Pro .NET Best Practices

Pro .NET Best Practices is a practical reference to the best practices that you can apply to your .NET projects today. You will learn standards, techniques, and conventions that are sharply focused, realistic and helpful for achieving results, steering clear of unproven, idealistic, and impractical recommendations.

Pro .NET Best Practices covers a broad range of practices and principles that development experts agree are the right ways to develop software, which includes continuous integration, automated testing, automated deployment, and code analysis. Whether the solution is from a free and open source or a commercial offering, you will learn how to get a continuous integration server running and executing builds every time code changes. You will write clearer and more maintainable automated testing code that focuses on prevention and helping your .NET project succeed. By learning and following the .NET best practices in this book, you will avoid making the same mistakes once.

With this book at your side, you’ll get:

• Real-world, no-nonsense approaches to continuous integration, automated testing, automated deployment, and code analysis
• Tips and tricks you’ll need to clear hurdles that keep others from putting these common sense ideas into common practice
• Guidance from the minimal, essential approach all the way to what’s necessary to deliver at the highest levels of quality and effectiveness

Benefit immediately, even before finishing it, from the knowledge, workable advice, and experience found in Pro .NET Best Practices.

What you’ll learn

• How to set up a continuous integration server that executes builds every time code changes
• How to create automated tests that are easier to write, easier to maintain, and focused on making sure the code-under-test works the way it’s intended to work
• How to write a common automated deployment script that deploys to all target environments
• How to perform meaningful code analysis that gives the kind of information you can take action upon
• Why some best practices, which were once fresh, are now stale; avoid this trap by following best practices grounded in correct principles that endure
• How to gain support for following best practices from all project stakeholders by recognizing and overcoming biases, highlighting gaps, and demonstrating value

Who this book is for

Pro .NET Best Practices is for the .NET developer who is ready to learn realistic, practicable, and truly helpful best practices. It’s for the .NET developer who wants to take the initiative and get started following best practices today, quickly producing results. It’s for .NET developers who want to stay away from practices that only have theoretical benefits and move toward ones with real value, especially within a skeptical project environment. It’s for the technical lead who has seen best practices get started only to fall out of practice, and wants to understand what goes wrong and how to implement suitable best practices likely to be followed by project teams.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Ruthlessly Helpful
Chapter 2. .NET Practice Areas
Chapter 3. Achieving Desired Results
Chapter 4. Quantifying Value
Chapter 5. Strategy
Chapter 6. .NET Rules and Regulations
Chapter 7. Powerful C# Constructs
Chapter 8. Automated Testing
Chapter 9. Build Automation
Chapter 10. Continuous Integration
Chapter 11. Code Analysis
Chapter 12. Test Frameworks
Chapter 13. Aversions and Biases

Appendix A: Resources
Appendix B: Scorecard