So recently I was playing with an abstraction for dynamic LINQ queries. The typical usage scenario arises when one needs to search one or more tables with “dynamic” filter patterns. Usually this is one of those intoxicating multiple search criteria (“Advanced Search”) screens. To illustrate my point, let’s work with […]
Design Concepts and Code
54 posts
A question was posed: “If a table is not being used in a relational context, what are the benefits of putting a [clustered] index on the table?” Well, I’d highly recommend reading this article on (1) SQL indexes although it is a bit detailed. The short hand summary is that […]
I’m going to coin the phrase ‘Functional Transparency’ because it fits the definition. I’ve been working with functional transparency in LINQ to SQL for a few weeks now, and it seems to be working well enough to write about. The objective is to implement additional (background) functionality which is not […]
So we all probably know by now that a Linq DataContext object is used for both establishing and accessing SQL Server databases. You might be also aware that to take advantage of Linq to SQL’s functionality, changes must be performed within the scope of a DataContext. This entry will focus […]
Undoubtedly, anyone who has evaluated LINQ to SQL has fond it a fairly powerful yet lightweight ORM technology which is less complex than the ADO Entity Framework yet utilizes the strength and power of Language Integrated Queries. One problem with LINQ to SQL is the auto paging feature of the […]
Hi, so this is the next logical sequence in my series on the ADO Entity Framework. If you read the previous article/entry you would be familiar with the replacement of ugly foreign key data with nice friendly text (or whatever). This time, we’re going to look at how you can […]
Here are some lessons learned from using the Entity Framework and the EntityDataSource provider in ASP.net development. Edit: Hi Everyone, I’ve been getting some traffic on this topic and I realise I’ve only written half the details (there is more to come). Please bare with me and I’ll aim to […]
Whilst partaking in my normal stroll through the Interweb I came across this truly interesting little development from Microsoft Research. Detours from Microsoft Research. How nice! This little development allows you to basically proxy calls from an application to DLLs it loads (by way of interception). Here’s the official blurb: […]
Following up from a series of previous posts, here is the granddaddy summary of all time. One important thing to remember is that a database is not necessarily just a backing data store for an application (in isolation). Other applications and process could eventually require access to the database, especially […]
Doing some background research ahead of Sunday’s presentation. Thought I’d share this little nugget of wisdom: There are three ways to create a SQL Server CE database. 1. Through a Connection Wizard via Visual Studio or SQL Server Management Studio,2. Programatically, using .Net (the SqlCeEngine class), or3. using the CREATE […]
Recently Paul Stovell made reference to this blog post entry by Jared Parsons (no relation to MrAndyPuppy – or M.RandyPuppy as I once misread). The introduction of the implicit type ‘var’ has been somewhat controversial. Some advocate using it by default, and only declaring types where necessary. Others […]
Recently we had a pretty fierce debate internally about the best strategy for data access in architectural design. Predictably, I played middle-of-the-field, “it depends”, but one of my co-workers, Omar Besiso was inspired to write this excellent entry. I’m not going to rehash the same viewpoint I shared last week. […]
Notes taken from the SQL Server Summit in Sydney Australia September, 2008. I/O considerations fall into the acronym: GASP$ – Growth, Availability, Size, Performance and $(Price). See http://www.microsoft.com/SQL/AlwaysOn for more on availability/failover. Core I/O requirement is stable media (drives/disks) and write ordering (preserve the correct order of operations). […]
As with all good data schemas, there’s usually some refactoring as time goes by. This project isn’t immune to the shifting sands of time or perfection, and so today’s second instalment features a schema change. Below is a representation of the schema shift. To summarise, separate Actor/Director tables have been […]
Let’s kick off the Mini Project by examining the database schema. The project involves storing and manipulating data related to movies (in my case, DVDs I own). For this project I am going to concentrate on three key relationships: 1. Movies have at least one director2. Movies have one or […]