To some, “unit testing” is a four letter word.  While it’s unfortunate, the feeling is justified by poor experiences, lack of knowledge, and so on.  Personally, I’ve had mixed experiences with unit tests.  I’m sure many of you have encountered similar situations.  After reading The Art of Unit Testing by Roy Osherove, I feel far more confident in not only understanding unit tests, but also the best practices for implementation.  If this book had only been written years ago, maybe all those poor unit testing experiences would have never happened. 

The fundamental thing that I think is most misunderstood about unit testing is simply not understanding what a unit test is.  In fact, Roy just recently posted an updated definition of how he would classify a unit test on his blog.  Of course a definition isn’t always enough, and in his book, Roy starts off by fully explaining all the aspects of what a unit test should be and the basic outline for how to succeed.  I would highly recommend that you visit his book’s webpage (http://manning.com/osherove/) and download the sample first chapter. 

This seriously may be the best book ever written on unit testing.  I understand that “the best” is a strong statement, but this book is really the perfect package.  Let’s look at what makes this such a winner… More...

I’ve been lucky enough to work on a new project for a client involving Silverlight 3 and the Silverlight Virtual Earth CTP.  One reoccurring issue that keeps coming up is performance, and I’m always looking for ways to balance functionality with speed.  In the app we are loading up a Virtual Earth map and populating it with data (nothing new).  We have a fair amount of data being loaded for various functions and layers.  Users are able to show and hide layers as well as interact with the map’s basic functions (zoom, pan, etc).  Users can then navigate to other areas based on selections from the map page. 

Since we’re using SL3, we’re using the Navigation Framework to navigate between “pages.”  If you’re not familiar with the Navigation Framework, check out Martin Mihaylov’s article, or if you prefer videos, be sure to check out Tim Heuer’s video on the topic.  Now let’s move on to the problem, and a solution…

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