DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by adron

What ASP.NET Developers Should Know About jQuery

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:03:54 GMT

It's hard to believe that JavaScript is already well over a decade old. Often relegated to marginal tasks in its early years, JavaScript has grown to become a pillar of modern web development. With the current popularity of DHTML and AJAX, it can be difficult to find a site that doesn't use JavaScript anymore. One of the driving forces behind JavaScript's newfound popularity is a proliferation of JavaScript frameworks, such as jQuery. Why? Though JavaScript itself is a great programming language, t...

SQL Server 2k8 Management Data Warehouse

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:28:05 GMT

One of the new features in SQL Server 2k8 is the Management Data Warehouse. This feature is made up of a data collector, storage, and execution that collects data about the particular databases within the server into a reporting warehouse. This data is stored in the msdb and also in management data warehouse databases that are created when the Data Collection is configured. The warehouse uses various pieces of SQL Server such as SSIS and other components also. One of these components is the dcexec.exe file that is responsible for loading and executing SSIS packages that are part of this collection set. Keep in mind, that there is an API for this warehouse also for extension of the functionality. The following are the steps for setting up a basic management data warehouse.

ASP.NET MVC brings FUN back inside web development, on .NET

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:01:03 GMT

Simone writes about his impressions on ASP.NET MVC and why it has reactivated the motivation of developers on the .NET community for web development.

HighBall (#4) Patterns

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:17:47 GMT

Here in part #4 I want to cover the final wire up I did to get the initial screens to show. The other primary focus of this blog entry is to cover some of the architectural patterns behind what I have so far. We haven't touched upon testing this yet, primarily because I'm stepping through wiring both Silverlight & WPF with these libraries for the first time. I've done the WPF before, but not both. Soon enough, I'll get back to good standard practice and get some tests done first. But for now, here's the low down on wiring up Silverlight and the architectural patterns so far. Architectural Patterns & Ideas Dependency Injection This is one of interesting parts of the application, at least to me. For many the dependency injection is endlessly confusing, but it comes in immensely helpful in getting things loosely coupled and all wired up. Because even when you decouple things, they do have to get wired up again - it's just the how that's important. Below is an example of a presenter in the schedule module that uses constructor based dependency injection. Dig it? I'll have another follow up entry in the future about what and how Dependency Injection works, along with the respective Dependency Inversion, Inversion of Control, and all those other patterns. For now, just now that this is how the view gets registered with the region that is responsible for displaying it when the application runs.

HighBall (#3) Wiring Up Silverlight

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:16:14 GMT

In this part I'll be covering wiring up Silverlight with an appropriate module similarly to what part #1 and part #2 covered for WPF. What I want to show in this entry is basically the differences of each module and the difference in the startup shell. The differences are however very minimal, which leaves me curious about abstracting some of this and removing the code duplication, or maybe I should say xaml duplication. One of the things I did after the first two parts of this series is to add some more projects that I would need once wired up and ready to continue with other parts of the project. First I added the respective test projects, the other Silverlight Module projects etc. This brings me to one of the differences between the WPF and Silverlight Interfaces. For the modules that will be used in the Silverlight Project you?ll need to add Silverlight Class Library Project as shown to the left. The Silverlight Class Library Template adds various assemblies and other references that are needed for these modules to be used in Silverlight Applications.

HighBall Part Duex (#02) Adding the Composite Application Libraries

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:12:40 GMT

The first thing I did was go download the Composite Application Library Guidance. The Patterns & Practices Group Page on the Composite Application Library is available also with more links and information. The steps I took to get all the CAL stuff added went something like this. I added the projects & test projects for; Composite.Desktop, Composite.Desktop.Tests, Composite.Presentation.Desktop, Composite.Presentation.Desktop.Tests, Composite.UnityExtensions.Desktop, Composite.UnityExtensions.Desktop.Tests. Then I added the Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation.dll to the 3rd Party Assemblies directory and fixed the references in the above projects. Since I had literally copied them from the CAL directory that the installer places them, I had to fix up the references, but I had done so on purpose so that I'd know exactly what references what. After adding that I setup a project for my first module named HighBall.Interface.Modules.ScheduleModule. In this module I made a view called ScheduleAddView.xaml and a module called ScheduleAddModule.cs. In the xaml view I added the following markup, which is identical to the markup I created for the ScheduleAdd.xaml in the previous blog post.

