Using Azure Cosmos persistence with NServiceBus
This post explains how you can use NServiceBus and Azure Cosmos DB persistence together for scalability and reliability.
Posts
Gotchas with switch expression
This post talks about a bug in Rider and Roslyn analyzers when we refactor the switch-case to switch expression with Nullable default type.
Updating Cosmos DB document schema
This post explains the pain-points of updating schema in NoSQL and how you can update Cosmos DB schema using custom JSON serializer.
Custom JSON serialization with Azure Cosmos DB SDK
This post explains how you can use custom JSON serializer settings with Cosmos DB using Newtonsoft JSON and System.Text.Json.
An opinionated way to consistent Error Handling in ASP.NET Core
In this post, I have explained an opinionated way to achieve consistent error handling for your ASP.NET Core through Error response object.
Loading certificate in Azure App Service for Linux
In this post, I have explained how you can load a certificate through code in Azure App Service for Linu
Distributed lock using PostgreSQL
This post talks about why you may need a distributed lock and how you can create a distributed lock using PostgreSQL.
A poor person’s scheduler using .NET Background service
This post explains how can create a simple scheduler using .NET BackgroundService without using external libraries or serverless functions.
JSON:API for .NET developers – Part 1
This post is the first of my new series on JSON:API for .NET developers. JSON:API has been around for a while but has not been widely known in the .NET world.
Passing correlation id across requests
This post describes importance of passing a single correlation id across requests in microservices and how we an achieve this in .NET.
Get the most out of your tests
This post provides tips that can help you write great tests and get the best results from your test suite.
Moving away from Visual Studio to JetBrains Rider
The post describes JetBrains Rider as an alternate to Visual Studio and how Rider can help mitigate some of the Visual Studio pain-points.
C# dynamic is evil, not your friend
This post gives you another reason why to stay away from C# dynamic. It turns the call-site into a late-bound leading to runtime issues.
Implementing inheritance with Enumeration class
The traditional Enum types do not support inheritance. The Enumeration class helps us to get away from the limitation.
Generating client code with NSwag for Enumeration class
This post describes how we can render an Enumeration class as an Enum type in client code with NSwag by implementing Swagger ISchemaFilter.
Enumeration class as query string parameter
In this post, I have explained how you can use an Enumeration class as a query string parameter by creating a custom Model Binder.
Series: Enumeration Classes – DDD and beyond
We typically use Enumeration classes with Domain-Driven Design (DDD). In this series, I will describe how you can use an Enumeration Class beyond DDD.
Enumeration class and JSON Serialization
In this post, I will explain how we can serialize an Enumeration class using a custom JSON Converter for both System.Text.Json and Newtonsoft.Json.
Introduction to Enumeration Classes
This is the first post in the series: Enumeration classes – DDD and beyond. This post gives an introduction to an Enumeration class.
Integrity of Collections in Domain-Driven Design
The post describes the issues with Collection integrity in DDD and how we can use ImmutableList to avoid manipulating collections outside the Domain.
From GitHub to NuGet
This post talks about my journey to publish ASP.NET Core Middleware as a Nuget Package from GitHub repository through GitHub Actions.
Writing better tests with xUnit Theory
This post describes some of the pain-points of xUnit Theory and how we can write more descriptive tests by overriding the test output.
NuGet packages – Our Standards and Defaults
This posts talks about some of the standards and practices we use for our internal NuGet packages in our organization.
.NET Core and DI – Beware of Captive Dependency
The post explains captive dependency. It highlights the potential issues when you do not configure lifetime services correctly.
Client library for your Rest API – Is it worth the pain?
Creating a client library for your Rest service can help your clients consume your Rest API. But is it a silver bullet to every problem?
Our failed attempt at IAsyncEnumerable
C# 8 introduced a great feature of async stream using IAsyncEnumerable. This post talks about potential pitfalls when not using it right.
Adding Default Headers to Swagger (OpenAPI)
Adding Default Headers to Swagger / Open API definition in ASP.NET Core 3.1 application.
