Charlie Calvert's Community Blog

by Charlie Calvert and Mads Torgersen What is Future Focus? This is the first of a series of monthly posts designed to give insight into the C# team’s current plans for future versions of Visual Studio. Each post will highlight one or more key subjects...

In this video interview, Anders Hejlsberg, the chief architect of C#, describes features in the next release of C#, code named Orcas. Anders first describes how LINQ solves the impedance mismatch between the code that lives on a database server and the...

Last fall in Barcelona, Spain two PM's from the C# team gave talks on key parts of the new LINQ technology found in Visual Studio 2008: Luca Bolognese : LINQ to SQL: Accessing Relational Data with Language Integrated Query Luke Hoban : Microsoft Visual...

Hello, my name is Charlie Calvert, and on July 10, 2006 I started my new job as the Community Program Manager for the Visual C# group. This is my first blog here at Microsoft, and also my first message to the C# community. My primary goal is to...

Mads Torgersen, a C# PM and member of the C# design team, has worked with other members of the C# team to create a document that outlines the new features in C# 4.0. Along with Anders’ PDC talk , this is probably the best way to get an overview of what...

It’s time to add some more information about my trip to the Agile 2006 Conference. One of the big themes that kept coming up at the conference was Scrum , a popular technique for implementing Agile technologies. The Scrum methodology was perhaps the...

Newcomers to LINQ often find expression trees difficult to grasp. In this post I hope to show that the subject is not quite as difficult as it might appear at first. Any reader who has an intermediate level understanding of LINQ should find the material...

This post covers one of the most important and frequently misunderstood LINQ features. Understanding deferred execution is a rite of passage that LINQ developers must undergo before they can hope to harness the full power of this technology. The contents...

I've recently updated the list of LINQ Providers found on my Links to LINQ page, accessible from the News section on the left of this blog. I'm sure there are other providers available. Feel free to write me or append a comment if you want to add to this...

You can now download Visual Studio Orcas Beta 1. Use one of the links found here: The Team Suite Edition on a Virtual PC Team Suite on a Virtual PC with Team Foundation Server Download the C# Express Edition Visual Studio Professional Edition...

Here are some useful links to LINQ information. Use the comments or write me if you want to add to this list, or if you have corrections or additional information you want to supply. Index Core Microsoft LINQ Sites Official Microsoft Flavors of LINQ Other...

In this Channel 9 video C# architect Anders Hejlsberg answers some commonly asked questions about the new Dynamic features that will be included in C# 4.0. Building on the talk that he gave at PDC, Anders chats with C# Community PM Charlie Calvert. They...

This post covers the upcoming C# 4.0 support for covariance and contravariance when working with delegates and interfaces. Eric Lippert’s series of posts on this subject are definitely the definitive reference at this time. I’m writing this overview of...

Lambdas are a simple technology with an intimidating name. They sound like they are going to be difficult to understand, but in practice prove to be relatively trivial. LINQ has an almost inordinate need for its users to declare a large number of small...

We are continuing our series of posts about proposed features for the next version of Visual Studio. This post focuses on a new feature called Document Map Margins (DMM). Developers frequently work with huge source files that are difficult to navigate...

Developer Express and Microsoft have arranged a free copy of limited features from CodeRush and Refactor! Pro that is available for C# developers using Visual Studio 2008. You can read about the details here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/dd218053...

The January CTP (formerly known as the December CTP) should be out shortly after the new year. We are sorry about the delay; it is due in part to the huge December 14 storm that knocked out the power for over a million residents here in the Seattle area...

The February CTP (aka as the March CTP) is now available for download as a regular install and as a virtual PC . Here is a video that serves as an introduction to the CTP. FebCtp Video: Stream it FebCtp Video: Download Video Text overview from the install...

This is the first in a series of posts on C# and LINQ. These posts will describe a natural, easy to understand technique for querying data. When using LINQ, simply declare the question you want to ask, and then sit back and wait while the computer analyzes...

Partial methods are a C# 3.0 technique used by code generators such as the one found in the LINQ to SQL Designer. They help to solve the age-old problem of allowing users to modify auto-generated code without fearing that their changes will be overwritten...

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 was released to the web for download today. The releases are available both as regular installs and as VPC images . If you choose the regular installation, you should run this script to "ensure that the installation of .NET Framework...

The free CodeRush Xpress from DevExpress provides C# and VB developers with powerful extensions to Visual Studio. These features include editing and refactoring tools that make it easier for you to quickly produce well designed code. Version 9.2 of CodeRush...

MSDN has published an excellent article by Fabrice Marguerie entitled “ How to Detect and Avoid Memory and Resource Leaks in .NET Applications .” In the article, the author explains how memory leaks are introduced into .NET applications, and what you...

The CSharp Unified Language Specification is now available for review. This specification pulls together information from the CSharp 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0 specifications into a single unified document. The CSharp community will have approximately one week...

The success of the first Future Focus post has made it easy for us to continue sharing our plans for the future of the C# language. The intelligent and thoughtful suggestions we received from the community about the Dynamic Lookup feature have had a significant...