More Effective C# 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C#

by Wagner, Bill

• ISBN13: 9780321580184
• ISBN10: 0321580184
• Edition: 1st
• Copyright: 2008-10-07
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Summary

In More Effective C#, Microsoft C# MVP and Regional Director Bill Wagner introduces fifty brand-new ways to write more efficient and more robust software. This all-new book follows the same format as Wagner’s best-selling Effective C# (Addison-Wesley, 2005), providing clear, practical explanations, expert tips, and plenty of realistic code examples.

  

Wagner shows how to make the most of powerful innovations built into Microsoft’s new C# 3.0 and .NET Framework 3.5, as well as advanced C# language capabilities not covered in his previous book. Drawing on his unsurpassed C# experience, the author reveals new best practices for working with LINQ, generics, metaprogramming, and many other features. He also uncovers practices that compromise performance or reliability and shows exactly how to avoid them.

 

More Effective C# shows how to

• Use generics to express your design intent more effectively
• Master advanced generics techniques, such as constraints, method constraints, and generic specialization
• Use the multithreaded techniques you’ll need to work with the .NET framework every day
• Express modern design idioms using the rich palette of C# language features
• Successfully mix object oriented and functional programming constructs
• Create composable interfaces and avoid confusion in public interfaces
• Use extension methods to separate contracts from implementation
• Program successfully with C# closures and anonymous types
• Write more effective LINQ queries
• Make the most of LINQ Lazy Evaluation Queries and Lambda Expressions
• Distinguish and convert between delegates and expression trees
• Efficiently utilize nullable types and partial classes
• Use implicit properties for mutable, nonserializable data

You’re already a successful C# programmer—this book can help you become an outstanding one.

Author Biography

Bill Wagner, cofounder of SRT Solutions, has developed commercial software for more than twenty years and led design for many successful engineering and enterprise Microsoft Windows products. He has been a Microsoft Regional Director since 2003 and a Microsoft MVP for C# since 2005. Wagner consults routinely with the C# team on new features for forthcoming versions of C#. He has a regular column in Visual Studio Magazine and speaks frequently at conferences and user groups. His tutorials and advanced essays have appeared in MSDN Magazine, MSDN Online, .NET Insight, .NET DJ, and the MSDN C# Team Developer Center. Wagner is also the author of the best-selling Effective C# (Addison-Wesley, 2005).

Table of Contents

Introduction xiii

 

Chapter 1: Working with Generics 1

Item 1: Use Generic Replacements of 1.x Framework API Classes 4

Item 2: Define Constraints That Are Minimal and Sufficient 14

Item 3: Specialize Generic Algorithms Using Runtime Type Checking 19

Item 4: Use Generics to Force Compile-Time Type Inference 26

Item 5: Ensure That Your Generic Classes Support Disposable Type Parameters 32

Item 6: Use Delegates to Define Method Constraints on Type Parameters 36

Item 7: Do Not Create Generic Specialization on Base Classes or Interfaces 42

Item 8: Prefer Generic Methods Unless Type Parameters Are Instance Fields 46

Item 9: Prefer Generic Tuples to Output and Ref Parameters 50

Item 10: Implement Classic Interfaces in Addition to Generic Interfaces 56

 

Chapter 2: Multithreading in C# 63

Item 11: Use the Thread Pool Instead of Creating Threads 67

Item 12: Use BackgroundWorker for Cross-Thread Communication 74

Item 13: Use lock() as Your First Choice for Synchronization 78

Item 14: Use the Smallest Possible Scope for Lock Handles 86

Item 15: Avoid Calling Unknown Code in Locked Sections 90

Item 16: Understand Cross-Thread Calls in Windows Forms and WPF 93

 

Chapter 3: C# Design Practices 105

Item 17: Create Composable APIs for Sequences 105

Item 18: Decouple Iterations from Actions, Predicates, and Functions 112

Item 19: Generate Sequence Items as Requested 117

Item 20: Loosen Coupling by Using Function Parameters 120

Item 21: Create Method Groups That Are Clear, Minimal, and Complete 127

Item 22: Prefer Defining Methods to Overloading Operators 134

Item 23: Understand How Events Increase Runtime Coupling Among Objects 137

Item 24: Declare Only Nonvirtual Events 139

Item 25: Use Exceptions to Report Method Contract Failures 146

Item 26: Ensure That Properties Behave Like Data 150

Item 27: Distinguish Between Inheritance and Composition 156

 

Chapter 4: C# 3.0 Language Enhancements 163

Item 28: Augment Minimal Interface Contracts with Extension Methods 163

Item 29: Enhance Constructed Types with Extension Methods 167

Item 30: Prefer Implicitly Typed Local Variables 169

Item 31: Limit Type Scope by Using Anonymous Types 176

Item 32: Create Composable APIs for External Components 180

Item 33: Avoid Modifying Bound Variables 185

Item 34: Define Local Functions on Anonymous Types 191

Item 35: Never Overload Extension Methods 196

 

Chapter 5: Working with LINQ 201

Item 36: Understand How Query Expressions Map to Method Calls 201

Item 37: Prefer Lazy Evaluation Queries 213

Item 38: Prefer Lambda Expressions to Methods 218

Item 39: Avoid Throwing Exceptions in Functions and Actions 222

Item 40: Distinguish Early from Deferred Execution 225

Item 41: Avoid Capturing Expensive Resources 229

Item 42: Distinguish Between IEnumerable and IQueryable Data Sources 242

Item 43: Use Single() and First() to Enforce Semantic Expectations on Queries 247

Item 44: Prefer Storing Expression<> to Func<> 249

 

Chapter 6: Miscellaneous 255

Item 45: Minimize the Visibility of Nullable Values 255

Item 46: Give Partial Classes Partial Methods for Constructors, Mutators, and Event Handlers 261

Item 47: Limit Array Parameters to Params Arrays 266

Item 48: Avoid Calling Virtual Functions in Constructors 271

Item 49: Consider Weak References for Large Objects 274

Item 50: Prefer Implicit Properties for Mutable, Nonserializable Data 277

 

Index 283