.NET Development

We benchmarked endjin's JSON Schema library on .NET 9.0 and saw large performance gains. There are even more gains to be had with new System.Text.Json features.

.NET 9.0 has shipped, and for the fourth year running, we benchmarked endjin's AIS.NET library and were very happy to see substantial performance gains, with no extra work required.

C# 12.0's most prominent new feature is the primary constructor syntax. This post describes how it works, and looks at some pros and cons.

C# 11.0 expanded high-performance, low-allocation functionality. This post describes the importance of the added support for ref fields, and how the scoped keyword relates.

This post examines .NET's native support for iterators: IEnumerator<T>, IEnumerable<T>, and IAsyncEnumerable<T>.

Use Reactive Extensions for .NET to transform FileSystemWatcher events into a powerful and easy-to-use event stream to deal with file system idiosyncrasies.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - using conversions to map automatically between arbitrary types.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - using unevaluatedProperties to create maps of strings to strongly typed values.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - using oneOf to create numeric enumerations and dispatch with pattern matching.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - using enum to create enumerations and dispatch with pattern matching.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - using const to create discriminator properties for polymorphic types.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - using oneOf for discriminated unions and pattern matching.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - composing interface-like mix-in types with allOf.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - creating tuples with prefixItems and unevaluatedItems.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - Working with tensors by converting to and from numeric spans.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - Creating an array of higher rank using nested items array schema, minItems and maxItems.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - Creating a strongly typed array with items, minItems and maxItems.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - constraining a base type.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - extending-a-base-type.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - object extensibility with open versus closed types.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - how to reuse common schema in the definition of a type.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - constraints on a simple data object.

Common patterns with C# and JSON Schema - the simple data object.

Corvus.JsonSchema enables safe use of the very high performance JSON parsing offered by .NET's System.Text.Json.

How to combine ASP.NET Core, Razor, and HTMX to power interactive Chart.js visualisations.

Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) capture context, options, decisions, and consequences. dotnet-adr is a .NET tool for managing ADRs.

.NET's System.Text.Json offers very high performance JSON parsing. However, JsonElement's text parsing methods offer a trap for the unwary

This post walks through the process of using PerfView to analyse ETW data to get to the bottom of a performance issue in a WPF application.

Learn Reactive Programming with our free book, Introduction to Rx.NET 2nd Edition (2024), available in PDF, EPUB, online, and GitHub.

WPF makes extensive performance instrumentation available through ETW. However, in modern .NET, it's not obvious how to get hold of it. This blog shows how

C# 12 includes an experimental 'interceptors' feature. If you use trimming or AOT publishing in ASP.NET Core 8.0, you're already using this.

Learn how .NET 8.0's SearchValues<T> can speed up string searching

We benchmarked endjin's JSON Schema library on .NET 8.0 and saw large performance gains. There are even more gains to be had with new .NET 8 features.

When we benchmarked endjin's AIS.NET library on .NET 8.0, we were delighted to see substantial performance gains, with no extra work required.

Investigate some ways of working with strings that prevent unnecessary memory allocations.

Investigate the impact of basic LINQ functions on performance and memory allocation.

Explore basic techniques for benchmarking and identifying allocation sources in code.

Explore techniques to boost .NET performance & memory efficiency, identify allocation sources, and optimize data handling.

When we benchmarked endjin's AIS.NET library on .NET 7.0, we were delighted to see substantial performance gains, with no extra work required.

Explore the iterator design pattern in C#, its importance in programming, and learn how to implement it.

For the first time since 2020, a new release of Rx.NET is available, supporting .NET 6 and .NET 7.

C# 11.0 adds some new pattern matching features. In this post, Ian shows the new support for matching lists.

Learn to configure AAD or MSA 2FA profiles for UI automation testing with Time-based One-Time Passwords.

C# 11.0 adds some new pattern matching features. In this post, Ian shows the new support for matching lists.

C# 11.0 enhances string literals with new features. Discover how multiline interpolated strings boost readability in Ian's insightful post.

C# 11.0 adds various improvements to string literals. In this post, Ian explains how we can now create UTF-8 string literals.

This series will follow our ongoing journey of migrating the CI/CD pipelines for our many Open Source repositories, from Azure DevOps to GitHub Actions.

Explore Dapr for cloud migration & use Visual Studio container tools to debug containerized services.

C# 11.0 adds various improvements to string literals. In this post, Ian explains how raw string literals can make your code more readable.

Learn how accessibility-aware API design creates a great experience for all developers, not just those with accessibility needs.

A short rundown of why you need the ForwardedHeadersMiddleware when using Azure Container Apps to host an ASP.NET Core MVC app requiring authentication

Performing lazy and/or just-once initialization is a simple optimization. But what if the initialization is async?

In the sixth and final post we draw our conclusions about migrating an application from Azure Functions to Azure Container Apps.

Corvus.Retry is an open source repository that provides functionality for building policies and strategies for handling transient faults. This post provides a spotlight on the repository.

Signing git commits proves that you are the author of the code you are pushing up to GitHub, and helps protect the integrity of your software supply chain.

Corvus.Globbing is an .NET open source library that provides high performance, zero allocation functionality for working with globs.

