Recently I read good Russian post with many interesting extensions methods after then I remembered that I too have one good extension method “Safely type convert”. Idea of this method I got at last job.

We often write code like this:

int intValue;

if (obj == null || !int.TryParse(obj.ToString(), out intValue))

    intValue = 0;

This is method how to safely parse object to int. Of course will be good if we will create some unify method for safely casting.

I found that better way is to create extension methods and use them then follows:

int i;

i = "1".To<int>();

// i == 1

i = "1a".To<int>();

// i == 0 (default value of int)

i = "1a".To(10);

// i == 10 (set as default value 10)

i = "1".To(10);

// i == 1

// ********** Nullable sample **************

int? j;

j = "1".To<int?>();

// j == 1

j = "1a".To<int?>();

// j == null

j = "1a".To<int?>(10);

// j == 10

j = "1".To<int?>(10);

// j == 1

I should say that I’m fan of regular expressions. Whenever I see the problem, which I can solve with Regex, I felt a burning desire to do it and going to write new test for new regex. Previously I had installed SharpDevelop Studio just for good regular expression tool in it (Why VS doesn’t have one?). But now I’m a little wiser, and for each Regex I write a separate test.

I find it difficult to remember the syntax of regular expressions (I don’t write them very often); I always forget which character is responsible for the beginning of the line, etc. So I use external small and easy articles like this “Regular expressions - An introduction”.

Now I want to show you little samples of regular expressions and want to show you how to test these samples.

Recently Konstantin Kishinsky (Microsoft Russia) presented in his blog Deep Zoom Composer 1.0 (in russian), which everyone can download from Microsoft site. What is it and how it works - you can find in user guide.

And now i want to show you how we can use it in production.

In Windows 7, I really liked an opportunity to change the position of the windows by pressing hotkeys Win + (Left | Right | Up | Bottom):

• Win + Left - window attached to the left side
• Win + Right - window attached to the right side
• Win + Up - window is maximized
• Win + Bottom - window in the normal state