ASP.NET 3.5 Social Networking:

Building Distributed Applications in ASP.NET MVC at MvcConf 2010 on 7/22/2010

Andrew Siemer — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 01:30:11 GMT

Next week Thursday I will be speaking at MvcConf. This is a virtual, free conference that has attracted some very heavy hitters MVC hitters to come and chat about their voodoo. This should be interest sting.

http://mvcconf.com/

Below is the abstract and TOC for my presentation. If you think I missed something or am watering down the presentation please feel free to contact me to give me your suggestions.

Abstract

In this session we will take a look at a handful of common ways that MVC applications are created along with each approaches pros and cons. We will start with a very simplistic, not so flexible, ecommerce application. This will then be followed by several iterations of refactoring to embrace different design patterns, easier code management, loose coupling, better testability, more flexible deployment options, etc. Our final iteration will put us in a place where we can easily scale the system to include the ability to plug in a distribution layer for remote processing with a little IoC and MVC.

We will start by looking at the traditional demo style application where business logic, data access, and everything in between is handled in a controller – not much different than the bloated code behind of WebForms days. Then we will take a look at how to slowly refactor that type of application into something better. We will take a look at how to move towards the single responsibility principle. Next we will take a look at moving to logical separation of our code using namespaces (creating layers). Then we will move towards physical separation with different class library projects (creating tiers). Once our code is pushed into appropriate buckets we will look at removing tight coupling by implementing dependency injection. Then will be ready to plug in an IoC container (StructureMap in this case) which will allow us to easily swap out our concrete implementation as requirements change with little ripple affect felt by our application. At this point our application will be ready to easily support distributed processing on an as needed basis.

The map from start to finish

Standard MVC demo application
1. All code in a controller/action, or the view
  1. Domain model
  2. Business logic
  3. Data access (LINQ to SQL)
2. b. Why is this bad?
  1. Causes code duplication and increased complexity
  2. Tight coupling results in less flexible code
  3. No abstractions and/or leaky abstractions cause unforeseen ripple effects
  4. Not easily testable
  5. Refactoring is more difficult
  6. Deployment options are fairly fixed
  7. Versioning specific parts of the application is not easy
  8. Not compose-able
  9. Not easily distributable
Separating our concerns
1. Putting code into small singularly focused classes
2. Why is this better?
  1. More testable
  2. Easier to manage
  3. More reusable
  4. Refactoring gets better
Logical separation (layers)
1. Moving classes to appropriate namespaces
2. Why is this better?
  1. Easier to manage
  2. A required step to getting closer to tiers
Physical separation (tiers)
1. Moving classes into appropriate physical assemblies
2. Why is this better?
  1. Deployment options become more flexible
Refactoring for dependency injection
1. Achieving loose coupling with interfaces and constructor injection
2. Why is this better
  1. Loosely coupled
  2. More compose-able
  3. Easiest to test
Using an IoC container for flexible composition
1. Implementing an inversion of control (IoC) container – StructureMap
2. Why is this better?
  1. Dynamically compose-able.
  2. Ultimate flexibility for the developer
  3. Easy to seamlessly slip in new functionality
  4. Capable of supporting distributed processing
Adding a WCF service client and services to support seamless application distribution
1. Why is this better?
  1. Ability to distribute specific pieces of our applications to other servers
  2. Supporting horizontal scalability gets easier
  3. Vertical scalability can be applied to areas of your application rather than being forced to beef up the entire application

ASP.NET MVC Cookbook – public review

Andrew Siemer — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:46:10 GMT

I have recently started writing another book. The topic of this book is ASP.NET MVC. This book differs from my previous book in that rather than working towards building one project from end to end – this book will demonstrate specific topics from end to end. It is a recipe book (hence the cookbook name) and will be part of the Packt Publishing cookbook series. An example recipe in this book might be how to consume JSON, creating a master /details page, jquery modal popups, custom ActionResults, etc. Basically anything recipe oriented around the topic of ASP.NET MVC might be acceptable.