ASP.NET Core application against multiple DB Providers
Running an ASP.NET Core application against multiple DB providers – Part 2
Different approaches we considered to set up integration tests when running against multiple DB providers in ASP.NET Core
Running an ASP.NET Core application against multiple DB providers – Part 1
In my previous post, I had talked about how we to ported an existing repository code from Azure SQL to Amazon Aurora. This is a two-series post where I will throw a little bit more light on the intention behind it and what we were trying to achieve. Background We had a small ASP.NET Core solution
Migrating Azure SQL Database to Amazon Aurora
I recently got an opportunity to work on migrating Azure SQL Database to Amazon Aurora. Well, it was not technically a migration since our platform needed to support both Azure SQL and Amazon Aurora. The motivation behind this is perhaps a separate post in itself. For those who have not worked on either of these
Azure SQL to Cosmos DB – Lesson Learnt
We are currently working on a greenfield project which involves building several microservices on Azure. One of our primary services had Azure SQL as its data source originally. But, midway during the development, we decided to switch Cosmos DB instead. One of the main motivations for this switch was that it was too hard to
Migrating Dotnet Foundation website to ASP.NET Core 3.0
I recently migrated the Dotnet Foundation website, https://dotnetfoundation.org/ to ASP.NET Core 3.0. The site was initially built on ASP.NET Core 2.1 and I found this as a good learning opportunity. Migrating from ASP.NET Core 2.1 to 2.2 I had initially raised PR to migrate from ASP.NET Core 2.1 to 2.2 instead of directly going to
Sending message from Azure Functions to NServiceBus receiver
NServiceBus is one of the most widely used service bus in .NET World. It offers features like high performance, scalability, automatic retries, auditing and so-on. NService has an out-of-box support for MSMQ, RabbitMQ, Sql Server, Azure Service Bus, etc. Our organization uses NServiceBus for messaging and workflow. We use Azure Service Bus in test/production and
Productivity Tip – Improve your Visual Studio performance with ReSharper
Visual Studio is my bread and butter. It has played an important role in shaping my career. In the same breath, ReSharper has helped a lot to improve my productivity and make me a better programmer. And I’m sure there are many others like me who use Visual Studio and ReSharper on a daily basis.
C# dynamic – A friend you may want to keep a distance
Recently, after one of my PRs which was merged to master, my teammates started complaining about a weird scenario. On some occasions, the ASP.NET Core app hosted inside the IIS worker process (w3wp.exe), would simply die without any exception/ warning. There were no clear retro-steps and it was difficult to pinpoint what was causing the
SAST Tooling – Part 3: The Winner
Disclaimer: This post is not an endorsement or opposition of any product or tool. Opinions present here is based on our experiences. Please exercise your own independent skill and judgement before you rely on the information in this post. 🙂 This is Part-3 and final part of my blog series on Static Analysis Software Testing
SAST Tooling – Part 2: The selection criteria
Disclaimer: This post is not an endorsement or opposition of any product or tool. Opinions present here is based on our experiences. Please exercise your own independent skill and judgement before you rely on the information in this post. 🙂 This is Part-2 of my blog series on Static Analysis Software Testing (SAST) tooling. In
SAST Tooling – Part 1: Why we ditched Veracode
This post is Part-1 of multi-part series describing our journey to ditch popular Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tool Veracode and our quest for a better security tool. Background Until recently, our organization used Veracode for security analysis for few our applications. Veracode came with a lot of reputation. It is considered a leader in
My first major Open Source contribution
Without a doubt Open Source is great. It has touched the lives of millions of developers and through them almost everyone living on this planet someway or the other. The magic of Open Source For all the power Open Source has given to developers, the sad reality is that only very few people are actually
Team City – Curious case of failed tests but passed build
Recently, I had written a post on how I managed bring down build pipeline for entire organization. While I was at fault during that time, Team City should take the blame for this one. Background I had recently created a CI/CD pipeline for our new .NET Core project. As part of the build pipeline, I
.NET Core – Running Background Worker on IIS
One of the crucial pieces of the new solution that I’m working on is RabbitMQ. For those who have never heard of RabbitMQ, it is one of the most widely used open source message broker. Since our solution is hosted on-premise, RabbitMQ was one of the most natural fit for us. Our entire solution architecture
When I brought down build-pipeline for entire organization
December last year, last week before most of IT staff go on well-deserved vacation, when every team was trying to do one last deployment before code freeze, I brought down build-pipeline for almost every project in the company. Sounds scary? Here’s what happened. How it all started We are mostly a .NET shop and use
My Stack Overflow journey
Stack Overflow does not need an introduction. It is one platform that has helped millions of developers across the world to be a better programmer. It is Google of software development. Maybe even more, because, Google still has competitors, Stack Overflow has none. Recently, I managed to cross 1000 reputation points on Stack Overflow. You
Override appSettings during development – .NET Core
Sometime back, I had written about how to override appSettings during development in traditional ASP.NET application. Recently, we started development of a ASP.NET Core application and had a similar challenge. Our developers work on different operating systems (Windows and Mac). They have different local connection strings and application settings. We had a same problem as
DDD Brisbane – A weekend well spent
This weekend (that is December 1st, 2018, Saturday), I along with a few of my colleagues from the office got an opportunity to attend DDD Brisbane conference. All thanks to my Employer, Youi, which was also the gold sponsor of the event. (We are hiring). If you do not know what is DDD conference is
Journey towards UI tests greatness – Lessons Learnt
A bit of a background I work on a long-running running project in our organization. We have a CI/CD pipeline for our project following the GitHub flow and backed by thousands of unit tests, hundreds of integration tests. However, until recently we were missing a key piece to the puzzle. UI Tests!
