Versioning .NET Core in Visual Studio Team Services(8 min read)

I have always found it useful for applications to display their build version, and for libraries to have the build version in their properties. Relying on properties like the date (or file size) is always a bit risky.

.NET Core has embraced Semantic Versioning and at first glance appears to have a new way to specify version numbers.

It doesn't quite work to my full satisfaction, but luckily the older methods still work, so a basic GitVersion task in your build pipeline is pretty much all you need to get things working.

Continue reading Versioning .NET Core in Visual Studio Team Services(8 min read)

Seq TraceListener for System.Diagnostics(1 min read)

Following hot on the heels of v2 of Essential.Diagnostics, work on the beta version of the Essential.Diagnostics.SeqTraceListener has been completed, and it has been published to NuGet.

PM> Install-Package Essential.Diagnostics.SeqTraceListener

This provides a trace listener implementation that forwards messages to a Seq logging server. For performance it forwards messages in batches (with the first message being sent immediately, so you know the system is up and running), with automatic back off and retry when there are interruptions to the network communication.

This component can be used with the new Microsoft.Extensions.Logging for .NET 4.5.1 and above, or with Sytem.Diagnostics.TraceSource for .NET 2.0 through 4.5.

Essential.Diagnostics v2(3 min read)

I have made significant changes in the organisation of the Essential.Diagnostics project; although none of the actual implementations have changed, the project has been split into separate packages for each trace listener, available via NuGet.

The packages are available on NuGet (Essential.Diagnostics), and the source code on CodePlex (Essential.Diagnostics).

The project also has a new logo:

essential-diagnostics-64

Continue reading Essential.Diagnostics v2(3 min read)