Category: Development

I’m not as active as some of the other MVPs but I spend a fair amount of time answering questions on newsgroups and forums. If you use these resources, here are some tips that will help get your questions answered faster. Do some research before you ask.After posting a question you need to go back… Continue reading Newsgroup or Forum Posting Tips →

Question:I have a string that holds the name of a value from an enumeration. How do I “cast“ that to the actual enumeration type? Answer:You can use the Parse method of the Enum class to do this conversion for you. Some sample VB code is shown below. Dim dr As DialogResultdr = CType([Enum].Parse(GetType(DialogResult), “Cancel”), DialogResult)MsgBox(dr.ToString)

I’m concerned with the number of developers I meet who really don’t understand the garbage collection mechanism in .NET. I think this is an extremely important topic because not knowing how object lifetimes are managed will have a negative effect on every .NET application you write! Are you familiar with the Dispose method? Did you… Continue reading Garbage Collection, Finalizers and Dispose →