Code I love #2: regex & verbatim string literal

A really simple regular expression to strip out anything except alpha or numeric characters. In the following example \r, \n, !! and space are all non-alpha numerics.

Example characters that this could strip out

\n = new line
\r = carriage return
\" = quotation marks
\\ = Backslash
\t = tab


...
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

....
string input = "This \r is a !! test \n";

string output = Regex.Replace(input, @"[^a-zA-Z0-9]", string.Empty);
//output = Thisisatest



By the way, using the @ symbol in fromt of a string means that you don't have to muck around with escape characters like \[]/. This is known as a verbatim string literal. Essentiall any string where you write @" at the beginning of the text in question (and close it off with ") means that all characters inside the quotation marks are treated exactly as they are typed.

Code I love #1: IsNullOrEmpty(string)

String.IsNullOrEmpty(string)

Back in days of yore you would need to do something like

if (String.Empty) || (string = "") || (string = null)
{
//do stuff
}

Now you can cover off all those in one hit with String.IsNullOrEmpty(string).

(And yeah, code probably is probably wrong because I try not to use them since upgrading from vb6/ .net 1.0, but you get the idea :) )

Beginnings... on Agile & bug fixing

About 5 months ago I began the way overdue transfer from VB6/ .NET 1.0/ SQL 2000 to the new and exciting world of C# & VB.NET 3.5. Of course 4.0 is just around the corner with VS2010 being released, but still, I can write about stuff I'm learning :) I'm not expecting that I'll be writing about anything majorly interesting to anyone else, and I won't really be one for answering other people's questions. The stuff I write at work is all confidential, though the stuff I'm learning working in the Microsoft SDC is majorly awesome.


http://www.betterprojects.net/2009/06/email-whiteboards-and-well-caffeinated.html
Fantastic article on project management
1. Set Your Sights - defining the goal
2. The Real Team Energizer - making information critical to the project easily available to everyone in the project
3. Don’t Rush into Commitment
4. Ask Around - see what others have tried


Interesting article on how bugs are a failure in process and 3 questions we need to ask to improve ourselves as devs: (http://secretgeek.net )
1. Is this mistake somewhere else also?
2. What next bug is hidden behind this one?
3. What should I do to prevent bugs like this?


Great quote about agile development. Maybe I should put it on a t-shirt and walk around the office? "Agile is about surfacing pain. It's not about roses, perfume, and happy candlelight dinners together. " http://codebetter.com/

NotImplementedException is an awesome way of stubbing stuff out when you haven't figured out your return statement