Installing Jenkins on Windows

Jenkins is an open source continuous integration (CI) tool written in Java.

Auto sacalling

Auto Scaling

AWS resources, such as EC2 instances, are housed in highly-available data centers. To provide additional scalability and reliability, these data centers are in different physical locations. Regions are large and widely dispersed geographic locations. Each region contains multiple distinct locations, called Availability Zones, that are engineered to be isolated from failures in other Availability Zones and provide inexpensive, low-latency network connectivity to other Availability Zones in the same region. Auto Scaling enables you to take advantage of the safety and reliability of geographic redundancy by spanning Auto Scaling groups across multiple Availability Zones within a region. When one Availability Zone becomes unhealthy or unavailable, Auto Scaling launches new instances in an unaffected Availability Zone. When the unhealthy Availability Zone returns to a healthy state, Auto Scaling automatically redistributes the application instances evenly across all of the designated Availability Zones.

You can add new instances to the application only when necessary, and terminate them when they're no longer needed. And because Auto Scaling uses EC2 instances, you only have to pay for the instances you use, when you use them. You now have a cost-effective architecture that provides the best customer experience while minimizing expenses.

An Auto Scaling group can contain EC2 instances in one or more Availability Zones within the same region. However, Auto Scaling groups cannot span multiple regions.

Web App Architecture

In a common web app scenario, you run multiple copies of your app simultaneously to cover the volume of your customer traffic. These multiple copies of your application are hosted on identical EC2 instances (cloud servers), each handling customer requests.

You can create as many Auto Scaling groups as you need. For example, you can create an Auto Scaling group for each tier.Auto Scaling manages the launch and termination of these EC2 instances on your behalf. You define a set of criteria (such as an Amazon CloudWatch alarm) that determines when the Auto Scaling group launches or terminates EC2 instances. Adding Auto Scaling groups to your network architecture can help you make your application more highly available and fault tolerant.

To distribute traffic between the instances in your Auto Scaling groups, you can introduce a load balancer into your architecture.

Instance Distribution

Auto Scaling attempts to distribute instances evenly between the Availability Zones that are enabled for your Auto Scaling group. Auto Scaling does this by attempting to launch new instances in the Availability Zone with the fewest instances. If the attempt fails, however, Auto Scaling attempts to launch the instances in another Availability Zone until it succeeds. For each instance that Auto Scaling launches in a VPC, it selects a subnet from the Availability Zone at random.

Benefits of Auto Scaling

Adding Auto Scaling to your application architecture is one way to maximize the benefits of the AWS cloud. When you use Auto Scaling, your applications gain the following benefits:

• Better fault tolerance.- Auto Scaling can detect when an instance is unhealthy, terminate it, and launch an instance to replace it.
• Better availability. You can configure Auto Scaling to use multiple Availability Zones. If one Availability Zone becomes unavailable, Auto Scaling can launch instances in another one to compensate.
• Better cost management. Auto Scaling can dynamically increase and decrease capacity as needed. Because you pay for the EC2 instances you use, you save money by launching instances when they are actually needed and terminating them when they aren't needed.

Using DYNAMO DB LOCAL to Node project

To install DynamoDB locally on Windows 7

DynamoDB Local supports the Java Runtime Engine (JRE) version 6.x or newer;
it will not run on older JRE versions.You can download using following link.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index-jsp-138363.html

Go to following link to download dynamo db jar file:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/Tools.DynamoDBLocal.html


Once you have downloaded the archive to your computer, extract the contents and
copy the extracted directory to C:\ drive.


Open a command prompt window, navigate to the downloaded directory where you will find DynamoDBLocal.jar, and enter the following command:

java -Djava.library.path=./DynamoDBLocal_lib -jar DynamoDBLocal.jar -sharedDb

or

java -Djava.library.path=. -jar DynamoDBLocal.jar

Now we’re ready to use our local DynamoDB 

2013-09-29 12:11:38.530:INFO:oejs.Server:jetty-8.y.z-SNAPSHOT<br/>
2013-09-29 12:11:38.618:INFO:oejs.AbstractConnector:Started <br/>
SelectChannelConnector@0.0.0.0:8000

JavaScript Shell for DynamoDB Local

The JavaScript Shell for DynamoDB Local can help jump-start your usage of DynamoDB, all within an interactive, hands-on environment. The JavaScript Shell is bundled with DynamoDB Local, and provides an easy-to-use environment for prototyping and application development.

