I never run with the debugger attached. It's for finding out what is happening in the code and I don't need that 90% of the time when I am developing. It's only when something very odd happens that I hook up the debugger and dig into the depths of what is happening.
If you're addicted to F5 here are a few shortcuts that can make kicking the habit easier:
ctrl - shift - B : Build Everything
Compiles all projects in your solution that have changed
alt - B - U : Build Current Stack
Checks all the projects that are referenced by the current project and builds any that have changes or that reference a project that has changes, even if it's indirectly referenced.
alt - D - P - W enter : Attach debugger to w3wp (win2003+)
I use this a lot. It pulls up the "Attach to Process" dialog box and selects the fist thing in the list that starts with W. Since the list is sorted alphabetically, w3wp should be the first thing that starts with W. I usually tell people to think "Department of Public Works" to remember this. It's odd enough that it's easy to remember.
ctrl - F5 : Run without debugger
I use this mostly for small command line apps where I am just trying stuff out. It takes a few less seconds that having the debugger fire up and the code usually runs faster too.
Sunday, March 16, 2008 4:33 PM