The Wayward WebLog

The Precious

Matt Warren - MSFT — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:01:00 GMT

When the light broke in from a crack in the bunker ceiling, I was not alarmed. I knew it would inevitably come to this, that I could not stay holed up forever. Eventually they would find me. I thought about what this day would be like, off and on, for...(read more)

Ominous Post

Matt Warren - MSFT — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:17:19 GMT

Something is coming....(read more)

Elegance in Asynchrony

Matt Warren - MSFT — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 06:15:00 GMT

Last week at the PDC we released the Async CTP (community technology preview) for C# and VB. It’s got this really nifty feature that turns otherwise horrendous gobbledygook of callback nastiness into nice legible, linear source code, so you can actually write asynchronous code as if it were synchronous; no muss, no fuss.

But I don’t really need to tell you about this, as you’ve certainly read umpteen other blogs and news articles already that have either confounded you with a bazillion examples or threatened you with what the code would have otherwise looked like, the kinds of software geek horrors reserved for Halloween night obfuscation contests.

We’ve all been there, right?

...(read more)

Building a LINQ IQueryable Provider – Part XVII (IQToolkit 0.17)

Matt Warren - MSFT — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:53:00 GMT

This is the seventeenth in a series of posts on how to build a LINQ IQueryable provider. If you thought this series would last this long then you must have some eerie metaphysical powers of insight that go beyond mere blind faith in the gods of the interwebs. So powerful, in fact, you may now be considered a threat to national security, since with all your witchery and kanoodling you might be secretly tapping the thoughts and provoking the actions of persons in higher office into doing unthinkable, irrevocable things. You may think you are doing good by protecting the innocent from master villains like Sylar, but the normals will still fear you anyway. You might want to keep a lookout for strange black sedans parked down the street from your home. I know I do. ...(read more)

Building a LINQ IQueryable Provider – Part XVI (IQToolkit 0.16)

Matt Warren - MSFT — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:50:00 GMT

This is the sixteenth in a series of posts on how to build a LINQ IQueryable provider. If you have not read the previous posts you might try rolling into a ball and crying for momma. That’s right, reading on is as hazardous to your health as a skinned knee. Just be warned and have an anti-biotic on hand. ...(read more)

Building a LINQ IQueryable provider - Part XV (IQToolkit v0.15)

Matt Warren - MSFT — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:07:00 GMT

This is the fifteenth in a series of posts on how to build a LINQ IQueryable provider. If you have not read the previous posts you might try searching for the audio tapes on www.Bing.com. That would be a lot easier than reading. You won't find any, but you'll feel better for having tried. ...(read more)

Building a LINQ IQueryable provider - Part XIV

Matt Warren - MSFT — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:21:00 GMT

This is the fourteenth in a series of posts on how to build a LINQ IQueryable provider. If you have not read the previous posts you might request a weeks vacation, sit back, relax with a mochacino in one hand a netbook in the other, or if you've got better...(read more)

Building a LINQ IQueryable Provider - Part XIII

Matt Warren - MSFT — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:59:00 GMT

This is the thirteenth in a series of posts on how to build a LINQ IQueryable provider. If you have not read the previous posts you probably have a life beyond the keyboard, but if you don't then follow the link below to find oodles more to help fill your meaningless existence. ...(read more)

LINQ IQToolkit on CodePlex

Matt Warren - MSFT — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:14:00 GMT

The LINQ IQueryable Toolkit is now a CodePlex project. http://www.codeplex.com/IQToolkit Going forward this will the be official site to find the latest greatest source bits. I'll continue to post here about the toolkit, how to use it and to show...(read more)

Building a LINQ IQueryable Provider - Part XII

Matt Warren - MSFT — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:00:00 GMT

This is the twelfth in a series of posts on how to build a LINQ IQueryable provider. If you have not read the previous posts you probably were born yesterday. How could you possibly make sense of this post without any context at all? At least make an attempt. Sometimes I don't know why I bother. ...(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable Provider - Part XI

Matt Warren - MSFT — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:16:00 GMT

This is the eleventh in a series of posts on how to build a LINQ IQueryable provider. If you have not read the previous posts you’ll want to do so before proceeding, or at least before proceeding to copy the code into your own project and telling your boss you single-handedly solved the data layer problem over the weekend....(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable Provider - Part X

Matt Warren - MSFT — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:15:00 GMT

This is the tenth in a series of posts on how to build a LINQ IQueryable provider. If you have not read the previous posts you'll want to find a nice shady tree, relax and meditate on why your world is so confused and full of meaningless tasks that it has kept you from pursuing the perfection of writing IQueryable providers....(read more)

Mocks Nix - An Extensible LINQ to SQL DataContext

Matt Warren - MSFT — Mon, 05 May 2008 06:57:00 GMT

I often get asked how LINQ to SQL is supposed to be used with Test Driven Design (TDD). Okay, not really. People aren’t knocking on my door or calling me at 3:00 am. I do, however, occasionally read developers angst on their personal blogs. It seems they are trying to actually do this, but are often confounded by the DataContext and its dearth of appropriate interfaces....(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable Provider - Part IX

