My favourite tools
I remember writing my first mobile app for the Psion Series II, it started my passion for mobile devices. So it was no surprise to the family when I started writing apps for the iPhone all the way back in 2009. There were countless hours spent reading documentation, trying to get things to compile, and … Read more
I’ve written before about the amazing power of CodeRush and why I prefer it over other tools. A lot of people still ask me what its all about, what are the things that keep popping up on their IDE? Well, On October 1, Mark Miller (Chief Scientist IDE Team and all round cool guy!) and … Read more
I was answering posts in a community forum on the weekend when I came across an entry asking for help to build a data grid. The requirement was complex. The poster had expressed at the time that the functionality needed was available in a 3rd party control, but did not want to spend the money … Read more
Normally when I need to present a complex lookup I would spawn a new form have the user select a row from a carefully crafted UI and return the single value result back to a combo style element on my main form. When less complicated lookup’s are required a drop down list with concatenated fields … Read more
Ok, it was a simple enough feature to add. A viewer that would allow PDF’s to be shown on screen. Already in my toolkit I had the SyncFusion control, but after a couple of quick tests I found the speed to be woeful and thus started the painful process of looking for a control to … Read more
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I mention reporting? Crystal? ActiveReports? I have used these and others on numerous projects, but then I learnt about Developer Express XtraReports, lets see if XtraReports can make it into the 100% DX range… For a full run down on all the cool things you … Read more
The debate as to CodeRush or ReSharper has been undertaken by many people of the years, in fact prior to writing this post, I read through a number of older comparisons which put forth good arguments for both camps. For me, it is part of the 100% DX campaign. For years I was an avid … Read more
Over the coming months I will be writing a series of articles on the benefits of the DevExpress range of products, and to see if it is possible to use one 3rd party set of components to deliver real world business solutions. In my post “What’s in your toolbox” I noted that my favourite grid … Read more
As a developer there has to be a balance between writing new code and reinventing the wheel. There are a lot of companies writing components for the .Net environment, all trying to grab your attention, all offering faster easier ways to develop your application while promising to deliver .Net, MVC, WPF, WCF and custom frameworks. … Read more
As a developer constantly striving to improve my skills and my efficiency, I am always interested to see what tools other people are using and why. Just spend 10 minutes watching another developer work on something and you are bound to pick up some new ideas. Watch that same developer for 30 minutes and you … Read more