dotPeek: a Totally Free Alternative for .NET Reflector

As a professional .NET developer you recognize the value of a .NET decompiler. There are many scenarios when the original source code is not available but requires an understanding and using a decompiler is definitely one of the best ways to look at the source code. One of the advantages working with a managed framework like .NET is an ability for a decompiler to convert an assembly into an code of a high level programming language like C# instead of a machine code. And this is exactly an expertise in which the dotPeek shines.

Problems Migrating From SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) v17 to v18

If you are an active multi-year user of Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio you are probably well-used to a controversial history of this product as an arguably one of the most loved and hated at the same time and one of the most outdated as well. Understandably, with so many different active versions of Microsoft SQL Server the requirements for this product are quite challenging but the users (us) continue to vote for this tool to exist and push Microsoft to keep updating it regardless of many other alternatives available on the market.

Incorrect ReSharper Behavior for CS1591 Warning

After upgrading from Visual Studio 16.8.x to 16.9.x the JetBrains ReSharper suddenly started marking a lot of public identifiers in the code as compiler errors with a message: "Missing XML comment for publicly visible type or member...". You can imagine how that can be very annoying.

A Color Picker in Chrome DevTools

When you are working with CSS and specifically dealing with colors in HEX format it's very handy to be able to quickly find (or pick) a color value anywhere on your screen. There are tools for that, of course, namely, color picker browser extensions, that I used to have. Not anymore. Because, Chrome, that is my main browser, have a Color Picker built into the DevTools. How nice, eh?

Open the DevTools by clicking F12 (or use a menu) and in the Styles panel you can simply click on any color square and the Color Picker will open.

You can use a pipette tool on the left and while it's in the "ON" state and colored blue move it around the screen and click on any color and it will appear in the Color Picker with a HEX value.

New Code Syntax Highlighter Prism

Everyone who posts code samples in their blogs needs a code highlighter. Why? Because without one the code samples would not look nice and readable and your readers would become unhappy and stop reading your blog. Don't like the sound of it? Use a code highlighter.

Ingenious USB Flash Drive Repair Utility

Every now and then it happens when you expect it the least: Windows fails to mount and read your trusted USB flash drive that is urgently needed and requests to format it. When you reluctantly agree after struggling to remember whether there was any important information on it (check point: never use USB flash drives for long term storage) you only see that Windows recognized just a tiny portion of the drive as accessible and it's useless because the file you need to copy is way larger. What to do?

Easily add config transformation files to a Console App project

This is a very short post. Not digging into a theory of config transformations just add this add-on Configuration Transform to your Visual Studio and you'll be able to right click on an App.config file and see "Add Config Transforms" in the context menu. Works just fine.

WebDav Client for Windows

Recently I've been involved in migrating JIRA Server to JIRA Cloud and one particular required step was to upload exported JIRA data files on to Atlassian cloud storage. Atlassian supports WebDav protocol but they have no suggestions about what client software to use most likely because of the large diversity of what operating systems their customers use.

I was working on Windows 8/Server 2012 and did not have previous experience nor preference for a particular WebDav client. Google search returns a number of choices on the first page but it's hard to pick one based just on reading so I ended up installing and trying a number of different software packages. Without further ado to save time to someone who is facing similar exercise my tool of choice happened to be BitKinex. Extremely easy and intuitive to use, works immediately with no additional configuration, and provides familiar Windows Explorer user experience with drag and drop support. Thumbs up!

.NET Reflector is becoming a paid-for product

As you may already have learned the famous .NET Reflector created by Lutz Roeder almost a decade ago that was always free to use is becoming a paid-for product thanks to Red Gate Software. The decision is confirming the worst suspicions many had when first heard about Lutz's agreement with the Red Gate and has already created a massive controversy in development communities.

For those who do not remember the .NET Reflector was born in the beginning of 2000s and has quickly become one of the must-have tool for every serious professional .NET developer. A large users community has quickly formed around the tool and many great add-ons have been written by inspired developers. Reflector has influenced great many developers' careers and earned community recognition. Scott Hanselman included the program in his "Ultimate Developer Tool List".