• Its supports latest version of DynamoDB Local, to run it on your computer while you up and running the Dynamo DB Local server open a web browser on your computer and go to the following URL:http://localhost:8000/shell

Install asw-sdk for node

The preferred way to install the AWS SDK for Node.js is to use the npm package manager for Node.js. Simply open the cmd window inside project folder and type the following 

npm install aws-sdk

You can also use Bower to install the SDK by typing the following into a terminal window

bower install aws-sdk-js

Create a js file and define configuration

  var AWS = require('aws-sdk');

For work with Local DynamoDB define endpoint will be "http://localhost:8000"

var databaseConfig = {"endpoint": new AWS.Endpoint("http://localhost:8000")};

var dynamoDB = new AWS.DynamoDB(databaseConfig);

To Connect with Local DynamoDB, we need provide dummy entries for required fields(accessKey, Secret and Region).

var dynamoDBConfiguration = {

    "accessKeyId": "xxxxxxxxxxxxx",

    "secretAccessKey": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",

    "region": "eu-west-1"

  };

Later on to Connect with AWS DynamoDB Service place actual accessKey, Secret and Region.

provide your configurations.

AWS.config.update(dynamoDBConfiguration);

Now you can start use it locally.

Creating  a Google map by fetching data from the MS SQL


 Using one of Google JavaScript API function. There are many articles on  the Google Maps JavaScript API works. However, there was no article I found which pulls series of co-ordinates from a database or datatable and plots a continuous path on the run. I have explained in steps how to do the same as below:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Data;

/// <summary>
/// Summary description for GPSLib
/// </summary>
public static class GPSLib
{
    public static String PlotGPSPoints(DataTable tblPoints)
    {
        try
        {

            String Locations = "";
            String sJScript = "";
            int i = 0;
            foreach (DataRow r in tblPoints.Rows)
            {
                // bypass empty rows
                if (r["Latitude"].ToString().Trim().Length == 0)
                    continue;

                string Latitude = r["Latitude"].ToString();
                string Longitude = r["Logitude"].ToString();


                // create a line of JavaScript for marker on map for this record
                Locations += Environment.NewLine + @" path.push(new google.maps.LatLng(" + Latitude + ", " + Longitude + @"));
                       
                var marker" + i.ToString() + @" = new google.maps.Marker({
                                                       position: new google.maps.LatLng(" + Latitude + ", " + Longitude + @"),
                                                       title: '#' + path.getLength(),
                                                       map: map
                                                       });

                                                       infowindow.open(map,marker" + i.ToString() + @");
                                                       google.maps.event.addListener(marker" + i.ToString() + @", 'click', function() {
                                                        infowindow.open(map,marker" + i.ToString() + @");
                                                      }); ";

                i++;


            }


            // construct the final script
            sJScript = @"<script type='text/javascript'>
            var poly;
            var map;

        function initialize() {
                var cmloc = new google.maps.LatLng(18.964700,72.825800);
             
            var myOptions = {
                    zoom: 9,
                    center: cmloc,
                    mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.HYBRID
                };

         
            var infoWindow = new google.maps.InfoWindow();
            map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('map_canvas'), myOptions);

            var infowindow = new google.maps.InfoWindow({
              content: ('Latitude:' +document.getElementById('Latitude')+'<br>Logitude'+document.getElementById('Longitude'))
              });

            var polyOptions = {
                    strokeColor: 'blue',
                    strokeOpacity: 0.5,
                    strokeWeight: 3,
                    fillcolor:'blue',
                    fillOpacity:0.4          
                 
                }
                poly = new google.maps.Polygon(polyOptions);
                poly.setMap(map);
           

                var path = poly.getPath();
                  " + Locations + @"
        }
                </script>";
            return sJScript;
        }


        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw ex;
        }
    }
}

Create a predefined format   dynamically for a Excel sheet & display the data by  fetching data from the MSSQL database. 

This coding is use to generate a Environmental  Impact  Assessment Report  for Leopold  Matrix.

Here  this report has predefine format and data are varies according to the available details for particular project.Assesment is generate using MSExel according to the client request.

