.NET Productivity Tips and Tricks

>> No matter what you're coding,
what project you're working on,
or what your development
environment even is,
I'm thinking it's safe to say that
everyone wants to know how
to be more productive.
Find out some cool tips and tricks on
how to do so on this episode
of Visual Studio Toolbox.
[MUSIC]
Hey, everybody. Welcome
to Visual Studio Toolbox.
I'm your host, Leslie Richardson,
and today I'm joined by Mika Dumont,
who is a PM on the.NET Team.
How's it going, Mika?
>> Good. How's it going, Leslie?
>> It's going all right.
It's a lovely sunny afternoon
in Seattle right now.
>> It is.
>> Yeah. You're PM on the.NET Team,
which is such a broad giant team.
.NET is so huge, especially
in Visual Studio world.
Can you talk a little bit more
about what it is that you do?
>> Yeah. I'm a Program
Manager on the .NET Team.
My team, what we try to
do is we try to make.NET
Developers productive as possible,
so whether that's different
code fixes or refactorings,
as well as different code generation,
and completions, and tooling.
We just try to give you
all the productivity
features in order
to supercharge your
Developer productivity.
>> I love that word, supercharge.
Speaking of productivity, that's
what we're going to be
talking about, right?
>> Yeah. Leslie, since
you work on the debugger,
I thought that I can go ahead and
start with our debugger refactoring.
Let me go ahead and share my screen.
There we go.
The very first feature
that I wanted to show,
again, this is brand new.
It's a refactoring where
you can pin property
programmatically in your code by
adding this
DebuggerDisplay attribute.
>> I love that attribute.
>> It's pretty awesome. This will
also automatically generate a method,
and its default return is ToString.
But if I want, I can actually
go ahead and have it
return the first element of an array.
I'm going to go ahead and save that.
I had already set my
breakpoint over here,
and I can just debug this
test real quick just to show
you what this feature does.
>> You already get 50 bonus points
from me for starting your demo
out with DebuggerDisplay
or just anything
debugger related, so congratulations.
>> Cool. Yeah. Here, you can see that
the first value is the
zero index of the array,
which is this little dog emoji.
Without having to go ahead and
manually pin these properties
using the debugger UI,
I can just programmatically
do that in my code.
I'm just refactoring.
>> That's neat. Yeah. Because
now, you can have it both ways.
If you like DebuggerDisplay as
an attribute and you want to
get crazy complex with it,
then you can use that,
except now you can access
that feature a lot better, it seems.
I loved that you made that
a refactoring option.
Conversely, if you like
debugging and you just like playing
around in the Watch window,
then you can use that pin
icon that Mika just explored.
>> Yeah, exactly.
The next one since we're here,
you might notice that we have
a couple of these
regular string literals.
It's, I don't know, Leslie,
it's hard to [inaudible]
to say, right?
>> Yeah. How do you even
know what type in for that?
>> Exactly. We actually
have a refactoring
now where you can actually convert
this to a verbatim string.
Makes it a bit more legible.
If I want, I can also convert
it back to a regular string.
That's just a neat near
refactoring that we just added.
>> That's really nice because
sometimes I might add an
extra n or something,
or an extra backslash and I don't
know if it's actually
going to work until
I print it out or it goes
wherever the string needs to be.
>> Yeah. Now, you can
just easily see what
you're typing and just switch around.
>> Instead of having to
process it every time you
go past that line [inaudible].
>> Exactly. Yeah. Over here,
I do want to show you this side too.
some going to uncomment this.
The keyboard shortcut for
toggle blog comment is
control, shift, forward slash.
I just wanted to point that out.
Here, you might notice
that I'm getting an error.
If I hover over this error,
quick info is letting me know that
this expression cannot
be implicitly cast.
Luckily, we have a code fix
to add an explicit cast.
>> That's so exciting. [inaudible]
>> Yeah. I don't know if you're
familiar with just having to
go and hover over to learn
what the type is declared as.
This will just go ahead and
serve that right up for you.
>> That's what's so cool about
refactoring tips like that.
It's just they're small
but mighty quality of
life improvements to me that
just make my life easier.
