I can get rid of those horrible Microsoft articles and get some good content in that window! I quickly realized that many VS users probably already knew about this, but to many others, self included, this was totally new. And what's more, it's useful! So with that in mind, I decided I would start sharing some simple tips, tricks, and shortcuts that I use within the VS IDE and Windows environment to reduce the friction of many day-to-day development tasks. Open Containing Folder...

Remote debugging can be a huge time-saver when dealing with a hard to reproduce bug, or trying to track down a Works on My Machine issue. I mean, what's better than stepping through the code on the remote machine that's having the problem? However, the hardest thing about remote debugging isn't actually using it - it's getting it correctly configured between your local (debugging) machine and the remote host. Luckily the MSDN site has a pretty solid How to: Set Up Remote Debugging guide that can get you most of the...