LINQPad

First things first…YamlDotNet is a great library and I’m thankful it exists and is so well maintained. Also, this is just how I figured out a solution to my requirement. I’m fully open to and would welcome suggestions on a simpler way to do this. I was recently trying to find a way to do some configuration definitions in as clean a manner as possible. Generally, I’m not a fan of YAML and agree with many of the complaints about YAML. But YAML is probably the most plain english and clutter free model for defining a configuration. XML and JSON are much preferred - in my developer brain - but JSON is harder to write by hand and XML seems to have fallen out of favor. (Personal note: I still have a love for XML and XML Schema.) ...

You are likely already familiar with the excellent development tool LINQPad and if you are a Dynamics CRM Developer you, hopefully, are familiar with LINQPad Plugin for Dynamics CRM. Using LINQPad along with the LINQPad CRM Plugin is a great way to learn the ins and outs of writing LINQ queries for Dynamics CRM. In this article I will show you how, with just a minimal of effort, you can start using LINQPad to directly call Dynamics CRM. This will allow you to go beyond just building LINQ queries and execute code to test Request/Response messages, QueryExpression retrieval, FetchXml, and much more. Using LINQPad allows you to test and learn in real-time without waiting to compile your code and execute your test cases (if you even have test cases! You do have test cases, right?) ...