Bitrate = 80 kbps

Mono

Quality = Very high (q = 0)

C8L3Q1: How do you debug a service?

Answer: Install it, start it and then attach a debugger to the service's process.

C8L3Q2: When creating a service, which methods should you override and which are optional?

Follow up question: What should you also do if you override any optional method?

Answer: The methods OnStart and OnStop should be overridden. The methods OnPause, OnContinue and OnShutdown are optional.

Follow up answer: If OnPause and/or OnContinue are overriden, set ServiceBase.CanPauseAndContinue to true. If OnShutdown is overriden set ServiceBase.CanShutdown to true.

C8L3Q3: What four things does the ServiceInstaller class define?

Answer: The service description, display name, service name and start type.

C8L3Q4: What does the ServiceProcessInstaller class define?

Answer: The service account settings.

C8L3Q5: What are the three start types for a service and which is the default?

Answer: Automatic, manual (default) and disabled.

C8L3Q6: What are the four types of accounts that can be used a security context for a Windows service?

Follow up question: Which is the default, which is the most secure and which is the most privileged?

Answer:

• Local service (most secure)
• Network service
• Local system (most privileged)
• User (default)

C8L3Q7: What tool is used to manually install a service?

Answer: InstallUtil.exe.

C9L1Q1: What are two most important classes used to deal with application settings and what namespace are they in?

Answer: Configuration and ConfigurationManager, which are in the System.Configuration namespace.

C9L1Q2: What are the four ConfigurationManager methods that open various configurations?

Answer:

• OpenExeConfiguration
• OpenMachineConfiguration
• OpenMappedExeConfiguration
• OpenMappedMachineConfiguration

C9L1Q3: What should you always do before opening a mapped configuration file and why?

Answer: Check for the existence of the file, because if it is missing no error will be generated - instead all the configuration settings will be null.

C9L1Q4: How can you specify which version of the .NET Framework an application should be run with?

Answer: Add a supportedRuntime entry in the startup section of the configuration file.

C9L1Q5: Which is obsolete, ConfigurationSettings or ConfigurationManager?

Answer: ConfigurationSettings

C9L1Q6: What are the two default properties of the ConfigurationManager class used to store configuration information?

Answer: AppSettings and ConnectionString.

C9L1Q7: What is the default file name for putting configuration settings in?

Answer: App.config.

C9L1Q8: What is the XML path for custom application settings in the App.config file?

Follow up question: What is the element name and what should its two attributes be?

Answer: configuration → appSettings.

Follow up answer: The element name is 'add' and the two attributes should be 'key' and 'value'.

C9L1Q9: How would you read a setting called 'foo' from the application settings file?

Answer: Call ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[“foo”] and store the result in a String.

C9L2Q1: What are the two specific predefined installers?

Answer: AssemblyInstaller and ComponentInstaller.

C9L2Q2: What methods should be overridden when creating a custom Installer class?

Follow up question: What two events can also be responded to?

Answer: Install, Commit, Rollback and Uninstall.

Follow up answer: Committing and Committed.

C9L2Q3: Other than overriding methods and responding to events, what else needs to be done to create a custom Installer class?

Answer: Add the RunInstallerAttribate to the custom class and set the runInstaller parameter to true.

C9L3Q1: What are the code groups in the .NET Framework named after?

Answer: The evidence they provide.

C10L1Q1: Which account have enough privileges to write to the Windows event log?

Answer: The Local System account.

C10L1Q2: Which logs are available by default in the Windows event log mechanism?

Answer: Application, Security and System.

C10L2Q1: How can you programmatically signal a break to the debugger?

Answer: Call the Debugger.Log.

C10L2Q2: How do you prevent a member from appearing in the variable watch window while debugging?

Answer: Add a DebuggerBrowsable attribute to the member and pass in DebuggerBrowserState.Never.

C10L2Q3: How do you specify what text will appear in the Value column of the variable watch window for a custom class while debugging?

Answer: Add a DebuggerDisplay attribute to the member.

C10L2Q3: What does the DebuggerDisplay attribute do?

Answer: Specifies what should be displayed in the Value column of the variable watch window while debugging.

C10L2Q4: What does the DebuggerHidden attribute do?

Answer: It prevents the debugger from breaking inside a class, method or property, even if there is a breakpoint.

C10L2Q5: How do you prevent the debugger from breaking inside a class, method or property, even if there is a breakpoint?

Answer: Add a DebuggerHidden attribute to the class, method or property.

C10L2Q6: How do you cause the debugger to automatically step over a section of code?

Answer: Add a DebuggerStepThrough attribute to the code.

C10L2Q7: What does the DebuggerStepThrough attribute do and how is it different to the DebuggerHidden attribute?

Answer: The DebuggerStepThrough attribute causes the debugger to step over the code it decorates, but does not hide the code like the DebuggerHidden attribute does.

PragC2Q1: When does software maintenance begin and why?

Answer: Software maintenance begins as soon as coding starts, because things keep changing (requirements and our understanding of them, environments, knowledge etc.)

PragC2Q2: What is the DRY principle?

Answer: Don't Repeat Yourself.

“Every piece of knowledge must be a single unambiguous, authoritative representation with in a system.”

PragC2Q3: What are the four categories of duplication?

Hint: The four i's of duplication.

Answer:

• Imposed - Developers feel they have no choice - the environment appears to require duplication.
• Inadvertent - Developers don't realise they are duplicating information.
• Impatient - Developers get lazy and duplicate because it seems easier.
• Interdeveloper - Multiple people on a team (or different teams) duplicate information.

PragC2Q4: What is a technique for avoiding or reducing imposed duplication?

Answer: Code generation.

C5L2Q2: What are the three steps to serialise data to XML?

Answer:

1. Create or get a reference to a stream, TextWriter, or XmlWriter object to hold the serialised output.
2. Create or get a reference to an XmlSerializer object, passing it the type of object to be serialised.
3. Call the XmlSerializer object's Serialize method, passing the stream and the object to be serialised.

C5L2Q3: What are the three steps to deserialise data from XML?

Answer:

1. Create or get a reference to a stream, TextReader, or XmlReader object to read the serialised input.
2. Create or get a reference to an XmlSerializer object, passing it the type of object to be deserialised.
3. Call the XmlSerializer object's Deserialize method, passing the stream, and cast the result.