Initially, I thought I should turn this into an eBook and sell it for a few bucks then I thought my target audience are probably not willing to spend money even it were only 5 bucks.  I finally settled on making it into a series of blog posts and also incorporating your comments along the way.

Risks

First, let’s set the stage.  My situation is probably different than yours; so if you have lots of money saved up, rich parents or potential investors and have no debt then some of these questions/pointers might not apply to you.  I started off with zero savings, high credit card debt and pretty good credit score.  So, among money of the risks you will be taking, ask yourself if you are willing to end up with bad credit.  A year+ later, I am short selling my condo, have a lot more debt than before and I don’t even want to know my credit score.

I was telling my sister about my situation and she said “you are taking this surprisingly well.  You used to be very conscious of your credit score”.  Well, I told her it’s not the end of the world and I will just have to learn to live within my means for the next few years until banks agree to lend me again.  Can you imagine living in a world where you only buy the car you can afford?  The computer you can afford?  The house you can afford?  So again, are you willing to take this risk and take it “surprisingly well” if things go bad?

So far we have “Are you willing to end up with bad credit?”, this of course is one of many more questions you should ask yourself to assess your readiness to take the leap:

• Can you handle a foreclosure?
• Can you live without a car if it breaks down and you can’t fix it or if it gets repossessed?
• Can your significant other handle it?
• Can you handle living without some “relative luxuries”: eating out, drinking, partying, vacation, gadgets, toys and so on?

In the above questions, when I say “handle”, I mean “can you mentally, psychologically and physically handle it?”.  It is really hard for me to walk into Best Buy or stumble on Amazon.com and come out empty handed.  It is very difficult for me to go out with some friends and just order a couple of beers all night.  All I am saying is: prepare yourself.

One more thing and then I will move on.  A friend once told me about how brave I was for doing this and that he could never do the same thing in a million years.  I asked him what was his biggest fear and his answer shocked me: “… that my wife would leave me”.  I am sorry, but personally I think if you are thinking this way then you probably married the wrong person.  And, honestly if she leaves you because you are broke, then good riddance.  What happens to “until death do us apart”, it’s not “until your credit score do us apart”.  Luckily, my fiancé is still around and we are getting married in the next few months.  Off topic: weddings are a big, expensive, waste-of-money one-night party that no one will remember.  And if anyone remembers your wedding 3 months later it is because it was really good or really bad.

Offsets

There are many things to offset the risk while you are starting your company.  The most obvious one is to not quit your job.  I personally couldn’t do that.  You can’t spend 10 hours at work and then come back home and be able to fully focus and commit to your startup.  If you can do that then you should.  But say goodbye to your social life and probably health and mental well being.

Again there are a hundred ways to offset the risk and generate some money on the side if not to cover all your bills at least it will cover your food and Internet bill.  I don’t know you and I don’t know what you can do to make some money but I will tell you some of the things I did and an estimate on how income they generated.

• Consulting gigs (web development and social media consulting) – $30k
• Online ad Revenue from my websites – $2k
• Startup/yonkly – revenue (I know!  Can you believe that?  It is already generating revenue) – ~$10k.  Most of the money was a side effect of the startup e.g. custom development.
• Book writing – I don’t think I am allowed to disclose the amount but let’s just say it’s enough money to pay your bills for 2 or 3 months.
• Article writing – depends on the magazine but should be between $500 and $1000 per article.
• Sell your junk on amazon, ebay and craigslist.  I sold a ton of books, dvds and electronics that I didn’t use anymore – $1k.  It won’t make you reach but it will be enough money to feed the dog for a few months.
• Raise money – $0.  Hey, don’t sound surprised, it’s a tough market.
• Not selling your organs on the black market – priceless.

The important thing is that you need to find the right balance.  If you do too much consulting then you won’t have time for your startup.  But if you get lucky and find a contract that lasts a couple of months and pays a lot of money then take it.  That should keep you going for a few more months.

Coming Up

I don’t want to make this post too long.  I talked about the risks and how to offset.  It is important to understand that you are minimizing risk – not eliminating it.

I am going to focus this series on an web startup or do I dare say a web 2.0 startup.  Not everything will apply to everyone (or to anyone for that matter) but hopefully it will be helpful and entertaining.  I would like to cover the following topics in future posts:

• Building The Website (multiple posts)
  • Development (Programming)
  • Hosting and scaling
  • Payment integration (PayPal)
• Marketing & PR (here is a good book)
• Tools & Services (I will expand on my previous post)
• Resources & References
• [insert your suggestion here]

Help me expand the previous list.  Leave a comment and tell me what you would like me to discuss.

