Writings of Urda http://www.peter-urda.com One Man's Thoughts on Life, Technology, and Everything Else in Between Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:15:23 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Write to XML with C# So we can read XML in a variety of ways (one example here, and another here). So can we write it in C#? Of course we can! So lets jump right into shall we?

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]]> http://www.peter-urda.com/2010/09/write-to-xml-with-c-sharp Solution Folders in Visual Studio 2010 Explained If you are new to Visual Studio, you may not be familiar with how “Solution Folders” work. Visual Studio allows you to group together any number of sub-projects that your root solution may contain. However, what is strange about Solution Folders in Visual Studio is that they do not create the same logical structure on your disk. Solution Folders will not create a mirror on your hard drive. They just create a logical grouping inside your Visual Studio Project. They will not move files around, or create directories for your projects when you create Solution Folders and place your projects inside them. It is a good practice to have your logical project structure to have a one-to-one relationship with your physical directory structure, and the behavior of the Solution Folders do not follow this. But there is a way for Visual Studio to create the physical structure on the disk when adding projects to the solution.

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]]> http://www.peter-urda.com/2010/09/solution-folders-in-visual-studio-2010-explained Give Me the Stats, Jack! Sometimes you need to take a specific set of data, crunch some numbers, and base selections on a normal distribution. Well there are plenty of equations and mathmatical processes to determine if and where `Object A` may fall. Is it close to the mean of a given dataset? Or is it so far out there it really does not fit the curve?

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]]> http://www.peter-urda.com/2010/09/give-me-the-stats-jack Using LINQ to Extract Information from XML in C# Yesterday I talked about using C# to extract information from a simple XML file. Well today we can take it one step further. Instead of using the regular XML library and commands, we can use LINQ to build a query to extract the information we desire, and place it into our object list.

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]]> http://www.peter-urda.com/2010/08/using-linq-to-extract-information-from-xml-in-csharp Extracting Information From XML With C# XML is a wonderful way to store information that needs to be read in by a machine or piece of software. It is simple to follow, and you can use it to store and transmit your custom data structures and information across an internet connection or in between bits of software on a local machine. C# has methods built in that can read and write XML files. So today I have put together a little program that will extract a few objects from an XML file in C# for you to see.

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]]> http://www.peter-urda.com/2010/08/extracting-information-from-xml-with-csharp Lambda Expressions and Delegates in C# In a previous post I discussed chaining C# delegates together. In the source code example, I created a generic DelegateMath class to house a few basic math operations. This time we will replace those functions with simpler and shorter lambda expressions.

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]]> http://www.peter-urda.com/2010/08/lambda-expressions-and-delegates-in-csharp Delegate Chain of Command Another cool thing about delegates is the ability to chain them together. Say for example you have an object modification process, and you need a given object to be manipulated in a very specific order. Well you could use a delegate chain to accomplish that. For a simple example I have written up a C# delegate chain program that evaluates a mathematical expression following the order of operations by using a delegate chain.

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]]> http://www.peter-urda.com/2010/08/delegate-chain-of-command Testing and You Today marked the beginning of my real co-op experience and work tasks here at Mercer. The morning started off with a conference call with dev-team members from China, India, and the rest of us here in Louisville via teleconferencing.  The reason for the meeting was to demo the new features and functionality of the latest release for a Mercer product. Deployment will be occurring later this week, but before that could happen some last minute testing needed to be done. I had the opportunity to get a rundown of the internals of the product, and from there performed testing on a new file manager to check for any missed bugs or problems. Throughout all of this I learned how Mercer developed any project starting from conception, to testing, and final delivery to production. While no single step is an easy task, Mercer’s method produces undeniable results and amazing software.

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]]> http://www.peter-urda.com/2010/08/testing-and-you The Orientation Dance Mercer LogoOn Monday I started my first day of my second co-op with a new employer. I will be working with Mercer, a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies, developing and supporting C# and .NET Mercer applications. The past two days have been filled with standard new hire training and orientation sessions and plenty of reading. However it is the brief product overview and C# introduction sessions I learned the most from.

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]]> http://www.peter-urda.com/2010/08/the-orientation-dance I’ve Never Really Known Anybody to Die Before I have been meaning to post this for some time, while it has been up on my facebook for a while I think it is high time I added it to my blog [imported it from my old Blogger account into my current blog]. Here is my story about a good friend of mine…

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