Encapsulation is a powerful tool. Squash commits provide a way to encapsulate Git commit history.

Corvus.Extensions is an open source repository that provides a collection of useful helper extension methods to .NET types. This post provides a spotlight on the repository.

Explore Dapr for cloud migration & simplify containerized dev inner-loop using Visual Studio with the Dapr Traffic Control sample application.

The fifth in a series of posts talking about how and why we migrated an application from Azure Functions to Azure Container Apps

Learn how to use high-performance code constructs like ReadOnlySpan<T> to parse and create UriTemplates for C# developers.

The fourth post migrating an app from Azure Functions to Azure Container Apps we examine the challenges around authentication and CORS

The third in a series of posts talking about how and why we migrated an application from Azure Functions to Azure Container Apps

The second in a series of posts talking about how and why we migrated an application from Azure Functions to Azure Container Apps

C# has gradually been adding support for discards. This article explores how this evolution has led to some surprises.

The first in a series of posts talking about how and why we migrated an application from Azure Functions to Azure Container Apps

Explore Microsoft Dependency Injection container's 3 lifetimes: transient, singleton, scoped. Learn their behaviors & importance in app dependencies.

Fix broken dev loop with containerized apps on Azure CLI for Windows. Learn a workaround to avoid using outdated Azure CLI versions.

If you're interested in the Distributed Application Runtime (Dapr) and how it can simplify migrating existing workloads to use cloud platform services, then this series might be for you. In this post, we continue modifying the excellent Dapr Traffic Control sample application by swapping the MQTT-based messaging with Azure Storage Queues. We will also look at how you can use the Dapr programming model as an alternative to cloud-provider SDKs.

The stack and heap are central components of memory management in C# programs. This post aims to introduce the topic, with a number of worked examples.

In this post, we will be showing how to implement dependency injection in an ASP.NET Core application.

Explore the complexities of combining async methods with multicast delegates in C# with Liam.

Explore debugging NuGet packages, a less straightforward process, to troubleshoot app issues by stepping through code and diving into methods.

Explore DAPR's role in migrating workloads to cloud services, focusing on integrating Azure Key Vault for secrets management.

Explore C# lambda expressions, a concise method for defining functions, with a focus on syntax and practical examples.

Explore authentication & authorisation in ASP.NET Core web apps using Identity, Razor class libraries, scaffolding, and partial views.

Explore tag helpers in ASP.NET Core web apps, learn their uses, and create custom tag helpers with examples in this informative post.

Explore how pattern matching in C# has evolved, and how to use is expressions, switch statements and switch expressions.

Discover C# 11.0's new !! syntax for detecting & rejecting null arguments. Learn its true purpose and clear up common misconceptions in this post.

Explore C# 10.0's improved nullability annotations in generic code, replacing AllowNull with more intuitive syntax.

Explore the Configure method in ASP.NET Core's Startup class, focusing on the middleware pipeline for processing HTTP messages in web applications.

.NET 6.0 makes it easier to take full advantage of code analyzers that can help you improve the quality of your code.

Explore model binding in web apps, a process that extracts data from HTTP requests & converts it to .NET types for easy input model integration.

This post explains how to control the flow of execution in C# by using if and switch statements and looping with for, foreach, while and do.

Explore containerisation & Docker for app development & deployment. Learn to create containerised applications with examples in this intro guide.

When we tested endjin's AIS.NET library on .NET 6.0, we were delighted to see substantial performance gains, with no extra work required.

Explore Dapr for migrating workloads to cloud services. Learn to enable PaaS Pub-Sub with Azure Service Bus using the Dapr Traffic Control sample app.

Explore Dapr's role in simplifying cloud migration using Azure services, based on the Dapr Traffic Control sample app.

C# 10.0's support for CallerArgumentExpression and some new helpers in .NET 6.0 make throwing argument exceptions more succinct and less error prone.

In this post, Nehemiah reflects on his first month at endjin as an apprentice engineer.

C# 10's new implicit global imports can make your code more communicative. This article shows how the magic works, and how you can control the feature.

Learn how code generation can build on System.Text.Json and JSON Schema to create a great experience for C# developers.

The first in a series of posts talking about how to best work with configuration in Azure Functions

A rundown of how to trigger an Azure Synapse pipeline run from C# code.

Get started with Mattermost on Azure using the Mattermost on AKS quickstart from the Azure CNAB Quickstart Library.

Explore the proxy pattern in this blog post, a design pattern used for controlling access to underlying objects and remote server communication.

Learn how to import .NET packages from NuGet into PowerShell and utilize their classes/methods, while avoiding PowerShell NuGet provider pitfalls.

Learn to automate Power BI data source credential updates using RSA-OAEP encryption and .NET SDK helper classes for on-premises data sources.

C# 9 enhances pattern matching capabilities. Ian Griffiths advises caution to avoid complexity.

CodeOps enables you to layer standards, automation, and governance to your source control repositories, decreasing manual effort and increasing productivity.

This blog is part of a series around design patterns. This post focuses on the facade pattern. The facade pattern provides an interface into a complex system, in order to simplify access to the functionality.

