Is it DevOps?

There is a huge amount of use and abuse of the term DevOps. This probably means that it is very near the top of the hype cycle so expect a lot voices in the next few months or year ranting about how much DevOps sucks. This doesn’t have to be so, but let’s rewind and reacquaint ourselves with the whole concept.

Pattern Matching Constructs in C# 7

I have already covered local functions and tuples in C# 7. Today, I’ll play around with pattern matching. There’s actually two separate bits of syntax being called a single new feature. One extends the switch(){case} construct, the other extends is expressions. Like local functions and tuples, I think this adds some power for communicating the intention of the code. It can also be misused (what can’t?), a little more on that later. I hoped to do this article a week ago, but it took me longer to identify even a little additional insight over the MS docs than I expected. I’ve probably spent 15 hours fiddling around to come up with a somewhat meaningful sample!

Finally: Proper Exception Assertion in MSTest

As part of the overhaul of everything Visual Studio and .Net Core, there is an overhauled testing framework. Microsoft has been informally calling the MSTest V2. The most exciting part of this is the fact that we’ve finally have Assert.ThrowsException and its async counterpart Assert.ThrowsExceptionAsync as part of the framework. Unfortunately, MS didn’t completely abandon ExpectedException, which was a major disappointment as its use is almost always an anti-pattern. From what I can tell, MS didn’t invent this anti-pattern, they just brought it in when they created MSTest using other frameworks as a guideline.

To SaaS or not to SaaS: One Small Example

Decisions, Decisions

I am hosting this minor catastrophe in writing on WordPress.com. That may change in the future (edit: It did), but for now I’m trying to focus on the writing and not the “sysadmining”. I love implementing technology, but it can also become a distraction. A blog platform seemed to suit the kind of content I was thinking about. I thought about building out my own platform to do it too. I spent a few weeks thinking it over.

Local Functions in C# 7

In my last post, I briefly mentioned the new C# feature known as local functions. I’ll write a bit about them here to get the word out a bit more and give me a reason to spend more time with them.