George Mihaescu : June 14, 2004
Process / Software Development
This article presents my take on the fundamental elements driving the production of quality software. It's a short set of questions that allows a very quick assessment of quality in a software development shop.
Viewed: 1356 time(s)

George Mihaescu : January 28, 2007
Tools / Software Development
A list of the software development tools that I use regularly and that I warmly recommend.
Viewed: 711 time(s)

George Mihaescu : August 21, 2007
Implementation technique / Windows Forms .Net (all versions)
This article presents my solution for customizing the print dialog in a .Net Windows Forms application using P/Invoke. Tested with .Net runtime 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 on Win 2000, XP and Vista. A .zip file is available for download with source code and the compiled binaries (.Net 2.0).
Viewed: 255 time(s)

George Mihaescu : June 24, 2007
Best practices
This article lists a set of common practices that I've discovered to be useful when building any ASP.Net application. This is a live document; as I find more common practices I will add them here, so check back often. All the practices described here come at no (or very little) cost during design and development but offer substantial benefits immediately and for future functionality enhancements and maintenance – in other words, they give you a lot of bang for very little buck.
Viewed: 379 time(s)

George Mihaescu : November 10, 2006
Best practices / Design pattern / ASP.Net
This article makes the case for having a type-safe implementation of a cache object in your ASP.Net application and describes two very simple design patterns to achieve this (and replace the untyped collection offered by ASP.Net). The solutions presented also improve the thread-saftey of the application, while preserving performance and scalability.
Viewed: 401 time(s)

George Mihaescu : November 10, 2006
Best practices / Design pattern / ASP.Net
This article makes the case for having a type-safe implementation of a session object in your ASP.Net application and describes two very simple design patterns to achieve this (and replace the untyped collection offered by ASP.Net)
Viewed: 355 time(s)

George Mihaescu : January 25, 2007
Implementation technique / ASP.Net 2.0
This article explains how to set the button that responds to the user pressing Enter in an ASP.Net page.
Viewed: 1659 time(s)

George Mihaescu : February 15, 2007
Implementation technique / ASP.Net 2.0
This article describes the handling of in-process session and authentication timeouts in an ASP.Net application. Both types of timeouts are discussed in the same article because sometimes there may be a dependency between the two. The article also covers the in-process session timeout due to application domain recycling and the conditions that can cause the recycling. Applies to ASP.Net 2.0 (I have not tested the solutions listed here on ASP.Net 1.1 or 1.0).
Viewed: 653 time(s)

George Mihaescu : June 3, 2007
Quick tip
Provides a very quick and simple solution to the problem of debugging the ASP.Net application shutdown code.
Viewed: 341 time(s)

George Mihaescu : February 22, 2007
Implementation technique / ASP.Net 2.0 / JavaScript
This document presents a number of solutions for preventing the user to click the Submit button in a form multiple times. with special emphasis (and examples in C#) on disabling the submit button while the form is processing. The solution presented is simple, tried and tested, and works with client-side validation and validation groups.
Viewed: 5640 time(s)

George Mihaescu : March 20, 2007
Implementation technique / ASP.Net 2.0 / JavaScript
This article describes the correct way a Web User Control should hook up its JavaScript handler(s) to events in the page in which it lives - without disturbing the page (or other controls') own handlers of the same event. Also known as "event handler chaining".
Viewed: 698 time(s)

George Mihaescu : September 18, 2001
Implementation technique / Win32
This article presents a technique that I've been using for many years for limiting a Win32 application to a single instance, with the additional feature of activating the existing instance if already running. This technique works on all Win32 platforms (98 / ME / NT / 2000 / XP / Vista).
Viewed: 662 time(s)

George Mihaescu : May 12, 2006
Implementation technique / Win32
This article describes how you can quickly get a standard "browse for folder" dialog in your Win32 application, then describes in detail how this standard dialog can be customized to virtually any degree of sophistication. We have used this technique in several projects over the years, with excellent results.
Viewed: 2735 time(s)

George Mihaescu : October 11, 1999
Implementation technique / localization / MFC
This article presents the correct way the resources (e.g. dialog templates) should be localized in your MFC application.
Viewed: 2656 time(s)

George Mihaescu : March 10, 2006
Architecture / C++
This article presents a very simple yet robust architecture for dynamically plug-able components (plug-ins) for C++ applications. This architecture has been implemented in several real-life projects.
Viewed: 1249 time(s)

George Mihaescu : August 25, 2005
Insight / C++ memory management / Win32
This article describes the internal implementation of memory allocation functions in the C Run Time (CRT) library and it affects the tools that may be used to track down memory allocations and memory leaks in applications.
Viewed: 1620 time(s)

George Mihaescu : October 28, 2001
Implementation technique / C/C++
This article describes the possible issues when exporting STL instantiations from DLLs, and presents a simple solution for those issues.
Viewed: 1232 time(s)

George Mihaescu : September 18, 2001
Implementation technique / Win32
This article presents a technique that I've been using for many years for limiting a Win32 application to a single instance, with the additional feature of activating the existing instance if already running. This technique works on all Win32 platforms (98 / ME / NT / 2000 / XP / Vista).
Viewed: 662 time(s)

George Mihaescu : March 10, 2006
Architecture / C++
This article presents a very simple yet robust architecture for dynamically plug-able components (plug-ins) for C++ applications. This architecture has been implemented in several real-life projects.
Viewed: 1249 time(s)

George Mihaescu : April 15, 2006
Insight / debugging / memory leak detection / C++
This documents introduces the way memory allocations done by your C++ program are actually seen in the host Windows operating system and what you can do to analyze the content of the memory you’ve allocated. It also covers issues related to memory fragmentation and what you can do to improve the CRT memory management with regard to fragmentation.
Viewed: 2048 time(s)

George Mihaescu : May 12, 2006
Implementation technique / Win32
This article describes how you can quickly get a standard "browse for folder" dialog in your Win32 application, then describes in detail how this standard dialog can be customized to virtually any degree of sophistication. We have used this technique in several projects over the years, with excellent results.
Viewed: 2735 time(s)

George Mihaescu : June 1, 2005
Insight / Win32
This article describes the various memory management APIs offered by Win32, describes each one and offers guidelines for choosing the appropriate one for your purpose.
Viewed: 4031 time(s)

George Mihaescu : September 22, 2002
Implementation technique / Win32
This brief article describes how to translate a system error code (such as the value returned by the GetLastError Win32 function) into the equivalent user-readable explanation, then explains how the same can be done for your own error codes. This technique allows for a consistent translation of error codes in error text messages throughout an application.
Viewed: 9806 time(s)

George Mihaescu : February 1, 2003
Bug / Win32
This article describes a memory leak in the Windows common ListControl in Report mode.
Viewed: 1183 time(s)

George Mihaescu : April 15, 2007
Best practices / SQL Server
This is my attempt to list the best practices in designing an application so that it interacts with SQL Server with minimal security and maintenance issues. These guidelines apply to both web-based or fat client applications, indenpendent of the implementation language or technology.
Viewed: 442 time(s)

George Mihaescu : August 28, 2005
Implementation technique / SQL Server
This article describes the options available to application developers for either making all queries to a table be case sensitive, or making ad-hoc case sensitive queries on arbitrary tables.
Viewed: 1549 time(s)