Who killed Google Reader?
Ten years after its untimely death, the team that built the much-beloved feed reader reflects on what went wrong and what could have been. 

Announcing Dapr, an open source project to make it easier for every developer to build microservice applications - Open Source Blog 

• Performance and stability improvements.
• Optimization and testing for .NET 6.
• All UIs and templates have been updated for “.NET 6” style, which means they now use the new hosting API, and all UIs have been converted to Razor pages.
• Added support for CIBA, which was the last missing piece for full FAPI compliance. 

public abstract class BaseEntity
{
    protected BaseEntity()
    {
        TrackingState = TrackingState.Nochange;
    }

    public TrackingState TrackingState { get; set; }
}

public enum TrackingState
{
    Nochange,
    Add,
    Update,
    Remove,
}

public class Customer : BaseEntity
{
    public int CustomerId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Company { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<Phone> Phones { get; set; }
}

public class Phone : BaseEntity
{
    public int PhoneId { get; set; }
    public string Number { get; set; }
    public string PhoneType { get; set; }
    public int CustomerId { get; set; }
    public virtual Customer Customer { get; set; }
}

public class Recipe4Context : DbContext
{
    public Recipe4Context() : base("Recipe4ConnectionString") { }
    public DbSet<Customer> Customers { get; set; }
    public DbSet<Phone> Phones { get; set; }

    protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        // Do not persist TrackingState property to data store
        // This property is used internally to track state of
        // disconnected entities across service boundaries.
        // Leverage the Custom Code First Conventions features from Entity Framework 6.
        // Define a convention that performs a configuration for every entity
        // that derives from a base entity class.
        modelBuilder.Types<BaseEntity>().Configure(x => x.Ignore(y => y.TrackingState));
        modelBuilder.Entity<Customer>().ToTable("Customers");
        modelBuilder.Entity<Phone>().ToTable("Phones");
}
}

<connectionStrings>
  <add name="Recipe4ConnectionString"
    connectionString="Data Source=.;
    Initial Catalog=EFRecipes;
    Integrated Security=True;
    MultipleActiveResultSets=True"
    providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

protected void Application_Start()
{
    // Disable Entity Framework Model Compatibilty
    Database.SetInitializer<Recipe1Context>(null);
    // The bidirectional navigation properties between related entities
    // create a self-referencing loop that breaks Web API's effort to
    // serialize the objects as JSON. By default, Json.NET is configured
    // to error when a reference loop is detected. To resolve problem,
    // simply configure JSON serializer to ignore self-referencing loops.
    GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter
        .SerializerSettings.ReferenceLoopHandling =
            Newtonsoft.Json.ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore;
    ...
}

public static EntityState Set(TrackingState trackingState)
{
    switch (trackingState)
    {
        case TrackingState.Add:
            return EntityState.Added;
        case TrackingState.Update:
            return EntityState.Modified;
        case TrackingState.Remove:
            return EntityState.Deleted;
        default:
            return EntityState.Unchanged;
    }
}

public class CustomerController : ApiController
{
    // GET api/customer
    public IEnumerable<Customer> Get()
    {
        using (var context = new Recipe4Context())
        {
            return context.Customers.Include(x => x.Phones).ToList();
        }
    }

    // GET api/customer/5
    public Customer Get(int id)
    {
        using (var context = new Recipe4Context())
        {
            return context.Customers.Include(x => x.Phones).FirstOrDefault(x => x.CustomerId == id);
        }
    }

    [ActionName("Update")]
    public HttpResponseMessage UpdateCustomer(Customer customer)
    {
        using (var context = new Recipe4Context())
        {
            // Add object graph to context setting default state of 'Added'.
            // Adding parent to context automatically attaches entire graph
            // (parent and child entities) to context and sets state to 'Added'
            // for all entities.
            context.Customers.Add(customer);
            foreach (var entry in context.ChangeTracker.Entries<BaseEntity>())
            {
                entry.State = EntityStateFactory.Set(entry.Entity.TrackingState);
                if (entry.State == EntityState.Modified)
                {
                    // For entity updates, we fetch a current copy of the entity
                    // from the database and assign the values to the orginal values
                    // property from the Entry object. OriginalValues wrap a dictionary
                    // that represents the values of the entity before applying changes.
                    // The Entity Framework change tracker will detect
                    // differences between the current and original values and mark
                    // each property and the entity as modified. Start by setting
                    // the state for the entity as 'Unchanged'.
                    entry.State = EntityState.Unchanged;
                    var databaseValues = entry.GetDatabaseValues();
                    entry.OriginalValues.SetValues(databaseValues);
                }
            }

        context.SaveChanges();
    }

    return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, customer);
}

    [HttpDelete]
    [ActionName("Cleanup")]
    public HttpResponseMessage Cleanup()
    {
        using (var context = new Recipe4Context())
        {
            context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand("delete from phones");
            context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand("delete from customers");
            return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
        }
    }
}

Security Advisory Notices

CVE-2019-1077 Visual Studio Extension Auto Update Vulnerability

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when the Visual Studio Extension auto-update process improperly performs certain file operations. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could delete files in arbitrary locations. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would require unprivileged access to a vulnerable system. The security update addresses the vulnerability by securing locations the Visual Studio Extension auto-update performs file operations in.

