Coding

Juval Lowy on .NET 3.0 October 5, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Coding, Software Engineering.
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Juval Lowy introduces us to .NET 3.0, clearing up misconceptions and showing off the power of Windows Communication Foundation with a few choice demos.

dnrTV

Design Patterns for webservice October 4, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Coding, Software Engineering, Software Factories, WCF.
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http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/SOADesign.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndesign/html/design08132002.asp

The relationship between .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, VS2005, “Orcas”, ATLAS, C#3, VB9, LINQ and ADO.NET vnext October 3, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Coding, Orcas, Software Engineering, WCF, WF, WPF.
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.NET 3.0 was a wierd marketing move because it sure as heck sounds like it’s a whole new version of .NET, but it’s really not.First a pretty picture:

The Framework

.NET 3.0 is.NET 2.0 plus the four new components. Those four core technologies are called the “.NET 3.0 Components“.

When you install .NET 3.0, it will put the .NET 2.0 framework and the .NET 3.0 components on your computer. If you already have .NET 2.0, then it will just add the 3.0 components. If you have Vista, it’s all there already since those .NET 3.0 tools are a core part of Vista as well. Looking in your folders, you will see the .NET 2.0 stuff where you are used to seeing it – in Microsoft.NET\Framework\V2.0.50727. There will also be a Microsoft.NET\Framework\V3.0 folder that has just the four .NET 3.0 components in it.

Nothing in .NET 2.0 is changing.

.NET 3.0 and Vista

The .NET 3.0 components are part of Vista. So programming with these components also allows you to leverage what is new and shiny about Vista.

Visual Studio “Orcas“

Like the relationship between .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.0, so goes the relationship between Visual Studio 2005 and “Orcas“. Orcas adds stuff on to what is already in VS2005: development tools that let you work with the .NET 3.0 stuff. For example, UI tools for building XAML (“Cider“), project templates and intellisense for the components, a UI tool for WCF as well. The last is not in the current CTP, by the way. So everything you already can do with VS2005, plus more.

ATLAS

First of all, ATLAS isn’t ATLAS any more it’s “ASP.NET AJAX“. AJAX is an extension to ASP.NET 2.0 that provides client side scripting libraries. It also has ton of controls that come with it. ATLAS, err, ASP.NET Ajax is not part of any of these other releases. It is currently autonomous and it works right along with VS2005 (though it’s still a CTP). Hopefully it will RTM by the end of the year. That will be v1.0. Then it will be wrapped into Orcas and get more goodies as well.

LINQ/C#3/VB9

These will be part of Visual Studio “Orcas“.

ADO.NET vNext

It’s very tempting to call this ADO.NET 3.0, but that makes it sound too integrated with .NET 3.0 which it is wholly unrelated to. ADO.NET vNext will be fully integrated with LINQ as well as adding some other awesome data access capabilities. But it is not coming out any time soon that I know of.

In addition to what I thought I already knew, I have spent a lot of time reading through “futures” documentation on the C# , VB9 and LINQ sites, on the ADO.NET site, on the Visual Studio site, on the .NET Framework site, the ASP.NET AJAX site, in forums and in blogs written by Microsofties.

by Julia Lerman

MSDN Nuggets October 2, 2006

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Don’t have the time to read a 10-page how-to article or watch a full length webcast? Try an MSDN Nugget, a webcast that takes you step-by-step to discovering new functionality or exploring a hot developer topic, all in 10-15 minutes.

Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Beta and Visual Studio support for Vista September 27, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Coding, Software Engineering.
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Are they kidding??

“Pending feedback from you on this beta, our plan is to ship the final version in the next 3-4 months.”

“Visual Studio 2005 SP1 will run on Vista but will likely have a few compatibility issues. We are working with the Vista team to understand those, to provide workarounds where possible and also work on providing you with a set of fixes beyond SP1.”

