Net 5 has shipped with a slew of nice quality of life improvements, especially in the web domain, so big thumbs up there 👍 Records The first of these are records. These little beauties remove a lot of the tedium around building classes for your API requests to serialize data into. They are dead simple,… Continue reading Net 5 Quality of life improvements
Data structures O(n) O(1)
Data structures and the principles behind them are something that every developer understands to some degree. However they are often forgotten. I was guilty of just such a thing recently when trying to write an import for some data from a CSV. The premise was fairly simple and the functions not complicated. However running it… Continue reading Data structures O(n) O(1)
Result Pattern
Previously I have always generated custom exceptions when I know that the state of the system will causes errors when running. Null checking method parameters at the start of a method being a simple example of this. I threw them up to be dealt with, or handled them in the catch locally. However recently I… Continue reading Result Pattern
Branching Pipelines with OWIN
Branching pipelines with OWIN allow for several different request pipelines to be used as needed depending on a determining factor. This factor is most often a Hostname but it could be any sort of toggle. An example might be authentication. Your system might need to allow for different authentication mechanisms for different users. The set… Continue reading Branching Pipelines with OWIN
Programing IIS website configuration properties
Where possible it is easiest to manage IIS web configuration properties for applications via the web config file, for ASP.NET web applications at least. However, while setting up automated deployments recently I came across a situation whereby the values in the <sessionState> needed to change per environment. I will point out that I think using… Continue reading Programing IIS website configuration properties
Creating a dotnet core windows service
Services are great for performing reoccurring tasks, especially if the task needs to be repeated often, say every minute. They also have the benefit of not requiring anyone to be logged in to run the service. Luckily with dot net core, you can have one set up and running very easily with the help of… Continue reading Creating a dotnet core windows service
Automated Deployments- An easy in with Octopus Deploy
Great news! Octopus Deploy is now offering a starter edition for small teams free! You can find their announcement here. Why is this great news? One of the key things that I have come to learn in the last few years is the importance of slick operation management. Lots of companies like to band around… Continue reading Automated Deployments- An easy in with Octopus Deploy
Health checks in .netCore web APIs
Previously I have been writing health check controllers by hand. Now .netCore has a simple way of managing service health checks via middleware. You can test everything is operational all the way down to the database. You can even write your own custom checks in a few lines. A simple service operational health check can… Continue reading Health checks in .netCore web APIs
Running web apps in a Docker container
Running web apps in a Docker container requires a little more set up than just running your standard back end services. This method requires that your app be wrapped by .netCore as recommended by Microsoft when creating a SPA. This allows you to deploy everything as a simple DLL. The only change that is required… Continue reading Running web apps in a Docker container
Kubernetes – Terminology
If you haven’t worked with Kubernetes or any orchestration system before, starting can be a bit like jumping in the deep end of a pool. Most developers won’t have been exposed to the terminology spread throughout the product This can make figuring out what is going on all the more difficult. Below I have tried… Continue reading Kubernetes – Terminology