ProductivityExtensionMethods 1.0.0-beta.2

ProductivityExtensionMethods

Extension methods done right! A series of useful extension methods based on many BCL types and you can opt-in to enable in your solution. No more messy big junk classes!

Currently only for C# language.

How is it different from other Extension Method DLLs?

This is NOT a DLL assembly!

DLLs are not good, because:

• A DLL that only contains extension methods, in essence a series of so-called "utility" or "helper" functions, is not a good design approach. It's just ugly, and I'm sure I don't need to explain more.
• It is an extra totally unnecessary addition to the deployment, especially if you need to deal with strong names and/or signing the assembly. This is especially not justified when you did not use the extension methods extensively.
• Referencing such DLL adds in hundreds of extension methods that pollute your IntelliSense. No way to choose only what you need on a project-level basis.
• You need to add a reference in all your projects in the solution to have it available everywhere. Bad practice, on so many levels.
• You may need to add an extra using statements in ALL your code files to have them available everywhere by default.

How ProductivityExtensionMethods tackles the problem?

• Referencing nuget package only adds one T4 Template file to your project.
• The T4 template generates a C# code file (.cs) in that project. It is a single partial static class, under the default namespace of the assembly.
• You add the nuget package to the project that is referenced by all your other projects. The methods are now available everywhere!
• The top section of the T4 template file has a configuration that you can use to switch on only the set of the methods that you need.
• When new version of this package arrives, you just update the package. It automatically takes care of porting your configuration to the new version.
• It automatically picks up whether or not nullable reference types are enabled in your project and uses that feature as necessary.

Important Notes

• The generated class is in C#.
• This package is only tested for .net standard project in Visual Studio 16.3 though the implementation should work on other project types as well.
• The C# code contains C#8 syntax.