“However, we will not support Visual Studio .NET 2002 or Visual Studio .NET 2003 as development environments on Windows Vista.”

http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2006/09/26/772250.aspx

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Beta September 25, 2006

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Microsoft is announcing that Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Beta will be released the week of September 25, 2006. Visual Studio 2005 shipped in November of 2005 and this Service Pack incorporates fixes that they have addressed since that release.

Test Driven Development Related Podcasts September 20, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Agile, Coding, Software Engineering.
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It’s been an Test-Driven few weeks in the .NET podcasting scene. If you’re into it, here are some audio shows that should help you learn a little bit about this world.

Hanselminutes has a couple of shows on the scene. The first one is about Test Driven Development. Scott introduces the concept in a clear and cornise way, and points to various resources on the web to go and learn more about it.
This week he has a show about Mock Objects. The concept of Mock Objects, which many find quite a bit “over the top” for their knowledge of unit testing, is really one of the concepts that has a horrible name for the simple idea it represents – replacing real objects and classes with fake ones so you can test more easily. I haven’t listened to that show yet, but you should – Scott is an eloquent speaker.
.NET Rocks did a show with Jimmy Nilsson on Domain Driven Design and Development, in which he also discusses a lot the notions of Agile development and TDD. I’ve browsed through Jimmy’s latest book and I have a comment:
I wish Jimmy was as eloquent and clear as he is in his book. The show audio sounds almost mind numbingly quiet and sedated. No matter how hard Carl (the host) tried, I don’t think he got Jimmy into that place where he was “flowing” with his words.
.NET Rocks also has an older show about TDD with Jean Paul Boodhoo. It was quite hard to listen to, although Jean Paul really seems to know his stuff.

VB6 and unit testing: SimplyVBUnit v2.0 September 19, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Agile, Coding, Software Engineering.
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SimplyVBUnit is a VB6 Unit Testing Framework that helps to easily build unit tests in the VB6 IDE.

It is modelled after the popular NUnit for the DotNET framework.

The latest version of it is available from SourceForge.

Check out its companion projects VBCorLib and VBMock.

Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines September 18, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Coding, Software Engineering.
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If you are new to Windows Vista:

Start by checking What’s New in Windows Vista. These articles summarize the new Windows Vista core UI features that you should use in your Windows Vista UI designs, and how they differ from Windows XP.
Next, proceed to the Top Rules, which summarizes the top rules that the Windows Vista Design team suggests you follow to create high-quality, consistent Windows Vista UIs.
Check out the Top Guidelines Violations, which summarizes the most common violations that the Windows Vista Design team is finding during design reviews, and offers guidelines for avoiding these violations.
Finally, read Designing with Windows Presentation Foundation, which gives you an overview of how to take advantage of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF, codename “Avalon”).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/?url=/library/en-us/UxGuide/UXGuide/Home.asp

Introducing Windows Presentation Foundation September 18, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Coding, Software Engineering, WPF.
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The primary goal of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is to help developers create attractive and effective user interfaces. Learn how the WPF unified platform helps make designers active participants in creating user interfaces, and provides a common programming model for standalone and browser applications

How to Write Atomic Transactions in .NET September 18, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Coding, Software Engineering.
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Atomic transactions are the base part of ACID theory. Using this kind of transaction you can make sure your transaction will not cause any problem for the system if something goes wrong or if multiple requests are sent for the same resource or data. In this article Keyvan shows the simple process to write these transactions in .NET.

WCF Essentials:What You Need To Know About One-Way Calls, Callbacks, And Events September 8, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Coding, Software Engineering, WCF.
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This article discusses:

Invocation models in Windows Communication Foundation
One-way and callback operations
Duplex callbacks and events
A publish-subscribe framework

This article is based on a prerelease version of the .NET Framework 3.0. All information herein is subject to change.

Web Service Software Factory September 5, 2006

Posted by Patricio in Coding, Software Engineering, Software Factories.
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This cohesive collection of guidance enables architects and developers to design and build higher quality services and achieve more predictable results in less time by applying proven practices and patterns directly within Visual Studio 2005.