The code is also very simple.  I didn’t add all the extra options that the API makes available and just wrote enough for me to shorten a URL.  Here it is:

public static class BitlyApi
{
    private const string apiKey = "[add api key here]";
    private const string login = "[add login name here]";

    public static BitlyResults ShortenUrl(string longUrl)
    {
        var url =
            string.Format("http://api.bit.ly/shorten?format=xml&version=2.0.1&longUrl={0}&login={1}&apiKey={2}",
                          HttpUtility.UrlEncode(longUrl), login, apiKey);
        var resultXml = XDocument.Load(url);
        var x = (from result in resultXml.Descendants("nodeKeyVal")
                 select new BitlyResults
                            {
                                UserHash = result.Element("userHash").Value,
                                ShortUrl = result.Element("shortUrl").Value
                            }
                );
        return x.Single();
    }
}

public class BitlyResults
{
    public string UserHash { get; set; }

    public string ShortUrl { get; set; }
}

Using this code is very straight forward.

var shortUrl = BitlyApi.ShortenUrl("http://www.verylongUrl.com").ShortUrl;

bit.ly has tons of features and a great API.  You can even see stats of any bit.ly generate url using /info.  for example: http://bit.ly/info/S0vRy shows you stats for http://bit.ly/S0vRy

Another feature I really like is their bookmarklet which you can keep on your browser’s bookmark bar and click it to shrink the site you are at…  It even pops this side bar with a bunch of useful info.

The API is pretty well documented at http://code.google.com/p/bitly-api/wiki/ApiDocumentation

Don’t forget to follow me on twitter.

Yonkly offers a white-label platform that enables anyone and everyone to create a twitter-clone/microblog network for anything.  The same way Ning allows you to create a Facebook-clone/social network.  Just like Ning, Yonkly offers a hosted solution that is fully customizable.  For as little as 5 bucks a month, you have your own Twitter-clone that you don’t have to install, maintain or upgrade.  It just works.

You can have your own look and feel (christtr.com).

You can have your own domain (isweat.com).

You can target any niche market (photographersjournal.com).

You can even run your own advertising if you want and make some money (writezoo.com).

You can create private networks for your company, team, group or anything.

You can integrate with Flickr, Picasa and Twitter (more integration points coming soon).

There are ton more features, check out the tour over here.

It is very possible that one day Yonkly will be in the top 25 list.  In the meantime, why don’t you go create a free account and try it out at yonkly.com

PS: Don’t want a hosted solution?  Prefer to host your own?  No problem, we are selling the source code, click here for more info.

If you have been reading my blog or following me on Twitter then you already know that I quit my job almost a year ago and launched my first startup (Yonkly) a few months ago.

The economy sucks, we are bootstrapped and doing whatever it takes to survive – I hope that kid I stole the sandwich from will understand.  As a startup, we need to cut the fat (not that there is any) and make sure we only pay for things we need (and no, you don’t need a subscription to Playboy).

I thought, I would come up with a list of online (and offline services) that are worth paying for.  Feel free to leave a comment with links to services that you use and think are worth the money.

FreshBooks: A great way to track your time and invoice your clients (until your startup takes off).  I am currently using their free plan but they have plans starting at $14/month

Basecamp: Really easy project management on the web.  They have a free version and plans start at $12/month

DreamHost: A very affordable way to host your blogs and websites I must have over 30 websites hosted with them for a ridiculously low fee.  It is so low, I want to pay extra with my bill (but I won’t).

WooThemes: Impress your customers with a killer WordPress theme.  These are some of the best themes I have seen anywhere.  We are currently using it on the Yonkly blog.

Animoto: So you have decided to raise some money and want to create an interesting video to put on your homepage.  Unfortunately you are as artistically talented as box of donuts (no offense Krispy Kream).  This is a killer way to create a video, go and try it out, you can create a 30 second video for free.  Here is the video I created for Yonkly, it took me less than 30 minutes.

