Working with Code Libraries
(Page 1 of 5 )
Code libraries allow you to reuse code and save you a large amount of time and money. This article, the first in a multi-part series, discusses the NxBRE library; future articles will cover other libraries. This article is excerpted from chapter four of
Windows Developer Power Tools, written by James Avery and Jim Holmes (O'Reilly, 2006; ISBN: 0596527543). Copyright © 2006 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O'Reilly Media.
4.0 Introduction
Code reuse is a critical part of good software development. Why spend time and money designing, building, and testing a library if someone’s already done the heavy lifting for you? The story told way too often in software development circles is of the team that decided to “implement their own X,” where X could be a logging framework, a custom Flash graphing engine, a compression formula, and so on. The team always ends up spending way more time working on their custom creation than actually adding value to the business they are working with, and usually the project gets cancelled or goes way over budget. Don’t make the same mistake; always use an existing library whenever possible!
The Tools
For abstracting business rules into XML
NxBRE
Gives you the ability to pull your business rules out of
your code and keep them stored in XML or Visio
documents.
For adding quality logging to your application
log4net
Lets you create logfiles for your application with
varying levels of detail. The people responsible for
maintaining your application will thank you.
For implementing search functionality
Lucene.Net
Gives your users enhanced search functionality.
For comparing libraries
LibCheck
Compares two versions of an assembly to see what
has changed. This can be very useful when you’re
trying to diagnose why something is broken or is
causing unexpected behavior.
For visually comparing assemblies
Reflector.Diff
Lets you visually compare the differences between
assemblies.
For adding spellchecking capabilities to your application
NetSpell
Gives your users the ability to check their spelling
while using your application.
For adding chart capabilities
NPlot
Lets you add charts and graphs to your application.
For sorting collections
NSort
Gives you the functionality to sort your collections in a
number of different ways.
For adding RSS to your application
RSS.NET
Enables you to add RSS feeds to your site (and read
from current RSS feeds) without writing a line of XML.
For adding compression to your application
SharpZipLib
Easily compresses files or information using any
number of compression algorithms.
For writing XML documents
ExcelXMLWriter
Lets you easily export Excel spreadsheets from your
application.
For creating PDFs
iTextSharp
Gives your users the ability to export PDFs from your
application.
Next: 4.1 Externalizing Business Rules with NxBRE >>
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 This article is excerpted from chapter four of Windows Developer Power Tools, written by James Avery and Jim Holmes (O'Reilly, 2006; ISBN: 0596527543). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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