The Reflector's success was growing for over half a decade when out of a sudden the original author of .NET Reflector announced about his decision to stop developing the product and give it over to Red Gate Software in August 2008. One part of the agreement was that

...Red Gate will continue to provide the free community version... [of .NET Reflector]

confirmed by James Moore of Red Gate Software but many had skepticism about that part of the agreement from the very beginning.

During the period of Red Gate's ownership there were not many real improvements to the Reflector except for the annoying built-in "time-bomb" feature forcing one to upgrade to the newer version of the product even though the installed version worked perfectly. Some time ago a paid-for "Pro" version was announced with an obvious reason to raise some money for the owner but based on the Red Gate's plea was not successful among developers. One of the suggested explanations for that is that paid-for functionality was not really of any interest (more creativity, please, Red Gate) for professionals and beside there were already free add-ons doing similar things.

So now Red Gate wants to charge $35 for "a perpetual license, with no time bomb or forced updates" for the version 7 that will come out in early March and promises some new features in V7.

Red Gate claims that they need money to "keep .NET Reflector up-to-date and relevant" and cannot do that "without revenue coming in". That may be true for the Red Gate Software but there is a proven recipe for that: how about make the product open source, put it on Code Plex or any other similar location and let the community take care of its relevancy? To make it even more interesting let's make it a challenge: you, Red Gate, charge for your new shiny V7 but give away the previous version to the open source community and let's see which version survives in a few years. I personally have no doubts on the results.

There is a discussion going on about the Reflector's future on Red Gate's user forum. However if you are a professional developer that uses and loves Lutz Roeder's Reflector I encourage you to share your opinion and vote for the Reflector's future right here in my blog on the right side or answer polls on LinkedIn here and here. Please share the poll with your friends and colleagues.

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UPDATE

Interesting list of open-source alternatives to Reflector on Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2425973/open-source-alternatives-to-reflector

To my taste the closest to .NET Reflector user experience is provided by the ILSpy. I am going to try and compare it with the Reflector.

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Another UPDATE of May 1, 2011
Apparently free Reflector's lifespan is going to end on May 30, 2011. Today I've started my free copy and saw this alert:

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UPDATE of May 31, 2011
Free version of Reflector is finally dead. Now those who does not want to switch to a paid version has to consider alternatives. A couple of new alternatives include:

JustDecompile

Telerik has recently released a beta version of their new JustDecompile, designed to enable easy .NET assembly browsing and decompiling. While Telerik is not know for free software, this product is featured as being free. According to Telerik, "Unlike Open Source alternatives, Telerik JustDecompile benefits from a dedicated development team, which is focused on continuously improving the product in line with your feedback. Telerik is recognized as one of the leading providers of .NET development tools and JustDecompile will benefit from our years of experience in the field."

dotPeek

JetBrains, an author of an extremely popular ReSharper Visual Studio add-in, has recently released a beta version of the dotPeek which is another new and free .NET decompiler with search features from JetBrains. dotPeek has gone public for the first time on Wednesday, May 11, as JetBrains opened an Early Access Program (EAP) that implied regular publishing of pre-release builds. According to JetBrains they are going to keep the product free.

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Final Thought

JetBrains dotPeek has become my tool of choice for the time being. It's functional, free and being updated frequently. For those who also uses JetBrain's ReSharper starting version 6 the dotPeek functionality is built-in and available through the Navigate/To Decompiled Source menu.

Leveraging Visual Studio JavaScript IntelliSense.

One of the most useful features of the Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 is JavaScript IntelliSense that allows developers write JavaScript code faster, with fewer errors and reduce learning time of some JavaScript frameworks. Many developers already enjoy its power when code JavaScript with Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax framework and jQuery. However many developers are still not familiar with that tool and even less developers realize that it can also be used with their own code.

Axialis IconWorkshop™ Lite for VS 2008

It's been a little buzz around this free VS2008 plug-in but it really is true and there is a free version of the Axialis IconWorkshop for VS2008. If you want to download and install it please use the direct link because you won't be able to find this page on the Axialis web site. Though to be honest its functionality is not anyhow better then Paint.Net which is also free but fully-functional. Besides being called a VS plug-in it opens up in a separate window. But see for yourself.