Archive for the ‘C#’ category

Fantastic Friday – Links, thoughts and more…!

December 4th, 2009

Happy Friday to you  :)   I’m looking forward to my employer’s (Strategic Data Systems) Christmas party tommorow night.  It’s always a fun time.

SquareUp by Twitter

http://squareup.com/
Twitter founder formally unveils ‘Square’ project  – this is pretty cool I think – the ability to have “mobile-payments”.  

Here is a description:

The Square hardware is a small, inexpensive card reader that plugs into the audio jack of a compatible device, including a mobile phone (it’s starting with the iPhone and currently has job postings up for BlackBerry and Android engineers). It processes credit card payments, geotags their locations on a map, and e-mails a receipt to the buyer.

I think it’s a great idea – pretty cool stuff. 

Visual NHibernate Beta

At first I thought this might be ‘free’  :)   But it’s not.  However, I must say, it’s looking very nice.  Based on some NH google lists the developer(s) are very responsive to adding features and bug fixes.  That was good to see.  One of the ‘complaints’ that I hear sometimes about NHibernate (vs. like EF, L2S, or commercial ORMs) is that it’s complex to get up and running if your not familiar with how mapping files, etc… work.   So Visual NHibernate provides a visual designer and mapping tool for creating and editing NHibernate projects.

Ryan Cromwell – Castle Windsor

Not sure if I blogged on this before (yeah… I know I can search…) but I really like working with Castle Windsor’s Inversion of control container.  Ryan Cromwell (fellow contractor at Strategic Data Systems) provides a couple of good blog posts on it’s usage.  I was recently asked about factory facility for Windsor, and I was able to refer that person to Ryan’s post (see ‘Injecting WCF Channel as Dependency..’ below)

Strategy Pattern with Castle Windsor (he includes a sample project – thanks Ryan!)

Registering WPF “Views” with Windsor Fluent API

Injecting a WCF Channel as Dependency via Windsor – this shows off the Factory facility for Windsor.

By the way – a plug for Ryan:  He is our TFS specialist and can help setup, provide guidance, etc… for TFS.  If your looking for someone to do that for you – he is definitely the man to get!  I should add, he is a heck of a WPF programmer as well – he does some really fine work!

MVC Turbine – Plugin for ASP.NET MVC

http://mvcturbine.codeplex.com/

From CodePlex:

MVC Turbine is a plugin for ASP.NET MVC that has IoC baked in and auto-wires controllers, binders, view engines, http modules, etc. that reside within your application. Thus you worry more about what your application should do, rather than how it should do it.

This is very good to see from my perspective.  One of the features I really enjoyed while experimenting with Grails was how easy it was to have everything injected under the covers without needing to get into the weeds (in Grails case – Spring).  MVC Turbine offers this same functionality for the ASP.NET MVC programming.

Turbine is not exclusive to a particular IoC container.  Here is a feature list:

Features

  • Visual Studio 2008 Solution Templates for IoCs
    • Ninject
    • Castle Windsor
    • StructureMap
    • Unity
  • New runtime framework that allows extensibility
    • Blades (components) that are auto-registered and loaded at runtime.
    • Introduced the Core Blades to setup the basic runtime of an MVC application:
      • MvcBlade — wiring for MVC related components (Controllers, View Engines, etc).
      • WebBlade — wiring for System.Web components (IHttpModule, etc.).
      • RoutingBlade — wiring for the IRouteConfigurator implementation.
    • RotorContext that works with the Blades to setup the runtime.
  • Auto-registration of View Engines (VE)
  • Auto-registratrion of MVC Filters to support constructor injection.
    • Added new InjectableFilter attribute to associate a filter to an action.
    • Added support for IActionFilter, IAuthorizationFilter, IErrorFilter and IResultFilter
  • InferredViewResult handles inferred actions and reports HTTP 404 for missing actions.
  • Works with ASP.NET MVC in Mono

 

Service Orientation Requires Data Orientation

More and more the conversations are around SOA.  This one article at InfoQ stuck out to me regarding ‘service data’

Most of today’s SOA literature and implementations concentrate on defining business aligned services and rarely discuss the role and impact enterprise data has in the context of SOA

 

How to Uninstall – or make Message Stop loading up on Windows 7?

How to uninstall/remove Messenger on Windows 7 ?    My dad just got a new computer with Windows 7.  Anytime he starts it up, it wants him to sign in to Messenger.  He doesn’t use Messenger, and doesn’t want to use Messenger. 

What I find irritating is there isn’t any ‘don’t show this on startup’ or ‘turn this off’ within the Messenger pop-up.  At best you have to go out to the internet and start looking for hacks or ways to turn this off.