Matt Warren - MSFT — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 06:06:00 GMT

This is the nineth in a series of posts on how to build a LINQ IQueryable provider. If you have not read the previous posts here's a handy list of all the fun you've been missing. Complete list of posts in the Building an IQueryable Provider series...(read more)

Rico teases us with a LINQ to SQL performance quiz

Matt Warren - MSFT — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:44:00 GMT

Check it out and see if you know the answer. Rico's Performance Tidbits...(read more)

Primal Development Methodology

Matt Warren - MSFT — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:40:00 GMT

I am going to tell you something that will disturb you. You might laugh, but it will be a cold uncertain laugh that will haunt you as you read on, because somewhere deep down you'll know it to be true. You might brush it off, get on with your day, yet sometime later, a week or a year, it will seep back in and unsettle you to the core. From that moment on you will be changed. You will think different, act different and will fundamentally be different. So take a moment to prepare yourself now, breath deeply, clear your mind and open up to the possibility that building software is hard. ...(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable Provider - Part VIII

Matt Warren - MSFT — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:49:00 GMT

Implementing OrderBy Today's topic is translating those order-by clauses. Fortunately, there is only one way to do ordering, and that's using the LINQ ordering specific query operators. The bad news is that there are four different operators. ...(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable provider - Part VII

Matt Warren - MSFT — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 03:00:00 GMT

This is the seventh in a series of posts on how to build a LINQ IQueryable provider. If you have not read the previous posts you might want to rethink your place in the universe. :-) ...(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable Provider - Part VI

Matt Warren - MSFT — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:59:00 GMT

So, again you thought I was done with this series, that I've given up and moved on to greener pastures. You think that since Select works wonderfully that that's all you need to know to make your own IQueryable provider? Ha! There's loads more to know. And, by the way, Select is still broken. ...(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable Provider - Part V

Matt Warren - MSFT — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 01:54:00 GMT

Over the past four parts of this series I have constructed a working LINQ IQueryable provider that targets ADO and SQL and has so far been able to translate both Queryable.Where and Queryable.Select standard query operators. Yet, as big of an accomplishment that has been there are still a few gaping holes and I’m not talking about other missing operators like OrderBy and Join. I’m talking about huge conceptual gaffs that will bite anyone that strays from my oh-so-ideally crafted demo queries. ...(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable Provider - Part IV

Matt Warren - MSFT — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:26:00 GMT

I just could not leave well enough alone. I had the crude LINQ provider working with just a translation of the Where method into SQL. I could execute the query and convert the results into my objects. But that’s not good enough for me, and I know it’s not good enough for you. You probably want to see it all; the transformation of a little sample program into a full-fledged working ORM system. Well, I’m probably not going to do that. However, I still think there’s a lot of common ground I can cover, that you can make use of in your provider, by showing you how I’m going to implement Select. ...(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable Provider - Part III

Matt Warren - MSFT — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:11:00 GMT

Part III? Wasn’t I done in the last post? Didn’t I have the provider actually working, translating, executing and returning a sequence of objects? Sure, that’s true, but only just so. The provider I built was really fragile. It only understood one major query operator and a few minor ones like comparison, etc. However, real providers are going to have to deal with many more operators and complicated interactions between them. For example, that provider did not even let you project the data into new shapes. How one goes about doing that is non-obvious. ...(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable Provider - Part II

Matt Warren - MSFT — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:59:00 GMT

Now, that I’ve laid the groundwork defining a reusable version of IQueryable and IQueryProvider, namely Query and QueryProvider, I’m going to build a provider that actually does something. As I said before, what a query provider really does is execute a little bit of ‘code’ defined as an expression tree instead of actual IL. Of course, it does not actually have to execute it in the traditional sense. For example, LINQ to SQL translates the query expression into SQL and sends it to the server to execute it. ...(read more)

LINQ: Building an IQueryable Provider - Part I

Matt Warren - MSFT — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 23:21:00 GMT

I’ve been meaning for a while to start up a series of posts that covers building LINQ providers using IQueryable. People have been asking me advice on doing this for quite some time now, whether through internal Microsoft email or questions on the forums or by cracking the encryption and mailing me directly. Of course, I’ve mostly replied with “I’m working on a sample that will show you everything” letting them know that soon all will be revealed. However, instead of just posting a full sample here I felt it prudent to go step by step so I can actual dive deep and explain everything that is going on instead of just dumping it all in your lap and letting you find your own way. ...(read more)

LINQ to SQL: Rico drops the other shoe

Matt Warren - MSFT — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:50:00 GMT

Rico has finally posted some numbers that show you the performance he's seeing with Beta 2 bits. ...(read more)