>> Yeah, it's just the
little things. What else?
I do want to point out, hopefully,
you're pretty familiar or
the audience is pretty familiar
with this light bulb icon.
This light bulb
represents quick actions.
Quick actions allows
you to easily refactor,
generate, or modify code
with a single action.
I can go ahead and invoke
this by either selecting
the light bulb icon or I can
just type control
period or alt Enter,
and it will also invoke it.
This leads refactoring
that we have is converting
a switch statement to the
new C# 8 switch expression.
>> Look at that.
>> Yeah. It's like magic. Exactly.
This will just go ahead and provide
a more concise syntax
without having to
write out the returns in each case.
>> Right. It saves
you a lot of trouble.
>> Yeah. It also just helps you learn
about new C# language features too.
It's pretty cool. I don't
know if you noticed
all of these XML comments over here.
>> Yeah. Always fun to write
whenever you need to explain what
a given class or method does.
>> Yeah. We actually now have
a quick info style
support for XML comments.
If I go ahead and
hover over this class,
you will notice that quick
info will display italics,
bullets, numbers, bold,
and clickable link.
It's really cool.
While I'm talking about
XML comments over here,
you can see that this DogCard is
inherited from this AnimalCard class.
Let's see, if I go ahead and
add this inheritdoc tag,
you will see that
DogCard now will inherit
from different base
clauses or interfaces.
It just depends where you want
to add that inheritdoc tag.
This just eliminates
the unwanted copying
and pasting of
duplicate XML comments,
and it will automatically keep
your XML comments synchronized.
>> Yeah. That's pretty sweet.
So before that keyword existed,
you'd have to remember to go back to
the base class and
update accordingly?
>> Yeah. You would
just have to copy and
paste them in here if you
wanted to remember. Yeah.
>> Yikes. Yeah. Time savers.
>> I'm trying to think what else
I have that I can show you.
Let's see. Here's a good one.
You notice how I have comments just
to remind me. I'm always
[inaudible] code fixes.
>> I do that too. I write demo
in big bold letters to teach me.
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> Total natural,
don't worry about it.
>> So anyways, ternary
conditions can be great,
but sometimes at the end of editing
a cell logic you realize
things could be a bit simpler.
There's a lot going on here.
>> I always have to go on
Stack Overflow and look up
what does this mean again?
What part is the L statement?
>> Yeah, exactly.
We just want to make things easier to
read and we just want
our code to just be
easily read and consumed.
So we do have this code fix to
simplify conditional expressions.
That just makes it so much clear.
Can you believe that they
both meant the same thing?
>> So you mean I just
spent five minutes
deciphering this just to
find out [inaudible]?
>> Did your brain hurt a little bit?
Mine did.
>> Yeah. It's 2:00 AM.
I'm looking at this code.
>> Those are just some of the
latest code fixes and refactorings.
Next, I want to show some
tooling improvements.
This one's actually my favorite one.
There's tons of excitement from
the community about this one.
We added IntelliSense inside
DateTime and TimeSpan
literal strings.
So in this piece of code,
I'm taking a DateTime and
I'm calling toString on it.
If I start typing a DateTime
string literal, you will notice.
>> I'm getting suggestions.
>> These are completion options and
explanations as to what each
of these characters mean.
So you can see here,
this is what it looks
like. It's pretty snazzy.
>> So useful.
>> While I am talking about
IntelliSense completions,
I'm missing a quotation mark,
I do want to point out we
also have IntelliSense completion
for regular expressions.
I can go ahead and just
show you that real quick.
Let's see.
Here, I'm just going to
write a regular expression.
Notice how I get these
completion options
and explanations as to what
each of these characters mean.
What's really cool too is
that I also get a tool tip.
Quick info will actually
let me know if I'm
missing my closing parentheses.
It's pretty smart.
It's really awesome.
>> This, seriously, would've been so
useful to me a couple of
months ago when I was
writing the calendar app
and writing date formats
everywhere and trying to look up
what format I needed to be using.
>> Yeah.
I actually remember that
calendar app that you showed me.
It's awesome. It's a great app.