Microsoft – I don’t mind if you want to promote your own chat program in your OS, but please be kind enough to make it easy to turn off for non-computer expert users. 

Caliburn SL Nav Walkthrough/Intro

I’ve blogged in the past regarding ‘Caliburn’ by Rob Eisenberg.  Just a reminder:

Designed to aid in the development of WPF and Silverlight applications, Caliburn implements a variety of UI patterns for solving real-world problems. Patterns that are enabled by the framework include MVC, MVP, Presentation Model (MVVM), Commands and Application Controller.

Rob is in the process of ‘releasing various starter kits/samples for Caliburn’.  His first sample just recently released is :

Silverlight Navigation Walkthrough

Using jQuery to Scroll Just in Time for Paging Records..like Bing

Rob Conery blogs about using jQuery to scroll down a list of records with ‘just in time scrolling’ for paging.  Pretty cool – I have seen this feature used in different application.  I suspect this will become the defacto standard in paging lists.  Check out his how to here.

TFS Offline

Quote of the day… ‘Don’t work offline’.  I’ll keep the source of that quote unnamed, but I did think it was rather funny.  I hope TFS improves it’s offline capabilities.  This is very reminiscent of Visual SourceSafe – which I really didn’t like much.  SVN, Git, etc… all have pretty good offline capabilities.   While we are at it – I do hope TFS also integrates with explorer so if you edit a file outside of studio that it picks it up.  (Maybe you can, but I haven’t seen it).

UPDATE  I’ve been corrected that TFS does provide explorer integration with the  TFS power tools.

(My only response though… I was told this has been around since 2005… seems almost 5 years later this would be an installation option for TFS for Visual Studio ?  Guess you just have ‘know’ this is available – lol)

Google Docs

I am setting up my ‘Google’ realm of Wave, Gmail, Docs, Reader, etc… so far… I’m loving it.  Just recently I received an email with Excel spreadsheet.  Opened it up in Gmail, which prompted to use Google docs !  Worked out great.  And to share that document with my wife, I didn’t have to forward that document around.  Just share it exclusively to her.  All stored up securely on the Google cloud.

I did notice in the Excel to Google Doc conversion that lookups aren’t exactly the same, so it didn’t properly convert the lookup lists.  I hope they fix that.   I really see the world approaching of using this approach more and more.   With the cloud storage, feature rich word processor, spreadsheet and slide creation capability… who needs an expensive desktop copy of Office!

Steve’s Final ‘Thoughts of the Day’ – (or rather ‘Stirring the ORM Pot in the .NET world…’)

Douglass Starnes has a series on different data model approaches with asp.net mvc, showing how to setup them up and use them.

In part II of the series he makes this comment: 

In the ASP.NET MVC space I see three ORMs being used most commonly.  By far the favorite outside of Microsoft is NHibernate.  Inside of Microsoft there are two competing offerings: LINQ to SQL and Entity Framework.

This view/perspective – is it a correct one ?  Is Microsoft competing against NHibernate OSS .NET projects created by it’s own community ?  Or is Microsoft just giving more options ?  Microsoft doesn’t need to include NHibernate in any of it’s products – too many legal traps I’m sure.  What if it didn’t create it’s own ORM and merely demo’d features using NHibernate in it’s examples ?  I’m all for competition to make products better, but in this case, is MS having 2 ORM’s that are catching up in functionality, but still lagging behind NHibernate and other .NET ORM’s in the market a wise thing ?  Is that how you see it ?  I went to use EF in a project, but because it didn’t handle an ‘append only’ with ‘hilo’ id generation – and because it wasn’t poco based – where the entities are the domain objects – it was finally deemed impossible to use.  Meanwhile, we prototyped NHibernate and were able to implement everything needed in the Legacy system.  Personally, I want to pick the best of breed, not pick something just because of ‘who’ makes it.  

I don’t want to distract from his series, but that comment seems to be a prevailing one in the .net community.   What I wonder is ‘doesn’t Microsoft understand that is how it will be perceived’ – and if so… is their position to outdo the products, or do they consider this a core piece of the .NET framework to provide ORM solutions ?

I keep pointing to jQuery and ASP.NET MVC – they provide jQuery in the project templates for ASP.NET MVC.   How does that compare to including NHibernate support – or even just promoting it without including it ? 

Personally I can think of 3 examples of where they could make a difference:

1. Provide a Linq provider just like they did for EF and L2S (yes, there are Nhibernate linq providers in work – there is a basic one available now)

2. Provide a NHibernate DomainService out of the box for RIA.NET

3. Provide support for NHibernate out of the box for ADO.NET Data Services.

All three could be extensions that are referenced but included in each release.

