Coding

Eat, sleep, code, repeat, amiright? Actually, I hope things in your life are more balanced than that! But if you're looking for coding answers or ideas, you might be in the right place.

TWIL vol.4 (blocklists and APIs, encoding vs encryption, and does AI have an uncanny valley?)

TWIL vol.4 (blocklists and APIs, encoding vs encryption, and does AI have an uncanny valley?)

This week I learned about malicious site blocklists and some APIs that might be interesting to dig into, read up on encoding vs encryption, and pondered whether AI could dip into the uncanny valley.

TWIL vol.3 (.NET Framework limitations, VS2022 and legacy apps, and the default keyword)

TWIL vol.3 (.NET Framework limitations, VS2022 and legacy apps, and the default keyword)

New year, new discoveries... WinForms can be upgraded to .NET; default vs null in C#; VS 2022 won't show the Form designer in legacy apps

Using Tuples and deconstruction to return multiple values in C#

Using Tuples and deconstruction to return multiple values in C#

A big challenge with any language is trying to group and organize things sensibly, and returning multiple values is no exception. Let's check out Tuples and deconstruction, and see how they can help us out.

Turning a BackgroundWorker into a Task with TaskCompletionSource

Turning a BackgroundWorker into a Task with TaskCompletionSource

Sometimes the safer way to "update" old code is to leave it be and paint over it with a newer construct. Let's see how to modernize a BackgroundWorker using Tasks and TaskCompletionSource.

Named arguments in C# - pass what you want and forget the rest

Named arguments in C# - pass what you want and forget the rest

Named arguments in C#.. they've been around a long time, but does anyone use them? Let's check out another feature that helps tame wild code.

Local functions in C# (aka nested methods)

Local functions in C# (aka nested methods)

C# 7 introduced a new tool for the belt - local functions. Let's take a look at what they are, how to use them, and why we might not want to.

Checking for null in C#, using the null-conditional and null-coalescing operators

Checking for null in C#, using the null-conditional and null-coalescing operators

Checking for nulls in C# is tedious, but C# 6 gave us the null-conditional and null-coalescing operators. Let's see how they've improved things.