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As a C# developer, understanding the different simple data types in C# and when to use them is crucial for writing efficient and maintainable code. I've been trying to spend more time this year putting together some content aimed at really introductory level programming. There's plenty of resources available online, but I want to do my part to ensure I can help break down some of the barriers for people getting started on their programming journey. In this beginner's guide, we will look at the basics of the most commonly used simple data types in C#, including int, float, double, byte, char, bool, and string. We will also look at how these data types differ from each other and when to use them in your C# programming! Integer Data Types The most commonly used integer data types in C# are…
(This article is intended to be a spiritual successor to this previous entry, and now includes Tasks!) Even if you're new to C#, you've probably come across at least one of Tasks, Threads, or BackgroundWorkers. With a bit of additional time, it's likely you've seen all three in your journey. They're all ways to run concurrent code in C# and each has its own set of pros and cons. In this article, we will explore how each one operates at a high level. It's worth noting that in most modern .NET applications and libraries you'll see things converging to Tasks. The Approach I've gone ahead and created a test application that you can find here. Because this is in source control, it's possible/likely that it will diverge from what we see in this article, so I just wanted to offer…
Python is a powerful and versatile programming language that has become increasingly popular. For many, it's one of the very first programming languages they pick up when getting started. Some of the highest traffic posts on my blog many years after they were written look at using C# and Python together. Today we're going to explore how you can use Python from inside a C# .NET Core application with much more modern approaches than my original articles. Enter Pythonnet! Pythonnet Package & Getting Started We're going to be looking at Python for .NET in order to accomplish this goal. This library allows you to take advantage of Python installed on the running machine from within your .NET Core applications. You must configure it to point at the corresponding Python DLL that you'd like to use, and after a couple of…
If you have an internet connection then you have probably heard of ChatGPT from OpenAI by now. Odds are you might have even given it a whirl to see what it's all about. Personally, I know that I was quite skeptical at first but I've been blown away at how well it's able to converse about topics I ask it. I've even asked it to generate various scenarios for me and it will conclude by explaining why the different facets it chose were good choices. Incredible stuff. I'll be using this to help chip away at content for my role playing game. When it comes to using OpenAI effectively, I have a great deal to learn. It's all very new to me, especially with respect to how to structure prompts and get the most out of the interactions with such…
If you're building a 2D game in Unity3D, odds are you've come across the TileMap component. The TileMap is a powerful tool that allows you to create a grid of tiles that you can render your tiles with instead of hand-placing individual game objects with sprites. It has a host of built in functionality that you might otherwise find yourself manually writing, like mapping coordinates to particular cells on a map. And what's even cooler about using a TileMap? You don't need to handroll your own editor to paint tiles! I think I'd pass on having to do that. But have you found yourself in a situation where you want to get all of the painted tiles on a TileMap? You may have found it's not quite as obvious as you'd have hoped! What We Have To Work With On…
Unit tests or functional tests? What's the difference and which ones should you be using? Find out in this super quick compare-and-contrast!
Looking for a better way to make Unity3D user interfaces? Love WPF/XAML but not the Unity UI Framework? You probably aren't using Noesis GUI, but you should be!
I love dependency injection frameworks ever since I started using them. Specifically, I'm obsessed with using Autofac and I have a hard time developing applications unless I can use a solid DI framework like Autofac! I've recently been working with Xamarin and found that I wanted to use dependency injection, but some of the framework doesn't support this well out of the box. I' was adamant to get something going though, so I wanted to show you my way to make this work. Disclaimer: In its current state, this is certainly a bit of a hack. I'll explain why I've taken this approach though! In your Android projects for Xamarin, any class that inherits from Activity is responsible for being created by the framework. This means where we'd usually have the luxury of passing in dependencies via a constructor and…
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many of us to stay isolated and at home, but that's OK! I genuinely enjoy developing software and wanted to take this opportunity to focus on learning. Having some downtime has afforded me to try putting together a system that I otherwise might not have explored building. In this article, I'll share different aspects about an application I'm building that purposefully put me outside of my comfort zone. In my opinion, having downtime is an opportunity to learn and grow! It's time to take advantage of that. When the app and system is ready to showcase I'll share more insight into what's actually being built! The Client Framework The application being built was intended to run on multiple mobile platforms, so Xamarin was my choice here. I have briefly used Xamarin several years ago, but…
I've found myself with some additional time to be creative during the great COVID-19 and lockdown/quarantine days. That's why there's more blog posts recently! Actually, I wanted to take the time to experiment with some unfamiliar technologies and build something. For a project, I wanted to leverage authentication but I'm well aware that user management can become a really complex undertaking. I had heard about Firebase from Google and wanted to give it a shot. For the purposes of this discussion, Firebase would allow me to create something like an OAuth proxy to the system I wanted to build, and by doing so, would end up managing all of the users for me. What I needed to do with Firebase to get that setup was actually quite straight forward. First, you start off in typical fashion registering for Firebase. From…