Using Visual Studio Team Services to manage my ToDo
I’m quite an unorganized person. I spend most of my time in front of a computer in my office or in meetings. At home, I’m usually busy with my 2-year old or household chores. As a result, my list of ToDo items keeps on growing. And when I do find some time to work on
Test your app across the browsers through BrowserStack
Testing your applications cross-platform and cross-browser is not an easy problem to solve. Supporting different versions, operating systems and devices can be an extremely frustrating and time-consuming process. It can be especially painful if you need to support legacy browsers like IE 9 or IE 8.
Override appSettings during development
It is a fairly common scenario that during development the local machine configuration settings for different developers in are not same and it may not match with the default value in source control. One such example can be SQL server connection string. Some developers may have SQL Express installed, others may have a named instance
Are you doing HTTPS right?
Last year, internet reached an important milestone when it comes to web security. More than half of the websites all over the world are now on HTTPS. As the awareness about HTTPS is rising, more and more organizations and individuals are moving their websites to HTTPS. Certificate authorities like Lets Encrypt which offer free certificates have made
Add security.txt to your website
[sg_popup id=”3″ event=”onload”][/sg_popup] Recently, I came across below tweet from security expert Troy Hunt Google now has a security.txt file – so should you! https://t.co/fXmeNG9Yem https://t.co/drbJQ1Ynw8 — Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) February 3, 2018 The tweet talked about a file named security.txt. I went on reading his post to understand what exactly is security.txt and what problem
Create your presentations with Remark
[sg_popup id=”3″ event=”onload”][/sg_popup]Recently, I came across an interesting tool named Remark (all thanks to my colleague). Remark helps to transform your markdown into a slideshow on a browser. It is very simple and easy to use. To create a presentation with remark all you need to know is a markdown syntax and a little bit HTML/ CSS. It
Lesser Known C# Features – Part 4
This is Part 4 and most likely the last part of my series, lesser-known features of C#. The previous parts of this series are available here: Lesser known C# features – Part 1 Lesser known C# features – Part 2 Lesser known C# features – Part 3
Lesser known C# features – Part 3
This is Part 3 of my series, lesser-known features of C#. The previous parts of this series are available here: Lesser known C# features – Part 1 Lesser known C# – feature – Part 2
Lesser known C# features – Part 2
This is Part 2 of the series, lesser-known features of C# language. I would suggest you to go through Part 1 if you have not already.
Lesser known C# features – Part 1
Language C# has become very powerful and mature over the years. As with any other language, C# also has few features which are used lesser than others. These are useful but often forgotten features. Through a series of blog post, I want to talk to about these lesser known/used features of C#. This is Part 1 of the series.
Who is mining coins at the expense of your CPU?
Recently, I came across this article which cited that there are almost 2500 sites that are running cryptocurrency mining code in the browsers. These sites are using out-of-date software with known security vulnerabilities. This gives control to attackers to add a script to generate digital currency at the expense of user CPU and electricity.
Tools and tricks that can help you code better and faster
Tools and tricks you can use along with Visual Studio to make your life easy as a developer:
What is HSTS and why should I care?
Recently, there was an interesting conversation that happened between security expert Troy Hunt and a leading UK bank, NatWest. It all started when someone on twitter reported about the unsecured landing page of NatWest bank.
Do you know who is using your Wifi?
A few days back, internet at my home was very slow. It took ages to open any webpage. I had found the internet to be slow on earlier occasions as well. But, this time it was just unusable. Out of curiosity, I went to the default gateway of my wireless router. I logged in with
TFS User – Why you need to switch to Git
Not too long ago, TFS and SVN were the only source control I had used. I had a very little experience of distributed source controls like Git. So when I got an opportunity to work on Git on a large scale project for the first time, I had my doubts. But, it did not take
Feature Management with Launch Darkly
In my workplace, our project is set up for Continuous Delivery. We do a production deployment almost daily and sometimes even more than once in a day. Ours is a fairly big solution built primarily on Microsoft technologies and Git as a Source Control. Setting up CI/ CD for your solution is easier said than
Castle Windsor: Change Lifestyle
In my current project, we use Castle Winsdor for Dependency Injection. I must admit before this project I had never used or even heard of it. I have had some love-hate relationship with Castle Windsor , with more hate than love initially. However, over a period of time, I realized that Castle Windsor is probably
MICROSOFT BOT FRAMEWORK – PART 3: Add channels to bots
This is part 3 (and possibly the final) of Microsoft Bot Framework Series. If you have jumped right here, you may want to look into my part 1 and part 2 of my blog. In this post, I will explain how to add different channels to the Microsoft Bot Microsoft Bot Framework provides the option
Microsoft Bot Framework – PART 3: Add channels to bots
This is part 3 (and possibly the final) of Microsoft Bot Framework Series. If you have jumped right here, you may want to look into my part 1 and part 2 of my blog. In this post, I will explain how to add different channels to the Microsoft Bot Microsoft Bot Framework provides the option
Microsoft Bot Framework – Part 2: Publish Bot Service to Azure
This blog post is Part 2 of how to create a chat bot with Microsoft Bot Framework which can answer FAQs on your website. This is in continuation to my previous post where I explained how to create a QnA service using Microsoft QnA service maker. You can read Part 1 of my post here.
