About two months ago, we talked about some of the (probable) features we’ll be getting with C# 8.0. The post was well received and generated some buzz, which encouraged me...

Have you ever heard of value objects? I bet you have. Even though they’re talked about a lot less than I’d like, they’re still talked about enough that many developers have...

I first learned about cargo cult programming a few years ago. I remember thinking back then, “What a strange name for a programming-related concept.” If you share my past self’s...

It’s been almost 20 years since Microsoft released the first version of the C# language. From its inception—when some unjustly deemed it a mere Java copycat—until now with the upcoming...

Wait, wait, wait.  Put down the pitchforks and listen for a minute.  You’re probably thinking that I’m about to tout the “virtues” of copy/paste programming or something.  But I assure...

Over the years, one of the things I’ve come to love about the .NET ecosystem is the absolute abundance of tools to help you.  It’s an embarrassment of riches.  I...

Today, I have the unique opportunity to show you the shortest, easiest code sample of all time.  I’m talking about the so-called marker interface.  Want to see it?  Here you...

Assuming you’ve had at least one job working on one or more C# projects, let me paint a familiar picture for you.  I’m talking about your onboarding time with a...

Do you use the singleton pattern?  If not, I’m assuming that you either don’t know what it is or that you deliberately avoid it.  If you do use it, you’re...

NDepend is a tool that helps .NET developers write beautiful code. The project was started in April 2004. It is now used by more than 6 000 companies worldwide. In...

I still remember my first look at C# in the early 2000s.  Microsoft had released the first major version of the language.  I recall thinking that it was Java, except...

In most shops of any size, you’ll find a person that’s just a little too cynical.  I’m a little cynical myself, and we programmers tend to skew that way.  But this...

I’ve written before about making use of NDepend’s dependency graph.  Well, indirectly, anyway.  In that post, I talked about the phenomenon of actual software architecture not matching the pretty diagrams people...

Given that I both consult and do a number of public things (like blogging), I field a lot of questions.  As a result, the subject of code comments comes up...

Committing code involves, in a dramatic sense, two universes colliding.  Firstly, you have the universe of your own work and metaphorical workbench.  You’ve worked for some amount of time on...

For most of my career, software development has, in a very specific way, resembled mailing a letter.  You write the thing, and then you go through the standard mail piece...

When pressed, I bet you can think of an interesting dichotomy in the software world.  On the one hand, we programmers seem an extraordinarily helpful bunch.  You can generally picture...

Recently, I posted about how the new version of NDepend lets you compute tech debt.  In that post, I learned that I had earned a “B” out of the box....

The idea of technical debt has become ubiquitous in our industry.  It started as a metaphor to help business stakeholders understand the compounding cost of shortcuts in the code.  Then,...

For years, I have struggled to articulate technical debt to non-technical stakeholders.  This struggle says something, given that technical debt makes an excellent metaphor in and of itself. The concept...

If you want a surefire way to make money, look for enormous disparity between demand and supply.  As software developers, we understand this implicitly.  When we open our inboxes in...

I’ve worked in the programming industry long enough to remember a less refined time.  During this time, the CIO (or CFO, since IT used to report to the CFO in...

A career in software produces a handful of truly iconic moments.  First, you beam with pride the first time something you wrote works in production.  Then, you recoil in horror...

Stop me if this sounds familiar.  (Well, not literally.  I realize that asynchronous publication makes it hard for you to actually stop me as I type.  Indulge me the figure...

Perhaps more than any other holiday I can think of, New Year’s Day has specific traditions.  With other holidays, they range all over the map.  While Christmas has trees, presents, rotund...

In the past, I’ve talked about the nature of static code analysis.  Specifically, static analysis involves analyzing programs’ source code without actually executing them.  Contrast this with runtime analysis, which...

As I work with more and more organizations, my compiled list of interesting questions grows.  Seriously – I have quite the backlog.  And I don’t mean interesting in the pejorative...

Years ago, when I first downloaded a trial of NDepend, I chuckled when I saw the “Abstractness vs. Instability” graph.  The concept itself does not amuse, obviously.  Rather, the labels...

People frequently ask me questions about code quality.  People also frequently ask me questions about efficiency and productivity.  But it seems we rarely wind up talking about the two together.  How...

I remember my earliest experiences with static analysis.  Probably a decade ago, I started to read about it during grad school and poke around with it at work.  Immediately, I...