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This article discusses some common usage scenarios of the goto keyword and shows alternative approaches.

comic by xkcd.com ^

If someone would have asked me a few years ago when to use the goto keyword I would have answered (in capital letters): NEVER!! GOTO’S ARE EVIL! (and obviously you get attacked by raptors if you use them)

Like many I have been educated to have a emotional reaction when someone mentions the goto keyword. Emotions have nothing to do with good practices, so lets take a pragmatic look on some of the common usages of goto and see what the real value of the goto keyword is.

This blog will not only feature tips and hints but also show you the most basic and mundane things. This time I will show you how to check if a string is empty. A very basic task. Nevertheless there are a few ways of doing that. Some good, some even better.

Besides pointing you to useful websites and showing you useful productivity tips I will also showcase some of the best tools out there. This is the first of a number of posts which focuses on developer tools.

Lutz Roeder’s .NET Reflector enables you to browse and search through the class hierarchies of .NET assemblies even if you don’t have the code for them.

The README describes the application as follows:

Reflector is a class browser for .NET components. It allows browsing and searching the meta data, IL instructions, resources and XML documentation stored in a .NET assembly.

The .NET Reflector is in my opinion one of the most useful tools for serious .NET developers. It simply allows you to see what happens behind the cover of the .NET framework.

The following C# code snippet allows you to check if the current user is an administrator.

Making use of keyboard shortcuts can improve your effectivness. This is the first of a number of posts which focuses on keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio.

You probably know that you can right click on a method in code and click on ‘Go To Definition’ (or press F12) to get to the method definition. A very handy feature. Often I find myself looking at the method and then I want to go back were I was before I clicked on Go To Definition.