Angelsoft.net: Speaking of raising money, try this site.  I signed up and paid $250 to have my application submitted to thousands of potential investors and investor groups.  Warning: It has only been 3 days since I subscribed to it, so I don’t know how effective it is.  I personally like the fact that I can reach so many investors very quickly it’s like monster.com for entrepreneurs/investors.  But don’t get your hopes too high, only 5% get funded.  Here are some stats http://angelsoft.net/industry/index.seam

StreamSend: Now that you have 15 thousand people signed up to receive your newsletter announcing the grand opening (or closing) of your startup, you need a way to send bulk email.  StreamSend is the cheapest I could find.  Not that best, but the cheapest.

Remember The Milk (RTM): Stay organized and productive with Remember The Milk.  They are everywhere: on the web, on your iphone, in your gmail inbox, in your gmail calendar on your windows and mac desktop, in your iGoogle start page and even integrates with QuickSilver on the mac and Launchy on the pc.  It’s free but I pay $25/year to use their iPhone app (that’s 25 a YEAR).  One drawback: it doesn’t sync withOutlook  

Amazon Prime: If you are going to buy a ton of book to tell you how to market/sell/buy/start/ a business or how to work 4 hours a week and live your dream then you should subscribe to Amazon Prime.  It gives you free shipping on pretty much everything at Amazon for $75 a year.

Amazon Web Services: The best way to reduce your bandwidth and online storage.  I use S3, CloudFront, Elastic Compute Cloud and SimpleDB.  I even created a SimpleDB manager, which you should buy a copy of.  Legend has it that for every copy sold a terrorist is captured.  You don’t believe?  I sold a copy the day John Walker (the terrorist not the drink) was captured.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.

Joe’s Goals: Set some goals, track them and celebrate your achievements (or cry yourself to sleep, loser).  It’s free, but you can pay $12/year to have the ads removed.  I will take my ads now, please.

CrowdSound: A great way to collect user feedback.  They have a free plan and plans starting at $10/month.  Definitely worth the money.

And of course, the myriad of Google tools and services out there: Docs, Calendar, Mail, Analytics, Reader.  They are all free but you have to give up your soul to Google.  But don’t worry, they will “do no evil”.  Worst case, they will sell ads on your soul with SoulSense (still in beta).

Please share with everyone services that you use and think are worth the money.

Hacker News users are stubborn and insist on commenting there.  I can’t seem to convince them, so here is a link to their comments http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=456422

Disclaimer: I am sure you noticed that most of the links have a referral code.  Don’t worry, that didn’t affect my recommendations or integrity (what is that?).  I actually use all the services mentioned above.  Plus we are bootstrapped and the economy is in the crapper so give me a break and use these links.

Create the tests

1. Install Selenium IDE from http://seleniumhq.org
2. Record your tests in Firefox using the Selenium IDE
   
3. Click File > Create New Test
4. Click the record button and create your test
5. Click the record button to stop the test
6. Save your test
7. Click Options > Format > C# to get the C# code
   

Setup Selenium Remote Control (RC)

1. Download Selenium RC (it includes the server and all necessary files)
2. Start the server by running selenium-server.jar in the selenium-server folder
   1. You can double click it, or
   2. Open a command prompt and type:
      java -jar selenium-server.jar

Run the tests

1. Create a new class library project in Visual Studio.
2. Reference the assemblies in the selenium RC folder related to .net
3. Paste the generated code from step #7 above into a class file
4. To test Internet Explorer, change the setup method to this
   

   [SetUp]
   public void SetupTest()
   {
       selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, "*iexplore",
                                       "http://www.mywebsite.com/");
       selenium.Start();
       verificationErrors = new StringBuilder();
   }

5. Run the tests with your favorite Runner – I use ReSharper

A Selenium Core window opens up as well as an IE window and your tests will run.

Jeremy blogged something very similar to this at http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2006/05/14/144666.aspx

We have subscription plans and currently offering a discounted annual subscription* to celebrate the new year.  For the technically-savvy, we even have the source code up for sale .

What Next?

We have been contemplating the next step in our startup and want to hear your take on it.

Should we look for funding?  Angel investors? VCs? Friends and Family?

If yes, then how much and in return for what?

If no, then why and what are the other options?

Do we sell?  How much? How and to who?

The Dream

We are a dedicated and highly motivated team of entrepreneurs that want to achieve a 4HWW lifestyle and not work ourselves to the grave.  With that in mind is getting investors a good idea?

