[PostEvent] CodeCamp Timisoara

I have been a presenter and participant at CodeCamp Timisoara. There are a lot of tracks with good information!

As a participant , I can mention:

Things you did not know about C# and .NET – with Marius Bancila
CALMS in DevOps – with Adrian Suteu
Making E2E tests great again using Cypress – with Omri Ben Ari

My presentation was about Angular and .NET Core Everywhere and you can find the source code at https://github.com/ignatandrei/AngNetCoreDemo

Simple serialize of encoding

My problem was the serialize of the Encoding . Let’s suppose that we have a class that have a property Encoding( maybe to read a file ).


internal class MyTest
{
    public MyTest()
    {
        enc = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII;
    }
    public Encoding enc { get; set; }
}


We want to serialize this class in order to let the administrator/people to decide what will be the encoding.

When we serialize( obvious, with NewtonSoftJson) , we obtain this kind of data:

{
“enc”: {
“IsSingleByte”: true,
“BodyName”: “us-ascii”,
“EncodingName”: “US-ASCII”,
“HeaderName”: “us-ascii”,
WebName“: “us-ascii”,
“WindowsCodePage”: 1252,
“IsBrowserDisplay”: false,
“IsBrowserSave”: false,
“IsMailNewsDisplay”: true,
“IsMailNewsSave”: true,
“EncoderFallback”: {
“DefaultString”: “?”,
“MaxCharCount”: 1
},
“DecoderFallback”: {
“DefaultString”: “?”,
“MaxCharCount”: 1
},
“IsReadOnly”: true,
“CodePage”: 20127
}
}

This is too much for someone to edit . We want a simple string that can be edited easy – and the WebName ,  that is , in fact , a string from https://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets/character-sets.xhtml seems the obvious choice.

So –  I have done a JSONConverter class just for this property. It is very simple:

public class JsonEncodingConverter : JsonConverter
{
    public override bool CanConvert(Type objectType)
    {
        return (typeof(Encoding).IsAssignableFrom(objectType));
    }

    public override object ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)
    {
        string webName = "";
        if (reader.TokenType == JsonToken.String)
        {

            webName = reader.Value?.ToString();
        }
        existingValue = Encoding.GetEncoding(webName);

        return existingValue;
    }

    public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, object value, JsonSerializer serializer)
    {
        string webName = (value as Encoding).WebName;
        serializer.Serialize(writer, webName);
    }
}

And can be used very easy:

MyTest m = new MyTest();
JsonEncodingConverter[] conv = new[] { new JsonEncodingConverter() };
string original = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(m, Formatting.Indented);
string data = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(m, Formatting.Indented, conv);
//https://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets/character-sets.xhtml
Console.WriteLine(data);
Console.WriteLine("and now the original");
Console.WriteLine(original);
MyTest s = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<MyTest>(data, conv);
Console.WriteLine(s.enc.WebName);

The result of serializing it is now

{
“enc”: “us-ascii”
}

And because it has this code

public override bool CanConvert(Type objectType)
{
    return (typeof(Encoding).IsAssignableFrom(objectType));
}

it means it will serialize just the encoding, not other tools.

And it is more easy to be edited by someone.

Moral: Aim for simple string that can be edited can be achieved when serializing. Do not stay with defaults!

 

( you can easy achieve backwards compatibility for already serialized Encoding by asking

if (reader.TokenType == JsonToken.StartObject)
{
    webName = reader.Value?.ToString();
    //handling old data format for encoding
    while (reader.TokenType != JsonToken.EndObject)
    {
        if (!reader.Read())
            break;
        if (reader.TokenType != JsonToken.PropertyName)
            continue;
        var val = reader.Value?.ToString();
        if (string.Compare("webname", val, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) == 0)
        {
            webName = reader.ReadAsString();
            //do not break - advance reading to the end
            //break;
        }
    }

}

)

You should learn a framework–advice to starting programmers

There are many posts about getting to learn programming. And, of course, all starts with the simple instructions: + , –, % … Then things get somehow more complicated learning modular programming ( or functional, if you do not use global variables …)

After this, you start learning about classes and instances ( Plato is the master here) and overriding and deriving … And maybe some Design Patterns( please, do not talk about Singleton…)

Maybe you learn a bit about Sql( Tables and Views and StoredProcedures) and NoSql …

And after that, you have the basics to write code in any kind of language . But, when you want to start a new application

  1. How you start it  ?
  2. What are the deliverables ?
  3. How to make the Graphical User Interface ?
  4. How to make components ?
  5. and so on …

That’s what a  framework brings to the table: a clear way /  path to do applications. In my case I am talking about .NET Core / C# n(Console applications, Web Applications, Forms application ) . Also, you may want to separate Front End from Backend – Angular or Vue or … could help with that ( and .NET remains just an WebAPI layer) . A framyework ( or 2  – Front End and BackEnd) will teach you how to make possible an application without hassle.

Yes, it is true that the framework is constraining a lot- you do things the framework way, not your way . So what ? You want to get your first application done. The framework is showing you the path – you can walk under it. And you know that, if you do not walk the path, then “hic sunt leones” . You know also that the framework protect you from the problems.

So my advice to young programmers: Learn a framework . Then you could do your first application. And the second. Then you could you start questioning some of the decision of the framework that might not suit your application.

[PostEvent] HackTalks 2019

I have been a presenter and participant at #HackTalks Timisoara. I have seen lots of interesting people that do great stuff. Also lots of programmers interested of how to do better programming. It is a good vibe and lots of knowledge sharing.

As a participant , I can mention:

https://www.facebook.com/hacktalks.ro/posts/823295824708035 : Container Orchestration in the cloud for oncology  – data science and programming together for the greater good

https://www.facebook.com/hacktalks.ro/posts/821329954904622 : Platform revolution in mobility –  very informative and opinionated

 

https://www.facebook.com/hacktalks.ro/posts/820025591701725 : How to #model and #visualize complex conditional logic using a graph that describes a finite state machine in a highly flexible and data-driven way – nice way in JavaScript to describe logic flow with data .

 

My presentation was about Angular and .NET Core Everywhere and you can find the source code at https://github.com/ignatandrei/AngNetCoreDemo

Andrei Ignat weekly software news(mostly .NET)

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