Windows has a set of reserved filenames that cannot be used for files or folders. These names are reserved for legacy reasons, dating back to DOS. If you try to create a file or folder with one of these names, you will get an error. The list of reserved names is: CON, PRN, AUX, NUL COM0 through COM9 LPT0 through LPT9 These names come from DOS, where devices were exposed as special file-like names. For… [read more]

When writing GitHub Actions workflows, it is generally recommended to keep your scripts in separate files and reference them using the path attribute of the run step. This allows you to lint and test your scripts easily using standard tools. However, this approach is not always practical. For instance, when creating a reusable workflow or a simple action, you might prefer to keep everything in a single… [read more]

MSBuild binary logs (binlogs) are a powerful tool for diagnosing build issues. If you're not familiar with binlogs, check out my post Exploring a MSBuild binary log using the binary log viewer to get started, or Stop using diagnostic verbosity in MSBuild to understand why binlogs are better than diagnostic verbosity. By default, binlogs capture a lot of information, but you can get even more details about… [read more]

Over the years, I've learned valuable lessons about software engineering, often the hard way. These principles have shaped how I approach development, and I hope they'll be useful to you too. While some might seem obvious, they're easy to forget when you're deep in code. Here are essential rules I try to follow. This post is an example of Why do I write blog posts. I've shared this advice multiple times… [read more]

The gh CLI is a powerful tool for interacting with GitHub from the command line. It allows you to manage repositories, issues, pull requests, and more without leaving your terminal. However, when things do not work as expected, it can be challenging to understand what is happening under the hood. Sometimes, you may encounter cryptic errors like a 403 Forbidden response. This error can occur for various… [read more]

When debugging or logging, you often need to know where a method is defined in your source code. While .NET provides caller information attributes like [CallerMemberName], [CallerFilePath], and [CallerLineNumber], these only work at compile-time and require you to add parameters to your methods. What if you want to retrieve source file information for any method at runtime? One use-case is… [read more]

I often get questions about how this website is built. So, let's answer it in this post. The journey: From WordPress to static site generation I've been blogging for more than 10 years, so I've updated my tools over time. Let me walk you through the evolution. The WordPress era I started with WordPress hosted on a VPS. It's very simple to use at the beginning. You don't waste your time on technical stuff… [read more]

When working with BinaryData and MemoryStream in .NET, you might need to convert stream data into a BinaryData instance. The typical approach using BinaryData.FromStream() involves copying the entire buffer, which can impact performance and increase memory allocations. However, there's a more efficient way to achieve this with zero memory copies. The problem with BinaryData.FromStream() The standard way… [read more]

If you're using self-hosted GitHub Actions runners, you might have noticed they can be surprisingly CPU-intensive, even when idle. A closer look reveals that a single runner can peg a CPU core at 100% utilization. This isn't a bug in your workflow; it's a deliberate design choice in the runner's sleep mechanism. The problem: Busy-waiting Instead of using standard, efficient sleep functions provided by the… [read more]

What is Mark of the Web? Mark of the Web (MOTW) is a Windows security feature that protects users from potentially unsafe files downloaded from the internet. When you download a file, Windows automatically adds a special metadata tag indicating the file originated from an untrusted source and may contain harmful content. Windows components such as Microsoft Edge and Windows Explorer use MOTW to determine… [read more]