Leopold Environmental Assement  format:

Sum of the main components total weighted averages should equals to 1.

•     First you have to import Excel Library to as project reference.

Ceate 3 objects called,

        Excel.Application oXL;   //Create an object for micrsoft Excel application.

        Excel._Workbook oWB;     //Create an object for set of Excel Sheets.

        Excel._Worksheet oSheet; //Create an object for 1 Excel sheet.

            oXL = new Excel.Application();

            oXL.Visible = true;

            //Get a new workbook.

            oWB = (Excel._Workbook)(oXL.Workbooks.Add());

            //Get a new worksheet.

            oSheet = (Excel._Worksheet)oWB.ActiveSheet;

// ---- Header Row ---

You can customize the excel sheet by creating borders,          

•  To customize cell value in excel sheet use

                      Cells[Row index ,Column index]

Ex-:

          oSheet.Cells[3, 1] = "Category";

• To custmize a cell, directly pass cell name to

    range(cell name) function

Ex-:

            oSheet.get_Range("A3").ColumnWidth = 15;

            oSheet.get_Range("A3").Borders.Weight = 1;

            oSheet.get_Range("A3").Borders.LineStyle = 6;

•   You can merge set  of cells,

To custmize a cell directly pass range of cell indexes to

          get_Range(From cell index,To cell index) function

EX-:

oSheet.get_Range(Start cell name, End cell name).Merge();                                              oSheet.get_Range("A3", "D3").Font.Bold = true;            oSheet.get_Range("A3", "D3").VerticalAlignment = VerticalAlignment.Center;

•   Get the values to the list by calling the stored procedure  ”Get Leopold Activities”

  Stored Procedure ”Get Leopold Activities”

ALTER proc [dbo].[Get_Leopold_Activities]

(

      @proj_reference as varchar (10)

)

AS

BEGIN

SELECT DISTINCT

        A.actv_reference

      , A.actv_name

      , A.actv_phase , A.actv_id   

FROM  LeopoldMatrixValues AS L

INNER JOIN Projects AS P ON L.proj_reference = P.proj_reference

INNER JOIN Impacts AS I ON L.impt_reference = I.impt_reference

INNER JOIN Components AS C ON I.impt_component = C.cmpt_reference

INNER JOIN Activities AS A ON L.actv_reference = A.actv_reference

WHERE P.proj_reference = @proj_reference

ORDER BY A.actv_phase , A.actv_id , A.actv_reference,A.actv_name 

END

•          Store the values to the list by passing project reference to the stored procedure.

List<Get_Leopold_Activities_Result> lstActivities = ObjProjctsFunc.GetLeopoldActivities(labelProjrefrnceGenrated.Content.ToString());

•          Retrieve the data inside the list to the excel Sheet.

            // --- MATRIX DATA ----

string startColName, endColName;

int startColNo, endColNo;

    foreach (Get_Leopold_Activities_Result oRstAct in lstActivities)

                {

                  endColNo = startColNo + 1;

                  endColName = GetColName(endColNo) + rowNo;

       

•    Numeric values get from the MS SQL assign to the excel sheet.

var filter = (from i in lstMatrice

  where i.actv_reference == oRstAct.actv_reference && i.impt_reference ==             oRstImpacts.impt_reference

              select i).ToList();

               

    if (filter.Count() > 0)

                    {

                        oSheet.Cells[rowNo, z] = filter[0].mtrx_magnitude;

                        oSheet.Cells[rowNo + 1, z + 1] = filter[0].mtrx_importance;

   Total = Total + (int)(filter[0].mtrx_magnitude * filter[0].mtrx_importance);

                    }

          oSheet.get_Range(startColName, endColName).ColumnWidth = 2.5;

   DrawCellBorders(rowNo, z + 1, rowNo, z + 1, true, false, false, true, true);

   DrawCellBorders(rowNo + 1, z, rowNo + 1, z, false, true, true, false, true);

   DrawCellBorders(rowNo + 1, z + 1, rowNo + 1, z + 1, false, true, false, true, false);

                    startColNo = endColNo + 1;

                    startColName = GetColName(startColNo) + rowNo;

                    z = z + 2;