Enabling C# 8's nullable references feature often produces a lot of warnings. Avoid the temptation to make some go away by initializing properties to empty strings.

Investigate the decorator pattern in this blog post, a design pattern used to dynamically enhance object functionality.

Discover how GitOps, often used for Kubernetes management, can benefit a broader audience.

Prepare for using C# 8.0 nullable references by not misusing the 'as' operator.

Explore the adapter pattern in this design patterns series, enabling use of incompatible classes within your solution's interfaces/architecture.

Often when building software we need to outsource part of the solution to a third party. Common examples include authentication, payment, and email, but there are many others. When first designing a solution the decision around which provider to use can be difficult to tackle. At endjin we have developed a system for answering the question "which provider should I use?".

Simplify dependency consumption & streamline integration with meta/virtual NuGet packages and tools like Dependabot.

Tracking down unexpected allocations in a high-performance .NET parsing library.

Explore building a command line tool with System.CommandLine packages, using dependency injection for quick and easy initialization.

C# 8's nullable references feature can clash with common serialization techniques. This article shows how to deal with that.

Explore an alternative "invite user" flow for Azure AD B2C, simplifying authentication without custom policies in SaaS applications.

Explore the importance of DoesNotReturn & DoesNotReturnIf attributes in C# 8 nullable references, enhancing their long-standing role in C#.

Explore a pattern for async initialization, enabling readonly object construction & leveraging nullable references for fully instantiated classes.

Ian Griffiths is talking about the Reactive Extensions for .NET at dotnetsheff. Learn the ideas behind Rx, and see it applied in an IoT applicable to upload clinical monitoring data to the cloud.

See how to use C# 8.0 nullable references even when targetting older versions of .NET that don't officially support it.

Learn to encrypt data in your app using C# and Azure SDK libraries, and secure keys with Azure Key Vault. Discover the easy setup process in this blog.

C# 8.0 nullable references help identify potential null-related bugs. DisallowNull attribute enhances properties and generics.

Explore C#8's NotNullWhen, MaybeNullWhen, & NotNullIfNotNull attributes for improved nullability warnings, aiding method output inference from inputs.

Discover how to auto-open browsers in private mode or with custom profiles for web app debugging in Visual Studio.

The MaybeNull attribute enables C#8's nullable references feature to provide more useful warnings, by helping it infer information about a method output.

The NotNull attribute enables C#8's nullable references feature to provide more useful warnings, by helping it infer information about a method argument.

Discover a technique for setting up multiple, concurrent authenticated sessions using azure-cli in this post.

Explore why Microsoft's new Spark offering in Azure Synapse Analytics is a game-changer for Azure Databricks investors.

Explore C# 8.0 nullable references & AllowNull attribute for better null-related bug detection and enhanced expressiveness in properties & generics.

C# 8.0 nullable references enable us to annotate our code with information that lets the compiler discover possible null-related bugs.

Whilst "read/write XMLA endpoint" might seem like a technical mouthful, its addition to Power BI is a significant milestone in the strategy of bringing Power BI and Analysis Services closer together. As well as closing the gap between IT-managed workloads and self-service BI, it presents a number of new opportunities for Power BI developers in terms of tooling, process and integrations. This post highlights some of the key advantages of this new capability and what they mean for the Power BI developer.

Improve the already-great Windows Terminal experience by following these tips for customizing the application to work best for you.

C# 8.0's nullable references feature dramatically changes a fundamental aspect of the language. In this post, Ian explains how to you can soften the impact by enabling gradually across your projects.

Ensure Power BI report quality by connecting to tabular models, executing scenario-based specs, and validating data, business rules, and security.

Ian discusses inferred nullness and its significance in C# 8.0's new Nullable References feature.

Ensure reliable insights with endjin's automated quality gates for validating Power BI Dataflows in complex solutions.

C# 8.0 nullable references detect null-related errors and enhance code expressiveness.

Explore Azure Analysis Services for scalable analytics. Control costs via automation with Powershell & Azure DevOps in multi-environment setups.

Endjin's blog post details their project with OceanMind, using a serverless architecture and machine learning to detect illegal fishing.

Explore Behavior Driven Development using SpecFlow. Learn to create complex test data objects in Gherkin feature files with Corvus.NET project.

Explore C# 8.0's nullable references feature, as Ian discusses its impact on default nullability assumptions in this informative post.

See how to manage consistent default configuration across all your .NET projects by using NuGet build assets.

If you use Azure Functions on a regular basis, you'll likely have grappled with the challenge of testing them. Even now, several years after their introduction, the testing story for Functions is not hugely well defined. In the final post in this series, we show how to ensure specs written using Corvus.Testing can run as part of your build pipeline.

If you use Azure Functions on a regular basis, you'll likely have grappled with the challenge of testing them. Even now, several years after their introduction, the testing story for Functions is not hugely well defined. In the fourth of this series of posts, we look at how configuration can be supplied from your tests to the functions apps being tested.

If you use Azure Functions on a regular basis, you'll likely have grappled with the challenge of testing them. Even now, several years after their introduction, the testing story for Functions is not hugely well defined. In the third of a series of posts, we look at using classes in the Corvus.Testing library to run functions apps via scenario and feature hooks.

