Populate your AssemblyInfo

Jeff Atwood

27 Nov 2004 — 1 min read — Comments

All too often, I download sample code with AssemblyInfo files that look like this:

//
// General Information about an assembly is controlled through the following
// set of attributes. Change these attribute values to modify the information
// associated with an assembly.
//
[assembly: AssemblyTitle("")]
[assembly: AssemblyDescription("")]
[assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCompany("")]
[assembly: AssemblyProduct("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCopyright("")]
[assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCulture("")]
//
// Version information for an assembly consists of the following four values:
//
//      Major Version
//      Minor Version
//      Build Number
//      Revision
//
// You can specify all the values or you can default the Revision and Build Numbers
// by using the '*' as shown below:
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]

So, basically, you’re compiling into an assembly DLL or EXE with nothing but crappy, default metadata and versioning.

Please don’t do this.

If you’re going to the effort of making your code publicly available, take an additional 60 seconds to fill out the AssemblyInfo.

My only regret with assembly attributes is that they really should have included URL and email attributes by default. Instead we have to define custom attributes to get that...

c# .net assemblyinfo versioning

Although I love strings, sometimes the String class can break your heart. For example, in C#, there is no String.Left() function. Fair enough; we can roll up our sleeves and write our own function lickety-split: public static string Left(string s, int len) { if (len == 0 || s.Length == 0)

Department of Declaration Redundancy Department

I sometimes (often, actually) regress a few years mentally and forget to take advantage of new features afforded by the tools I'm using. In this case, we're using the latest and greatest version of C#, which offers implicitly typed local variables. While working on Stack Overflow,

Productivity Tip: Upgrade Your Pentium 4

In C# and the Compilation Tax, several commenters noted that they have "fast dual-core computers", and yet background compilation performance was unsatisfactory for them on large projects. It's entirely possible that this is Visual Studio's fault. However, I'd like to point out

C# and the Compilation Tax

Over the last four years, I've basically given up on the idea that .NET is a multiple language runtime. * The so-called choice between the two most popular languages, C# and VB.NET, is no more meaningful than the choice between Coke and Pepsi. Yes, IronPython and IronRuby are

Recent Posts

Stay Gold, America

We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I'm concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream.

The Great Filter Comes For Us All

With a 13 billion year head start on evolution, why haven’t any other forms of life in the universe contacted us by now? (Arrival is a fantastic movie. Watch it, but don’t stop there – read the Story of Your Life novella it was based on for so much

I Fight For The Users

If you haven’t been able to keep up with my blistering pace of one blog post per year, I don’t blame you. There’s a lot going on right now. It’s a busy time. But let’s pause and take a moment to celebrate that Elon Musk

The 2030 Self-Driving Car Bet

It’s my honor to announce that John Carmack and I have initiated a friendly bet of $10,000* to the 501(c)(3) charity of the winner’s choice: By January 1st, 2030, completely autonomous self-driving cars meeting SAE J3016 level 5 will be commercially available for passenger use