Entity Framework 5 performance improvements for testable applications

    Earlier this year I wrote a series of posts about how to automate Entity Framework(EF) testing but since then a lot of things happened: EF 5 was released, it was made open source and Microsoft has published an in-depth article about performance tweaks for older versions of EF and performance improvements in EF 5. Following these events I can now expand my previous post and address an important performance consideration around the EF testable interface that I described earlier.

Post-Silverlight remarks

    After spending a year and a half in XAML land using Silverlight extensively I leave with pleasant memories but also with a bitter feeling.

    The main strength of Silverlight is creating complex applications for Windows/Mac OS X with ease while maintaining a low deployment footprint. Silverlight XAML is almost identical with WPF XAML minus a couple of features and this versatility seems to make Silverlight an essential tool for the enterprise application developer. But since Microsoft abruptly shifted focus from Silverlight to HTML5 in 2011 the Silverlight open source ecosystem has imploded rapidly.

Using a desktop shim with a PhoneGap app

  I wanted to look at some sample PhoneGap apps code but the cost of setting up an Android/iOS shell project seemed a bit high. Sure it is worth for a real app but if you just want to play around with code and after you paid it a couple of times you start to think "it has to be a better way". And ... wait for it ... there is.

Load testing .NET applications is (still) expensive

  Performance analysis is usually a late activity in the software development process but a vital one if you have to deploy your application in production.
After an intense performance analysis session during load testing I decided to share my experience  about the tools that I used.

Automate Entity Framework 4.x mocking using T4 templates - part 2

  In my previous post I described how to use T4 templates to customize the Entity Framework(EF) code generation in order to introduce EF testability. My test code sample showed a very simple way to inject data and test the business logic without using a physical database. However the code that injects the test data could do with a bit of automation itself.

Automate Entity Framework 4.x mocking using T4 templates - part 1

  Every time I read about a new Entity Framework (EF) release I am hoping to find better support for mocking the physical database. I would like an in memory data provider for Entity Framework - thank you very much. It should enable seamless unit testing with a lot of benefits: fast tests, zero environment configuration, no database setup and tear down, happy less grumpy developers. Until this happens the story of building a testable software product with EF will involve some degree of pain.  

Hello world

I recently achieved a professional milestone: a round number of years working as a (.NET) software developer. The number does not mean a lot in itself apart from the fact that it made me think a bit more about my past and current experience.
This in turn helped me realise a couple of things:
I still want to find answers to some of the questions I accumulated so far.
I learned so much from the software community and it is great to be part of this unprecedented sharing of software knowledge.
And as a conclusion to my retrospective I want to try and give something back to the community.
I hope that starting this blog will help me accomplish that.