                }

•   Calculate and assign the valus to the Excel cell

                oSheet.Cells[rowNo, z] = Total;

                endColName = GetColName(startColNo) + (rowNo + 1);

                oSheet.get_Range(startColName, endColName).Merge();

                GrandTotal = GrandTotal + Total;

                rowNo = rowNo + 2;

                LineNO = LineNO + 1;

            }

            oSheet.Cells[4, z] = "Total";

            oSheet.Cells[rowNo, z] = GrandTotal;

•         Calculate the weighted average

            decimal WAGrandTotal = 0;

            decimal CatWiseWATotal = 0;

            int catStrLNo = 5;

            oSheet.Cells[4, z + 1] = "Weighted Average";

            for (int Lno = 5; Lno <= rowNo - 1; Lno++)

            {

                var cell = (Excel.Range)oSheet.Cells[Lno, z];

                if (Convert.ToString(cell.Value2) != null)

                {

                    if ((int)cell.Value2 != 0)

                    {

               oSheet.Cells[Lno, z + 1] =  (int)cell.Value2/(decimal)GrandTotal ;

               WAGrandTotal = WAGrandTotal +  (int)cell.Value2/(decimal)GrandTotal ;

                    }

                    else {

                        oSheet.Cells[Lno, z + 1] = 0;

                        WAGrandTotal = WAGrandTotal + 0;

                   

                         }

•          Calculate the total weighted average

                    if ((int)cell.Value2 != 0)

                    {

            CatWiseWATotal = CatWiseWATotal + ( (int)cell.Value2/(decimal)GrandTotal );

                    }

                    else

                    {

                        CatWiseWATotal = CatWiseWATotal + 0;

                   

                    }

                    oSheet.Cells[catStrLNo, z + 2] = CatWiseWATotal;

                   

if (((Convert.ToString(((Excel.Range)oSheet.Cells[Lno + 2, 1]).Value2)) != null) && (Lno != 5))

                    {

                        catStrLNo = Lno + 2;

                        CatWiseWATotal = 0;

                    }

                }

            }

            oSheet.Cells[catStrLNo, z + 2] = CatWiseWATotal;

            oSheet.Cells[rowNo, z + 1] = WAGrandTotal;

            oXL.Visible = true;

            oXL.UserControl = true;

        }

•            Draw cell borders.

private void DrawCellBorders(int frmrowNo, int frmColNo, int TorowNo, int ToColNo, bool top, bool bottom, bool left, bool right, bool diagup)

        {

            Excel.Borders b = null;

            Excel.Borders fb = null;

            b = (Excel.Borders)(oSheet.Cells[frmrowNo, frmColNo] as Excel.Range).Borders;

            fb = (oSheet.Cells[frmrowNo, frmColNo] as Excel.Range).Borders;

     if (diagup == true)

            {

 fb[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlBordersIndex.xlDiagonalUp].Weight = b[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlBordersIndex.xlDiagonalUp].Weight;

            }

        

   if (top == true)

            {

fb[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlBordersIndex.xlEdgeTop].Weight = b[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlBordersIndex.xlEdgeTop].Weight;

            }

   if (bottom == true)

            {

fb[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlBordersIndex.xlEdgeBottom].Weight = b[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlBordersIndex.xlEdgeBottom].Weight;

            }

   if (left == true)

            {

fb[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlBordersIndex.xlEdgeLeft].Weight = b[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlBordersIndex.xlEdgeLeft].Weight;

            }

   if (right == true)

            {

fb[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlBordersIndex.xlEdgeRight].Weight = b[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlBordersIndex.xlEdgeRight].Weight;

            }

What are the Coding Standards & Best practises that we can use when C# project developing

Anybody can write code! And with a few months of programming experience, you can write 'working applications'. Making it work is easy, but doing it the most efficient way requires more work, than just making it work!

Note : The terms Pascal Casing and Camel Casing are used throughout this document. Pascal Casing - First character of all words are Upper Case and other characters are lower case. Example: BackColor Camel Casing - First character of all words, except the first word are Upper Case and other characters are lower case. Example: backColor

Use Pascal casing for Class names 

public class HelloWorld

{

...

}

Use Pascal casing for Method names 

void SayHello(string name)

{

...

}

Use Camel casing for variables and method parameters 

int totalCount = 0;

void SayHello(string name)

{

string fullMessage = "Hello " + name;

...