If you use Azure Functions on a regular basis, you'll likely have grappled with the challenge of testing them. Even now, several years after their introduction, the testing story for Functions is not hugely well defined. In the second of a series of posts, we look at using step bindings provided by the Corvus.Testing library to run functions apps as part of your SpecFlow scenarios.

If you use Azure Functions on a regular basis, you'll likely have grappled with the challenge of testing them. Even now, several years after their introduction, the testing story for Functions is not hugely well defined. In the first of a series of posts, we look at some different approaches to testing your functions apps, and introduce the Corvus.Testing library.

Explore C# 7.2's ref structs, use in high-performance scenarios, their constraints, and techniques for overcoming challenges in unit testing the Ais.Net parser.

Endjin applies scientific experimentation to software development for validated solutions, using hypotheses for confident designs.

As part of my series on guidance for CTOs, I discuss using the Office of the CTO (OCTO) approach to management, its strengths and limitations.

Learn to use Azure Analysis Services in custom apps via REST API in .NET for efficient async model refreshes.

Explore endjin's high-performance .NET AIS parser, developed for OceanMind, used for tracking commercial ships.

Discover the challenges and alternatives of managing scoped component lifetimes with dependency injection.

Explore endless possibilities with dynamic DAX queries in C# for Azure Analysis Services integration in custom apps using the provided code samples.

Ian spent a big chunk of last year writing an update to his book, Programming C# 8.0. Books continue to be Ian's preferred source of learning because nothing else offers the combination of depth, breadth, and coherence. His goal with Programming C# 8.0 (and its predecessors) was very clear: to write the book that he would want to read if he were learning C# today. It is Ian's attempt to distil around 18 years of experience with C# (part of almost 30 years of work as a programmer) into a coherent, complete description of what you'll need to know to be productive today in C#.

Porter: a CNAB-based tool for building, managing, and installing app bundles. Learn to set up Porter on Windows with this guide.

Learn how to enable WSL 2 on Windows 10 and use its features with Docker for Windows.

The Azure CNAB Quickstarts Library helps you get up and running with CNAB and Porter. We've built quickstarts covering solutions like WordPress, Ghost, Mattermost, and data platforms like Apache Airflow, SQL Server AlwaysOn clusters and Kubernetes features like an nginx ingress controller and an Azure AD enabled OAuth2 Proxy. We've condensed all our learnings from the past 9 months of working on the project and turned them into a 10 minute video which explains all the key concepts. We hope this video helps accelerate your own CNAB & Porter epiphanies!

In partnership with Microsoft, we have released Azure CNAB Quickstarts Library on GitHub. CNAB (Cloud-Native Application Bundle) is a new specification designed for facilitating the packaging, installation, upgrading and uninstallation of cloud-native solutions in the cloud, on-premise or on the edge. We've created a number of quickstarts covering Apache Airflow, Azure Kubernetes Service, Ghost, Kubeflow, SQL Server Always On and Wordpress to help demonstrate the power of CNAB and Porter.

Explore .NET querying methods for integrating Azure Analysis Services beyond data querying into dynamic UIs and APIs.

Learn to integrate Azure Analysis Services in apps by establishing server connections. Follow this guide with code samples for essential scenarios.

Ed attended NDC London 2020, along with many of his endjin colleagues. In this post he summarises and reflects upon his favourite sessions of the conference including; "OWASP Top Ten proactive controls" by Jim Manico, "There's an Impostor in this room!" by Angharad Edwards, "How to code music?" by Laura Silvanavičiūtė, "ML and the IoT: Living on the Edge" by Brandon Satrom, "Common API Security Pitfalls" by Philippe De Ryck, and "Combatting illegal fishing with Machine Learning and Azure - for less than £10 / month" by Jess Panni & Carmel Eve.

In this post, Ian describes some of the highlights from the NDC London conference

Along with several of my endjin colleagues, I attended NDC London in January this year - here's a run through of the sessions I attended on Day 3 and my thoughts. This final day was a mixed bag, taking in talks on drumming and AKKA.net, as well as something a bit more close to home - a session from endjin's own Jess Panni and Carmel Eve on our recent project for OceanMind.

Along with several of my endjin colleagues, I attended NDC London in January this year - here's a run through of the sessions I attended on Day 2 and my thoughts. This day was UI heavy, with sessions on Vuejs and UI testing, but I also learned more about GraphQL and writing high performance C# code.

A retrospective of my first day at NDC London 2020, taking in sessions on AI and Machine Learning, Capability Mapping, Micro Frontends, Diagnostics and Blazor.

Explore Azure Analysis Services in custom apps using SDKs, PowerShell cmdlets & REST APIs. Learn to choose the right framework in this guide.

Discover 'positional patterns' in C# 8, their interaction with custom desconstructors, and unexpected behaviors.

Explore how ref struct types like Span<T> in C# enhance performance but pose async method challenges, and learn mitigation techniques.

GitHub Actions is GitHub's new CI/CD platform. It is comparable with Azure Pipelines, which forms part of the Azure DevOps suite. In this post, Mike Larah looks at the similarities and differences in the high-level concepts and terminology between the two platforms.

