Google I/O kicks off on Tuesday, May 7th, and while the annual developer conference goes until May 9th, most of the big announcements will happen during the 90-minute keynote starting at 1PM ET (10AM PT). 

THE BEST IMAGE COMPRESSION TOOLS FOR THE WEB

a research project that demonstrates how the security of the SHA-1 hashing standard can be fully compromised 

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a subset of the JavaScript language used for the definition and exchange of data. While I’m not proposing that we create a similar standard using C#, I do want to illustrate some of the rich object initialization syntax of the language.

A Tour of Go (golang) for the C# Developer

Learning other programming languages enhances our work in our primary language. From the perspective of a C# developer, the Go language (golang) has many interesting ideas. Go is opinionated on some things (such as where curly braces go and what items are capitalized). Declaring an unused variable causes a compile failure; the use of "blank identifiers" (or "discards" in C#) are common. Concurrency is baked right in to the language through goroutines and channels. Programming by exception is discouraged; it's actually called a "panic" in Go. Instead, errors are treated as states to be handled like any other data state. We'll explore these features (and others) by building an application that uses concurrent operations to get data from a service. These ideas make us think about the way we program and how we can improve our day-to-day work (in C# or elsewhere).

0:00 Welcome to Go
2:40 Step 1: Basics
12:20 Step 2: Calling a web service
23:35 Step 3: Parsing JSON
36:26 Step 4: "for" loops
41:00 Step 5: Interfaces and methods
50:05 Step 6: Time and Args
55:10 Step 7: Concurrency
1:07:10 Step 8: Errors
1:14:40 Step 9: Concurrency and errors
1:24:35 Where to go next 

The collection includes 14 different tools including a Json to Yaml and Yaml to Json converter, a JWT decoder, a Text compare tool, and more.

The full list includes:

• Converters
  • Json <> Yaml
  • Number Base
• Encoders / Decoders
  • HTML
  • URL
  • Base64
  • JWT Decoder
• Formatters
  • Json
• Generators
  • Hash (MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA512)
  • UUID 1 and 4
  • Lorem Ipsum
• Text
  • Inspector & Case Converter
  • Regex Tester
  • Text Comparer
  • Markdown Preview
• Graphic
  • Color Blindness Simulator
  • PNG / JPEG Compressor

Some of the tools will have wider appeal, for example, the text comparison tool would be useful for writers and solicitors alike, while the PNG/JPEG compressor could help webmasters. Expect more utilities to join the bundle in the future.

The collection is free, and can be accessed via GitHub here or free via the Microsoft Store. 

These are the customer-reported issues addressed in 15.7.2:

• With 15.7, users installing an extension on the command line with a nested extension may see an error installing. This has been addressed in the 15.7.2 servicing release.
• Anaconda fails to uninstall during upgrade and issues warning (Error 87).
• The SSDT 15.6.0 Installer configuration registry key could not be opened..
• Editor performance Issues when editing JavaScript.
• The Code Coverage functionality in Visual Studio 2017 ignores async methods.
• Missing atls.lib in arm/arm64 after update.
• Test Explorer no longer greys out the previously run unit tests.
• Version 15.7.1 debugs .aspx App in a new Chrome instance even if JavaScript debugging is disabled.
• 15.7 compiler fails with Folly.
• ASP project keeps running after closing the web page.
• Chrome Debugger not working and shows an error message, however, the debugger buttons stay active. .
• Rename Python from Rename on the Refactor menu no longer works.
• Visual Studio Installer doesn't work correctly in low disk space conditions.
• Debugger links to browser when previously not set.
• Problems with template argument deduction for class templates.
• C++ constexpr string_view == fails to compile.
• A regression in Type Providers which use native resources (e.g., FSharp.Data.TypeProviders) has been fixed.
• You can now add files to F# ASP.NET Core projects from the UI.
• Listening to Microsoft-Extensions-Logging causes VS diagnostic events window to disconnect with an error message has been fixed in Service Fabric Tools. 

All the features are described in wonderful detail in the docs. Start with the overview, What’s new in C# 7.2, which gives you an excellent introduction to the new set of capabilities. 

This article takes a comprehensive look at the business of generating and sending email from an ASP.NET MVC application. It covers the most common use cases as well as some advanced scenarios. It also explores some of the more common errors that arise from attempting to generate and send email programmatically from an ASP.NET MVC site.