>> Good times, five
years ago in March.
>> I know. It feels like
forever ago. It's crazy.
These are just nice in-line
experiences that we
offer instead of having
to go to the browser and
learn how all of this works.
>> Sweet.
>> Yeah. Let's see. I
have another tool tip.
We've had change signature
for a long time,
where you can go ahead and
reorder parameters or
remove parameters,
but we just recently added the
capability to add a parameter.
So here, I can go ahead and add
the type as well as
the parameter name.
I can also make this
required or optional with
a default value and I
can decide what I want to
inject into the call site.
I can also introduce to-do variables.
This will basically put a to-do in
my code so I can visit those errors
and go through each
call site independently
and decide what needs to be passed.
>> That's awesome.
>> For optional parameters,
I can choose to omit the
call site completely.
It's pretty cool.
Once you select "Okay",
you will see a preview of
the new method signature
and you will see that this
is the new parameter.
So it's pretty awesome.
This is one of our highest
requests from the community,
so we're really excited
to get this one out.
>> That's really great.
I especially like the
adding the to-dos just automatically,
instead of having to
remember where you
called this function everywhere.
That's pretty nice.
>> It's a pretty awesome new feature.
Let's see. I have another one real
quick too that I want to show.
We added file header support.
This allows you to
add file headers to
existing files within a project
or a solution using an editor config.
This is an editor config file,
for those of you that don't know.
It's a single file
that documents all of
your code cell or code
quality options that lives
at the root of your repository
and can be managed by
your regular source control and
shared across your entire team.
You can think of it
as a universal way of
enforcing code cell or code quality
preferences across your team.
>> Sweet.
>> It's pretty cool. Here, we
have this file header template,
and you would just have
to set the value to
equal the file header
that you'd text,
that you would like to get applied to
your C Sharp or Visual Basic file.
This currently only works for
C Sharp and Visual Basic.
If you go to the first
line of your file,
you can go ahead and
select this file header.
It's pretty awesome. Not only that,
I just want to point out
a lot of our code fixes,
and for the file header
feature as well,
you can really actually apply
all of these fixes to
your entire document,
project, or solution so you
can scope it however you like.
If I want, I can add
this file header across
my entire project and it will open
this Preview Changes window
where I can just select or
deselect which files I
want this to apply to.
Can go ahead and do that.
You can see that it was added.
If I go to other classes, you
can see that was added too.
So it's pretty cool.
>> That's pretty cool. I'm
going to add emojis to
all my file headers
from here on out too.
>> That's the only way
to write file headers.
>> Yeah. Well, [inaudible] it
up a bit. It seems there's
a lot you can do in that editor
config window in general.
How can people learn more
about what they can and can't
do in there specifically?
>> Well, we have documentation
that I can always point users to.
We also have for all the
different code style options,
you can go to "Code Style".
You can just use Ctrl+Q
Search over there.
Here, it's a little bit
easier to understand
this UI that we have and you can
actually see all the different
code style preferences that you
want and have it applied to
your editor config as well.
>> That's neat.
>> Yeah. So if you want,
you can do tabs versus spaces.
I don't want to bring anything up.
I know there's a lot
of controversy there.
So you can just enforce
these code style and code quality
options across your team.
If you're really adamant about tabs,
you can just sneak that
word in there and then just
push your code to everyone
just have to use tabs.
>> That's the dream
of being a manager.
You get to assert your belief
of tabs versus spaces,
no matter what, by
accessing editor config.
>> Yeah. We're doing a lot
of work with this too.
Stay tuned with the EditorConfig.
It's exciting stuff
happening with that.
>> Yeah, it is.
>> Yeah, go on.
>> I was just going to say,
speaking of exciting things coming,
it feels like, I look away
for five minutes and all of a
sudden there's 20 new cool
refactoring items added.
What's coming soon in
productivity land?
>> Let me show you.
Let's see. Some new
features that are coming.
The first one I can show is,
so here we have,
let's see which one should I
show first. I can show this one.
There's now a refactoring
that introduces
the new C# 9 Pattern Combinators.
