.net fire

LINQ IS NULL

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:42:00 +0300

category.ParentCategoryId = @parentCategoryId

category.ParentCategoryId = null and this sql didn't return result, because expect category.ParentCategoryId is null.

Then I test another way to delive null value

if (parentCategoryId == null)
            {
                var query = from
                                    category in this.productsHelpDataContext.Categories
                            orderby
                                    category.Order ascending
                            where
                                category.ParentCategoryId == null

                            select category;

                return query.Select(category => category);
            }
            else
            {
                var query = from
                                    category in this.productsHelpDataContext.Categories
                            orderby
                                    category.Order ascending
                            where
                                category.ParentCategoryId == parentCategoryId
                            select category;

                return query.Select(category => category);
            }

In other word LINQ to SQL strict follow sql script convention.

How to convert sql varchar to sql int list

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:51:00 +0300

DECLARE @TEST VARCHAR(30)
SET @TEST = '1,2,3,47, 89, 67'
DECLARE @Current INT

DECLARE @LISTINT TABLE (Number INT)

WHILE (LEN(@TEST) > 0)
BEGIN
   IF (Charindex(',', @TEST) > 0)
   BEGIN
       SET @Current = LEFT(@TEST, Charindex(',', @TEST) - 1)

       SET @TEST = RIGHT(@TEST, LEN(@TEST) - Charindex(',', @TEST))

   END
   ELSE
   BEGIN
       SET @Current = CAST(@TEST AS INT)
       SET @TEST = NULL
   END

   INSERT INTO @LISTINT VALUES(@Current)
   SET @Current = NULL
END

SELECT Number
FROM @LISTINT

Sql cursor vs CTE

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:18:00 +0300

whith is the best way to grow up with MS SQl Server?

I was doing paging in SQL Server 2000 using Temp Table or Derived Tables. I decided to checkout new function ROW_NUMBER() in SQL Server 2005. ROW_NUMBER() returns the sequential number of a row within a partition of a result set, starting at 1 for the first row in each partition. I have compared both the following query on SQL Server 2005.

SQL 2005 Paging Method

USE AdventureWorksGODECLARE  @StartRow INTDECLARE  @EndRow INTSET    @StartRow = 120SET @EndRow = 140SELECT

 FirstName, LastName, EmailAddressFROM (SELECT    PC.FirstName, PC.LastName, PC.EmailAddress,ROW_NUMBER()

 OVER(Order BY PC.FirstName, PC.LastName,PC.ContactID) AS RowNumberFROM    Person.Contact PC) PersonContactWHERE

  RowNumber > @StartRow AND RowNumber < @EndRowORDER BY FirstName, LastName, EmailAddressGO

SQL 2000 Paging Method

USE AdventureWorksGODECLARE  @StartRow INTDECLARE  @EndRow INTSET    @StartRow = 120SET @EndRow = 140CREATE TABLE

 #tables (RowNumber INT IDENTITY(1,1),FirstName VARCHAR(100), LastName VARCHAR(100), EmailAddress VARCHAR(100))

INSERT INTO #tables (FirstName, LastName, EmailAddress)SELECT    PC.FirstName, PC.LastName, PC.EmailAddressFROM

 Person.Contact PCORDER BY FirstName, LastName, EmailAddressSELECT    FirstName, LastName, EmailAddressFROM

 #tablesWHERE    RowNumber > @StartRow AND RowNumber < @EndRowDROP TABLE #tablesGO

if you wnat to make your life easiest just use ROW_NUMBE() instead using old temp table( or cursor related solutions).

Extend ASP.NET with HTTP modules

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 07:04:00 +0300

Like in other .NET-applications, exception-handling is also available in ASP.NET-applications. There are a few extensions and special features for exception-handling in ASP.NET that will be explained in this article: Predefined IHttpModules allow you to process incoming requests and outgoing responses to and from an ASP.NET application. This article offers a closer look at using HTTP modules in ASP.NET applications.

Introduction to HTTP modules

ASP.NET HTTP modules provide access to incoming and outgoing traffic to a Web application. They are similar to Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) filters in that they run for all requests, but HTTP modules are written in managed code and are fully integrated with the lifecycle of an ASP.NET application.

HTTP modules provide pluggable functionality to ASP.NET applications. These modules are added to the request pipeline before and after the ASP.NET HTTP handler fires. HTTP modules are different than HTTP handlers. HTTP modules are called for all requests and responses, whereas HTTP handlers run only in response to specific requests.

HTTP modules and the Global.asax file available in all ASP.NET applications provide the same functionality, but the implementation is a bit different. The Global.asax file requires code in the application, thus compilation when it changes; HTTP modules are completely separate.

A great aspect of HTTP modules is that they are built without affecting existing applications — albeit the extensible architecture. These are easily added or removed to and from an ASP.NET application via the Web configuration (web.config) file.

Some common uses of HTTP modules include the following:

Headers: You can easily inject custom header information into each page.
Logging: You can easily gather logging or statistical data for every request. The creation of a custom HTTP module provides a central location for logging as opposed to code in every page.
Security: You can perform custom authentication or security checks on each page request. You may filter based upon user credentials, IP address, etc. The ASP.NET MemeberShip Provider work in this style.