If you are interested in helping out with the review process you can join the “ASP.NET MVC 2 Cookbook-review” group on Google here: http://groups.google.com/group/aspnet-mvc-2-cookbook-review

Currently the suggested TOC for the project is listed. Also, chapters 1, 2, and most of 8 are posted. Chapter 5 should be available tonight or tomorrow.

In addition to reporting any errors that you might find (much appreciated), I am very interested in hearing about recipes that you want included, expanded, or removed (as being redundant or overly simple). Any input is appreciated! Hearing user feedback after the book is complete is a little late in my opinion (unless it is positive feedback of course).

Thank you!

$15 off C# in Depth 2nd Edition

Andrew Siemer — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:59:15 GMT

If you like C# at all then you know that Jon Skeet (writings, blog, StackOverflow) is the man when it comes to this language. Just look at his StackOverflow flair!!! He is the top dude by a long shot in C# and has been for a long time.

His latest book “C# in Depth 2nd edition” is currently available in the Manning Early Access Program (MEAP) and ready for you to get your hands on!

$15 off C# in Depth 2nd edition: use code dotd0217 at checkout. http://manning.com/skeet2/

Can you help me formulate a TOC for an ASP.NET MVC Cookbook

Andrew Siemer — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:17:15 GMT

Hey there everyone. I was recently tasked to pitch a book to my publisher. As a first step I need to come up with an outline for the Table of Contents. This book is the standard cookbook style with an added focus on the MVC side of ASP.NET. I have been poking about at other similarly styled books to get some ideas. I think comparing ASP.NET Web Forms to ASP.NET MVC would provide some folks with a good reference point when looking at the two ways of doing things.

(Thanks to my friend James Shaw for this idea…made my life easier)

Below is what I have some up with so far. Can you please take a quick look to make sure I haven’t missed anything? Perhaps more important than missing a topic…am I including too much? Feel free to contact me directly with any comments at asiemer@hotmail.com or leave a comment below.

Thanks!