Craftsmanship Dilemma:

Last thought… I was told to just ‘get something done’ basically… hack it.  No tests, no real design, just get it done now.  Do you think that is ok ?  How does that compare to craftsmanship ?  I don’t think I have to craft the perfect 100% solution, but how it gets built – ie. with a test, with some design/OO principles in place – shouldn’t we push back a bit to not just create ‘junk’ ?  I am noticing this trend in many industries.  Just ‘build the car’, doesn’t have to last, we need it cheap and now to compete.  At what point does quality matter ?  How would you feel if the rollercoaster your going to ride is built with that mentality?  Or the bridge ?  Or the airplane ?  Or how about the breaks on your car?  Why isn’t software engineers able to defend their craft in these situations ?  I guess it’s all about the $$$  ?  There is ‘agile’ … then there is ‘craftsmanship’…

 

Well, that is enough for the day – everyone have a great weekend!

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Posted in .NET RIA Services, ADO.NET Data Services, ASP.NET MVC, Ajax, C#, Caliburn, Castle, Entity Framework, LINQ, NHibernate, NHibernate Linq, OpenSource

Wonderful Wednesday

November 25th, 2009

Working hard… sorta of – it’s the day before Thanksgiving and many people aren’t working today – makes for a long weekend for many.

Well, I’m still working, so thought I’d post some updates from the week since my last ‘Saturday Splash’.

Couple of items this week of interest:

Saturday Night Live : ‘China Cold Open’

http://www.hulu.com/watch/110317/saturday-night-live-china-cold-open

Telerik ASP.NET MVC Controls

Telerik has some free open source mvc controls available: http://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-mvc/

  • Pure ASP.NET MVC components

    Built on top of ASP.NET MVC to leverage its values – lightweight rendering, clean HTML, separation of concerns, and testability.

  • Completely Open Source

    The Extensions are licensed under the widely adopted GPLv2. A commercial license with support is also available.

  • Exceptional Performance

    No postbacks, no ViewState, and no page lifecycle. The Web Asset Managers optimize the delivery of CSS and JavaScript, so no precious HTTP requests are wasted.

  • Based on jQuery

    Telerik Extensions draw on the power of jQuery for visual effects and DOM manipulations.

  • Search Engine Optimized

    The Extensions render clean, semantic HTML, which is essential for indexing your content in the major search engines.

  • Cross-browser support

    Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC support all major browsers – Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Google Chrome.

    • One of the biggest concerns for those hooked (more like stuck – lol) on webforms is ‘but what about my controls’?’.  Sad but true, however, with asp.net mvc it’s much easier to create controls.  Combine those with a powerful javascript library like jQuery and it can be magic.

    Take for instance the Telerik grid (by the way, you can get a similiar grid from MVCContrib, which I use, which this code is nearly the same… hmm… wonder if the same guy made them for Telerik – lol):

    <%= Html.Telerik().Grid<Order>(Model)
        .Name("Grid")
        .Columns(columns =>
        {
            columns.Add(o => o.OrderID).Width(100);
            columns.Add(o => o.Customer.ContactName).Width(200);
            columns.Add(o => o.ShipAddress);
            columns.Add(o => o.OrderDate).Format("{0:MM/dd/yyyy}").Width(120);
        })
        .ServerBinding(serverBinding => serverBinding.Action("FirstLook", "Grid", new { ajax = ViewData["ajax"] }))
        .Ajax(ajax => ajax.Enabled((bool)ViewData["ajax"]).Action("_FirstLook", "Grid"))
        .Scrollable(scrolling => scrolling.Enabled((bool)ViewData["scrolling"]))
        .Sortable(sorting => sorting.Enabled((bool)ViewData["sorting"]))
        .Pageable(paging => paging.Enabled((bool)ViewData["paging"]))
        .Filterable(filtering => filtering.Enabled((bool)ViewData["filtering"]))
%>
    

    Simple to use, and very powerful… and free. Check out the link above to view the other available controls.
    

    Update: http://blogs.telerik.com/AtanasKorchev/Posts/08-11-06/ASP_NET_Ajax_Controls_in_ASP_NET_MVC.aspx
    

    From that link above:
    

    …I am glad to inform you that RadScriptManager provides support forASP.NET MVC view and master pages. What this means is that RadControls for ASP.NET Ajax can be used in ASP.NET MVC…
    

    

    (Learn more from Atanas Korchev’s blog here – he has some good posts surrounding asp.net mvc with Telerik)
    

    

    

    RIA Services: A DomainService IS A WCF Service – Add Service Reference
    

    Brad Abrams has a good post on showing how a RIA.NET Domain Service IS a WCF Service:
    

    http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2009/11/22/ria-services-a-domainservice-is-a-wcf-service-add-service-reference.aspx
    

    This is a recent change in RIA.NET – and I should add, several other services like ADO.NET Data Services – where they are using WCF ‘under the covers’ as their communication protocol.  I think this is a good move – it provides a very standard way to communicate across the wire regardless of which flavor you choose.
    

