MSDN Killed my using directive

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2008 Sep 23

MSDN Killed my using directive

tagged as: miscellanea | c#

I'm now sitting in a certain lecture by a well known MS speaker.

The title is "ASP.NET Hidden Gems", but that's not the point.

During the presentation the dude is showing nice things like Custom Build Providers, Custom Expression Builders, Virtual Path Provider (that's a nice one), Session State Partitioning (nice), and other stuff.

This is all great and cool and nice and blah blah blah.

However, now he's just showed how he's using a CustomBuildProvider to "make data access more efficient", by setting a custom build provider for data-set xsd files, creating cleaner Data objects instead of TypedDataSets.

That's a very nice thing.

However, his demo code, splashed over two 100" mega screens, included a use of SqlConnection and DataReaders, without using "using".

heck, he didn't even dispose the objects on "finally".

I mean - WTF?

That's the reason I hate DEMO codes. People in the crowd is looking at that, and then they go ahead and write the same code in their day job. And then I get called in to fix it.

Was it so difficult for the guy to write better code? heck, the "using" keyword would have eliminated at least 4 lines from the demo, so it would even be more presentable.

I simply don't get it.

Comments[7], Comments feed

Comments:

Vlad Azarkhin Said:

Ken,
don't be so harsh on him. He is a great speaker, and the lectures were great. But I guess he's more speaker than a real-life developer. We might email him with suggestion to modify the code to suit real-life situations.

Anyway, I've enjoyed the show very much, haven't you?

03:11PM Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008

Damien Guard Said:

Poor demo code really bugs me, the other culprits are leaky event handling and HTML or SQL injection.

"Oh, but it's just demo code" is the normal retort but yes, they just don't get it. People learn from demo code and go and do exactly the same thing.

[)amien

03:24PM Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008

Tom Opgenorth Said:

"...write the same code in their day job. And then I get called in to fix it."

Remember: If you're not a part of the solution, there is good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

:)

03:51PM Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008

Ken Egozi Said:

@Vlad - He's a great speaker, and surely knows what he's talking about. That's why I was so annoyed by than thing. As people to take him seriously. It's not like a silly fart like myself with my poor 300~ readers was on that stage. With power comes responsibility.

That said, the talks were great, I enjoyed them a lot and learned quite a few things during.

@[)amian:
Yeah I got really tired with people asking Data Access questions in user groups and forums, and posting their

"WHERE X = '" + StopTheHackers(parameter) + "' ..."

code there. What's so difficult with using IDataParameters? If only someone from the inside of (let's say Linq2Sql) was able to push toward easier ways to set parameters on IDbCommands in future ADO.NET ...

@Tom:
Well, you know, I'd rather fix actual problems.
geez, now I've just reminded how once I had to deal with an asp.net site that had that:

public static class DB
{
    public static SqlConnection DbConnection1;
    public static SqlConnection DbConnection2;
    public static SqlConnection DbConnection3;
    static DB()
    {
       DbConnection1 = new SqlConnection(constr);
       DbConnection2 = new SqlConnection(constr);
       DbConnection3 = new SqlConnection(constr);
       DbConnection1.Open();
       DbConnection2.Open();
       DbConnection3.Open();
    }
}

seriously.

And then there were many things going on with running on an open DataReader, calling a second ExecuteReader on a second connections, and sometimes even nesting to a third level.

pppfffffffffffttttttttttt

06:00PM Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008

Gauthier Segay Said:

"two 100 mega screens"

LOL I exactly see what you mean

let's add 100 mega CSS (or worse), and 100 mega code behind, yes it's disgusting...

12:11AM Thursday, Sep 25, 2008

spiritus asper Said:

he simply tried to clarify the subject the lecture was about. There is no real need to add some messy code that can easily hide the real "point" of what the lecture is about.
What I mean is, if I'm going to give a lecture name"Console.WriteLine in depth", there is no real need for me to write to a log file using log4net in the middle of the demo, or for example attempt to catch and handle global exceptions... it will just blur out the real subject of the lecture, and get people's mind out of the main idea. That's all...

12:28PM Friday, Sep 26, 2008

Ken Egozi Said:

@Spiritus: This is definitely not the case. As I mentioned, using a "using" directive would have made the code even shorter and cleaner to view. I'm sorry, but there's just no good excuse. It's like a professional basketball player who coaches, would never run with the ball in his hands, even if he's demonstrating passes and not dribbling. Good coding techniques are supposed to be second nature for developers, and it should hurt one's eye when he looks at sloppy code.

Comments:

Vlad Azarkhin Said:

03:11PM Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008

Damien Guard Said:

03:24PM Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008

Tom Opgenorth Said:

03:51PM Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008

Ken Egozi Said:

06:00PM Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008

Gauthier Segay Said:

12:11AM Thursday, Sep 25, 2008

spiritus asper Said:

12:28PM Friday, Sep 26, 2008

Ken Egozi Said:

11:28PM Friday, Sep 26, 2008

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