1. Working with the View

1. Discovering the problems of a non-strongly typed view

2. Creating a strongly typed view

3. Working with a ViewModel

4. How to use strongly typed input builders

5. Create a custom input builder

6. Consolidating view code into a partial view

7. Using the Spark view engine

8. Using the FubuMVC view engine

9. Exposing a view that returns an image

10. Creating a JSON result

11. Consuming a JSON view

12. Exposing a view that returns a PDF

2. Actions

3. Controllers

4. Routes

5. Master Pages

1. How to create a master page

2. Controlling which master page is used with a custom base page

3. Working with Spark View Engine master pages

6. Working with data in the view

1. Reintroducing for and foreach

2. Displaying data from an xml file

3. Displaying an array as a group of check boxes

4. Displaying an array as a group of radio buttons

5. Creating a page-able set of data

6. How to sort data

7. Navigating to a specific page of data

8. Deleting a record from a data set

9. Adding a javascript delete confirmation pop-up

10. Adding a modal window delete confirmation pop-up

11. Displaying a modal window to show a records details

12. Adding a totals row to the bottom of a set of data

13. Using the free telerik grid

7. Working with Forms

1. Posting a form to the appropriate action

2. Setting the field tab order

3. Setting a default button

8. MVC and templating

1. Plugging in a new skin from the template gallery

2. Using T4 to create strongly typed helpers

3. Using T4MVC to destroy magic strings

4. Creating a view template

9. Validation Recipes

1. Validating with Data Annotation Validators

2. Reporting validation errors with ViewData.ModelState

3. Using Html.ValidationMessage to display validation errors

4. Summarizing validation errors with Html.ValidationSummary

5. Using the xVal validation framework

6. Using Castle Validator for validation

7. Client side validation with JQuery Validation

8. Making a required field

9. Setting an acceptable range

10. Requiring the password and password verification fields to match

11. Using a regex pattern to validate data

12. Forcing a choice to be made in a drop down menu

10. Managing large applications with Areas

1. Creating a separate project as an area

2. Creating an area in the same project

3. Using areas to manage segments of your site

4. Creating portable areas to compartmentalize functionality

11. Maintaining state

1. Working with application wide information

2. Maintaining a user’s information during their session

3. Using cookies to remember a user

4. Managing state in a web farm scenario using SQL Server

12. Error Handling

1. Handling errors in your code

2. Handling errors for a view

3. Handling errors in your application

4. Showing friendly error information

5. Using Error Logging Modules and Handlers (ELMAH) to deal with unhandled exceptions

6. Reporting caught exceptions to ELMAH

13. Security

1. Using membership and roles to manage users

2. Using windows authentication

3. Restricting access to all pages

4. Restricting access to selected pages

5. Restricting access to pages by role

6. Restricting access to a controller

7. Restricting access to a selected area

14. Profiles and Themes

1. Using profiles

2. Inheriting a profile

3. Using an migrating anonymous profiles

4. Managing user profiles

5. Using themes

6. User personalized themes

15. Configuration

1. Adding custom application settings in web.config

2. Displaying custom error messages

3. Maintaining session state across multiple web servers

4. Accessing other web.config configuration elements

5. Adding your own configuration elements to web.config

6. Encrypting web.config sections

16. Tracing and Debugging

1. Uncovering page level problems

2. Uncovering application wide problems

3. Writing trace data to the event log

4. Sending trace data via email

5. Using a breakpoint to stop execution of an application when a condition is met

17. Caching

1. Caching a whole page

2. Caching pages based on route details

3. Caching pages based on browser type and version

4. Caching pages based on developer defined custom strings

5. Caching partial pages

6. Caching application data

7. Caching object data

8. Installing MemCached Win32 as an alternate cache provider

9. Using the MemCached Enyim client to cache application data

10. Installing Microsoft Velocity

11. Using Velocity to cache application data

18. Localizing your application

1. Providing multiple language support

2. Using resource files to manage display data

3. Managing currency display based on selected language

19. HTTP Handlers and Modules

1. Tracking access to your resources with an HTTP Handler

2. Create a file download HTTP Handler

3. Control leeching of your resources with an HTTP Module

20. Making ASP.NET even more powerful

1. Making controllers testable by implementing a ControllerFactory

2. Implementing inversion of control with StructureMap

3. Install MVC Turbine and write less code

4. Creating testable views

5. Creating testable controllers

VirtualDNUG.com a virtual .net users group

Andrew Siemer — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:32:49 GMT

Hey all! I am finally going to put my full steam into setting up my VirtualDNUG users group. With the help of the good folks over at ineta (they are providing a LiveMeeting license for us) I am hoping to host a great environment for learning. I will probably start off with topics on ASP.NET MVC and the various side projects that surround that world (Turbine, Spark View Engine, FubuMVC, etc.) but I am totally open to just about any other cutting edge .net topics as well.

If you are interested in attending our initial meetings, would like to present, or have a topic that you would like to be covered, please contact me directly at asiemer@hotmail.com.

ASP.NET MVC 2 in Action conducting a public review

Andrew Siemer — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:56:37 GMT

Since I enjoyed the first edition of the ASP.NET MVC in Action book I figured I would jump on this second edition of this book and framework as quickly as I could. I just read this post from Jeffrey Palermo:

http://jeffreypalermo.com/blog/mvc-2-in-action-book-conducting-public-reviews/

Which basically states that they are actively working on the next edition of the book. More importantly, the chapters that they have completed so far are in a publicly viewable location: http://github.com/jeffreypalermo/mvc2inaction

Here is a re-post of Jeffrey’s original post:

If you’d like to get an early glimpse of ASP.NET MVC 2 in Action, you can participate on the public email list athttp://groups.google.com/group/mvc2inaction-discuss. The first bit of the manuscript is ready to review, and it consists of chapter 23, Data Access with NHibernate. You can also access every bit of code, text, and image at the book’s GitHub repository. With the first book, ASP.NET MVC in Action, Manning conducted an Early Access Program (MEAP). Manning will still conduct it, but our program is a early, early access program. In other words, you can have access to the unedited, perhaps dirty, manuscript and help as it drives forward to polish and completion.