Explore Azure Durable Functions as an alternative to long-running operations, overcoming HTTP Triggers' 230s limit in Azure Load Balancer.

Remote working allows us to work from anywhere we want. This brings a huge amount of flexibility in freedom, however we do need the help of a working laptop! When Carmel's laptop gave in just before a trip, she used Azure DevTestLabs to allow her to continue to work using a 10 year old Mac that probably couldn't wouldn't have been up to the task alone...

A guide to enabling SSH on Raspberry Pi, accessing it via Windows 10, and setting up passwordless SSH access.

Explore techniques for high-performance, low-allocation code in Azure Functions using C#, including data streaming, list preallocation, and Span&lt;T&gt;.

Running an Azure Function in a Docker container on Raspberry Pi 4 with this step-by-step guide and ready-to-use code for your projects.

In this post we show a smooth entry animation for D3.js donut (or pie) charts, using a combination of a sweep and a zoom to give a corkscrew-like effect.

This blog is part of a series around design patterns. This post focuses on the composite pattern. The composite pattern is often used in situations where you want to me able to treat groups and individuals in the same way during processing.

Traverse the builder pattern in this design patterns series, simplifying complex object creation and separating construction from usage.

Explore using AzureAD with Az module in PowerShell Core, as Az may not fully replace AzureAD. Learn to utilize both for optimal functionality.

Investigate the differences between factory method and abstract factory design patterns in this first blog of our series.

Automate Power BI workspaces creation & security using PowerShell & Azure DevOps pipelines in a wider DevOps strategy with Azure data platform services.

Software architecture and Agile project planning are often seen to be at odds. However, here at endjin we think that the way in which they intersect solves a lot of the common issues surrounding architecture. The key to successful architecture is constantly keeping the drivers in mind and having a tight communication loop as the architecture is implemented. These concepts are ones which are key to agile project management, and the combination of these two disciplines can be extremely powerful and successful when applied correctly.

At endjin we have a high quality bar when it comes to our code. As part of this we carry out regular code reviews. One of the tools we have used for these code reviews is NDepend. This is the second in a blog series written as we carried out that process. This post focuses on the insight you can quickly gain just by glancing at the NDepend UI.

Explore Azure Policy for proper tagging on resources and enabling tag inheritance from parent resource groups.

At endjin we have a high quality bar when it comes to our code. As part of this we carry out regular code reviews. One of the tools we have used for these code reviews is NDepend. This is the first in a blog series written as we carried out that process. This post runs through the different metrics used by NDepend, and the reasons that each of these can be an indication of code quality.

Ian Griffiths discusses C# 8 features, highlighting how 'var' can enhance compile-time type checking in his final series article.

C# v8.0 introduces various new patterns. In this article, part of a series on how the evolution of the language has added complexity, Ian Griffiths shows how the strong resemblance between the new Positional Patterns and Deconstruction can be misleading.

Discover agile estimation principles & planning methods for project success. Dive into uncertainty, valuable estimates & agile delivery processes.

Visual Studio 2019 saw the arrival of C# v8.0. This article shows the first of a series of examples of how friction can arise when integrating new features into a mature language: the relatively late addition of 'discards' causes some surprises.

Visual Studio 2019 saw the arrival of C# v8.0. A programming language cannot evolve for 20 years without developing a few quirks. Ian Griffiths writes about a surprising aspect of the new pattern matching features, and what this reveals about how the language has changed.

Explore the basics of binary and hexadecimal numbers and their role in daily computing.

This is the final blog in a series which delves into how the Rx operators work under the covers. This series aims to provide a greater understanding of Rx and its operators. This post focuses on the JOIN operator.

Fourth in a series, this blog post explores the inner workings of the Rx WINDOW operator for better Rx understanding.

Using PowerShell and the VM Custom Script Extension to download and execute scripts on existing Azure VMs

This is the third blog in a series which delves into how the Rx operators work under the covers. This series aims to provide a greater understanding of Rx and its operators. This post focuses on the GROUP operator.

This is the second blog in a series which delves into how the Rx operators work under the covers. This series aims to provide a greater understanding of Rx and its operators. This post focuses on the AGGREGATE operator.

Two of the main use-cases for explicit interface implementation are: 1. to hide members of the interface in a class which inherits from that interface, and 2. to work around the scenario when a class is inheriting from two interfaces which share a member of the same name. Take a look at this blog to go into more depth about each of those scenarios.

Explore the workings of Rx operators in this series. This first post delves into the WHERE operator for a deeper Rx understanding.

Learn to handle null values in Specflow using Step Argument Transformations for comprehensive test suites and edge case validation in this blog post.

Explore endjin's introduction to reactive data processing, covering Rx.NET's main classes and simplifying this complex .NET area for easy understanding.

Combining deferred execution with asynchronous operations can cause subtle problems. This post shows how to ensure correct operation when these idioms combine.

This is a post about the importance of reducing your dependencies as much as possible when designing solutions.If as much as possible is under your own control, there is far less room for synchronization errors and update conflicts.

Explore the process of .NET garbage collection and understand the behind-the-scenes of writing C# code in this insightful post.