Exit: A Good Outcome

We think the best outcome for us is having enough paid subscribers to pay our bills and more.  A second best outcome is to sell the company and use the money to fund our next idea – we have a ton of ideas and lots of talent (that sounds conceited).  Third outcome is to get funding so we can aggressively develop, market and grow the company.

What do you think and why?

* Discounted annual subscriptions of up to 33% off.  Create your network, go to the admin control panel and click subscriptions.   This is a limited-time offer, so if you don’t see it there, it probably expired.

Buy it now at http://yonkly.com/buy

Includes

• Flexible license – deploy up to 2 domains and 10 sub-domains
• Make any changes you want
• Community support through forums
• No copyright required
• One time payment
• Advanced control panel
• Groups
• Picture sharing
• Sidebar widgets
• Run your own ads
• Use your own domain
• Threaded conversations
• Twitter integration

For more information visit http://yonkly.com/buy

Since it is still in beta, I have reduced the price to $19.99 but only for a LIMITED time.  The price will go up as soon as the bugs are ironed out and we get out of beta (very soon).

So what can SimpleDb Manager do for you?

• Create and delete domains
• Edit-In-Place item attributes (select the cell and start typing or hit F2 to edit)
• Delete items (select row and hit the delete button)
• Delete attributes (edit cell and delete its content)
• Add new items (just start typing in the last row)
• Execute queries (type query in query box and click the execute button)
• Save connection information for easy management of multiple accounts

There are a ton more features coming, so stay tuned.

Get SimpleDb Manager NOW before the price goes up – I am serious.

The second reason to celebrate: we finally popped the cherry and sold our first enterprise copy of Yonkly (http://about.yonkly.com).   Now, we just have to do it again a few thousand times.

Yonkly is now in private beta, but you can signup for an invitation at http://about.yonkly.com/.  It will be coming out shortly and it will be kicking some ass.  If you can’t wait, you can always buy the latest version with source code for $399, go to http://about.yonkly.com/ enter your email and you will receive instructions.

You can follow Yonkly’s progress on our new blog at http://blog.yonkly.com (it’s a work in progress).  You can also follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/yonkly 

Back to work, we have got a lot to do and not enough time.

Also, don’t for get to check Scott’s blog is http://scottdig.com/

One approach to my marketing strategy is to use an affiliate program.  We have all seen affiliate programs for everything from selling t-shirts to selling domains.  The question I struggled with is "how much do I pay my affiliates?"  I want it to be fair, competitive and also motivational enough to encourage the affiliates to market it.

I found out that 37 Signals pays 5% to their affiliates that sounds way too low.  What would be a good percentage?  15%? 25%?  The plan I came up with is a tiered approach which gradually increases your percentage from 10% to 50% – you can read more about it at http://www.yonklyapp.com/affiliates.aspx and maybe even signup to be an affiliate.  The best part is that it is recurring. 

So if you bring in a 100 customers, you will earn:

$200/month on the first 20
$400/month on the next 20
$600/month on the next 20
$800/month on the next 20
$1000/month on the last 20

That’s a total of $3000 EVERY MONTH.  Isn’t that pretty damn good?  Or not?  I would love to hear your opinions.

I created a themes folder under the content folder

Then I referenced my css file in the master page using a helper method

<%= ThemeHelper.GetCss() %>

I also use a helper method for images

<img src=’<%=ThemeHelper.GetImageUrl("reply.png")%>’ alt="reply" class="icon" />

But most of my images are set in the stylesheet, which makes it easier to manipulate different skins

The helper methods above look at the defined theme in the config file (or database or wherever you store your settings) and then return the path to the correct resource.

Take a look at these live samples:

• www.yonkly.com
• www.isweat.com
• www.hokietalk.com

They are all using the same codebase but have a different theme defined.  The trick is in making your HTML css-friendly by naming elements and assigning them classes as well as using Divs and avoiding tables.  This allows you to create a stylesheet that radically changes the look of the site.  Think of the element ids and classes as an API to your view, that the css can manipulate.

I also added a feature that lets you upload a folder theme as a zip file and have the application unzip it into the themes folder.

It would be cool if we can define a "virtual folder" in our application, so I wouldn’t have to use helper methods.  Imagine if you could just say /content/theme/logo.gif and it would just work.  The theme folder doesn’t really exist but instead it would route to the correct folder based on a setting.  I wonder if I can do that with current routing mechanism in asp.net mvc!!!  Anyone?