}

Use the prefix “I” with Camel Casing for interfaces ( Example: IEntity )

Do not use Hungarian notation to name variables. 

In earlier days most of the programmers liked it - having the data type as a prefix for the variable name and using m_ as prefix for member variables. Eg: 

string m_sName;

int nAge;

However, in .NET coding standards, this is not recommended. Usage of data type and m_ to represent member variables should not be used. All variables should use camel casing. 

Some programmers still prefer to use the prefix m_ to represent member variables, since there is no other easy way to identify a member variable.

Use Meaningful, descriptive words to name variables. Do not use abbreviations. 

                Good:

                string address

                int salary 

                button_save

               Not Good:

                string nam

                string addr

                int sal

                btnSave

Do not use single character variable names like i, n, s etc. Use names like index, temp 

One exception in this case would be variables used for iterations in loops: 

for ( int i = 0; i < count; i++ )

{

...

}

If the variable is used only as a counter for iteration and is not used anywhere else in the loop, many people still like to use a single char variable (i) instead of inventing a different suitable name. 

Do not use underscores (_) for local variable names. 

All member variables must be prefixed with underscore (_) so that they can be identified from other local variables.

Do not use variable names that resemble keywords.

Prefix boolean variables, properties and methods with “is” or similar prefixes.

Ex: private bool _isFinished

Namespace names should follow the standard pattern 

<company name>.<product name>.<top level module>.<bottom level module>

Use appropriate prefix for the UI elements so that you can identify them from the rest of the variables.

• 
  

• 
  

• There are 2 different approaches recommended here.

• Use a common prefix ( ui_ ) for all UI elements. This will help you group all of the UI elements together and easy to access all of them from the intellisense.

• Use appropriate prefix for each of the ui element. A brief list is given below. Since .NET has given several controls, you may have to arrive at a complete list of standard prefixes for each of the controls (including third party controls) you are using.

Do not use Hungarian notation(Prefix)  to  name variables. 

Control           Prefix                 Correct way

Label                 lbl            label_InsertProject

TextBox                 txt           textbox_Save

DataGrid          dtg           datagrid_DusoatMsmber

Button                 btn           button_Save

ImageButton      imb

Hyperlink         hlk

DropDownList ddl

ListBox                 lst

DataList                dtl

Repeater               rep

Checkbox        chk

CheckBoxList cbl

RadioButton        rdo

RadioButtonList rbl

Image                 img

Panel                 pnl

PlaceHolder        phd

Table                 tbl

Validators           val

File name should match with class name.

For example, for the class HelloWorld, the file name should be helloworld.cs (or, helloworld.vb) 

Use Pascal Case for file names.

Indentation and Spacing

Use TAB for indentation. Do not use SPACES.  Define the Tab size as 4.

Comments should be in the same level as the code (use the same level of indentation). 

Good:

// Format a message and display

string fullMessage = "Hello " + name;

DateTime currentTime = DateTime.Now;

string message = fullMessage + ", the time is : " + currentTime.ToShortTimeString();

MessageBox.Show ( message );

Not Good:

// Format a message and display

string fullMessage = "Hello " + name;

DateTime currentTime = DateTime.Now;

string message = fullMessage + ", the time is : " + currentTime.ToShortTimeString();

MessageBox.Show ( message );

Curly braces ( {} ) should be in the same level as the code outside the braces. 

 

Use one blank line to separate logical groups of code. 

Good:

bool SayHello ( string name )

{

string fullMessage = "Hello " + name;

DateTime currentTime = DateTime.Now;

string message = fullMessage + ", the time is : " + currentTime.ToShortTimeString();

MessageBox.Show ( message );

if ( ... )

{

// Do something

// ...

return false;

}

return true;

}

Not Good:

bool SayHello (string name)

{

string fullMessage = "Hello " + name;

DateTime currentTime = DateTime.Now;

string message = fullMessage + ", the time is : " + currentTime.ToShortTimeString();

MessageBox.Show ( message );

if ( ... )

{

// Do something

// ...

return false;

}

return true;

}

There should be one and only one single blank line between each method inside the class. 

The curly braces should be on a separate line and not in the same line as if, for etc. 

Good: 

if ( ... )

{

// Do something

}

Not Good: 

if ( ... ) {

// Do something

}

Use a single space before and after each operator and brackets. 