We have lots of experience working with Azure Cosmos DB, and we're sharing some of our knowledge at Microsoft's Future Decoded event.

Structured apprenticeships provide a great way to build skills whilst getting real-life experience. Endjin's apprenticeship scheme has been refined over years, with an optimal mixture of training, project work, and exposure to commercial processes - a scheme which is designed to build strong foundations for a well-rounded Software Engineering consultant. This post explains the transition from university to an apprenticeship at endjin, including the types of work an apprentice could end up doing, and some examples of real-life learnings from a real-life apprentice.

The evolution of .NET is a complex one. We've put together a deck to help you understand what you should choose to use when.

We've just released an updated version of our Azure Technology Selector poster - helping you to choose the right Azure service, based on your use-case.

We ran a two day hackathon with Watchfinder and Microsoft to build a conversational experience to automate the 'sell your watch experience'.

Alice reflects on her final year and an apprentice, what she's learned over the past three years, and the new skills and capabilities she's developed.

JavaScript is one of the most popular programming languages, but is it past its sell by date?

Implement using parameters in Resource Manager templates for optional resource deployment and configuration.

Read about how we set up automated backups of our office security camera footage and used Power Automate to alert us if anything went wrong

A career in software engineering doesn't need to start with a Computer Science degree. The underlying traits of problem solving, a willingness to learn and the ability to collaborate well can be built in any field. Internships provide a great way to get your foot-in-the-door in the professional world, and arm you with some real-life experience for future endeavours. This post describes an internship at endjin, including the type of work you could be asked to do and what you could learn.

Creating a package to deploy a web project from the command line (for deployment into Azure) is not as easy as it should be. In this post we cover the whole process.

This post shows how to add a Power BI Embedded report to an ASP.NET Core application.

During her two month internship we tried to expose her to as many different aspects of endjin as possible; from New Proposition Development, marketing, partner & business development activities, as well as our software engineering processes and the Microsoft Azure ecosystem.

Did you know that you can fully automate the bootstrapping process of setting up an Azure DevOps enviornment? This post shows you how.

Learn how to combine the power of Azure Resource Manager and Octopus Deploy for a frictionless Azure DevOps experience.

Explore creating and testing an Azure ML Studio web service using Postman for efficient machine learning model production.

In this post, Mike Larah reflects on his experiences going through the endjin three-year apprenticeship scheme

We've improved our approach for saving money by turning off our virtual machines outside of office hours. This post explored how to do it using graphical runbooks.

Mike Larah shares his tips for how to best customize ConEmu to improve your terminal experience for Windows Command Prompy and PowerShell

We recently upgraded our TeamCity based CI/CD environment, but we had to make some adjustments to fix failing tests.

Learn how to authenticate against Azure Resource Manager using PowerShell, for fully automated deployments.

Microsoft have added SHA256 support to Signed XML, and Endjin.Licensing has been updating to take advantage of this breaking change.

We've built and open-sourced a Visual Studio Extension that provides basic support for discovering and running CucumberJS tests with Node.JS, in the Visual Studio Test Environment.

In this post, Mike Larah discusses how to ensure your C# collections are thread-safe, only run-once, and are lazy-loaded.

Consumption based pricing is a one of the USPs of Cloud PaaS services, but the default settings aren't necessarily optimised for cost. Significant savings can be made from understanding your workload.

This is a quick guide to setting up cucumber JS in Visual Studio with grunt.

Explore Azure Resource Manager and PowerShell Desired State Configuration for provisioning and configuring Azure virtual machines.

Git has powerful extensibility points, which you can harness to automate your dev inner loop. In this post we examine how to use Git Hooks to reduce the occurrence of merge conflicts.

We use SpecFlow to write integration tests against Azure. In this post we share an Open Source SpecFlow extension for the Azure Storage Emulator.

A CDN, short for Content Delivery Network, is essentially a network of servers set-up, in various geographic locations, with the aim of speeding up the delivery of content to end-users across the Internet.

Everything in Azure runs in Coordinated Universal Time; learn how to deal with Daylight saving time in Azure Automation, so your jobs still run on time.

You can easily visualise data stored in Azure Table Storage in Power BI. This guide shows you how.

If you have private NuGet feeds, restoring packages during a CI/CD process can be a challenge. This post provides a solution when working with Azure App Service.

How do you selectively stage some of your changes in GIT? How does Visual Studio help? How can you do this on the command line?

Explore how to use SpecFlow for human-readable specs and create reusable step argument transformations for easy readability.

We're huge fans of SpecFlow. We harvested 25 reusable steps from our various open source projects into a new extension that you can use to reduce your own boilerplate.

Just because you're using the cloud, doesn't mean you don't use traditional DTAP environments. But you do need to configure your cloud services to understand them.

Hiring developers is hard. Really hard. Here are some tips on how to make it easier on yourself.

If you were learning to programme today, which language should you choose, and why?

In this post we demonstrate how to use New Relic to monitor an Azure Cloud Service Worker Role, step by step.

Endjin.Retry is our simple .NET library for handling transient errors, to make your Cloud applications more resilient and reliable.

