Blogs and Articles

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  05 Aug 2011

  Locals, Autos & Watches

    The Locals window lists all variables local to the current stack frame. You can expand objects to see its properties and fields by clicking on the plus next to the object. This is very useful for seeing the state of objects easily and to examine the ...

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  Comments0

  Posted by: Dominic Faraday

  Tags: windows

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  02 Aug 2011

  Immediate Window

  The immediate window is found in Debug\Windows. It lets you execute methods, evaluate variables and give variables new values all at runtime. To evaluate a variable prefix the variable name with a question mark, enter the variable name and then press enter. Semicolons are optional. You can ...

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  Comments0

  Posted by: Dominic Faraday

  Tags: debugging

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  29 Jul 2011

  Fail & Assertion

  The Debug and Trace classes are both useful helper classes. Both define Fail and Assert methods.  Fail, will stop the web application and display a dialogue box showing you the message you put in the Fail statement and a stack trace. You can stop the application at ...

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  Comments0

  Posted by: Dominic Faraday

  Tags: debugging

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  26 Jul 2011

  Debug & Trace Classes

  These two classes may be used for basic logging. The difference between the two is that the Debug class is aimed at debug builds while the Trace classes used in debug and release builds. Each method of the Debug class has a Conditional [DEBUG] attribute. Debug and ...

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  Comments0

  Posted by: Dominic Faraday

  Tags: debugging

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  22 Jul 2011

  The Call Stack

  The call stack can be displayed by selecting Debug\Windows\Call Stack. This essential tool shows all the method calls on the stack. Double clicking on one of the listed methods will take you to that method in the source code. When you double click a method you are ...

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  Comments0

  Posted by: Dominic Faraday

  Tags: application , windows

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  19 Jul 2011

  Preprocessor Directives

      Each project file by default defines a DEBUG constant for debug builds and a TRACE constant for both debug and release builds. These constants add pre-processor directives which give the compiler additional information on how the source code is to be processed.     The ...

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  Comments0

  Posted by: Dominic Faraday

  Tags: web applications , debugging

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  15 Jul 2011

  Basic Skills - Debugging & Build Configurations

  One of the basic skills that will give you a head start in your first job is to be proficient with the debugger and the numerous diagnostic tools Visual Studio provides. Why is this skill important? You will almost certainly work on a project that has already ...

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  Comments0

  Posted by: Dominic Faraday

  Tags: web applications , debugging

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  12 Jul 2011

  Guidance for Computer Science Graduates

    Final year Computer Science students would have finished their exams a few  weeks ago at my old university. After a well-deserved rest they will be looking for their first developer jobs. So I thought recent graduates may find it useful if I describe my own experiences ...

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  Comments0

  Posted by: Dominic Faraday

  Tags: web applications , graduate , dot net