Good: 

if ( showResult == true )

{

for ( int i = 0; i < 10; i++ )

{

//

}

}

Not Good: 

if(showResult==true)

{

for(int   i= 0;i<10;i++)

{

//

}

}

Use #region to group related pieces of code together. If you use proper grouping using #region, the page should like this when all definitions are collapsed.

Keep private member variables, properties and methods in the top of the file and public members in the bottom.  

Good Programming practices

Avoid writing very long methods. A method should typically have 1~25 lines of code. If a method has more than 25 lines of code, you must consider re factoring into separate methods. 

Method name should tell what it does. Do not use mis-leading names. If the method name is obvious, there is no need of documentation explaining what the method does. 

Good: 

void SavePhoneNumber ( string phoneNumber )

{

// Save the phone number.

}

Not Good: 

// This method will save the phone number.

void SaveDetails ( string phoneNumber )

{

// Save the phone number.

}

A method should do only 'one job'. Do not combine more than one job in a single method, even if those jobs are very small. 

Good: 

// Save the address.

SaveAddress (  address );

// Send an email to the supervisor to inform that the address is updated.

SendEmail ( address, email );

void SaveAddress ( string address )

{

// Save the address.

// ...

}

void SendEmail ( string address, string email )

{

// Send an email to inform the supervisor that the address is changed.

// ...

}

Not Good: 

// Save address and send an email to the supervisor to inform that 

// the address is updated.

SaveAddress ( address, email );

void SaveAddress ( string address, string email )

{

// Job 1.

// Save the address.

// ...

// Job 2.

// Send an email to inform the supervisor that the address is changed.

// ...

}

Use the c# or VB.NET specific types (aliases), rather than the types defined in System namespace. 

int age;   (not Int16)

string name;  (not String)

object contactInfo; (not Object)

Some developers prefer to use types in Common Type System than language specific aliases.

Always watch for unexpected values. For example, if you are using a parameter with 2 possible values, never assume that if one is not matching then the only possibility is the other value.

Good:

If ( memberType == eMemberTypes.Registered )

{

// Registered user… do something…

}

else if ( memberType == eMemberTypes.Guest )

{

// Guest user... do something…

}

else

{

// Un expected user type. Throw an exception

throw new Exception (“Un expected value “ + memberType.ToString() + “’.”)

// If we introduce a new user type in future, we can easily find 

// the problem here.

}

Not Good:

If ( memberType == eMemberTypes.Registered )

{

// Registered user… do something…

}

else

{

// Guest user... do something…

// If we introduce another user type in future, this code will 

// fail and will not be noticed.

}

Do not hardcode numbers. Use constants instead. Declare constant in the top of the file and use it in your code.

However, using constants are also not recommended. You should use the constants in the config file or database so that you can change it later. Declare them as constants only if you are sure this value will never need to be changed.

Do not hardcode strings. Use resource files. 

Convert strings to lowercase or upper case before comparing. This will ensure the string will match even if the string being compared has a different case.

if ( name.ToLower() == “john” )

{

   //…

}

Use String.Empty instead of “”

Good:

If ( name == String.Empty )

{

// do something

}

Not Good:

If ( name == “” )

{

// do something

}

Avoid using member variables. Declare local variables wherever necessary and pass it to other methods instead of sharing a member variable between methods. If you share a member variable between methods, it will be difficult to track which method changed the value and when. 

Use enum wherever required. Do not use numbers or strings to indicate discrete values. 

Good: 

enum MailType

{

Html,

PlainText,

Attachment

}

void SendMail (string message, MailType mailType)

{

switch ( mailType )

{

case MailType.Html:

// Do something

break;

case MailType.PlainText:

// Do something

break;

case MailType.Attachment:

// Do something

break;

default:

// Do something

break;

}

}

Not Good: 

void SendMail (string message, string mailType)

{

switch ( mailType )

{

case "Html":

// Do something

break;

case "PlainText":

// Do something

break;

case "Attachment":

// Do something

break;

default:

// Do something

break;

}

}

• Do not make the member variables public or protected. Keep them private and expose public/protected Properties. 

• The event handler should not contain the code to perform the required action. Rather call another method from the event handler.