As each piece of the manuscript is complete, we will post it to this list and ask for feedback. Anyone who gives us constructive feedback on the list WILL be thanked in the acknowledgements section at the front of the book when it goes to print. Also, you will have influence in shaping this book so that it is as good as it can be.

Our hope is that this book serves the .Net community that is working ASP.NET MVC 1 and ASP.NET MVC 2 applications.

The author team consists of:

If this book project interests you, and if you know people who should be involved, please blog, tweet, and otherwise post a link to this announcement.

DotNetRadio.com - Podcast #2 – interview with Atif Aziz creator of ELMAH

Andrew Siemer — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 09:47:37 GMT

http://dotnetradio.com/archive/2009/11/13/podcast-2.aspx

Andrew sites down with Atif Aziz. Atif Aziz is a senior IT business analyst at Cargill International and an ex-Microsoftie. His primary focus is helping customers move to the .NET Framework. He speaks regularly at Microsoft conferences and can be reached through his website. You can find out more about Atif Aziz by visiting his web site www.raboof.com.

Raboof.com = FooBar!!
Atif describes to us what ELMAH is and the history behind it. He then goes into detail as to how to get ELMAH installed and running. Atif then outlines the types of storage that are supported and how to implement a custom storage provider. Next we get into how ELMAH handles exceptions, how it works with the .NET runtime, and what the appropriate way to handle exceptions with ELMAH is. He then gets into the details of how to signal ELMAH about exceptions that occur as the filtering that ELMAH provides.
OrbitOne ASP.NET Exception Reporting (based on ELMAH) – a good example of centralized exception logging and extending ELMAH
ELMAH has earned Veracode Application Security rating and has earned OWASP top 10 and SANS-CWE top 25 placements
What is Fizzler? A .NET based CSS selector built on top of HTML Agility Pack to parse nodes of HTML by CSS selector. Using LINQ with Fizzler. How does jQuery (client side selector) compare to Fizzler? How is Fizzler able to select out nodes, make changes, and put those changes back? Fizzler and HTML Agility Pack is very powerful when paired together for parsing and modifying HTML nodes
How does Jayrock fit into a web developers world? Jayrock is an easy to use way for JavaScript to communicate with back end web services using JSON as the wire format and JSON-RPC as the procedure invocation protocol. Jayrock can generate the client code that is needed for you. Jayrock works with .NET 1.0!! Jayrock is considerably easier to use compared with WCF. Jayrock follows the Duct Tape Programmer mentality of simple and easy to use with rock solid stability
BackLINQ "was a pretty bad start" ...but a good story
LINQBridge provides LINQ capabilities to .NET 2.0 framework
Unit testing is awesome…but not worth updating older codebases that are based on infrastructure
MoreLINQ, by Jon Skeet, StackOverflow super star, and author of C# in Depth. MoreLINQ provides 22 additional really useful LINQ methods such as Zip(), ToDelimitedString(), TakeLast(), etc.
Open Source works when everyone contributes little bits, be it code, documentation, writing blog posts and articles, etc.

Send me your questions and comments!
If you would like to submit a question to be answered in the next show, please record an audio file and email it to podcast@dotnetradio.com. All you need is a telephone! Call (646) 200-0000, talk, then navigate to http://cinch.blogtalkradio.com/YOURPHONENUMBER to retrieve your recording. Then send it my way.

Just interviewed Atif Aziz for the DotNetRadio podcast

Andrew Siemer — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:02:26 GMT

I just got through interviewing Atif Aziz (@raboof on twitter – foobar spelled backwards!) probably most known (at least to me) for his ELMAH (Error Logging Modules and Handlers) contribution. We discussed ELMAH, ELMAH’s Veracode Application Security Rating which made OWASP top 10 in 2007 and SANS-CWE top 25, Fizzler, Jayrock, BackLINQ, LINQBridge, and MoreLINQ. Atif is a very smart guy and you can truly hear his passion for sharing with the development community when speaking with him. This was a great interview that I think any .net developer could learn a thing or two from. Look for this interview in the near future on the DotNetRadio podcast.

