VB.Net finally bug (.net 1.1)

Forgot to post this a while back, but a collegue (Matt) showed me this line that I wrote:

        Finally
            If Not cursorScope Is Nothing Then cursorScope.Revert()
        End Try

He was debugging the null reference exception that was thrown when cursorScope.Revert() was called when cursorScope was Nothing.

Yes, that's right, the IF condition was being blatantly ignored, and yes, this did seem to be related to being in the finally clause.

He broke it into a multi-line If / End If to made it all work. Go figure.

Using Generics to improve code readability

Obviously Generics in .Net 2 provides the ability to write type-parameterised code, which is great for collections and the like. But it was only when I started using it a bit I realised the potential for much wider cast-elimination.

Take for example some kind of factory method (or any method that has a type as a parameter, and returns an instance of that type):

SomeType instance = (SomeType)Factory.CreateInstance(typeof(SomeType));

Using generics can cut right through:

SomeType instance = Factory.CreateInstance<SomeType>();

It's particularly noticable in VB.Net (because it has such munted cast syntax in the first place), but the result is normally a lot more legible. Unfortunately the framework is full of missed opportunities to clean up:

thing = DirectCast(Enum.Parse(GetType(SomeType), someValue), SomeType)

could become

thing = Enum.Parse(Of SomeType)(SomeValue)

That's got to be better, right?

WorkflowRuntime.Dispose() doesn't clean up properly

Unfortunately, in the current RC5 build of Windows Workflow (the one that comes with .Net 3 RC1), calling Dispose() on the WorkflowRuntime does not clean up after itself properly. Specifically:

• it doesn't unload workflows in memory
• it doesn't reset the workflow performance counters

To do all that you have to call StopRuntime() first.

Try it for yourself:

          using(WorkflowRuntime workflowRuntime = new WorkflowRuntime())
          {
              workflowRuntime.AddService(new SqlWorkflowPersistenceService(Properties.Settings.Default.WorkflowPersistenceConnectionString));

              WorkflowInstance instance = workflowRuntime.CreateWorkflow(typeof(WorkflowConsoleApplication1.Workflow1));
              instance.Start();

              //workflowRuntime.StopRuntime(); // uncomment me to get the instance to be persisted
          }

This is particularly unfortunate given all of the samples for WF (and the boilerplate code that gets created in new WF projects) just allow the runtime to be disposed when it drops out of scope. And needless to say it goes against the grain of how Dispose() works in practice: as a 'clean up gracefully' rather than just a 'free unmanaged resources' (think SqlConnections getting closed, Transactions being rolled back etc...)

https://connect.microsoft.com/wf/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=224627