Total .NET SourceBook

Total .NET SourceBook

Supports Visual Studio 2005

All FMS .NET Products

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"The entire tool is completely intuitive. It's a great training tool and has excellent potential for encouraging development standards. Total .NET SourceBook's simple elegance is impressive."

Andy Clark, Visual Studio Magazine

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Optimized for Microsoft Visual Studio .NETTotal .NET SourceBook

Total .NET SourceBook: Leverage a Coding Cheat Sheet

Visual Studio Magazine, Andy ClarkJune 2003

At the heart of FMS' Total .NET SourceBook is a Microsoft Access database containing code that accesses databases, works with forms, and performs numerous common .NET activities. This useful product gives you a handy repository for searching this code and merging it into your .NET projects. Rather than rummage through old coding projects and training books for key techniques, you can keep key code samples in SourceBook to have the techniques at your fingertips.

SourceBook comes with a sizable library of source code. Almost 600 samples show a variety of ADO.NET, ASP.NET, and Web services techniques. Other samples implement common functions, such as threading and e-mail. Most of the code comes as complete, documented classes or functions that are ready to include in your projects—in both VB.NET and C# in many cases. SourceBook also accommodates C++, Java, JavaScript, VB, and other coding languages, which adds to its potential as a training tool. However, few of the non-.NET source examples are populated.

SourceBook comes with two possible interfaces. It integrates smoothly into VS.NET, where you can access it by using a built-in navigator pane that supports searching the library and adding sample classes to your project automatically. SourceBook also has an easy-to-understand and well-documented standalone explorer that groups the sample functions into hierarchical folders that support browsing the code. The entire tool is completely intuitive.

SourceBook is also easy to extend. You can add individual samples, folders, and hierarchies of folders. You can use this to add sample code on new topics that are specific to your operations. You can also create your own database and use it along with the standard SourceBook database. This could be useful for separating standard code your business uses from the more general samples FMS provides.

SourceBook's biggest problem is its reliance on an Access database—not the ideal platform for businesses that want to make the tool available on an enterprise-wide basis, because it all but defeats the notion of using it as a highly accessed centralized repository. FMS has indicated that it's considering a SQL Server implementation, which would make SourceBook more valuable for many businesses.

Although there's room for FMS to improve the tool's usefulness to large development groups, Total .NET SourceBook's simple elegance is impressive. It provides a convenient place to keep all those little snippets of code you go back to time and again. It's also a great training tool and has excellent potential for encouraging development standards.

About the Author

Andy Clark is a consultant with iGate in the Richmond, Va., area. He holds PMP, MCSD, and SJCP certifications. Reach him at theandyclark@hotmail.com.

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