Widgets

If you are logged in, you can add a widget to your sidebar even place Google ads if you wanted.  Take a look at the widget in my profile at http://yonkly.com/eibrahim.  To add your own widget, go to settings and click the widgets link then simply add your widget code and hit save

If you want your widget to fit nicely with the rest of the sidebar, click the link "insert default widget" and add your script in the correct place.

Control Panel

If you are the owner of the site i.e. an admin, you will have access to a control panel where you can customize a ton of things

Site Settings

You can modify all sort of site settings such as title, description, keywords, amazon s3 information and so on.

Email Templates

You can customize all the emails that get sent out e.g. "someone is following", "someone joined your group", "thanks for signing up", etc.

Ad Management

Now, you can add advertisements to your site by adding the ads code in the appropriate location.  You can add it as a banner in the sidebar or in the message stream.

Here is a sidebar ad, you can also skin to match the site

Here is a banner ad

And here is an embedded ad in the message stream

Theme Management

You can change the theme of the site.  For examples, check www.hokietalk.com and www.isweat.com.  Here is the theme selection screen

Content Management

See the TOS, privacy and contact us links in the footer, those are dynamically created and you can create other pages as well e.g. "FAQ", "Help" and so on…  You simply enter a page name and the content using a rich text editor

User Management

This is just a way to assign/revoke admin privileges to users.

The Future

I am very excited about all the new features specially that the site owner and the user can display ads and make money.   I can’t wait to release the new version.  Contact me if you are interested in setting up your own microblogging platform.

Stay Tuned!!!

Take a look below and let me know what is wrong, what is right and what can be done better.

I drew the above diagram based on my understanding of TDD and by referencing other diagrams that I found online.  Specifically:

from http://www.agiledata.org/essays/tdd.html

from http://designindrive.com/?p=31

from http://tinyurl.com/498pjg

The asp.net mvc codeplex preview 5 version just came out a few days ago and it includes a lot nice enhancements.  For the best introduction read Scott’s post. 

Some of my favorite changes happened in validation.  Incidentally, I was already working on a post to talk about doing client and server side validation the easy way.  The inspiration came after reading Steve Sanderson’s post and watching his screencast on how he created a model-based client-side validation – very cool.

I want a simple way to perform client and server side validation for the application I am creating for my book and my objectives are simple (yet there is no easy way to do it):

1. Have a model-based validation mechanism
2. Have the least amount of repetition (DRY)
3. Client side validation using jQuery
4. Server side validation

First, I will show you how it works then I will explain how I got there.  Here is my model class for a user

   1: public class User

   2: {

   3:     public virtual string UserName { get; set; }

   4:     public virtual string Email { get; set; }

   5:     public virtual string Password { get; set; }

   6:     public virtual Guid ProviderId { get; set; }

   7: }

To add validation to it, I simply decorate it with the appropriate validation attributes.  It ends up looking like this:

public class User
{
    [ValidateNonEmpty("Username is required")]
    public virtual string UserName { get; set; }

    [ValidateNonEmpty("Email is required")]
    [ValidateEmail("Invalid email address")]
    public virtual string Email { get; set; }

    [ValidateNonEmpty("Password is required")]
    [ValidateLength(4,50,"Password should be at least 4 characters long")]
    public virtual string Password { get; set; }

    public virtual Guid ProviderId { get; set; }
}

I then generate the client script by adding 1 line of code to my view

<%=Html.ClientSideValidation("formCreateList", ViewData.Model) %>

On the server side, I simply make a call to a validation method from my controller

[Authorize]
[AcceptVerbs("POST"), ActionName("Create")]
public ActionResult Save(User newUser)
{
    AppHelper.ValidateModel(ViewData.ModelState, newUser);
    //the rest of the action code
}

If there are any validation errors on the server, I display the errors by using the framework helper method ValidationSummary.  All I have to do is add this 1 line to the view

<%=Html.ValidationSummary() %>

JavaScript

That’s all there is to it.  Now let’s talk about how it works.  The first challenge was generating the JavaScript to validate on the client. 

I decided to use the excellent jQuery Validation plugin.  The plugin gives me 2 ways to validate my form.  The first method uses classes on the the fields to be validated, for example a required email field would look like this

<input id="email" name="email" size="25"  class="required email" />

The second method uses rules that are defined in JavaScript and look like this

<script type="text/javascript">
$("#signupForm").validate({
        rules: {
            email: {
                required: true,
                email: true
            }
        },
        messages: {
            email: "Please enter a valid email address"
        }
    });
</script>

Check out the plugin documenation and demos to understand how it all works.