Subscribe to the podcast feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Dotnetradio

And follow the show on twitter here: http://twitter.com/dnetradio

Technorati Tags: Atif Aziz,ELMAH,Jayrock,BackLINQ,LINQBridge,MoreLINQ

Interviewing Javier Lozano 7 Nov 2009 (tonight) at 8pm PST

Andrew Siemer — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:26:21 GMT

Hey all. I wanted to let you know who was slated for the next interview - Javier Lozano.

Javier is a .NET consultant in Des Moines, Iowa. He's an ASP.NET MVP and MCSD specializing in ASP.NET, system architecture, and training. Javier is also a co-founder of the Iowa .NET Users Group.

On his blog you can find posts on ASP.NET, architecture, design patterns, .NET, XML and Indigo (WCF). Javier enjoys giving back to the community by speaking at user groups, local/regional .NET events, being active in forums and by writing articles for Code Project.

In his spare time, Javier enjoys spending time with his wife, newborn son , two golden retrievers and writing about himself in the third person.

It is my plan to interview Javier tonight and get the podcast ready for release by the middle of next week.

Got Questions for Javier?

If you have any questions about ASP.NET MVC, Turbine, or anything else you think appropriate for Javier feel free to send them my way at podcast@dotnetradio.com. The interview will be tonight at 8pm (PST). Feel free to send your questions in real time via twitter to @DNetRadio.

Technorati Tags: Javier Lozano,ASP.NET MVC,MVC Turbine,Dependency Injection,Inversion of Control,MVC Contrib

Interviewing Javier Lozano tonight at 8pm PST

Andrew Siemer — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:24:45 GMT

Hey all. I wanted to let you know who was slated for the next interview - Javier Lozano.

Javier is a .NET consultant in Des Moines, Iowa. He's an ASP.NET MVP and MCSD specializing in ASP.NET, system architecture, and training. Javier is also a co-founder of the Iowa .NET Users Group.

In his spare time, Javier enjoys spending time with his wife, newborn son , two golden retrievers and writing about himself in the third person.

It is my plan to interview Javier tonight and get the podcast ready for release by the middle of next week.

Got Questions for Javier?

Technorati Tags: Javier Lozano,ASP.NET MVC,MVC Turbine,Dependency Injection,Inversion of Control,MVC Contrib

Interviewing Javier Lozano tonight at 8pm PST

Andrew Siemer — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:22:51 GMT

Hey all. I wanted to let you know who was slated for the next interview - Javier Lozano.

Javier is a .NET consultant in Des Moines, Iowa. He's an ASP.NET MVP and MCSD specializing in ASP.NET, system architecture, and training. Javier is also a co-founder of the Iowa .NET Users Group.

In his spare time, Javier enjoys spending time with his wife, newborn son , two golden retrievers and writing about himself in the third person.

It is my plan to interview Javier tonight and get the podcast ready for release by the middle of next week.

Got Questions for Javier?

Interview with Ben Scheirman co-author of ASP.NET MVC in Action on DotNetRadio.com

Andrew Siemer — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:59:27 GMT

I recently sat down with Ben Scheirman (co-author of ASP.NET MVC in Action) for my first interview on my new show DotNetRadio. It was quite a talk! We covered the following points:

An introduction to Ben Scheirman and how he got into web development
Bens path through various web technologies such as ColdFusion, PHP, Ruby, and ASP.NET
A brief discussion on code testability
Working with ASP.NET web forms using the model view presenter pattern
How ASP.NET MVC simplifies the testing process
Ben informs us of how you can sell test driven development to a client…or sneak it in
Regression testing
We run through the process of refactoring and how you really should trustReSharper
We briefly touch upon the concept of Continuous Integration
Ben discusses a new way of testing using MSpec to create documentation out of your unit tests
This leads us into behavior driven development and context specification
Next we discuss how twitter can be used as a developer tool
Ben describes to us how he got involved with co-authoring ASP.NET MVC in Action and the process involved with writing a book based on “preview” code.