We've open sourced a lightweight .NET based licensing framework we've been using internally over the last couple of years; in this post I'm going to highlight some real world usage scenarios.

Endjin.Licensing is our .NET based licensing framework; in this post we highlight its extensibility features, demonstrating how to add custom license validation logic.

Endjin.Licensing is our .NET based licensing framework; in this post we show how to create and validate a license using C#

We've open sourced a lightweight .NET based licensing framework; in this post we flesh out the behaviours we want the framework to support using Gherkin flavoured BDD specifications.

We've open sourced a lightweight .NET based licensing framework we've been using internally over the last couple of years. In this post I explain why we created it in the first place, rather than using existing offerings.

Explore how to use Azure Automation for running VMs during office hours. Learn to create runbooks for automated tasks at pre-defined times.

Learn how to use diagnostics in Azure Virtual Machines and Cloud Service Web or Worker Roles using the Azure SDK.

How do you use SmartGit to simplify your development workflow by using GitFlow?

TPL Dataflow, a potent yet lesser-known .NET framework, is ideal for high-performance data processing.

Discover cloud computing's pay-as-you-use model and how turning off VMs outside office hours can save costs.

We've delivered a number of Elasticsearch solutions on Azure. In this second post in the series, we share some useful tips.

How to use an $injector service to avoid a circular dependency error dynamically resolving templates in a templateRepository.

In this post we show how you can render a container based on content-type

Meta-Runners allow you to easily create reusable build components for TeamCity, in this post I demonstrate how to create a Meta-Runner to wrap Jasmine BDD Framework test runner.

In this post, Mike demonstrates how you can test AngularJS with Visual Studio, ReSharper and TeamCity for the full local and CI/CD DevOps experience.

How can you use the SemanticMerge tool to help you deal with GIT merge conflicts? Here's an overview of the process.

We've built a number of Elasticsearch clusters on Microsoft Azure. This blog post contains some of our top tips and gotchas.

Discover our tutorial on local NuGet package testing, filling documentation gaps with a concise, step-by-step guide.

Transient failures can happen at any time. There are many useful frameworks for .NET, but what about PowerShell?

You can easily notify NewRelic that a deployment has occured. In this post I demonstrate how to turn a script into a reusable TeamCity Metarunner.

How do you resolve GIT merge conflicts? Can Visual Studio help you at all? What are the best tactics?

One way to manage a button visual state in iOS is by setting a different background image for each one of the UIControlState values available...

Having described the problem space using Marble Diagrams, it's now time to create a real solution using Rx and the Observer pattern to process data from Windows Event Log.

This blog post delves into using Rx to process the messages received from Windows Event Logs, so that they can be shaped in a way that is useful to us to consume.

What is Dependency Injection? How does it help you develop software? Why should you use it? Is it a silver bullet for creating loosely coupled components?

Implement semantic logging on Windows & .NET for richer diagnostics & analysis. Learn how Reactive Extensions enable powerful scenarios in this series.

Learn how to use PowerShell Remoting to connect to an Azure Virtual Machine; a useful technique for managing servers like cattle, not pets.

How do you created branches in GIT? How do you push your changes to a remote server? How does Visual Studio help?

How do you get started with GIT? How do you install it? What are the basic commands? How does Visual Studio help you?

This post shows how to use your Office 365 SMTP relay to enable email notification from TeamCity and YouTrack hosted in Azure.

What is GIT? Why should you use it as a .NET Developer? How do you incorporate it into your workflow? How does Visual Studio help?

If you use Azure Management Studio, you can quickly setup your connections by importing your publish settings...

A quick tip of how to reclaim up to 10GB of space after updating to Windows 8.1

A quick tip for updating your Azure cloud service configuration while running in the emulator

1601 was the year that Pierre de Fermat and King Louis XIII of France were born, Robert Devereux was beheaded in the Tower of London, the Dutch defeated the Portuguese navy in the battle of Bantam Bay and the year Shakespeare's Hamlet is thought to have been performed for the first time. Monday January, 1st 1601 (in the Gregorian calendar) was a pretty uneventful day yet the first day of the 17th century is affecting millions today.

In this post we look at the history and motivations behind the Bootstrap CSS library, and the goals of the project.

In this post we'll look at recursion in F#...In this post we'll look at recursion in F#...

In this blog post, I provide a how-to guide for automating your TeamCity backups using a PowerShell script.

In this post we delve deeper into Function and Logic and look at minimizing Boolean Expressions with F#

Migrate your TeamCity instance with this guide, covering the step-by-step process when in-place upgrades aren't viable.

In this post, we'll look at how our function can work more like the other logical F# operators we've already used.

Just so that I never ever forget this again. Here's how to assign a keyboard shortcut to collapse all projects in Visual Studio Solution Explorer.

In this post, we'll learn how to use F# to ease the pain for us.

I've always wondered what sudo means when I use it to run a command in a terminal.

See how to use Bootstrap 3 to create a full-page bleed.

In this post, we'll look at how we can bring logic to bear on our problems.

Last post on the topic and links to all the other entries centred around troubleshooting/setting up your Xamarin mobile dev environment.

