.NET Developer Round Table

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.NET Developer Round Table

• Facilitating a general discussion on .NET
  technologies

Sierra Systems Fred Hirschfeld John
Saunders 111 Market Street NE, Suite 225
360.570.4551 360.570.4538 Olympia, WA
98501
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Agenda

• Brief Introduction
• Where is everyone today with .NET Technologies?
• What challenges are you facing today?
• Open Discussions
• Questions / Comments?

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Questions / Comments?

• Thanks to Jim Culp and IPMA
• Follow-up Contact InformationName Fred
  HirschfeldE-mail FredHirschfeld_at_SierraSystems.co
  m

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.NET Framework 2.0

• Generics Extension to the CLR type system
  allowing types with details left unspecified.
• Type safety at compile-time
• No need to create custom collection class
  implementations
• Syntax IDictionaryltstring, MyClassgt (C),
  IDictionary(Of string, MyClass) (VB.NET)
• Nullable Types Allows value types to have an
  undetermined value (NULL).
• Transactions System.Transaction namespace

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.NET Framework 2.0
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Visual Studio 2005

• Solution Folders Allows better organization of
  projects and miscellaneous files (Solution
  Items). You can use this to group projects into a
  simpler solution structure.
• Web Projects
• Dynamic project structure without a explicit
  project file (SP1 will allow us to use a 2003
  style project structure too)
• Does not compile solution to an assembly
• XHTML 1.0 1.1 compliance

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Visual Studio 2005

• ClientOnce Deployment Installation
• Code Refactoring
• Renaming variables
• Create methods from code
• Reorder parameters
• Clean Solution Cleans up intermediate files
  created during build process
• Design-Time Expression Evaluation Run code
  without compiling or running (Immediate Window)

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Visual Studio 2005

• ASP.NET
• Accessibility Checker
• File System-based Web Projects
• Expression Handlers
• HTML Source Preservation VS2005 does not
  reformat your code!
• HTML Intellisense
• Object Data Source / Binding

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ASP.NET 2.0

• Provider Model A provider is a software module
  that provides a uniform interface between a
  service and a data source.
• Mainly used in the ASP.NET architecture
• Shields the application from the physical
  resource being used in a common interface
• Change the application through configuration
  files without need to change code
• Built-in Membership, Role Management, Site Map,
  Profile, Session State, Web Events, Web Parts and
  Protected Configuration

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ASP.NET 2.0

• Membership Built on the Provider Model
  addressing the common need to manage user
  credentials
• Cross Page Posting Allows developers to post to
  a second page and access the server controls of
  the calling page through Page.PreviousPage
  property
• Master Pages Page that defines layout for a set
  of pages
• Configuration Encryption Allows web.config
  sections to be encrypted

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ASP.NET 2.0

• Advanced Caching Can add SQL dependencies so
  that as data is changed in the database, page
  caching will be expired.
• View State Microsoft split code control state
  data from optionally stored viewstate so
  developers could maintain behavioral state even
  when ViewState was disabled.
• Validation Groups Allows for grouping of
  validation controls so trigger can be controlled
  better. For example there may be several buttons
  on a page and only certain validations should
  happen for each one.

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ASP.NET 2.0

• Control Adaptors Used internally to control the
  rendering of controls based on the client
  browser. Can be used to change the rendering of a
  server control. For example, the menu control
  does generate the UI in a TABLE structure that is
  somewhat verbose. This can be modified very
  simply to render the menu using Styled DIV
  elements instead.

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ASP.NET 2.0

• Themes Skins Separation of visual styling
  from markup and code
• Change the site look dynamically using themes
• Skins allow server controls to be styled at the
  server to have a consistent look from a central
  place
• Web Parts Integrated set of controls to enable
  users to customize content, appearance and
  behavior directly from a browser.

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ASP.NET 2.0

• New Server Controls
• Wizard simplifies the programming of a series
  of forms to direct the entry of user input.
• TreeView
• Menu
• Login (set of controls)

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SQL Server 2005

• .NET Runtime Support Create stored procedure
  using a .NET language
• XML Data Type Native support for XML as a data
  type and XQuery
• Notification Services
• Reporting Services (SSRS)
• Integration Services (SSIS) Replaces DTS with
  enhanced services and extensible architecture

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Tips Tricks

• Use the TryParse static method of intrinsic types
  to parse a value without the need for try / catch
  blocks
• Wrap disposable objects in a using to ensure the
  Dispose method is called
• Consider using StateServer for user session
  management instead of InProc so changes to
  Web.config file do not cause the session data to
  be lost. Could be useful if debug/verbose logging
  is needed for a short period in tracking a
  problem. Performance is marginally slower

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Tips Tricks

• ASP.NET Menu must be slightly altered when
  exposed through Fortress (or any HTTPS to HTTP
  redirection). The menu control has some logic
  that cannot detect this and will cause a cross
  protocol error message on the client.

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Helpful Tools

• Microsoft Enterprise Library Effective library
  to jumpstart .NET development.
• Caching Application Block
• Logging Application Block
• Data Access Application Block
• Security Application Block
• Exception Handling Application Block
• Cryptography Application Block

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Helpful Tools

• NUnit (www.nunit.org) Automated Unit Testing
• NCover (www.ncover.net) Code Coverage reporting
• TestDriven.net (www.testdriven.net) Visual
  Studio integrated add-in for running NUnit and
  NCover
• MyGeneration (www.mygenerationsoftware.com)
  Template driven code / script generator
• String Resource Tool (http//projectdistributor.re
  adify.net/Releases/Release.aspx?releaseId10) A
  resource generator plug-in