HighBall Part Duex (#01)

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:19:28 GMT

I'm working through this next part of my HighBall Project, which I'll be blogging regularly, using TDD and UI/X First Development. In other words, to give some context, I'm building out a UI first, then I'll start from the back end and build together using primarily TDD style development. I'll admit, I'm a bit unsure of how to go about building out the UI with a TDD style process. But hopefully by the end of this little application building exercise I'll have it figured out. My basic user stories so far is as follows. As a manager I want to create a schedule for a particular route. As a manager I want to delete an old schedule for a particular route. As a manager I want to view all of the schedules for all routes. As a manager I want to view the history of all past schedules for all routes. The driver needs to select a route and view the route schedule.

ASP.NET MVC for RoR developers: do as locals do

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:16:12 GMT

A few days ago, Simon Tokumine, a Ruby On Rails developer from UK who had to build a web app using ASP.NET MVC wrote a nice post that makes a comparison between RoR and ASP.NET MVC. In this post I'm going to give him and to other RoR developers that want (or are forced to) evaluate and eventually use ASP.NET MVC in a project the tips that they need to do as locals do

Integrating log4net with EntLib Exception Handling App Block

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:19:32 GMT

If you don't want to use Entlib Logging because of some performance concerns and prefer log4net instead and want to make use of Exception Handling App Block in your application this article is for you.

A Quick Example of YAGNI / Simplest Thing Possible in Action

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:16:14 GMT

If you've ever worked on an Agile/XP team you've surely heard something in the lines of "Let's YAGNI that. (YAGNI == You aren't gonna need it)" You've probably also heard the phrase "do the simplest thing that could possibly work." Both of these sayings are an exhortion to developers to avoid overdesign and analysis/paralysis by focusing on the here and now instead of getting caught up in designing for a conjectural need. I called YAGNI on something today.

Test Driven Development Built Name Generator Part 3

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:31:51 GMT

Now it is time finally for the random name generation. I've gotten everything into place, so it's just a matter of grabbing the names and randomizing among them. Just as a check, after Part 2 was finished I had a total of 98,572 rows of data, or simply 98,572 names. Many times I would not write actual unit tests against the database as it breaks isolation. This time though, I'm making an exception. First I added a reference to Generator.Core, System.Data, and System.Data.Entity. I then created a new unit test class called DatabaseTests and added the following test to get things rolling. Keep in mind, since these tests break isolation, I don't write them in the red light green light idea of TDD. My assumption is that they only prove the database is setup, running, the connection string is correct, and other minor configuration based and server based components. In addition, yes, these are somewhat silly tests, such as the RetrieveFirstName() test has a bit of redundancy to it, but the point is to have an automated test to assure that the data has been moved into the database and is returning appropriately.

Test Driven Development Built Name Generator Part 2

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:30:20 GMT

Alright, time to tear into getting that name data imported into the database. To review the previous entry check out part 1. Next I set the Windows App Project I added in part 1 to be the startup project. After that I created a screen that looks like the image below (click to see larger image). Also add an open file dialog control. Next double click on the Process button and add the following code. Make sure not to miss the instantiation of the names list property in the initialization.

Test Driven Development Built Name Generator Part 1

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:21:45 GMT

This is going to be a multi-part series on building a straight forward database driven name generator. I've tried the random name generator thing and it generally isn't so great. I'd tried in the past this idea with the database table of census names and it works great. So this is part 1. I'll post these entries consecutively over the next few days so stay tuned. First I started a new clean solution and added a test project. I figured I wasn't even going to add the actual assembly project yet, just jump right in and start writing a test, get red, and go to the next step.

Data Generation, TDD Like

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:03:38 GMT

On the tail of my recent additions to the data generator app I?ve been building I fell right into a need for the middle name to be generated along with standard names. Here?s how I went about fixing this situation up with a sling at TDD & such. The first thing I did was a quick refactor, to change the previous FullName class I had been using in my previous Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 examples to FirstLastAmericanName. Next I added the first test for the new class I?ll create right afterward. The test looked like this.