• Do not programmatically click a button to execute the same action you have written in the button click event. Rather, call the same method which is called by the button click event handler.

• Never hardcode a path or drive name in code. Get the application path programmatically and use relative path. 

• Never assume that your code will run from drive "C:". You may never know, some users may run it from network or from a "Z:". 

• In the application start up, do some kind of "self check" and ensure all required files and dependancies are available in the expected locations. Check for database connection in start up, if required. Give a friendly message to the user in case of any problems. 

• If the required configuration file is not found, application should be able to create one with default values. 

• If a wrong value found in the configuration file, application should throw an error or give a message and also should tell the user what are the correct values. 

• Error messages should help the user to solve the problem. Never give error messages like "Error in Application", "There is an error" etc. Instead give specific messages like "Failed to update database. Please make sure the login id and password are correct." 

• When displaying error messages, in addition to telling what is wrong, the message should also tell what should the user do to solve the problem. Instead of message like "Failed to update database.", suggest what should the user do: "Failed to update database. Please make sure the login id and password are correct." 

• Show short and friendly message to the user. But log the actual error with all possible information. This will help a lot in diagnosing problems. 

Do not have more than one class in a single file.

• Have your own templates for each of the file types in Visual Studio. You can include your company name, copy right information etc in the template. You can view or edit the Visual Studio file templates in the folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplatesCache\CSharp\1033. (This folder has the templates for C#, but you can easily find the corresponding folders or any other language)

• Avoid having very large files. If a single file has more than 1000 lines of code, it is a good candidate for refactoring. Split them logically into two or more classes.

• Avoid public methods and properties, unless they really need to be accessed from outside the class. Use “internal” if they are accessed only within the same assembly.

• Avoid passing too many parameters to a method. If you have more than 4~5 parameters, it is a good candidate to define a class or structure.

• If you have a method returning a collection, return an empty collection instead of null, if you have no data to return. For example, if you have a method returning an ArrayList, always return a valid ArrayList. If you have no items to return, then return a valid ArrayList with 0 items. This will make it easy for the calling application to just check for the “count” rather than doing an additional check for “null”.

• Use the AssemblyInfo file to fill information like version number, description, company name, copyright notice etc.

• Logically organize all your files within appropriate folders. Use 2 level folder hierarchies. You can have up to 10 folders in the root folder and each folder can have up to 5 sub folders. If you have too many folders than cannot be accommodated with the above mentioned 2 level hierarchy, you may need re factoring into multiple assemblies.

• Make sure you have a good logging class which can be configured to log errors, warning or traces. If you configure to log errors, it should only log errors. But if you configure to log traces, it should record all (errors, warnings and trace). Your log class should be written such a way that in future you can change it easily to log to Windows Event Log, SQL Server, or Email to administrator or to a File etc without any change in any other part of the application. Use the log class extensively throughout the code to record errors, warning and even trace messages that can help you trouble shoot a problem.

• If you are opening database connections, sockets, file stream etc, always close them in the finally block. This will ensure that even if an exception occurs after opening the connection, it will be safely closed in the finally block.

• Declare variables as close as possible to where it is first used. Use one variable declaration per line.

• Use StringBuilder class instead of String when you have to manipulate string objects in a loop. The String object works in weird way in .NET. Each time you append a string, it is actually discarding the old string object and recreating a new object, which is a relatively expensive operations.

Consider the following example:

public string ComposeMessage (string[] lines)

{ 

   string message = String.Empty; 

   for (int i = 0; i < lines.Length; i++)

   { 

      message += lines [i]; 

   }

   return message;

}

In the above example, it may look like we are just appending to the string object ‘message’. But what is happening in reality is, the string object is discarded in each iteration and recreated and appending the line to it.

If your loop has several iterations, then it is a good idea to use StringBuilder class instead of String object.

See the example where the String object is replaced with StringBuilder.

public string ComposeMessage (string[] lines)

{

    StringBuilder message = new StringBuilder();

    for (int i = 0; i < lines.Length; i++)

    {

       message.Append( lines[i] ); 

    }

    return message.ToString();

}

Architecture

Always use multi layer (N-Tier) architecture. 

Never access database from the UI pages. Always have a data layer class which performs all the database related tasks. This will help you support or migrate to another database back end easily.