Over here, I just place
my cursor and select,
let's see, "Use Pattern Matching".
It will go ahead and use those
Pattern-Matching combinators.
>> Wow.
>> That's a new C# 9 feature
or the Pattern Matching
Combinators. It's really exciting.
>> That's what it looks.
>> Another one that we
recently just added,
so these are all coming in 16.8 PV 1.
Everyone who wants to learn
more about it can just check
out the release notes as well.
>> I think this is really cool.
>> This one here, we now
have a Suppression Operator
Warning and Code Fix,
and this helps you
easily identify and fix
suppression operators
that have no effects.
In this case, I wanted to express
that something isn't type string.
This operator here makes sense,
but it's not actually
checking for that.
We have a hotfix where you can
either remove the operator
completely or if you want
to actually check it,
you can use the Is Not.
That's if you're checking if
it's not a type string. Yeah.
>> That's great.
>> Yeah. That's a new one
that we just came out with,
and let's see what
else do I have here.
We have another one
where you can remove
the in keyword where the argument
should be parsed by reference.
That's just also a
quick little fix too,
and trying to think what else.
We have another one, let's
say here I can see it,
let's say, I want to just
go ahead and let's see.
Let's say, I want to just create
a Abstract Method, let's see.
Over here, you'll just
notice that I have
an error and that's because
my class isn't abstract.
We have a quick fix to also
make a class abstract,
and you can see here that.
>> Wait, that wasn't there before?
>> No.
>> Yeah.
>> Wow, it just seems something that
would naturally be there or
something but that's there.
>> Yeah. Those are the latest
code fixes refactorings coming
to a 16th on a preview one.
>> That is very exciting.
There's not a bad one in the
bunch from what I can tell,
they all just seem
super beneficial to
anybody who's just coding away no
matter what you're working on,
which is the cool part about
productivity tools like that.
>>Yeah, it's really awesome,
and I don't know if we have time,
but I can also just show a couple on
the Solution Explorer
that was recently added,
that are just really cool.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. Yeah, here I
have a test project,
and it's just for demo purposes.
I'm going to delete this reference.
So I'm referencing my projects here.
Now, I'm not referencing
anything and if I
want to go ahead and add
a project reference,
I would have to go to Add and
then add the project reference.
But we just added the ability
to drag and drop the project
you'd like to reference.
Notice how this project
reference is added,
and it was also added underneath
the dependencies node within
the Solution Explorer.
>> Great. No need to
worry about syntax,
typos, any of that?
>> Yeah, just so you
can just drag and drop.
>> Yeah. Another last
thing about with
the Solution Explorer that
I wanted to point out
is we added the
capability of copying,
pasting, and dragging files
from File Explorer to
Solution Explorer.
Instead of having to right-click
and add an existing item,
and we then have to really navigate
to where your path already is.
You can now simply drag
and drop this file,
and it will get copied
right to your source.
It's pretty awesome.
>> That is so great.
>> Yeah, it's really cool. Gosh.
>> Are these features available
in 16.8 or they out now?
>> They are already available,
yeah, they're out now.
>> So exciting
>> Yeah, it's pretty
exciting stuff. Let's see.
I think that's all I have today,
but definitely, check out the
release notes and also all
of our code fixes or refactorings
are at aka.ms/refactorcode.
That's where you can just learn about
all these new tips and tricks,
then you can be the coolest
person on your team that
everyone goes to learn and all that.
>> Just sitting in your
office chair like, "Yeah,
so did you know that you can now
drag and drop into the solution file,
I mean, I figured everybody knew,
but just in case you
didn't, here you go."
Well, that's a really
exciting. I'm going to have to
make a trip to that website too,
because I keep missing
out on all of these wonderful
refactorings that I
should totally be taking advantage
of, as should everybody.
Thanks for being here Mika,
that was super informative.
I feel supercharged in my
self experience, definitely.
>> Awesome.
>> Thanks. Again, if
you want to learn more,
check out the website that
Mika just mentioned aka.ms/
>> Refactorcode.
>> Awesome.
>> Yeah.
>> Sweet. With that, happy coding.
[MUSIC]