Jeff Nuckolls {Application Platform and Development Tools} : Screencast

Unit Tests with Visual Studio 2008 (screencast)

jeffnuck — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:06:00 GMT

Test Driven Development (TDD) has long been advocated as a "best practice" in software development. Without picking apart the details with this theory, I'll just summarize the concept:

prior to jumping in with both feet, writing functional code, start with stubbed out methods/functions/classes/etc... (you might use Class Designer for this part)
second, create a test harness that aligns with the functional requirements... these should test for "expected" results and compare them with "actual" results returned from the functional code (class/method/etc...)
finally start adding code to your stubbed classes/methods... and refining this code until your tests harness receives all "expected" results

Creating these test harnesses can be a cumbersome task and seem to take time away from the valuable development time. Visual Studio can automate a majority of this for you saving you tons of time without bolt-on 3rd party tools, and most importantly recover that valuable development time "without" sacrificing quality code!

Instead of rambling, I recorded a quick 7 minute screencast to get you started in Unit Testing with Visual Studio 2008:

Note: This just touches the surface, but will hopefully prove a decent introduction.

Web Tests in Visual Studio 2008 (screencast)

jeffnuck — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:03:00 GMT

If you are interested in testing your web applications, Visual Studio offers a great way to do this without bolt-on or expensive 3rd party tools. Auto-record, configure, and even generate coded versions (C# or VB) of your web tests, then reuse with/without Load Tests. You can also add Data Sources (databases, CSV files, and XML files), Validation rules, and Extraction rules to your web tests.

Here I have provided a short screencast to demonstrate "some" of the features for creating Web Tests with Visual Studio 2008:

Enjoy!

Stream Silverlight apps in your blog created with Live Writer...

jeffnuck — Thu, 08 May 2008 07:04:00 GMT

Here is a cool plug-in for Live Writer from James Clarke (http://www.clarkezone.net/default.aspx?channelid=fe2866cb-00b9-4bff-bb11-1b3a88708a84).

Notice I can now just select "Silverlight Streaming Application" from the Insert menu option.

If you have a Live ID (or wish to create one), you can get up to 10gb of FREE space to host your Silverlight videos/apps at http://silverlight.live.com. When you create an account here you will receive an Account ID and Account Key (required for the following step), be able to upload your Silverlight video/apps, so you can reference insert them as follows:

If you have entered your Account ID and Account Key, then select the Refresh button.

Pick your Silverlight application and click Ok.

Now just your blog, that is all there is to it! :-)

Oh, BTW... if you are looking for a super cool tool to record your screencasts, check out Community Clips at http://communityclips.officelabs.com.