Browsing and Modifying Databases in Visual Studio

As an ASP.NET developer, you may have the responsibility of creating the database required for a web application. Alternatively, it may already exist, or it may be the responsibility of a dedicated database administrator. If you’re using a full version of SQL Server, you’ll probably use a graphical tool such as SQL Server Management Studio to create and manage your databases.

If you don’t have a suitable tool for managing your database, or you don’t want to leave the comfort of Visual Studio, you can perform many of the same tasks using Visual Studio’s
Server Explorer window.
Here’s how you can get started. First, choose View äServer Explorer from the Visual Studio menu to show the Server Explorer window. Then, using the Data Connections node in the
Server Explorer, you can connect to existing databases or create new ones. Assuming you’ve installed the pubs database (see the readme.txt file for instructions), you can create a connection to it by following these steps:
1. Right-click the Data Connections node, and choose Add Connection. If the Choose
Data Source window appears, select Microsoft SQL Server and then click Continue.
2. If you’re using a full version of SQL Server, enter localhost as your server name. This indicates the database server is the default instance on the local computer. (Replace this with the name of a remote computer if needed.) If you’re using SQL Server Express, you’ll need to use the server name localhost\SQLEXPRESS instead, as shown in
Figure 15-2. The SQLEXPRESS part indicates that you’re connecting to a named instance of SQL Server. By default, this is the way that SQL Server Express configures itself when you first install it.
3. Click Test Connection to verify that this is the location of your database. If you haven’t installed a database product yet, this step will fail. Otherwise, you’ll know that your database server is installed and running.
4. In the Select or Enter a Database Name list, choose the pubs database. (In order for this to work, the pubs database must already be installed. You can install it using the database script that’s included with the sample code, as explained in the following section.)
If you want to see more than one database in Visual Studio, you’ll need to add more than one data connection.

About the JIT compiler

If the JIT compiler inlines the property accessor, it must JIT that code when the containing method is called.

It's not your responsibility to determine the best machine-level representation of your algorithms. The C# compiler and the JIT compiler together do that for you. The C# compiler generates the IL for each method, and the JIT compiler translates that IL into machine code on the destination machine. You should not be too concerned about the exact rules the JIT compiler uses in all cases; those will change over time as better algorithms are developed. Instead, you should be concerned about expressing your algorithms in a manner that makes it easiest for the tools in the environment to do the best job they can. Luckily, those rules are consistent with the rules you already follow for good software-development practices. One more time: smaller and simpler functions

Remember that translating your C# code into machine-executable code is a two-step process. The C# compiler generates IL that gets delivered in assemblies. The JIT compiler generates machine code for each method (or group of methods, when inlining is involved), as needed. Small functions make it much easier for the JIT compiler to amortize that cost. Small functions are also more likely to be candidates for inlining. It's not just smallness: Simpler control flow matters just as much. Fewer control branches inside functions make it easier for the JIT compiler to enregister variables. It's not just good practice to write clearer code; it's how you create more efficient code at runtime.