How HTTP modules work

HTTP modules are registered in the web.config file. This ties the module to an application. As a result, when ASP.NET creates an instance of the HttpApplication class for an application, instances of any modules that have been registered are created as well. The module’s Init method is called when it is instantiated.

Within the Init method, the module subscribes to one or more events from the HttpApplication object. These events correspond to user actions within an ASP.NET application. These events include the following:

AcquireRequestState: This is the event you call to acquire or create the state for the request.
AuthenticateRequest: This event fires when a security module needs to authenticate the user before it processes the request.
AuthorizeRequest: This event is fired by a security module when the request needs to be authorized after authentication.
BeginRequest: This event signals that a new request is beginning.
Disposed: This event signals the application is ending, so it allows the module to perform clean up operations.
EndRequest: This event signals that the request is ending.
Error: This event is called when an error occurs during request processing.
PostRequestHandlerExecute: This event signals that the handler has finished processing the request.
PreRequestHandlerExecute: This event signals that the handler for the request is about to be called.
PreSendRequestContent: This event signals that content is about to be sent to the client.
PreSendRequestHeaders: This event signals that HTTP headers are about to be sent to the client.
ReleaseRequestState: This event signals that the handler has finished processing the request.
ResolveRequestCache: This event is triggered after authentication.
UpdateRequestCache: This event fires after a response from the handler.

An HTTP module may use any of these events.

Creating an HTTP module

You build a custom HTTP module using the IHttpModule interface, which you can find in the System.Web namespace. You want to possiblity to handle errors is in an own IHttpModule. To define it, you have to implement the interface IHttpModule and bind your error-handler in this class:

public void Init(HttpApplication app);
public void Dispose();

The Init method is important since it is called when the HTTP module is called to process incoming requests or outgoing responses. Calls to events (from the previous list) are placed in this method. If one of the events from the HttpApplication class is used, the code to handle the event must be included as well. This includes a delegate, the method, hooking to the event, and so forth.

Once a module is built, it may be registered by way of the httpModules section of the web.config file as the following snippet illustrates:

<system.web>
<httpModules>
<add type="[Class], [Assembly]" name="[ModuleName]" />
<remove type="[Class], [Assembly]" name="[ModuleName]" />
<clear />
</httpModules>

The best way to grasp the use of HTTP modules is to build one. HTTP modules are created as a class library. When using Visual Studio, a reference to the System.Web namespace is added to the project to access the required classes.

The following C# sample demonstrates a simple HTTP module that is tied to the BeginRequest and EndRequest events for a user request. The code displays a simple message in the browser stating the event fired. The events are registered in the module’s Init method with a method created for each event handled.

public class ErrorModule : IHttpModule



{



public ErrorModule()



{



}



#region IHttpModule Members



public void Dispose()



{



}



public void Init(HttpApplication context)



{



context.Error += new EventHandler(context_Error);



}



void context_Error(object sender, EventArgs e)



{



Exception e = HttpContext.Current.Server.GetLastError();



	// Clear the error so that it doesn't occur again in 



// the Application_Error-handler



        HttpContext.Current.Server.ClearError();



HttpContext.Current.Response.Redirect("ErrorPage.htm");



}



#endregion



}

So what is the benefit of using an own HttpModule. Well, the name already says it: You have a modularization for your error-handling. You can change your implementa

tion at one place without touching your application-logic and you can change the errorhandling of your appliation by defining another HttpModule and configuring it in your web.app..

How Often You Should speak with Team Members

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 04:22:00 +0300

OK, that’s the bunch of options, but yes, I have my own. To be honest I put the question only to give my favorite answer to any question (“Do you want a grappa?” question not included). The answer is:

It depends.

By the way, one of thing why I’m not a big fan of agile methods is because they’re highly formalized... Yes, they are... Yes, they are... Yes, they... never mind. I don’t agree you have to meet everyday no matter what project you run. I don’t agree fortnight is the best cycle length in software development. It depends. It depends on the team, the project, the customer, resources and goals. Those things, including meeting frequency, can’t be standardized.

Coming back to the question how often you should run team meetings... There are few factors you have to consider when you gather the team, or part of it, on the meeting.

• How fast information is overdue. When you have two-week development cycle (no, I haven’t said it’s all wrong) meeting every day or every two days to summarize progress is a good idea. Having a meeting once during the cycle is definitely not so clever.

How often you waste time of the team. You force developers to leave their beloved PCs while in the flow of inventing new ground-breaking, cutting-edge, world-changing algorithms. You sit with those who came on time waiting for those who are always 5-minutes late. Yes, every meeting, even with the most creative outcome, is at least a bit of a waste of time.

• What outcome is expected. And when you want to have it on your desk. You don’t try to rearrange development tasks assignments during the last week of planned development phase. You do it during the second week, because after the first one you have first lags. OK, I know, with two-week cycle the second one actually is the last one. If you need some work to be done after the meeting you need to allocate the time for that. Even the most skilled architect won’t create technical design document of the high-availability real-time system within a day.