Xamarin lets you develop iOS applications using Visual Studio. This is obviously great for .NET Developers except that you currently have to go to Xcode (Apple's Developer tool) if you want to create the UI using a designer tool.

In post, we're going to look at the data memory in more detail, and learn how we can represent numbers in a computer.

If you run Windows 8 on your Mac with VMware Fusion 5.0 , you might get the following error message when starting the Windows Phone emulator for the first time: The Windows Phone Emulator wasn't able to create the virtual machine.

Today my Xamarin trial expired - Sadface. But endjin generously supplied me with a new Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS Business edition license, things were looking up - Happyface! However after activating the new license and upgrading to a newer version of Xamarin Studio on both my Mac and the guest Windows 8 OS, my master solution containing all the projects for the different platforms (Android, iOS and Windows Phone) was no longer building.

In this post we delve into a bug we discovered with Angular.JS and Bootstrap that appears in IE 7.

In this post we're going to take a look at algorithms.

After going through the Xamarin installation instructions for Mac and Windows , I ended up in a situation where the AVD Manager ( Android Virtual Device Manager ) on my Windows VM would not let me create a new AVD...

Let's start our exploration of this architecture by looking at the Program Instructions memory.

A short explanation of Windows Phone capabilities and how to enable the camera.

Learn how to debug the endjin composition framework.

In this post, we're going to be taking a look at one representation of the hardware box - from a programmer's perspective.

A quick fix to error 0x64 when registering a new Windows Phone device.

Learn how to use the endjin composition framework inside ASP.NET MVC or Web API

The other day I wanted to bring up the Windows "Program and Features" panel using the run command (Win+R or just start typing in the Start screen in Win 8). Something I've done countless number of times in the past. For some reason, I had a complete blank and couldn't recall what that particular command was. So I thought it would be good to have a couple of tips and some of the most useful run commands for Developers (and everybody else) in one place.

Learn how to use the endjin composition framework content factory

Dealing with Transient Faults is absolutely essential when working in The Cloud. We delve into the library we've created for dealing with this situation.

In this post, we're going to set up the tools that we're going to use in the rest of this course on Windows or Linux.

In this step-by-step guide, we'll take you through the process of setting up an F# REPL environment on Windows.

In this step-by-step guide, we'll take you through the process of setting up an F# REPL environment on Linux.

Yesterday I attended the "C# and Mvvm - Developing apps for all of Android, iPhone and Windows" event hosted by Stuart Lodge at Modern Jago. In preparation for the day I had the daunting task of setting up my Mac for cross platform development with Xamarin. While most of it was fairly straight forward and well documented, I came across a few gotchas worth blogging about.

Learn how to use the endjin composition framework for dependency injection.

Learn why we created the endjin composition framework for dependency injection.

This post discusses the importance of collaboration between designers and developers, including communication tips and a step-by-step guide.

Splatting is one of the most powerful, yet underused features of PowerShell. In this post we cover a walk-through of how to use this feature.

A proof of concept is not a quick and dirty hack, it's not a demo, or a technical spike.

In the final part of this series, we cover how to use TeamCity's feature branch abilities to support the GitFlow process.

See how to create a responsive website layout using Bootstrap.

We ran a retrospective of our first few Bootstrap-based HTML5/Javascript projects a few weeks back, and distilled some of the output into these top tips

If you were learning to programme today, which language should you choose, and why?

If you were learning to programme today, which language should you choose, and why?

This post finally covers the nitty-gritty of how you use the GitFlow extensions to drive the workflow.

In this post we show you how to get up and running with GitFlow.

Adopting Git means creating an entirely new mental model about how to version control your source code. Once you make the jump, there's no going back.

We take a look at the state of HTML and JavaScript in 2013; the good, the bad and the ugly.

Some thoughts on RavenDB after using it to build a content-managed website.

Discover how to build Twilio voice apps using asp.net MVC and debug it using port forwarding tools.

A quick example of how to set up integration testing for HttpClient and HttpServer

Endjin are proudly sponsoring the Agile Milton Keynes user group.

Sql Server Spatial Types Assembly is a hidden gem. In this post we show how to use SqlGeography.STGeomFromText and STDistance distance (in meters) between the two points.

A quick guide to using the endjin composition framework with ASP.NET MVC Applications.

A review of the Windows 8 App bootcamp help at Microsoft.

Mike starts his first day as an Apprentice with an introduction to PowerShell and being onboarded to endjin's various tools and platforms, while attempting to automate the entire process.

To celebrate joining JetBrains Development Academy Board, we release a PowerShell modules to make working with TeamCity easier.

PowerShell is fantastic language for DevOps, automation and general scripting. Every developer should be familiar with it; here's a guide to some useful resources to help you learn it.

How does Expression Blend managed to find the Visual States exposed by the standard controls? How could you do the same with your own code?

We've added convention over configuration features to our Dependency Injection library - the endjin composition framework, to help improve your productivity.

MongoDB has been taken a large amount of mindshare in the NoSQL space. In this blog post we share a simple step-by-step guide on how to get started as a .NET developer.

My last post caused a number of responses from the community. I discuss them here and provide a little bit more context.

In this post I delve into some performance analysis of an expensive loop that was taking over 200 seconds to run.