Resource Links #5

.NET programming

• Hanselman's .NET developer interview questions : Most essential .NET interview questions every interviewer and interview taker should consider knowing. Not necessarily every good or pro .NET developer know these, but they help.
• Why do 'ref' and 'out' parameters do not allow type variation : If you have an out parameter of type A, can you send an object of type B derived from A? No. Read on for why.
• Making unit tests easy to refractor : Its hard to foresee refactoring for your code and its even harder to code for refactoring. This article explains some best practices for making unit tests easy to refractor.
• Five myths about managed code : How many times did you hear' in .NET everything is an Object'? Microsoft CLR team debunks the top five myths about .NET including this one.
• .NET file format - Signatures under the hood : A good well researched article on .NET executable file format and where the signatures reside in that.
• How and when are .NET methods JITed : .NET code is not always JITed. Read to see when and how it does.
• Who wants to be a .NET ninja : A fun open source game based on 'who wants to be a millionaire' only this time, its all about .NET.

.NET code garage sales

• Code Garages : Hanselman explains the concept of Garage sales and how the greatest of developers maintain a Garage for code. I hope to open one of mine too soon :). Here are a couple that I liked:
• http://www.sellsbrothers.com/tools/
• http://www.sliver.com/dotnet/index.aspx

General development

• Dive into python 3 : Dive into python has been one of the best books I ever read on python - or any programming language for that matter. It literally makes you dive into the water.
• http://www.artima.com/intv/simplestP.html
• Five focus killers and how to beat them :
• Become a better developer by indexing your brain : Memory is important. Fetching that information in the nick of time is even more important. Read about some techniques to make your brain work like Google.
• http://blog.dmbcllc.com/2009/09/23/coding-priorities/
• The duct tape programmer (Joel Spolsky) : Spolsky writes about a respectable (in his point of view) group of programmers who do not give a damn about COM, CORBA, Multithreading, design patterns and concentrate on one thing - shipping it. And that’s why Spolsky thinks these kind are the must-have programmers. What follows is a debate - mostly debunking his opinion.
• Debunking the duck type programmer | The duct tape programmer (Bob Martin)
• Helios research operating system by Microsoft
• A closer look at Office web apps 2010.

Data structures

Implementing Fibonacci heaps and Dijkstra's Algorithm on top of it.

UI Patterns & Data visualization

UI patterns and data visualization, though not having to do much with .NET have an important application in the computing world. Lead about UI design patterns in the following links:

• Infragistics' QUINCE
• Welie's UI patterns
• Pattern Tap
• Data visualization examples and resources
• Modern approaches in data visualization

Pocket Mod v2 : A very neat way to organize yourself without having to buy a PDA or install arcane applications in your mobile phone.

Agile Software Design

• Agile Data modeling : So what happens when you adapt the agile software methodology and also the schema is always changing?
• Agile 2009 roundup

• WINDBG stuff

• Getting started with WinDbg Part 1
• Getting started with WinDbg Part 2
• Cheat sheet for CLR debugging with WinDbg