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Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

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Re: Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

#181
post #5

C# and .NET get a bad rap for being created by Microsoft. But one thing that can't be ignored is how polished their development tools are. I absolutely love coding in Visual Studio.

Agreed and I tell you, pay that kind of money to Eclipse Foundation and you might be in for a pleasant surprise in a year or so.

Re: Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's less about not wanting to use Visual Studio and more about not wanting to have a Windows VM thrashing resources. I've worked with teams that have migrated to ServiceStack just to avoid running Windows. Assuming that running Windows is a non-issue, the parts that really, really bug me are: - Background operations suddenly become foreground operations that stall the IDE with a dialog saying "A background o…

Far and away the biggest problem with the background/foreground issues is COM and its apartment models. A large part of some of the core pieces of Visual Studio are (still) written in native code and are STA bound objects (mostly when they don't really need to be, but that's another discussion). Converting off of STA in legacy code is extremely difficult due to the transitive nature of it as well as the fact you like…

I don't imagine it to be an easy problem to solve, but it's good to hear your experience with it. Thanks for chiming in!

Re: Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your comment, you said TFS. TFS is the server, which include SqlServer, Sharepoint, an OLAP cube, and the TFS server components. The TFS client extension, (which is not TFS) has been baked in for the last 2 versions. So I assume you're using VS 2010, and that is a much different beast. It has a lot more issues, but it's a much improved IDE. As far as virtualization, why are you working in a virtual environment?…

I was referring to Team Explorer which, as of VS2013, doesn't appear to be included out-of-box. Apologies for the confusion. Virtualization is kind of a red herring here, because as mentioned before, this happens on an array of workstation-level hardware (quad-core Xeon/i7, 16-32GB configurations, SSD). The point is that virtualization makes these already-painful existing issues much more pronounced, such that my pee…

Team Explorer has been baked in for the last two versions. Regardless, most of your points have little to do with Visual Studio, and a lot to do with Windows and Virtualization. Besides, half your gripes can be turned off in the settings.

If you have to work with the tools daily, then take the time to learn them. You'll thank yourself.

Re: Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to Team Explorer which, as of VS2013, doesn't appear to be included out-of-box. Apologies for the confusion. Virtualization is kind of a red herring here, because as mentioned before, this happens on an array of workstation-level hardware (quad-core Xeon/i7, 16-32GB configurations, SSD). The point is that virtualization makes these already-painful existing issues much more pronounced, such that my pee…

Team Explorer has been baked in for the last two versions. Regardless, most of your points have little to do with Visual Studio, and a lot to do with Windows and Virtualization. Besides, half your gripes can be turned off in the settings. If you have to work with the tools daily, then take the time to learn them. You'll thank yourself.

I'm not sure if you're intentionally glossing over the "this happens with or without virtualization" point, but I'm glad you're happy with the tools you're using.

Re: Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

#185
Wouldn't a with(file) statement (instead of a finally block) be much more idiomatic in the example they give? Not to be be pedantic but I think it illustrates a good criticism. How can you ensure quality code snippets that are "idiomatic?"

Re: Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and VS isn't really "complete" without resharper which is a shame because the full versions of VS are already quite expensive.

I tried out Resharper for the entire evaluation period and then dropped it. There were a few nice things, but nothing that was just leaps and bounds better than built in VS features. But everyone says it's necessary, so I keep wondering if I somehow missed the killer features. What are the features of Resharper that make you say VS isn't complete without it?

One of the big ones to me is "move class to its own file". Means when you are sketching up some multi-class API or something you can just type away in a single source file, and as soon as something looks half-finihshed I just alt enter and it creates a new file with the correct name and moves the type to that file including adding the necessary imports to the header. A lot of context-switch time gained.

Next big thing is navigation. Go to type, go to symbol and go to file are super quick and means I never go to the source tree to navigate the solution.

Re: Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a fast machine. Do not develop in a VM. Do not use a mechanical hard drive. Have at least 8GB of ram. Absolutely do not have any kind of on-access antivirus scan enabled for project output/intermediate dirs or GAC. I find a 100project C# solution (200mb deploy) to be perfectly snappy when using & fast to build. There are and have been zillions of annoyances with VS but perf hasn't been one since I set my machine…

This is great dogma for people that control their work environment, but keep in mind that not everyone has that luxury. Hardware upgrade cycles and/or upgrade budgets can prevent people from working on the hardware they'd like, group policy can prevent scoping down AV settings, job role may require frequently hopping between OSX/Windows, etc.

Well, it's fairly easy to keep developers happy. Good hardware and coffee is so cheap compared to finding new developers...

I'd be as upset by a group policy demanding I scan my VS intermediate dirs on access as I would be by a no-chairs policy at the office. It's a dealbreaker.

Re: Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

#188

Everytime something C# is posted it's all about MS and why some like or dislike C# or .Net, rarely are the comments related to the actual article. Personally, I think this new feature is cool, but I've come to realise that my visual studio freezes way more then initially, I think this might be because I've got a few addons installed (ex: Demon, Resharper ...etc) I wonder what will be the overall performance impact of…

ReSharper is an infamous hog. It makes VS freeze up, devours memory, and devours extra CPU cycles with background threads. It is at least a really useful add-on...

This. We just blew away 50 licenses because on our project it's a hindrance even on our E5 Xeons with 24Gb RAM and SAS+SSD disks.

Re: Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

#189

It's interesting that the example code shown is so clunky. It uses try-finally to manually dispose the resource when the idiomatic way would be to wrap it in a using block: using (var file2 = new StreamReader(file)) { while ((line = file2.ReadLine()) != null) Console.WriteLine(line); } It's possible this is a badly picked example but it shows one big downside of this -- the lack of discussion about the sample code th…

But with a 'using' you can't catch an exception. So in production I end up using ( ;-) ) try catch finally.

Re: Introducing Bing Code Search for C#

#190
post #169
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a lock in (most technology does lock you into certain dependencies) and it does cost money. But, it's all so easy to use now / saves you lots of time. You can roll out anything using PowerShell these days. Or just copy VMs with OS/IIS/SQL already set-up. Deploying everything can be one-click. VS even has git integration now. The old IIS is like you describe. But, the latest IIS is fast and easy.

The old IIS is like you describe. But, the latest IIS is fast and easy. In all honesty this is what I find from most unknowledgeable Microsoft bashers. They tried out the MS development stack with Classic ASP, Visual Basic 6 and SourceSafe 15 years ago. Then in their head they're contrasting that to the latest RoR tools with github. Many are not even aware of ASP.NET MVC and how different it is from ASP.NET. Now, thi…

As a knowledgeable Microsoft basher, you're right. MVC is better but still a long step away from something great. Some of the internals are crazy bad from attribute thread safety to the numerous singleton piles of crud like the ViewEngines collection and route data. Not only that, the tooling really doesn't scale up well either.

I can only say after managing a project with 400 controllers that it doesn't scale up to complex UI or even medium sized projects well. Also we're reaching 5 minute edit, compile, run cycles (on E5 Xeons!). Also production debugging (which is inevitable one day) is a PITA on CLR based projects.

It has become the opposite of all promises. It's like wading through tar.

To be honest after over a decade of .Net experience and over a decade of Win32/COM etc before that, I'm tired of it all.

I wrote my first Objective C+Cocoa application last week (an RPN calculator) and it's where I'd rather be. It was fun and frustration free. I tried to do exactly the same with WPF/C# a few weeks ago and it was horrible.

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