CVE-2019-1075 ASP.NET Core Spoofing Vulnerability

A spoofing vulnerability exists in ASP.NET Core that could lead to an open redirect. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could redirect a targeted user to a malicious website. To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker could send a link that has a specially crafted URL and convince the user to click the link.

The security update addresses the vulnerability by correcting how ASP.NET Core parses URLs. Details can be found in the .NET Core release notes.

CVE-2019-1113 WorkflowDesigner XOML deserialization allows code execution

A XOML file referencing certain types could cause random code to be executed when the XOML file is opened in Visual Studio. There is now a restriction on what types are allowed to be used in XOML files. If a XOML file containing one of the newly unauthorized types is opened, a message is displayed explaining that the type is unauthorized.

For further information, please refer to https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4512190/remote-code-execution-vulnerability-if-types-are-specified-in-xoml.

There a misinformed notions floating around the agile community that products and better than projects. That some how - unspecified and unsubstantiated  as usual - that projects are undesirable and focusing on products and their value - again unspecified how to measure that value and unsubstantiated that value measurement isn't what projects do as well. 

If Not a And b Then
  ...
Else
  ...
EndIf

if(!(a) && b)
{
...
}
else
{
}

public interface ICommand
{
}

public class Command1 : ICommand
{
}

public class Command2 : ICommand
{
}

ICommand command = new Command1();
if (!(command is Command2))
{

}

if (command is not Command2)
{

}

if ((command is ICommand) && !(command is Command2))
{

}

if (command is ICommand and not Command2)
{

}

if (command is Command1 or Command2)
{

}

var number = new Random().Next(1, 10);
if (number > 2 && number < 8)
{

}

if (number is > 2 and < 8)
{

}

public static bool IsLetterOrSeparator(char c) =>
   (c >= 'a' && c <= 'z') || (c >= 'A' && c <= 'Z') || c == '.' || c == ',';

public static bool IsLetterOrSeparator(char c) =>
   c is (>= 'a' and <= 'z') or (>= 'A' and <= 'Z') or '.' or ',';

 var number = new Random().Next(1, 10);
 if (number <= 0)
 {
     Console.WriteLine("Less than or equal to 0");
 }
 else if (number > 0 && number <= 10)
 {
     Console.WriteLine("More than 0 but less than or equal to 10");
 }
 else
 {
     Console.WriteLine("More than 10");
 }

// C#9.0
 switch (number)
 {
     case <= 0:
         Console.WriteLine("Less than or equal to 0");
         break;
     case > 0 and <= 10:
         Console.WriteLine("More than 0 but less than or equal to 10");
         break;
     default:
         Console.WriteLine("More than 10");
         break;
 }

// C#7.0
 switch (number)
 {
     case int value when value <= 0:
         Console.WriteLine("Less than or equal to 0");
         break;
     case int value when value > 0 && value <= 10:
         Console.WriteLine("More than 0 but less than or equal to 10");
         break;
     default:
         Console.WriteLine("More than 10");
         break;
 }

 var message = number switch
 {
     <= 0 => "Less than or equal to 0",
     > 0 and <= 10 => "More than 0 but less than or equal to 10",
     _ => "More than 10"
 };

private static int GetDiscount(Product p) => p switch
        {
            Food => 0, // Food _ => 0 before C# 9
            Book b => 75, // Book b _ => 75 before C# 9
            _ => 25
        };

I wonder if Microsoft knew what it had on its hands back in in 2015 when it created Visual Studio Code, the little code editor that could.  

Wow – this was probably our biggest update ever! Version 2.0 of IdentityServer4 is not only incorporating all the feedback we got over the last year, it also includes the necessary updates for ASP.NET Core 2 – and also has a couple of brand new features. See the release notes for a complete list as well as links to issues and PRs. 

This is a guide that everyone can use to learn about the practice of front-end development. It broadly outlines and discusses the practice of front-end engineering: how to learn it and what tools are used when practicing it in 2019.