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One elegant way of replacing your .NET interoperability code with something else is by using Azure Functions. Sounds good in theory, but what does it take in practice? And what are Azure Functions, anyway? Let me not take too much latitude, and let me just say that Azure Functions are a way of running simple pieces of code as a service that you can invoke like any other RESTful web services. And of course, they run in Azure. To learn more about them, follow this link: https://docs.microsoft.com...

I said a word or two about progress last week. Apparently, VS Code is not the only place where we take a small step back to be able to make a huge leap forward; .NET might seem like another one. You know it, right? You know that if you want to run your .NET code in D365 for Financials, you are out of luck, and you do know that this applies to as much to Microsoft .NET Framework out-of-the-box types as it does to your own, custom-built .NET assemblies. If you don’t know that yet, then let...

Progress often doesn’t look like progress at all when it first arrives. When on July 3, 1886, Daimler Benz presented his first car, it had a 0.75 horse-power engine that could reach a top speed of 16 km/h. It was able to cover 45 km on a single fuel tank, and it could only take two passengers. Compared to best horse-driven carriages of the day, especially taking the availability of stuff you could use as fuel, this was hardly a progress. Horse-driven carriages bested this car on all fronts...

I had much second thought about whether I should even blog this one. You know, it so profoundly belongs in the Duh! category that I have actually created the Duh! category specifically for this post. Now, fasten your seatbelt. I apologize for what you are about to see, but apparently people do write code as the example below. And I sh*t you not, you can’t really make this crap up, but this is what people do: IF NOT Cust.ISEMPTY THEN REPEAT DoSomethingStupid(Cust); UNTIL Cust.NEXT = 0 ; Wat...

I started with blogging about COUNT = 0 situation. Then I followed it with COUNT = 1. So, let’s do a COUNT = 2 today. No, no, I am just kidding, don’t worry But I still have to do one more COUNT post, one that will cover all other COUNT situations. Believe it or not, sometimes you really, honestly, do need to perform an actual COUNT. You just need to know exactly how many of rows there are. It may be 0, 1 or 75 or whatever, but you need to know exactly how many. These situations are few and far...

If you haven’t read my yesterday’s post , then do that first. Good. At this point you are extremely smart because you know that you should never use COUNT = 0 but should use ISEMPTY instead. However, what if: IF SomeTable.COUNT = 1 THEN DoSomething(); Well, if this is what you need, then that’s what you need. And that’s exactly what we needed in the team a few days ago. Let’s get this clear: I am not making all this fuss about COUNT just for sports. COUNT can get slow. It can get really...

It’s been a while that I haven’t blogged, and my queue grows inversely proportional to the amount of time I have available for blogging, so let me do a short series of easy stuff, simply to take it off the list. This is not about new features, crazy new tips and tricks or anything of the sort. It’s just a couple short lessons on performance and how to reduce your carbon footprint and make the planet last longer. It’s about how to properly ask the database: are there any records there? Out...

This year my work got a better of me. For five years in a row I have posted all my demos and materials from NAV TechDays sessions right after them. However, this year, I failed. And I apologize for this. But, as the saying goes, good things come to those who wait, and here it is – all the materials from my “JavaScript Architecture: Turning Pain into Gain” session are here. So, here are the direct download links: C/AL objects Visual Studio solution If you missed the session, don’t...

Finally. Not quite, but still – finally! We finally get the first public glimpse of future of AL code writing, courtesy of Microsoft Dynamics NAV development team. As you might know, Microsoft is working around the clock to enable new kind of programming for NAV: using Visual Studio Code instead of Microsoft Dynamics NAV Development Environment. They announced it with due fanfare at Directions US, Directions EMEA, and NAV TechDays, and now the NAV community is biting their fingernails off waiting...

If you have followed the posts about how C/AL really executes in NAV, you know that C# and C/AL can sometimes be in a state where C/AL compiles, but C# does not, causing you some headaches during run time. However, what might not be obvious is that there are situations where C/AL does not compile anymore (typically due to a changed dependency signature, or due to an object that went AWOL) but C# not only compiles, but also happily runs as if nothing is wrong in the first place. These situations...

FOBs, those pesky little files that we all take for granted, import into our databases, and live happily ever after. After you read this post, you’ll handle FOB files very, very carefully. Why is that? Well, if you haven’t already, then read this post first: From C/AL to executable: how NAV runs your C/AL code Good, now that we are on the same page, let me explain why you must never, ever, ever trust a FOB file. If you are simply curious, then download this FOB here: HelloWorld.fob . Good...

Extensions are a hot topic these days. There was a ton of sessions at both Directions events, likely also at NAVUG, and most of the talks you could hear while mingling around was extensions this, extensions that. Chances are – you are going to be writing your extensions in a foreseeable future. However, there is a catch with extensions – while it may be easy to load them up into an environment, unlike Cronus database your extensions must populate the database with their own demo or starter data...

Whoa! This has been quite an event, the Directions EMEA 2016 in Prague. There has never been this many people (1.700+) and it was quite a pleasure connecting again with old friends, and meeting new friends. Also, it has been quite a pleasure listening to many good sessions, and an even bigger pleasure delivering four of them. And this is why I am blogging now – to follow up on my promise during my Polymorphic Event Patterns for C/AL. I promised you that I’d post my pattern proposal online, and...

Whoa! This has been quite an event, the Directions EMEA 2016 in Prague. There has never been this many people (1.700+) and it was quite a pleasure connecting again with old friends, and meeting new friends. Also, it has been quite a pleasure listening to many good sessions, and an even bigger pleasure delivering four of them. And this is why I am blogging now – to follow up on my promise during my Polymorphic Event Patterns for C/AL. I promised you that I’d post my pattern proposal online, and...

A lot of folks write C/AL and never worry about what happens then. C/AL is written, NAV execute is, the story ends. The same way the story ends when you flush a toilet and the tank refills. How exactly? Who cares. While understanding the inner workings of a toilet flush tank doesn’t necessarily make you more efficient at whatever it was that made you press the flush button in the first place, having a better understanding of exactly how NAV uses your C/AL code throughout its lifecycle is of arguably...