Timothy Khouri - SingingEels.com

New Article: Extending LINQ - Specifying a Property in the Distinct Function

Nullable — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:20:00 GMT

For those of you who are already comfortable with LINQ, you've probably run into this same limitation with the "Distinct" function... check out the article (and source), it's a fun way to solve a common problem: Extending LINQ - Specifying a Property in the Distinct Function

New Article: Creating a Custom View Engine in ASP.NET MVC

Nullable — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:13:00 GMT

I love how pluggable ASP.NET MVC is... this last article was fun, and I'm half tempted to start coding in HoTMeaT!

Here's a snippet of the good stuff:

<ul>
<listView source="{ViewData People}">
<itemTemplate>
<li>{Binding LastName}, {Binding FirstName}</li>
</itemTemplate>
</listView>
</ul>

And here's the HTML that it generates:

<ul>
<li>Khouri, Timothy</li>
<li>Carter, Jonathan</li>
<li>Sheppard, Travis</li>
</ul>

Here's the full article: Creating a Custom View Engine in ASP.NET MVC

New Article: Silverlight DataBinding Basics

Nullable — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:42:00 GMT

It's been a little while since I've written an article. My excuses are a new job, and StackOverflow :)

I've been getting heavily into WPF lately, and it reminded me that I have been neglecting Silverlight on SingingEels... so here's the latest article: Silverlight DataBinding Basics

New Article: Model Binders in ASP.NET MVC - Part 2

Nullable — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:41:00 GMT

I normally don't do a "Part 2", but the first article seemed to cause some concerns to many people. The concerns aren't valid, which is why I felt in necessary to address them. The issues stemmed around RESTful URLs, comparing ModelBinders to the ViewState and accessing the database from a ModelBinder. Here's the article: Model Binders in ASP.NET MVC - Part 2

New Article: Test Driven Development with ASP.NET MVC

Nullable — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:06:00 GMT

This passed Saturday, I had got to do a couple of sessions at the first anual South West Florida Code Camp on ASP.NET MVC... part of that presentation was about TDD, and unit tests with MVC in general. I've written this article (Test Driven Development with ASP.NET MVC) now for the rest of the world who wasn't their to hear my mediocre words!

Requesting Your Input : A slight change to MVC

Nullable — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:50:00 GMT

Nothing major, but I'm looking for any input for or against (with specific reasoning would be great) this thought: A Change to the MVC "ActionSelectionAttribute"?

Thanks,
-Timothy

New Article: Model Binders in ASP.NET MVC

Nullable — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:42:00 GMT

Article Teaser: Hot off the presses, and new to ASP.NET MVC (Preview 5) is an awesome capability that (in my opinion) revolutionizes the way we design web applications. This feature is being touted (by me) as "the ViewState for MVC".

Model Binders in ASP.NET MVC

On a side note: MVC is getting really exciting. I'll be speaking at the Naples, FL code camp in a couple of weeks on the subject (whic is currently my passion). Hopefully all will go well.

New Article: Logging with ASP.NET MVC Action Filters

Nullable — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:25:00 GMT

I know I've said this 100 times at this point, but I'm in love with MVC. If you've read other MVC articles, but you're not really feeling it, then I suggest (and hope) you check out this one: Logging with ASP.NET MVC Action Filters

Action Filters aren't complicated, but the power they provide is clear to see. To think that this is only "preview 4" (meaning, it's not even a beta yet) is pretty amazing. My hat is off to Phil Haack for this one.

Requesting Your Opinion on an MVC Topic

Nullable — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:54:00 GMT

Hey all developers out there who are getting into ASP.NET MVC (or have been using the MVC design pattern for a while). Just a couple of days ago, Stephen Walther posted on a topic near and dear to my heart regarding MVC and how to address the issue of getting supplemental data for a View while not violating the MVC design pattern.

I've posted a follow up to his post, and I'd like your opinion on it (if you feel strongly about the subject that is). I'm not looking for general comments (though always welcome), but more for ideas and opinions directly about the subject.

My reply post is here: How to Handle "Side Content" in ASP.NET MVC

Stephen's original post is here: ASP.NET MVC Tip #31 – Passing Data to Master Pages and User Controls

I commented on this topic a while ago in an article (ASP.NET MVC in the Real World), but I didn't go into it as much in depth as I just did in that blog post.

Thanks,
-Timothy

New Article: Building Custom ASP.NET MVC Controls

Nullable — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 23:44:00 GMT

I'm very excited about this article, because I'm very excited about ASP.NET MVC... At first, it didn't make sense to me, I didn't like it and I thought it strange that Microsoft was going this route. Now, I don't see myself going back :)

Here's the 'teaser text' for the article:

"Most .NET web developers have built at least one custom control (or user control) in their time. But MVC is a completely different beast. There's no ViewState, Page Life-Cycle, no code behind (not the way you think of it). In this article, we'll see how to create 'custom controls' in ASP.NET MVC."

Tell me what you think: Building Custom ASP.NET MVC Controls

New Article: AJAX Panels with ASP.NET MVC

Nullable — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:15:00 GMT

There are a few blog posts out there mentioning that there is AJAX support in MVC Preview 4, but there's not a lot of "here is a real benefit to you" posts out there. So, I just finished writing this article: AJAX Panels with ASP.NET MVC - which shows concrete benefits and how to impliment it with MVC AJAX.

Enjoy! (I hope)

A "Fluent Interface" to XML!

Nullable — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:34:00 GMT

I've been getting into this kick on fluent interfaces, and recently posted a blog post about fluent interfaces using XML as an example. Here's a snippet from my post:

string result = FluentInterfaceForXml
.Element("root")
.WithNode("person")
.WithAttribute("firstName", "Timothy")
.WithAttribute("lastName", "Khouri")

It makes me wonder if Microsoft will start developing fluent interfaces for some of their existing technologies? (possibly in a seperate DLL like Enterprise Library). Do any of you developers out there see yourslef writing your own alternate API's in this sort of "human language-esq", method-chaining style?

Check out the blog post - I've included a screen shot of the results and the full source code for the project to show how I did it: http://www.singingeels.com/Blogs/Nullable/2008/07/18/Fluent_Interfaces_to_XML_My_Example_of_Fluent_Interfaces.aspx

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 - Bug with Image Source

Nullable — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:23:00 GMT

I typically don't like to 'double post', but I want this bug fixed, so I'm posting here in hopes that someone on the SL dev team sees this :)

The bug isn't critical in magnitude, but it should be very easy to fix: Silverlight 2 Beta 2 - Image Source Bug With QueryString Parameters

New Article: ASP.NET MVC in the Real World

Nullable — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:28:00 GMT

I just finished writing, and I'm dead tired... so I really hope the article flows: ASP.NET MVC in the Real World. Here's the abstract for anyone who's interested: MVC (the "model view control" pattern) isn't new, but it is new to ASP.NET. If you're like me, you may have been impressed by a demo, but you've probably thought "how does this work in the real world?" I hope to answer that question in this article.

Please let me know what you think!

New Article: Images as a Service with ADO.NET Data Services

Nullable — Sun, 18 May 2008 02:01:00 GMT

For those of you who have already put your feet into the waters of .NET 3.5 SP1, you have probably seen some amazing things with ADO.NET Data Services coupled to the Entity Framework. But that coupling may lead to blindness. Allow me to explain.

[continue to article: Images as a Service with ADO.NET Data Services]