.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]