Since I was generating the script on the server and I wanted to make only one call, I went with the second option.

The script generator simply loops through all the model properties and their attributes and generate the appropriate script.  Afterthought: Now that I think about it, I could have easily generated a script to add classes to the elements using jQuery’s addClass method…  Oh well, maybe someone else will be kind enough to do it.

Castle Validator

I used the Castle Validator Component as my validation framework.  That’s where all the validation attributes you see above come from, but you can also create your own validators.  I then created a class called JQueryValidationProvider that implements IBrowserValidationGenerator interface in the Castle.Components.Validator namespace.  I haven’t implemented the entire interface and only have a couple of validations working (I will update the source code when it is all done).  Here is a couple of methods that I implemented.

public void SetEmail(string target, string violationMessage)
{
     Rules.Add(new ValidationRule(Validate.Email, violationMessage));
}
public void SetAsRequired(string target, string violationMessage)
{
    Rules.Add(new ValidationRule(Validate.Required, violationMessage));
}

As you can see, all I am really doing is just adding the validation rule to List of ValidationRules.  ValidationRule is a straight forward class and looks like this:

internal class ValidationRule
{
    public ValidationRule(Validate validate) : this(validate, null) { }
    public ValidationRule(Validate validate, string failureMessage)
        : this(validate, failureMessage, null) { }
    public ValidationRule(Validate validate, string failureMessage, object value)
    {
        Validate = validate;
        Value = value;
        if (failureMessage != null)
        {
            ErrorMessage = failureMessage;
        }
        else
        {
            //setup default error messages
            switch (Validate)
            {
                case Validate.Required:
                    ErrorMessage = "This field is required";
                    break;
                default:
                    ErrorMessage = "Field error";
                    break;
            }
        }

    }
    public readonly object Value;
    public readonly Validate Validate;
    public readonly string ErrorMessage;
}

The helper ClientSideValidation method simply loops through the collection of rules and generate the appropriate JavaScript.  Here it is

public static string ClientSideValidation(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper,
    string formName,
    object modelToValidate)
{
    var results = new StringBuilder();
    var rules = new StringBuilder();
    var messages = new StringBuilder();
    results.AppendFormat("$(\"#{0}\").validate({1}", formName, "{");
    results.AppendLine();
    rules.AppendFormat("rules: {0}", "{");
    messages.AppendFormat("messages: {0}", "{");

    var props = TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(modelToValidate.GetType());

    var propCounter = 0;
    foreach (PropertyDescriptor prop in props)
    {
        var generator = new JQueryValidationProvider();
        foreach (var attrib in prop.Attributes.OfType<AbstractValidationAttribute>())
        {
            var v = attrib.Build();
            v.ErrorMessage = v.ErrorMessage ?? "*";
            v.Initialize(new CachedValidationRegistry(), null);
            v.ApplyBrowserValidation(null, InputElementType.Undefined,
                                     generator, null, null);
        }

        if (generator.Rules.Count > 0)
        {
            if (propCounter > 0)
            {
                rules.Append(",");
                messages.Append(",");
            }
            rules.AppendLine();
            messages.AppendLine();
            rules.AppendFormat("{0}: {1}", prop.Name.ToLower(), "{");
            messages.AppendFormat("{0}: {1}", prop.Name.ToLower(), "{");
            rules.AppendLine();
            messages.AppendLine();

            for (var i = 0; i < generator.Rules.Count; i++)
            {
                var rule = generator.Rules[i];
                rules.AppendFormat("{0}", rule.GetRuleString());
                messages.AppendFormat("{0}", rule.GetMessageString());

                if (i < generator.Rules.Count - 1)
                {
                    rules.Append(",");
                    messages.Append(",");
                }
                else
                {
                    rules.Append("}");
                    messages.Append("}");
                }
                rules.AppendLine();
                messages.AppendLine();
            }

            propCounter++;
        }
    }

    rules.Append("},");
    messages.Append("}");
    rules.AppendLine();
    messages.AppendLine();
    results.Append(rules.ToString());
    results.Append(messages.ToString());
    results.Append("});");

    return string.Format("<script type='text/javascript'><!--{1}{0}{1}--></script>",
                            results.ToString(), Environment.NewLine);
}