Check it out at http://dotnetradio.com/. You can follow the show on Twitter at DNetRadio.

As this is a new show the format is not entirely worked out just yet! I am still trying to work out the music, the format, guest lineup, advertisers, etc. Also, since I am a coder by day and a coder/writer at night – pro-audio is a totally foreign concept to me. I am all ears if after listening to the show or visiting the site you come up with a WTF moment or just some good general advice. Shoot it my way!

Interview with Ben Scheirman coming soon to DotNetRadio.com

Andrew Siemer — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:16:27 GMT

This morning I had the chance to speak with Ben Scheirman. We chatted for roughly an hour or so discussing how he entered into the web development industry, going on the road to teach ASP.NET MVC in its early days, his book ASP.NET MVC in Action, and his thoughts on the use of the MVC framework. We discussed some patterns and tools for testing, tools for development in general such as ReSharper, and the use of the Spark View Engine. Watch for this podcast to be posted within the next couple of days.

Being the first podcast for DotNetRadio and the first podcast I have ever done I am hoping that my listeners will share any ideas to improve the show. I am all ears! Feel free to share your feedback with me at podcast@dotnetradio.com.

Tell your friends about DotNetRadio! You can also follow us at twitter.com/DNetRadio.

Technorati Tags: Ben Scheirman,asp.net mvc,spark view engine,ReSharper

DotNetRadio.com

Andrew Siemer — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:43:37 GMT

I decided to start a podcast. I am going to host it under the name of DotNetRadio…sounded appropriate! I am in the early stages of getting things set up which means that there is still some flexibility in how things are done. I was wondering if anyone out there is willing to share some input regarding the creation of a podcast, how they might like to see the show format take shape, who they would be interested in hearing an interview of, etc.

I initially did a test recording using a standard analog mic. Totally sucked! So I upgraded to a better quality USB mic. This certainly made things sound better but it still sounded like I was talking through a can. Tomorrow I should be receiving the Behringer podcaststudio. I am hoping that this will be an exceptional upgrade (though still not pro-audio). This package comes with a good mic, head set, mixer, usb interface, etc. I also got a pop filter that clips on to the mic (everyone said it is a must). We will see how it goes.

Take a look at DotNetRadio.com. Let me know what you think and more importantly if you have any suggestions send that my way too!

Review: ASP.NET MVC in Action by Jeffrey Palermo, Ben Scheirman, and Jimmy Bogard

Andrew Siemer — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:20:00 GMT

The ASP.NET MVC framework was just released as a preview when I started to write my first book (ASP.NET 3.5 Social Networking). In the early days of design decisions for my book I was faced with the problem of building with the MVP pattern or the new MVC pattern/framework. At that time there was next to nothing regarding the use of the ASP.NET MVC framework (proper or improper).

Shortly after I got started with my project (which I chose to do in MVP) I was asked to do a review for the ASP.NET MVC in Action book. I gladly accepted and started to read as Jeffrey Palermo, Ben Scheirman, and Jimmy Bogard explored the world of ASP.NET MVC offerings. I thought that they did a very good job of describing how Microsoft meant you to use the new framework and a better job of describing how to break beyond the limitations of the current offerings. They go above and beyond to describe best practices early on.

I must say that this is one of the few books that I have ever read cover to cover so many times! With each review of the book I went through each chapter to find any updates. As this book was being written several new CTP’s of the ASP.NET MVC framework were released. With each of the CTP releases came a new rendering of the book. It was quite fun to see how quickly things changed over the year that this book was written.