    Using JsonP with WCF and jQuery
    

    Ben Dewey has an excellent blog post on how to use JsonP with WCF and jQuery in the new release of .NET 4.0.  As he explains, the WCF team has added support for JsonP.  Since jQuery ships with a getJSON ajax function, it makes this a piece o’ pie  :) 
    

    ASPNET MVC from Basic to Tips and Tricks
    

    Michael Johson has a good writeup on tips and tricks with asp.net mvc.  I think he is spot on in all his recommendations.  Much of what he write about is best practices with asp.net mvc.
    

    As more and more asp.net developers see the light of mvc, we’ll need more posts like this to keep them writing good mvc code  :) 
    

    Refactor or Rewrite
    

    Another good infoq article – this one on ‘refactor or rewrite’.   I’ve had this same conversation several times in my career – as I’ve seen projects really expand and bolt more and more functionality, which ends up changing the overall scope of the application – making it harder to maintain and understand.  Obviously many companies are scared to rewrite an app from scratch.
    

    Other
    

    Google: Last but not least, I’ve really enjoyed my switch to using google products.  I switched my email address over to gmail, I’m using google reader, google docs, etc…  and finally I’m using Google Chrome in full force now.  I miss two items from Firefox that I’m looking for replacements… (1) Firebug –which is the greatest and best web dev tool ever… and (2) FireFTP.  For now, I just pop open Firefox when I need it.  I think Chrome is more stable, uses less memory, and is faster.
    

    I deployed a test of the Google chrome on a web project.  This enable me to keep chrome as the website engine, and allow the client to use IE still as the main browser.  Certain pages, like reporting services, just use vanilla IE to print reports, etc..
    

    Lastly, I had a good talk with a member of the Microsoft Patterns and Practices team last week.  I had been critical in a blog post about their releases, etc…  As always, talking directly to someone helps tremendously.  We were able to voice our concerns (I invited a few coworkers) and where we think they could do better.  It was well taken.  That team is very customer focused, and they want and value community feedback.  This helped change some of my views.   One area I want to get more involved with is growing their web client guidance – expanding it to asp.net mvc – and their Prism for Silverlight.  Just wanted to express that the P&P team is hard at work and I was able to get more clarification on the role they play at Microsoft.  As fyi – they are an extension I believe of the product teams, and yet rather than just one product, they have several under their belt – that keeps them quite busy  :) 
    

    That is all for this week – I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving.  This is my favorite holiday – family and good food, time to be thankful for all we have.  The Lord has been good to my family and myself.  Just pray for all those that don’t have a family to be with and for those less fortunate.  I also pray for those out of work to be able to find some work.  This economy has been very hard on our community.  God Bless!
    
			
    

			
    
        
    
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    C# 4.0  ExpandoObject
    
			October 1st, 2009 

			
    
				
    I haven’t had a chance to really look at C# 4.0 but there are certainly some cool features in it.  One of them is the oddly named ‘ExpandoObject’.
    

    Alexandra Rusina writes about the ExpandoObject on his MSDN blog – check it out!
    

    In his example he takes this:
    

    XElement contactXML =
    new XElement("Contact",
        new XElement("Name", "Patrick Hines"),
        new XElement("Phone", "206-555-0144"),
        new XElement("Address",
            new XElement("Street1", "123 Main St"),
            new XElement("City", "Mercer Island"),
            new XElement("State", "WA"),
            new XElement("Postal", "68042")
        )
    );
    


     
    

    written in Linq to Xml and with the ExpandoObject is able to work with it like this:
    

    dynamic contact = new ExpandoObject();
contact.Name = "Patrick Hines";
contact.Phone = "206-555-0144";
contact.Address = new ExpandoObject();
contact.Address.Street = "123 Main St";
contact.Address.City = "Mercer Island";
contact.Address.State = "WA";
contact.Address.Postal = "68402";
    

     
    

    You can also work with a collection :  ie.
    

    dynamic contacts = new List<ExpandoObject>()
    

     
    

    Which gives you this:
    

    foreach (var c in contacts)
    Console.WriteLine(c.Name);
    

     
    

    -or-
    

     
    

    var phones = from c in (contacts as List<dynamic>)
             where c.Name == "Patrick Hines"
             select c.Phone;
    


     
    

    - instead of this-
    

     
    

    foreach (var c in contactsXML.Descendants("Name"))
    Console.WriteLine((string)c);
    

     
    

    Ok, I don’t mean to rewrite his article, so go read it if your interested –I think this a cool feature!
    


     
    


			
    

			
    
        
    
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          Posted in C#