Using an Azure Web App to host multiple static html sites

There are a lot of static site generators around and I have been using quite a bunch of them. While I used most of them for this (personal) blog, I have also used some for professional purposes like documenting software and for team and company-wide documentation. Especially Sphinx has proven itself to be quite useful.

I want to create an environment with the following requirements:

• Hosting in an Azure Web App
• Protected by Azure Active Directory
• Every project has it’s own documentation (no merge conflicts between teams)
• Use Sphinx but using other generators is possible

In this post I will show how to create a documentation platform which implements the requirements above with only a few lines of code.

Using xUnit fixtures with SpecFlow

It can be a challenge to implement new frameworks or tools in your daily life. Often it takes time to find out the quirks and best practices which can take time and even lead to doubts and abandoning frameworks. I have been using SpecFlow for a while now and I keep finding new ways to tackle issues and get cleaner code behind the specs (I am still having trouble creating clean & clear functional requirements though).

One of the things I keep bumbing into is using settings and sharing code between different specs. In the following example I will explain my latest find: using xUnit fixtures to get test settings and reusable api clients for multiple tests.

Managing a .NET Service with Blazor, on Windows and Linux

My employee has developed an application which “scrapes” data from systems, processes it and sends it to a central database. This is a WinForms application with a few screens for configurations and inspections. I was looking into different approaches for a new version and dived into the options of using a Windows Service.

I forgot where the exact idea came from but at a certain point I thought: what if I can install Blazor as a UI for a Windows Service. I could configure, start and stop, basically do all kind of things with this service if I have a Blazor Interface. I read something about systemd services with .NET too, so I could even create a cross-platform version (not that there is any need for Linux, but just because I can).

Well, after a few hours, I got it working so, in this post I will show you how to create a cross-platform service that can be installed on Windows (Service) and Linux (systemd) and be managed with Blazor.

Specflow and Eventual Consistency

SpecFlow is a tool which can be used to describe test scenarios and automate the tests. Although I have been using SpecFlow for a while now I never used it for advanced examples where time might be an issue. Lets show a simple example scenario first. A scenario, written in Gherkin, looks like this:

Scenario: Add simple item with due date
    Given the user enters "wash my car"
    And the user adds a due date of "1-1-2022"
    When the user saves the item
    Then the item "wash my car" is added to the list
    And the due date is "1-1-2022"

This scenario is easy to implement, the item will be added and stored. That’s it. Easy to verify, no delays, straight forward. But what if you have some microservices with a queueing mechanism? A scenario where data will be queued before processing so we can’t exactly know when the data is processed?

Arrowhead anti-pattern challenge

update (2019-11-08): added a bonus contribution from Bob, written in prolog

Just recently I had to work on a huge flow-chart to determine farm types based on the animal transports to and from farm locations. I started out with a small proof of concept but didn’t like the way it turned out. I did some research and learned I was basically creating a so called arrow head (“Arrowhead” anti-pattern ).

While it was nothing new, I never knew it was called arrowhead anti-pattern (or arrow anti-pattern).

Retry and fallback policies in C# with Polly

In this blog I will try to explain how one can create clean and effective policies to retry API calls and have fallbacks when requests are failing. With Polly it is possible to create complex and advanced scenarios for error handling with just a few lines of code.

This week I was connecting an eCommerce web application to an ERP system with REST APIs. There are multiple endpoints, all authenticated with OAuth. To make sure all calls to the APIs will have a high success rate I had to implement retry mechanisms for different scenarios.

Things I Learned This Week - #1

My plan was to write a quick post about some cool things I found and learned this week but I just learned too much (as I do every week). Below are just the highlights, I will try and write more posts like this, especially if I get some cool comments :)

Read about a REST Client, Unit Testing, TFS and more in this post!