Changes

Halfway through this post, I read Steve Sanderson’s new post and Stephen Walther’s new post on validation, I made some changes to the code.  I agree with their point that the controller shouldn’t be responsible for initiating the validation and it should be done at a lower layer.  I refactored the code and my controller now looks like this

[AcceptVerbs("POST")]
public ActionResult Create(User user)
{
    try
    {
        user = new User();
        UpdateModel(user, new[] { "name", "email" });
        var service = new UserService();
        service.Save(user);
    }
    catch (RuleViolationException ex)
    {
        MvcValidator.PopulateModelStateWithErrors(user, ViewData.ModelState, ex);
    }
    return View(user);
}

The validation gets initiated at the service (business logic) layer and if there is a rule violation an exception is thrown.  I then take the exception and pass it to a helper method that populates the model state. Note: I could probably rewrite this so that the ModelState population happens before the exception throwing which will eliminate the call to the population method.

My view looks like this

<%=Html.ValidationSummary() %>
<form id="formCreate" name="formCreate"
        action='<%=Url.Action("Create")%>' method="post">
    <label for="name">Name</label>
    <input type="text" id="name" name="name" />
    <br />
    <label for="email">Email</label>
    <input type="text" id="email" name="email" />
    <br />
    <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
<%= Html.ClientSideValidation("formCreate", ViewData.Model) %>

Now if I try to submit the form, the client script validation runs and I get these errors

If you get rid of client validation and only use server validation

to submit the form, the form would look like this

Finally, here is the client JavaScript generated in the view:

<script type='text/javascript'><!--
    $("#formCreate").validate({
        rules: {
            name: {
                required: true,
                minlength: "3",
                maxlength: "25"
            },
            email: {
                email: true,
                required: true
            }
        },
        messages: {
            name: {
                required: "Username is required",
                minlength: "Username should be between 3 and 25 characters long",
                maxlength: "Username should be between 3 and 25 characters long"
            },
            email: {
                email: "Invalid email address",
                required: "Email is required"
            }
        }
    });
--></script> 

Pros & Cons

Here is what I think the pros of this design are:

1. I love using model attributes to define validation rules
2. I like that I only need 2 lines in my view
3. I like that I don’t have to do anything in the controller other than catch an exception and call a helper method

The one thing I don’t like about this design is that it feels like there is a lot of dependencies.  I might need to refactor the code and move things around.  Here is my dependency diagram

Credit

This code was possible because of other people’s work:

Stephen Walther – link

Steve Sanderson – link and link 2

Hamilton Verissimo – link

Rick Strahl – link

Scott Guthrie – link

Source Code

Click here to download the rough-quality source code.

Let me hear what you think of this design.  What’s wrong with it?  What’s right?  Should I put this up on codeplex?

Things to Note

I have tried to use the general consensus of the community for each decision.  For example, some might argue that MVC is better for prototyping but I would say the majority would disagree.

Keep in mind that these choices are not set in stone and are not mutually exclusive but are more like a guide to which platform would be better suited to satisfy a particular requirement.  For example you might want to use TDD but still end up choosing on WebForms.  (I should probably assign a weight to each question)

The "No" branch doesn’t mean exactly NO.  I mean, answering No to "Want cleaner HTML?" doesn’t mean you have something against clean HTML or you want crappy HTML – no one wants that.  Think of the question in terms of "is clean html important to you?" 

Let me hear your feedback below and I will incorporate it in version of 2 of the diagram and post it back on the blog.  Hopefully, this will help someone choose between ASP.NET MVC and WebForms on a new project.

Also, I don’t think a flowchart diagram is the best type of diagram for this type of decision tree.  Can you suggest a better format?

ASP.NET MVC Preview 5 introduce the ModelBinder attribute that can be used to decorate a complex type in an Action.  This allows us to have actions that look like this

public ActionResult Create([ModelBinder(typeof(GenericBinder))] ContactList myList)

Instead of this:

public ActionResult Create(string name, string description)

The problem is that you have to build a Binder for every complex type you want to use as a parameter.  For example, Maarten Balliauw created a model binder on his blog and it looks like this:

public class ContactBinder : IModelBinder
{
    #region IModelBinder Members
    public object GetValue(ControllerContext controllerContext,
                 string modelName, Type modelType,
                 ModelStateDictionary modelState)
    {
        if (modelType == typeof(Contact))
        {
            return new Contact
            {
                Name = controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.Form["name"] ?? "",
                Email = controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.Form["email"] ?? "",
                Message = controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.Form["message"] ?? ""
            };
        }
        return null;
    }
    #endregion
}

Now that is a lot of typing and because I am lazy, I decided to create a generic binder that uses reflection and can work with all my complex types. 

