Tech Ed 2005 - Monday's Technology Highlights

C# 2.0 by Anders Hejlsberg was my favorite session today.  Here are a few points worth noting...

• Generics
• Can be applied at class, struct, interface, delegate, and method level
• When applied at method level, there is no need to specify the type when using.  For example:
  // method declaration using generic
  public void MyMethod<T>(T arg) {// implementation }
  
  // examples of calling method explicitly
  x.MyMethod<int>(5);
  x.MyMethod<string>("Whassup");
  // examples of calling method without type (known as Type Inference)
  x.MyMethod(5);
  x.MyMethod("Whassup");
• To set a Generic to a default initilized state use default(T)where T is the generic
• If casting from a Generic, cast first to object, then to desired type.  For example:
  // t is a variable of a generic type
  int i = (int)(object)t;
• Anonymous Methods
• Here is an example of applying code directly to a click event:
  // code block is provided instead of pointing to System.Eventhandler delegate
  myButton.Click += delegate { MessageBox.Show("Muhahaha!"); };
• Nullable Types
• When the need arises to treat a value type as a null, here is how it can be done with C#:
  // adding the ? to the value type makes it a Nullable Type
  int? i = null;
• Static Classes
• Apply the static keyword to a class to enforce static only members.