Migrating to a Code-First or Model-First approach to database development can be very liberating. At the end of the day your database is just a way of storing state, so getting away from the implementation details can really help speed up development and allow you to focus your efforts. Code First’s awesomeness aside, when you try and implement this kind of paradigm shift within a team you unlock a different set of problems. Here are two potential ways to alleviate some of the headaches.

In ASP.net land we are often lead to think the “Microsoft way” when it comes to a lot of things. Running performance tests and benchmarking is one of these tasks where we are often found looking into commercial tooling or products to help us find out how our applications handle load. Meanwhile a lot of web developers on other stacks are doing it with great free tooling. There is nothing stopping us from stealing the best parts from these stacks and bringing them back to the land of ASP.Net.

Having a good Continuous Integration setup is the gift that keeps on giving, but what about your database? For most web applications these days, your database is a large part of your application – so why is versioning it such an uncommon thing? Because it’s time consuming and complicated – two requirements that Continuous Integration love conquering with a one-two punch.

So in today's day and age stored procedures are not a new thing at all. DotNet Developers seem to put themselves in one of two camps, those that think they are awesome and use them for everything, and those that think they only have certain times when they are needed and only use them when the absolute need arises (these days, not regularly).

Websites are becoming complicated and bloated beasts that their forefathers wouldn’t recognise for all their fantangleness. International access to broadband aside, there is a time and place for high-res images and the like – and general content pages are not one of them. If you’ve found yourself falling into the trap of having a beautiful looking site that takes an hour to download, Smush.It is for you.