NuGet Project Uncovered: An Introduction to the Series

A while back I posted about following the NuGet feed via an RSS reader. For some strange reason I?ve been reviewing this feed since then on an almost daily basis in my RSS reader. Throughout that time I?ve kept a small list of what I think are interesting projects that have put out a release since that time. Today we?re going to start a journey through projects that I?ve found during my review of the feed. Some projects are interesting because I could find a use for them, some are interesting because they are unique, and others solve an interesting problem.

Why were these packages chosen to post about over others?

There wasn?t any scientific process in place to decide what projects made this list or not but as I think back over my time reviewing the feed, below are some items that came to mind.

Some reasons I may have chosen a project:

• I could potentially see myself investigating its usage someday.
• It solved a problem in an interesting way.
• Preferred small, focused, unique packages.
• Preferred projects that were Open Source as in FREE.
  • Although I didn?t bother to look at any of the licenses so be sure to read into those before you use any yourself.
• Preferred projects that have a ?Project Site? where I could browse the source code see examples or even documentation.
  
• For some reason if I saw it was hosted on GitHub I preferred those to sites that had their own dedicated location (Can?t explain why ? just did?)

Some reasons I may have NOT have chosen a project:

• Tended to avoid projects that posted large numbers of packages even though many of them are still very good projects.
  EX:
  • NServiceBus
  • FubuMvc
• For some reason I tended to stay away from anything MVC related. There are probably very interesting projects for MVC on there, but I probably avoided them because I?m not doing anything MVC related at the moment.
• Avoided packages that had ?utilities? or ?common? or ?helpers? in the package name.
  • But it might still be worthwhile checking out some of those open source ?utility? projects. Just to get an idea of what others consider ?needed on every project? and different approaches to the problems.

Some items to consider with these little NuGet gems:

• Make sure you read and understand any license the project has before including or using them in your own work.
• These posts won?t be full project analysis, but a generally a first impression.
• Be sure to research any project before using. I?m only mentioning them because they piqued?my interest. Not because I have extensive knowledge of the projects or know their stability.