#Copilot in @visualstudio.com is really acting up today. Not even reading the agent instruction files!
#fail

That reminds me once I book tickets for to see the Scorpions in the wrong damn city and not even close to mine! I was really sad about that! 🎸

Me too and I hate the JFK airport!

Chip shortage?

Eric Johnson – Live Concert Photography & Music Prints - McCarter Photography Live concert photography of Eric Johnson — dynamic performance shots capturing guitar mastery, tone, and stage presence, perfect as fine art prints for fans, studios, and modern interiors.

Eric Johnson is firmly in my top 3 favorite guitarists. I had the honor of photographing one of his shows in San Diego, and I’m fired up to catch him again when he rolls through the Austin area.
mccarterphotography.smugmug.com/Concerts/Eri...
#Concert #EricJohnson #ConcertPhotography

General Performance: Null Coalescing Assignment C# 8 introduced the null-coalescing assignment operator (??=), allowing for clearer and more concise code. For instance, using “list ??= []” creates a new List() if list is null. Benchm…

Still doing old-school null checks in C#? Time to retire that tired riff. Null-coalescing assignment helps modernize your code and clean up the noise. I cover it in this latest General Performance tip.
#dotnet #MVPBuzz #Performance
dotnettips.com/2024/02/06/g...

String Performance: Why Some String Searches Are Slower Than You Think String searching is fundamental to modern applications, yet its performance impact is often overlooked. This article explores how common string search patterns can quietly slow down your code—and h…

😈🤘 String searches look innocent… until they bite.
In this Rock Your Code Performance excerpt, I expose why some .NET string searches are way slower than you think—and how tiny mistakes turn into massive performance pain.
🔥 Benchmarks included
#MVPBuzz
dotnettips.wordpress.com/2026/04/19/s...

The Fastest Way to Get a String’s Length in Microsoft .NET This article analyzes the performance of different methods for retrieving the character count of a string in .NET.

🎸 Think all methods of getting a string’s length in .NET are equal? Think again.
I benchmarked Span<T>, Length & LINQ Count() to see which one truly shreds on performance.
Read the breakdown here 👇
#dotnet10 #MVPBuzz
dotnettips.wordpress.com/2025/04/20/t...

Microsoft .NET Code Analysis: Ensuring Proper Resource Management – Implementing IDisposable for Disposable Objects One persistent issue I have noticed throughout my experience working on projects for the past 12 years is the improper handling of disposable objects and the lack of implementation of IDisposable f…

📢 Check out "Microsoft .NET Code Analysis: Types That Own Disposable Fields Should Be Disposable."💡 Learn about the importance of properly handling disposable objects and implementing IDisposable. Don't miss this insightful read! 👇 dotnettips.wordpress.com/2023/07/19/m...
#dotnet #MVPBuzz

Geekstory: My First Magazine Article & The Power of Networking Recently, while cleaning out my attic, I stumbled upon a treasure trove of nostalgia from the ’90s. Among the items in a dusty old box was a copy of my very first article, published in a pres…

📢 Excited to share the story of the first magazine article I wrote & the power of networking! Join me on a trip down memory lane as I reflect on my journey. Read the article here. dotnettips.wordpress.com/2020/09/18/g...
#Geekstory #NetworkingPower #dotnet #careerdevelopment #networking

Rock Your Regex: High-Performance Patterns for .NET Developers Regular expressions (regex) are essential for text manipulation in programming but can be complex. This article explains their fundamentals, applications, and best practices for optimization, parti…

Boost your .NET regex performance! 🚀 Learn how to optimize regular expressions with caching, source generators, and benchmarking. Get expert tips and best practices in my latest article. Read now: dotnettips.wordpress.com/2023/04/14/p...
#dotnet #CSharp #regex #performance #MVPBuzz

Guidance Counselor 2.0 with David McCarter Join Taylor Desseyn and David McCarter live on the Guidance Counselor 2.0 podcast on April 21, 2026, at 9:30 AM CST. They’ll discuss strategies for success in the tech job market, insights fr…

Ready to rock your next job interview instead of getting booed off the stage? Join me on Guidance Counselor 2.0 with Taylor Desseyn on April 21st at 9:30 AM CST. We’re talking tech interviews, career moves, and how to walk in with confidence.
dotnettips.com/2026/04/20/g...
@tdesseyn.bsky.social

Hong Kong is the #2 place hitting dotNetTips.com today! Amazing.

