String formatting tips for C#

Handy guide that I've perused once or twice for tips on formatting strings in C#.

String Formatting in C#

BizTalk 2004 Links

A wealth of useful BizTalk 2004 information can be found at Gille's WebLog.

• The flat file strikes back: BizTalk 2004 parsing positional records


• The return of the flat file: Using BizTalk 2004 flat file disassembler


• Selecting the flat file disassembling schema dynamically


• How do I reuse BizTalk 2004 maps outside of BizTalk?


• Format of BizTalk 2004 assemblies: Maps

Another good resource that takes one of Gille's posts even further and demonstrates how to unit test a mapper.

• Unit Test BizTalk Maps via Reflection

Automated Build & Deployment

• Automated B&D of BizTalk 2004/6 via NAnt extensions.

Will My Software Project Fail?

There are a lot of reasons typically given for software projects failing, poor management, lack of requirements, and lack (or excess) of talent are common reasons I've heard(used) for failed projects that I've witnessed(particpated in).

Coding Horror has an excellent article that presents 3 alternative reasons that projects may fail that might not be intuitive at first.

Will My Software Project Fail?

CH presents three new pillars of successful software projects.

1. Version Control
2. Work Intake Management
3. Build System

These are three things that I've lobbied for in every project I've ever worked on, even when I couldn't articulate what I wanted because I hadn't yet seen it in action.

VS.Net: Trim EOL White Space

Regular expressions are great. Little strings of yummy helpfulness.

Here's a little regex that can be used to trim all some or all of your trailing whitespace.

:b+$

Just pass nothing for the replacement.

Shared Server Etiquette

1. Log off

   Don't stay logged into shared machines, log off when you are done. The performance overhead of multiple logged in users is bad enough when we're all working, but do we really need 4 instances of ScrnSve.exe running too? Also, if you're logged in but unavailable then managing the machine is more difficult if a reboot needs to be done or other system maintenance. And for Knuth's sake, please don't stay logged in over night.



2. Disable the screensaver.
   

   Sure, we can't be constantly logging in and out, there are times we will be working for extended periods of time on the shared server and may be pulled away during that time. No sense in running another application whose only purpose in life is to burn cycles and render pretty pictures when no one is looking.

TextPad Regular Expressions: Replace Leading Whitespace with ' '

TextPad is my text-editor of choice. It's simple, fast and lightweight. Plus it supports regular expressions and wildcard searches.

When preparing a post for upload onto the site I often need to replace the leading whitespace with HTML encoded whitespace. This replacement will have to be run for leading whitespace character you wish to replace, but don't worry TextPad will let you know when there are no more replacements to be made.

Inside the TextPad Replace dialog ... (Don't copy the quote marks!)

Find what:  "^\(\(&nbsp\;\)*\)[[:space:]]"

Replace with:  "\1\ "

To restore the whitespaces use the follow expression.

Find what:  "^\(\([[:space:]]\)*\)&nbsp\;"

Replace with:  "\1 " <-- Notice that there is a single space character after the \1.