Brendan has been describing his recent evaluation experiences with Resharper, CodeRush, CodeSmart,  and ReFactory, and his latest conclusion that he is now a “ReSharper Convert”. Having also evaluated all of these tools myself, I’m starting to feel that ReShaper is probably the pick of the litter at this time and is probably overwhelmingly deserving of the small registration fee they ask.

One of the features of ReSharper that I find particularly useful is the ability to have ReShaper automatically insert the “using” statements for any code that I am typing on the fly. For example, if I am creating a SqlConnection object, I need to import the System.Data.SqlClient namespace to access the SqlConnection clas. However, with ReSharper, it is able to lookup and insert namespaces for code you are writing as you go:

Simply by hitting the Alt-Enter key combination ReSharper will add the “using System.Data.SqlClient” instruction to your list of using statements:

Very cool! Another related feature is the ability to “optimize” your using statements. ReSharper will detect for you any unused using statements and prompt you to let it clean up any that it detects you are no longer using. If you’re like me, you like having your source files as uncluttered as possible and this takes care of something you probably wouldn’t have worried about otherwise. (This unused code detection also applies to fields, variables, etc. and gives you the option to remove those as well.)

If you haven’t had the chance to take ReSharper for a spin yet, I highly encourage you to do so. A registration fee of $99 per user makes this product affordable for everyone.

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