DDD7 Session Video - Microsoft Pex - The future on unit testing?

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:29:53 GMT

Video of presentation from DDD7 in Reading, UK about Pex and the future of unit testing. Abstract: Is unit testing about to have a major change? Pex is a project from Microsoft Research which automatically generates a traditional unit testing suite with high code coverage from hand-written parameterised unit tests. In this session, Ben explores the Pex framework, explaining the approach the framework takes and how it computes the test inputs based on your programs execution. Ben demonstrates how to use the framework and how it could potentially change the way we write unit tests.

Implementing Enterprise Library Architecture Part 1

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:29:27 GMT

Imagine all of this functionality rolled into a clear layer with well defined separation of concerns. Ok, stop imagining it and get it done, here's how. First off, get a clean VS.NET 2008 Installation and make sure you have Enterprise Library 4.1 Installed and ready to go. Now, here's the step by step.

Query Data with Parallel LINQ

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:18:56 GMT

The code shown in this post uses a pre-release version of PLINQ called the Microsoft Parallel Extensions to .NET Framework 3.5. When PLINQ finally ships, it will run only on .NET 4.0 or later. The version I'm using that runs on top of 3.5 is for evaluation purposes only. There will never be a shipping version that runs on .NET 3.5.

mSpec and ReSharper

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:40:35 GMT

Make em' play nice. Over on Codebetter.

Introduction to jQuery Article posted

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:46:05 GMT

I've posted Part 1 in a 2 part series on jQuery today. Part 1 covers the client side features of jQuery from the basics all the way through creating simple plugins and extending jQuery. This is a long article that discusses a host of the really useful features that jQuery brings to the table for client side Javascript development. Part 2 will then follow up with server side ASP.NET integration.

How I'm Using BlogEngine.NET Part 1

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 02:27:54 GMT

BlogEngine.NET does not currently do multiple blogs per installation of the web application. I know this is supposed to change in the future, but I needed a solution now. The easiest fix really, and the previous Community Server Engine installation lent itself well to this, was to just create a web application for each blog I was going to have.

Your Agile and The Flow

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:43:05 GMT

Not sure how many people do or don't get into a good flow at work.  I wonder how many do versus how many don't. Currently I imagine that not many places have a good development flow.  Instead they have more of the wait, talk, wait, wait, wait, now develop really fast type flows.

Identifing Waste, the Lean Way

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:16:17 GMT

As mentioned in a previous blog post, waste elimination is usually the most obvious and least resistant way to improve value and flow in a product. So I'm just going to jump right into some of the waste factors that are usually easy to identify, evaluate, modify and sustain their solutions in software product development. Not going to cover all forms of waste, just the most common ones.

Bad advice on exceptions from Joel

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:46:02 GMT

Starting from some comments on my exception handling series of articles I run into a couple of blogs pointing to this post on joelonsoftware.com. I think this is the worst advice on exception handling I have ever read, sorry Joel. I know this is an old post, I know Joel is entitled to his own opinion and I know he has the right to write his code as he sees fit. But as an opinion leader he influences others.

Setting Sail with the Smuggling Pattern :: Part 1

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:04:38 GMT

Maybe because I'm often entertained by the geekiest of things, I've started usage of the Smuggling Pattern named after a fellow software architect Matt Davis's terminology of smuggling data into and out of Excel. It is something that I've lately needed to do on a regular basis, get data into and out of Excel without Excel, or at least the evil COM Interop Model, really knowing what is going on. In other words, I want total programmatic control over data so I can trust it versus Excel mangling my poor data up. This is what the Smuggling Pattern is going to do for me, and it is doing it well. Now you might think, "WTF!" But just to clarify, the Smuggling Pattern is really the Builder Pattern that we architects know and love with a cooler more fun more pirate like name! So with that, here's some of that code, and the TDD process I undertook to get this sucker built to set sail.

Setting up IoC/DI for your Controllers in ASP.Net MVC

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:00:57 GMT

One of the really great things about the ASP.Net MVC framework is how extendable it is. One area of extension is in the area of controller creation. The framework allows you to replace the default ControllerFactory with your own factory and because of this we can incorporate Inversion of Control/Dependency Injection (IoC/DI) into our controller.