(Joseph Chahine) As defined by Wikipedia, "a hash function is a reproducible method of turning some kind of data into a (relatively) small number that may serve as a digital ‘fingerprint’ of the data. The algorithm ‘chops and mixes’ (substitutes or transposes) the data to create such fingerprints, c

(Tony Patton) From its beginning, the .NET Framework allowed C# developers to use XML-style comments in their code. This feature was added to VB.NET with version 2.0. The compiler can use these comments to generate basic technical documentation. The end result of using the XML commenting feature is

(Peter Aitken) In an earlier article, we saw how to use My.Settings for an easy way to store and retrieve application settings. The My keyword has a lot more behind it, and any VB programmer needs to know about these features. My is available in any VB application without any effort on the programme

(Colin Mackay) Passing a value from a parent to a child class is hopefully one of the easiest techniques and is the one I’ll start with. The idea is simple. The parent class needs to pass some value to the child class. In this example, I have set up a simple parent form with a TextBox control where

(Alejandro Gervasio) Among the huge variety of design patterns that can be easily implemented in PHP 5, the interpreter is one that might be particularly interesting to you. It allows you to build effortlessly the so-called parser layers. Welcome to the second installment of the series that began wi

(Debu Panda, Reza Rahman and Derek Lane) The real success of Java EE applications lies in assembly and deployment, as this is the key to delivering on Java’s promise of write once, run anywhere (WORA). If you fail to fully grasp this step, your application may not realize this level of portability.

(Scott Dorman) Now that the .NET Framework v3.0 has been released, developers are faced with the possibility of multiple framework versions being installed on the same machine. The .NET architecture was designed to allow multiple versions of a component to be installed and run at the same time on a

(Brian Mains) With the release of Enterprise Library 3, a brand new Validation Block (Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Validation) has emerged that allows developers to perform custom validation in an application based on custom validation setup for a business object. When the validation occurs

(Randy Connolly) Web applications often need to track user information over time. Sometimes, this information is mission critical, such as customer orders, shipping addresses, and so on. A site may also want to track information that is not absolutely essential to the application, but is helpful in

(Peter Aitken) This is the fifth and final article in a series that covers all the details of developing a .NET component. By following this process from start to finish, you may learn aspects of .NET development that are not provided in more specialized articles.