Finally having the final review in my hands and being so very familiar with it’s content, I have to say that of all the books on the ASP.NET MVC framework the ASP.NET MVC in Action book should be at the top of your list for things to purchase in the upcoming months. At a quick glance this book covers all things relating to ASP.NET MVC and then some. This book is not just a regurgitation of MSDN or other resource as so many books are these days. Here are the chapter titles for this book:

Getting started with the ASP.NET MVC Framework
The Model in depth
The Controller in depth
Views in depth
Routing
Customizing and extending the ASP.NET MVC Framework
Scaling the architecture to more complex sites
Leveraging existing ASP.NET features
AJAX in ASP.NET MVC (which includes coverage of jQuery!)
Hosting and Deployment
Exploring MonoRail and Ruby on Rails
Best Practices
Recipes

As you can clearly see from the above this is more than just the XYZ of ASP.NET MVC. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in breaking away from the pains of ASP.NET WebForms. This framework, especially with the help of this new book, makes programming for the web fun again!

Andrew Siemer
Teacher, Author, Engineer, Architect, Build Master, Scrum Master, Father of 6, Husband, ex Army Ranger

My Book

ASP.NET 3.5 Social Networking: An Expert Guide to Building Enterprise-ready Social Networking and Community Applications with ASP.NET 3.5

Links

Blog.AndrewSiemer.com
AndrewSiemer.com
PictFresh.com
Linked In
My Space
Face Book
Twitter AndrewSiemer.GymEd.com
GymEd.com

Typemock webinar – Tuesday 22-sep-09

Andrew Siemer — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:39:16 GMT

Hey all! I was just informed that Typemock is providing a free webinar covering the following items:

Creating Supporting environment
Unit testing tools of the trade
Practices and Pitfalls
Writing the first test
Live Q & A

You can see more details here: http://blog.typemock.com/2009/09/unit-testing-net-successfully-live-free.html

Should be very informative. (virtually…) see you there!

Building a StackOverflow inspired knowledge exchange

Andrew Siemer — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:40:46 GMT

The first article in my “building a stackoverflow inspired knowledge exchange” on DotNetSlackers.com is finally out. This article is an introduction to the series and explains the various technologies and processes we will use in our project. It also takes a look at some of the information that is currently on the net regarding the very famous StackOverflow.com site. More to come very soon. Keep an eye on the series index here.

ASP.NET MVC 2 Preview 1 is out – woo hoo!!!

Andrew Siemer — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:46:38 GMT

http://haacked.com/archive/2009/07/30/asp.net-mvc-released.aspx

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/07/31/asp-net-mvc-v2-preview-1-released.aspx

I published my first article on DotNetSlackers! “Dynamic email drop box”

Andrew Siemer — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:06:39 GMT

I am very happy to say that I have published my first article on DotNetSlackers.com! While the publication of my book was the first time I considered myself a writer (not just another blogger), writing for DotNetSlackers.com some how feels more important to me. I hope you enjoy my future efforts!

This article is actually the first of a three part series. I came up with the idea for this series as I was answering a question on StackOverflow regarding the creation of a dynamic email drop box style feature. A feature of this nature would allow a site to have their users send content to them or interact with them via a standard pop3 server (via email). Think of things like the email that craigslist.com gives to you asdfasd-somePost-234@craigslist.com when you post something into their system. This email doesn’t physically exist but it still somehow identifies your post on their system and allows external users to communicate with you and the system. The creation of a feature like this (including all the infrastructure aspects) is what the article series discusses and implements.

I hope you find a use for it on one of your projects!

Andrew Siemer
Teacher, Author, Engineer, Architect, Build Master, Scrum Master, Father of 6, Husband, ex Army Ranger

My Book
ASP.NET 3.5 Social Networking:
An Expert Guide to Building
Enterprise-ready Social Networking
and Community Applications
with ASP.NET 3.5

Links
Blog.AndrewSiemer.com
AndrewSiemer.com
StackOverflow.com
PictFresh.com
Linked In
My Space
Face Book
Twitter
AndrewSiemer.GymEd.com
GymEd.com

NDepend Report for Fisharoo code base

Andrew Siemer — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:13:03 GMT

I was recently given a copy of the latest version of NDepend Professional so that I could review it. I have to say that this tool is worth it’s weight in gold. I used one of the earlier versions of this product and loved it then too…but this version is way better! The tool was easy to install and get running. And in a matter of minutes I had a report generated on the code base for my book. I honestly wish I had this tool integrated into my build process from day one as I would have seen some bottle necks that I will now go back in and fix! Here are some quick metrics for those interested:

Application Metrics

Number of IL instructions: 61021

Number of lines of code: 6878

Number of lines of comment: 3764

Percentage comment: 35

Number of assemblies: 2

Number of classes: 388

Number of types: 512

Number of abstract classes: 0

Number of interfaces: 107

Number of value types: 2

Number of exception classes: 0

Number of attribute classes: 0

Number of delegate classes: 0

Number of enumerations classes: 15

Number of generic type definitions: 20

Number of generic method definitions: 10

Percentage of public types: 73.05%

Percentage of public methods: 85.6%

Percentage of classes with at least one public field: 0.2%

I have always loved this image. It is nice in that it shows how much code in the code base is dedicated to a given area. It also shows at a quick glance where things are located in relationship to one another.

In this next image it looks like the code is almost entirely in the green zone. Not sure how this is determined…but I am guessing that green is good?

here I think I would prefer that the web side of things entirely go through the core but that is not entirely possible. The only thing here that really bugs me is the reference to System.Data.Linq. I will need to go in and see if this is actually used…or just referenced. I can’t imagine that the web is directly accessing data!

I generated a report with all of the other stats in it and saved it to a PDF here: http://blog.socialnetworkingin.net/NDepend%20Report%20-%20Fisharoo.pdf Some of this won’t look as good as what you would get from the NDepend tool…but you will get the idea of how much information they provide. Now I have to go and clean up some of my code so that I feel better! <GRIN>

Social Networking in .NET

Andrew Siemer — Tue, 12 May 2009 01:09:46 GMT

I finally posted the code from my book ASP.NET 3.5 Social Networking on CodePlex at http://community.codeplex.com/. Several people have asked for this so that we can make changes to the code and improve/expand the code base. I think I may also take the time to convert it from the MVP pattern to the latest ASP.NET MVC pattern/template as well as add test coverage the project. I also set up a forum for this at forum.socialnetworkingin.net and a separate blog at blog.socialnetworkinging.net.

SOLID principles explained in a visual manner

Andrew Siemer — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:28:58 GMT

If you followed any of the banter regarding the SOLID principles between “uncle” Bob Martin and Joel Spolsky you may have also already seen the SOLID development principles in motivational pictures. If not follow through all the links listed here. The last one has the pictures.

Simple podcast outlining the SOLID principles: http://www.hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=163

Jeff Atwood, Joel Spolsky, and “uncle” Bob Martin discuss SOLID: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4012.html

Hanselman’s follow on interview with “uncle” Bob Martin: http://www.hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=168

The best thing that came from all of this is the following pictures from LosTechies:

http://www.lostechies.com/blogs/derickbailey/archive/2009/02/11/solid-development-principles-in-motivational-pictures.aspx

Huagati DBML/EDMX Tools

Andrew Siemer — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:52:56 GMT

Anyone that is working frequently with either LINQ to SQL or the Entity Framework needs to go get a copy of the Huagati DBML/EDMX tools. They plug right into Visual Studio (2008) and allow you to perform many of the tasks that you would think VS would do for you. I just recently had a new dev db get corrupted. I had no backups for it. I also had no scripts generated for it. Argh! What to do? With this tool I was able to reverse engineer my EDMX file and spit out all the SQL I needed to generate the database. There are many other features provided with this tool that I am sure you will love too.

This tool is offered in a free 30 day trial. Then there are a few paid versions. I think that the professional version is worth the $120 price tag but there is a $50 version and a $12/mo subscription option. Very good stuff! Go grab a copy.

Susan Boyle – not geeky…but WOW! Must watch.

Andrew Siemer — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:50:24 GMT

StructureMap users - great article (Using the StructureMap Container independently of ObjectFactory)

Andrew Siemer — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:40:37 GMT

The developer of StructureMap (Jeremey Miller) posted a great article (to defend the product) regarding the use of StructureMap outside of the ObjectFactory:

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2008/09/10/using-the-structuremap-container-independently-of-objectfactory.aspx