Use try-catch in your data layer to catch all database exceptions. This exception handler should record all exceptions from the database. The details recorded should include the name of the command being executed, stored proc name, parameters, connection string used etc. After recording the exception, it could be re thrown so that another layer in the application can catch it and take appropriate action.

Separate your application into multiple assemblies. Group all independent utility classes into a separate class library. All your database related files can be in another class library.

ASP.NET

Do not use session variables throughout the code. Use session variables only within the classes and expose methods to access the value stored in the session variables. A class can access the session using System.Web.HttpCOntext.Current.Session

Do not store large objects in session. Storing large objects in session may consume lot of server memory depending on the number of users.

Always use style sheet to control the look and feel of the pages. Never specify font name and font size in any of the pages. Use appropriate style class. This will help you to change the UI of your application easily in future. Also, if you like to support customizing the UI for each customer, it is just a matter of developing another style sheet for them

• Comments

Good and meaningful comments make code more maintainable. However, 

Do not write comments for every line of code and every variable declared. 

Use // or /// for comments. Avoid using /* … */

Write comments wherever required. But good readable code will require very less comments. If all variables and method names are meaningful, that would make the code very readable and will not need many comments. 

Do not write comments if the code is easily understandable without comment. The drawback of having lot of comments is, if you change the code and forget to change the comment, it will lead to more confusion.

Fewer lines of comments will make the code more elegant. But if the code is not clean/readable and there are less comments, that is worse. 

If you have to use some complex or weird logic for any reason, document it very well with sufficient comments. 

If you initialize a numeric variable to a special number other than 0, -1 etc, document the reason for choosing that value. 

The bottom line is, write clean, readable code such a way that it doesn't need any comments to understand. 

Perform spelling check on comments and also make sure proper grammar and punctuation is used. 

• Exception Handling

Never do a 'catch exception and do nothing'. If you hide an exception, you will never know if the exception happened or not. Lot of developers uses this handy method to ignore non significant errors. You should always try to avoid exceptions by checking all the error conditions programmatically. In any case, catching an exception and doing nothing is not allowed. In the worst case, you should log the exception and proceed.

In case of exceptions, give a friendly message to the user, but log the actual error with all possible details about the error, including the time it occurred, method and class name etc. 

Always catch only the specific exception, not generic exception. 

Good: 

void ReadFromFile ( string fileName )

{

try

{

// read from file.

}

catch (FileIOException ex)

{

// log error.

//  re-throw exception depending on your case.

throw;

}

}

Not Good: 

void ReadFromFile ( string fileName )

{

   try

   {

      // read from file.

   }

   catch (Exception ex)

   {

      // Catching general exception is bad... we will never know whether 

      // it was a file error or some other error.

      // Here you are hiding an exception. 

      // In this case no one will ever know that an exception happened.

      return "";

   }

}

No need to catch the general exception in all your methods. Leave it open and let the application crash. This will help you find most of the errors during development cycle. You can have an application level (thread level) error handler where you can handle all general exceptions. In case of an 'unexpected general error', this error handler should catch the exception and should log the error in addition to giving a friendly message to the user before closing the application, or allowing the user to 'ignore and proceed'. 

When you re throw an exception, use the throw statement without specifying the original exception. This way, the original call stack is preserved.

Good:

catch

{

// do whatever you want to handle the exception 

throw;

}

Not Good:

catch (Exception ex)

{

// do whatever you want to handle the exception 

throw ex;

}

Do not write try-catch in all your methods. Use it only if there is a possibility that a specific exception may occur and it cannot be prevented by any other means. For example, if you want to insert a record if it does not already exists in database, you should try to select record using the key. Some developers try to insert a record without checking if it already exists. If an exception occurs, they will assume that the record already exists. This is strictly not allowed. You should always explicitly check for errors rather than waiting for exceptions to occur. On the other hand, you should always use exception handlers while you communicate with external systems like network, hardware devices etc. Such systems are subject to failure anytime and error checking is not usually reliable. In those cases, you should use exception handlers and try to recover from error.

Do not write very large try-catch blocks. If required, write separate try-catch for each task you perform and enclose only the specific piece of code inside the try-catch. This will help you find which piece of code generated the exception and you can give specific error message to the user. 

Write your own custom exception classes if required in your application. Do not derive your custom exceptions from