Charlie Calvert's Community Blog

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...

This is the fourth in a series of articles on LINQ . This article focuses on an important operator from the list of 49 LINQ operators available in the May CTP. This operator, called Distinct() , is different from the other operators we have seen because...

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...

Welcome to the forty-first Community Convergence. The big news this week is that we have moved Future Focus , our peek at features that might appear in the next version of Visual Studio, to the Code Gallery . To seed our efforts on this new platform we...

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...

A series of new or updated API's that developers can use for building web applications are available from the Windows Live Dev site. The new services and API's are listed below. Go to Dave Treadwell's post to read about them in more detail. New or Updated...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Code Gallery, a new site for sharing samples from Microsoft and the Community is now live: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ . Soma has posted about this site, and the C# Developer Center is tracking a list of popular releases on its front page in the section...

This is index to the various technical posts I have created for this blog. As I add to each section, I will update this page. At this time I have two series of posts going, one on LINQ , and one on generics . I intend to keep working on both sections...

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...

Books on LINQ LINQ in Action by Fabrice Marguerie, Steve Eichert, Jim Wooley, and Matt Warren Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 by Joseph C. Rattz Professional LINQ (Programmer to Programmer) by Scott Klein LINQ Quickly by Satheesh, N Kumar...

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...

The Visual Studio 2008 CSharp samples include several valuable tools that LINQ developers can use to help expedite the development process. One of the is the Expression Tree Visualizer. This tool works in both Visual Studio Express and the other versions...

In an earlier post I showed how LINQ developers can connect to a database and write a simple query. This post steps behind the scenes of a LINQ to SQL application and describes the classes auto-generated by the Object Relational Designer (aka LINQ to...

The Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework provides support for various features of Windows 7 and previous releases of that operating system. The Code Pack has  reached version 1.0 and has been published on Code Gallery: Download it...

C# MVP and wunderkind Bill Wagner has written an article entitled Dynamic Method Bags which is now available on MSDN. Bill explores the new dynamic feature in C# 4.0. Most posts on this subject explain how to use dynamic to call Python, Ruby or Office...

This is the third in a series of posts on Silverlight. The text focuses on creating a basic interface for a Silverlight application and explores simple ways to work with Grid controls that are divided up into Rows and Columns . So far, I’ve added the...

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...