Microsoft Bot Framework – Part 1: QnA Service
Recently, we had a hack day in our organization. As part of Hack day, we were given one day to work on our hobby project and demonstrate it to everyone. I took that opportunity to learn more about Microsoft Bot Framework and demonstrate its capability. 6 hours later, I was ready with a prototype of a
One year of Motherhood
Originally posted on Deepika Vijay Blog : “A woman is a soul who carries a soul within her” Motherhood, a special feeling coupled with divine emotions, sharing the strongest bond with your child. But being a mother is not an easy job. It is probably one of the toughest jobs, which comes with new responsibility. Unlike…
Testing in Modern App Development
I’m back to writing blogs after a small break. Things have changed for me personally since, I have made a career move recently. I hope to be more regular going forward. In my new team, we follow Kanban flow. Our application is customer facing and due to nature of our project we need to do a
Visual Studio Team Services = Git/TFS + JIRA + Team City + Octopus
Warning: The content of this post is highly opinionated. Please exercise caution. 🙂 A bit of Background Back in 2012-13, the term Dev-Ops was unheard of in my team. We were still living in dark ages where a developer would developed the code, then write unit test cases more to get the code coverage look good
VS 2017 – Revamped Start Page
When you open VS, the first thing that you notice is the Start Page. In VS 2015 the Start Page provided a useful way to open recent projects, look into tech news. But this is where it stopped. VS 2017 has totally revamped the Start Page experience. It is visually more appealing and offers more options
Visual Studio 2017 – The best IDE ever
Visual Studio 2017 was launched with much fan fare yesterday (March 7, 2017). I started exploring Visual Studio 2017 from RC and I must say, after using VS 2017 I felt I was earlier leaving in stone age. It is so much better. In short the Visual Studio 2017 is equivalent to following: VS 2017
async await best practices
aysnc await is probably one of the most important features of C#. It has made the life of developers easy. It helps developers to write clean code without any callbacks which are messy and difficult to understand.
Clean Visual Studio Solution
Today, every project we work on big or small, easy or complex, small team or large team is probably on Source Control. The source control of course can be git, VSTS, SVN etc. Still, there are times where you need to share your code as zip in an email, or shared link. It could be because
Dispose HttpClient or have a static instance?
Recently, I came across this blog post from ASP.NET Monsters which talks about correct using HttpClient. The post talks about issues of related to disposing HttpClient object for each request. As per the post calling HttpClient as below can lead to issues.
Edit csproj Project file programatically
In my current engagement, we have more than 80 projects in a solution (don’t ask me why :)). Recently, as per quality guidelines, we needed to make few changes to each project. For example: Treat warnings as errors, enable code analysis for each project, sign assembly etc.
Azure Load Balancer on Virtual Machines
Recently, I needed to scale out my web app hosted on Virtual Machine. After a few hiccups and learnings, I was finally able to Load Balance my web app hosted over multiple Virtual Machines. I have tried to document the steps in the form of a blog here. To scale out I used following configuration: Two
Gulp with Visual Studio
Recently, I worked on a ASP.NET 4.6 MVC 5 project which didn’t have anything MVC about it. 🙂 It was a Single Page Application built on TypeScript, Knockout JS, CSS. Now, since it we didn’t have any server side code, we decided to give Gulp a try to concatenate and minify the JS and CSS
Publish Web App to Azure Virtual Machine – Part 2
This post is Part 2 of the series – Publish web app to Azure VM. In this post I will take the application, we created in Part 1 and publish it on Azure Virtual Machine through Visual Studio Team Services.
Publish Web App to Azure Virtual Machine – Part 1
Publish Web App to Azure Virtual Machine Part 1
Set up web app on new Azure Virtual Machines
Setting up a website on classic Azure Virtual Machine is straight forward as in classic Azure VM we have the Endpoints for port 80 and 443 open by default. For each classic Azure VM we also had cloud service created. Hence, if we host a website directly on port 80 or 443 it would work