Note: By generic I mean common – it has nothing to do with .net Generics

Also note that this will only work if you follow these conventions:

1. The html field name must match the property name
2. User lower case names for the html fields
3. You don’t have to user lower case on your model properties

Here is the very rough and untested Generic Binder:

class GenericBinder : IModelBinder
{
    public object GetValue(ControllerContext controllerContext,
                            string modelName, Type modelType,
                            ModelStateDictionary modelState)
    {
        var instance = Activator.CreateInstance(modelType);
        foreach (var prop in modelType.GetProperties())
        {
            prop.SetValue(instance,
                    controllerContext.HttpContext.Request
                                    .Form[prop.Name.ToLower()],
                    null);
        }
        return instance;
    }
}

If you find any bugs or have a better implementation, please share.

I ran these tests http://mootools.net/slickspeed/ on IE, Firefox and Chrome.

Here are the results:

It looks like Chrome is about 13% faster than Firefox and 82% faster than IE 7.

All browsers are running on the same computer, so the hardware/os settings are irrelevant.  But if you are curious, it’s a Windows Vista 64-bit machine with 6 Gigs of RAM and a quad core chip.

[Update] If you are reading this in Chrome, the embedded document is broken.  I guess Google didn’t test there own sites.  It should look like this:

Instead it looks like this:

public IAccountService Service { get; set; }

[Inject]
public AccountController(IAccountService service)
{
    Service = service;
}

I could just have a property Service do the work like this:

public IAccountService Service
{
    get
    {
        return (IAccountService) Kernel.Get(typeof (IAccountService));
    }
}

If I get rid of all my constructor parameters then I won’t need to change my ControllerFactory to use the Ninject Factory.  This keeps looking better and better.

What do you think?  I keep reading everywhere that construction injection is the way to go.  But why complicate my constructor when I can have the properties do the heavy lifting?  I would love to hear what you think.

The CurrentUser Property needs to look something like this:

public User CurrentUser
{
    get
    {
        var key = "currentuser";
        if (Session[key] == null)
        {
            Session[key] = /*get user from database some how*/;
        }
        return (User) Session[key] ;
    }
}

This looks simple enough but it is not.  The reason it is not simple is because to get the current user I have to call Membership.Provider.GetUser from the BaseController.  The problem with that is that it creates a dependency on the MembershipProvider class which I don’t want to have, because it will make testing very hard.

One obvious solution was to add the MembershipProvider (which is an abstract class) to the BaseController’s construct and then pass a mocked instance during testing…  The problem with this design is that now my BaseController will be forced to have a parameterized constructor which means that I have to change the code in all the derived controllers to handle that and pass the appropriate instance of MembershipProvider.  Sounds like a code smell.

My solution was to create the MembershipProvider class using my IoC container – in this case, my Ninject Kernel.  This allows me to inject a SqlMembershipProvider in development and runtime and inject a mocked provider in testing.  So the final CurrentUser property looks like this:

public User CurrentUser
{
    get
    {
        var key = "currentuser";
        if (Session[key] == null)
        {
            var Provider
                = (MembershipProvider)
                    Kernel.Get(typeof(MembershipProvider));

            Session[key] = AppHelper.CreateUserFromMembershipUser
                            (Provider.GetUser(User.Identity.Name, true));
        }
        return (User) Session[key] ;
    }
}

If you have been paying attention, you are probably wondering  what is this “Kernel” thing.  Well Kernel is an instance of the Ninject Kernel which itself was injected into the BaseController class like this:

[Inject]
public IKernel Kernel { get; set; }

I could have done this differently.  For example, I could have injected the provider itself using property injection like this:

[Inject]
public MembershipProvider Provider { get; set; }

The only problem is that the provider isn’t needed by all the derived classed and I didn’t want to have a public property in the base class that would hardly be used anywhere else.   On the other hand Kernel could be globally used to instantiate an object.

What do you think?  Is this the way to do it?  Is there a better way?