I visited Hong Kong during New Year’s when I was in the Navy, and I’d love to come back and speak at a conference there. Who’s going to make that happen?
#dotnet #MVPBuzz #HongKong

dotNetTips.com: One Cup. One Site. Endless Fixes.
#dotnet #RockYourCode #MVPBuzz

🚨 Attention .NET Teams! 🚨
Want a veteran engineer who’s been rocking .NET since day one to review your codebase? I’ve written the books on clean, high-performance .NET code—and I know how to spot trouble fast.
Let’s talk. I can help.
📩 Contact me with your needs!
#RockYourCode #MVPBuzz

Now the "Remove Unused References" is broken in @visualstudio.com 2026, too! 😡

OMG! I was seeing build warnings after the #Copilot agent in @visualstudio.com did some changes, and it told me to delete the .vs folder!
DON'T DO THAT!
You have been warned!

Version Sync (Preview) - Visual Studio Marketplace Extension for Visual Studio - Keeps AssemblyVersion, FileVersion, and Version in sync across all projects in a solution.

I'm excited to see people downloading my very first extension for @visualstudio.com called Version Sync!

Have you tried it? Download it and let me know what you think and if you have any feature requests!😄
marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemNa...

Do you hear me?
Do you care about code quality?
If you do, walk right in to dotNetTips.com and get wired to rock your code, crank up performance, and make your software sing.
#RockYourCode #ByteMe

Hot Path: You optimized everything... except the code everyone actually uses.
#GeekHumor

Concert/ Music Memorabilia - McCarter Photography Concert memorabilia from many of the shows I have attended over the years.

Years of concerts. Years of memories. Years of hanging onto pieces of rock history, as any true music addict would. Dive into my concert memorabilia collection and see what I’ve picked up along the way.
#concert #concertmemorabilia
mccarterphotography.smugmug.com/Concerts/Con...

Photography: Ocean And Beaches I have spent the majority of my life residing near the exquisite beaches of San Diego, California. These coastal gems serve as a prominent allure for tourists. While the majority of my photographs …

Living near San Diego's stunning beaches has gifted me with incredible moments captured on camera! Check out these breathtaking photos from California, Mauritius, Mexico, and more. #BeachLife #Photography #TravelAdventures #SanDiego #Ocean #beaches
davidmccarter.wordpress.com/2023/07/19/p...

Tech Prediction: The Data Kings Will Rule the World The author reflects on their successful mid-1990s prediction that data ownership would dictate power. They discuss the present reality, where tech giants utilize data for profit and manipulation. E…

“Whoever owns the most data will rule the world.”
That was my tech prediction decades ago. Today, it’s reality. Here’s what that means for all of us—and how to fight back.
#dotNetDave #GeekStory
dotnettips.wordpress.com/2025/10/15/t...

General Performance: Expanded & Expression Bodied Methods The post discusses the use of expression-bodied methods in .NET, contrasting them with traditional methods. While expression-bodied methods offer brevity, they are 1.4 times less performant. The au…

Some C# choices look like pure style until you crank up the amp and test them. Expanded methods and expression-bodied methods may play the same tune, but they do not always hit the stage the same way.
#dotnet #csharp #performance #MVPBuzz
dotnettips.com/2021/11/15/r...

Optimizing IEnumerable Counting in Microsoft.NET: The Fastest Approach Revealed To count elements in an IEnumerable collection, developers typically use the Count() method from System.Linq. Enumerable, with alternatives like TryGetNonEnumeratedCount() and LongCount() also avai…

🚀 Want to speed up counting items in `IEnumerable<T>`? Benchmarking shows `Count()` is the clear winner—69x faster than `Span<T>.Length`! 🔥 Read more on optimizing .NET performance!
dotnettips.wordpress.com/2025/04/16/o...
#Coding #Performance #MVPBuzz

String Performance: Appending a Character using the StringBuilder The use of a single character with a StringBuilder from an ObjectPool can improve performance. Benchmark results show similar overall performance, but without an ObjectPool, using a character becom…

Appending a single character in .NET? You might be doing it in a way that quietly kills performance every time you loop. 🧵⚡
Learn the right pattern with StringBuilder so your apps stay fast and allocation-friendly—especially at scale. 👇
#dotnet10 #MVPBuzz
dotnettips.wordpress.com/2024/04/17/s...

The Day the Software Community Died: Let’s Stop Coding in Isolation and Start Creating Community—And Software—People Truly Love The author reflects on the vital role of the software community in shaping their career as an engineer, emphasizing its decline post-COVID-19. They highlight the diminishing local user groups and c…

The software community didn’t die—it drifted. But we can bring it back. It's time to stop coding in isolation and rebuild the human side of tech. Connection, mentorship, craftsmanship—it all still matters. Let’s make it matter again. 💻❤️
#DevCommunity
dotnettips.wordpress.com/2025/07/16/t...

👎

Sad to see what is going on with @bsky.app today. I hope they aren't using #AI to code it! 🤪

That would be a huge mistake!

Dependency Hell: Everything depends on everything... and one tiny change burns it all down.
#GeekHumor