I'm gonna start building a small helper library for my web projects, but not sure what typical features that they should contain (only building web application with C# and ASP.NET). I was thinking of logging features, caching, mail etc. Any other typical features that I should put in it?
+10
A:
If you don't have any features you need yet, why bother writing a helper library? Just add to it as you need to if you want, but placing a bunch of generic classes into a library that may or may not be used just smells bad.
Alex Fort
2009-03-09 20:58:50
Spot on. There's no reason to build any of that stuff until you need it. Plus, climb on the backs of others. Some nice tools exist that already do some of those things (log4net, etc.)
Chris Holmes
2009-03-09 21:00:22
Actually will be using log4net, but making some extension methods to make it easier to work with.
Frederik Vig
2009-03-09 21:02:12
Of course, on the second project where you find you want the same thing, then start building a helper library,
Richard
2009-03-09 21:19:15
A:
Typically a helper library contains anything that isn't application specific, but needs to be accessed by multiple applications.
As you mentioned, some typical uses of a helper library are things like sending email, logging, and maybe caching.
It all depends on how you want to use it.
However you are putting the cart before the horse if you are designing a helper library before you know what you need it to do.
AaronS
2009-03-09 21:05:25