When all parties are free. That’s the easiest one. At least for the most of managers I know. You don’t run meetings just for sake of running meetings but to execute some actions on some people: giving information, receiving information, assigning a task, asking a question, giving feedback etc. You want it or not, as far as you don’t have another interested party on the other side of the table it isn’t very successful. So take a minute to check their availability before sending invitations.

A couple of factors drive you to have the meetings faster/more often, another couple quite the opposite. There’s really no rule of thumb here. With tight three-week development schedule, we meet twice a week with developers. When talking about meetings summarizing status of all projects we run them once a week, but we keep their frequency religiously. With general team meetings, where we share information about things everyone works on, we try to follow once-a-week schedule, but without any pain we cancel events whenever it’s hard to make it. Individual face to face meetings with people from my team I have every time they (or I) feel like having one.

With other team and other projects it would be different. You have to decide yourself how often you need to have team meetings.

Web site for web design

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:41:00 +0300

Now is not necessary to be computer guru to make your own web site.

This task is very easy, just open www.google.com and write web site design. You may have about 100,000 result, how to choise write for you. In this article I wiil give

same usefull web sites, necessary for success in web design. You don't must to know anything about XTML or ASP.NET or PHP. For beggining you must look same web sites,

that i'll list below.

First web site is www.leaftletter.com.

If you want to make more original web design for your blog or web site, this is a pleca where can do it. You have full freadom for working with pictures and text. The web site is sil better version, but everything what is free is all time beta version.

Second web site is www.websitetips.com

This place can deliver on you exert services in web design. Here you can find 1000 articles How to make better web site design.

You are Beginner: Learn XHTML ASP.NET and Database

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:11:00 +0300

In the last two weeks, three friends have approached me asking how they can get into Web development: a university professor who wants to create a virtual community for his students, an owner of a language school who wants to get into e-commerce, and an English teacher looking for a lucrative career move. My advice to all of them was the same: learn XHTML, ASP.NET and database servers.Why XHTML

XHTML is the core of the Web

From the simplest Web site to the most complex e-commerce solution, XHTML is the script that is ultimately sent down to the visitors’ browsers. There is no getting around it: if you want to do Web development, you need to know XHTML. The good thing is that HTML is relatively easy to learn. It is not a programming language so there are no for-next loops, no variables, and nothing about sessions or functions to learn. It is just a mark-up script, which means that you merely surround text with tags which tell the browser to treat that text specially. To see how easy it is, take my Learn HTML by the end of the hour you will have created your first Web site and learned the most important XHTML tags. It’s really that easy.

After you have made your first home page come up in a browser, learn more by getting an XHTML editor such as Dreamweaver or VIsual Studio Web Developer which allows you to create pages in a Word-like environment and then look at the automatically generated XHTML text. Such an editor is one of the best XHTML learning tools that there is - if you want to learn how to create a colored table, then create one and look at the XHTML code. To learn more, change the code a bit and look at the table again. Keep doing this until you get an understanding of how the XHTML code affects the display in the browser. XHTML is simple enough that experimenting in this way will speed-teach most of practical XHTML skills you need.

After you get a sense of the relationship between XHTML tags and their output in the browser, get a good-sized, comprehensive book on XHTML and work through it at quick pace. It’s not important you understand each tag in depth, but it is important that you have an overview of all the XHTML tags so that you can spot them in the code and know what is available to you when you are designing pages. After you have worked through a book like this, you will have a good theoretical basis of XHTML, which is important when you start programming in ASP.NET.

ASP.NET is a powerful server-side script

Only knowing XHTML is limiting because all you can do is create static pages. What if you have a list of students, for example, which you want to sometimes display sorted by last name, sometimes sorted by grade, and sometimes want to show only those who have finished a specific assignment? For this you need to have this information in a database and use ASP.NET to dynamically send only the information you want to your visitors’ browsers.

To develop sites with ASP, you first need to set up the ASP.NET programming environment on your computer, which can be difficult if you have never done it before. The easiest way to do this is to take visual studio 2005

and sql server 2005 which will enable you to get an ASP.NET developing environment up within the hour, complete with a working ASP.NET page which reads data from an MS SQL database.

Next you need to learn ASP.MET. For most non-programmers this is going to involve a learning curve. Also, if you have never programmed in a client/server environment, you will go through a paradigm shift trying to understand the five server objects: application, server, session, response and request. The good thing is that you don't have to understand everything about ASP.NET to start making useful ASP.NET applications. My advice is to get a good book on ASP.NET and work through it at your own pace pulling out of it only that which you can use for your own particular Web application project, then keep the book within arm's reach for reference.

Database connectivity: where the rubber hits the road

ASP.NET applications without database are not much more useful than plain XHTML pages. Hence, you will want to learn database connectivity from the very beginning of your ASP.NET learning. Spend your time learning how to read, write, delete and edit data in databases from your ASP.NET pages. This is where the real power of an ASP.NET application lies.

Although ASP.NET can talk to almost any database, Microsoft SQL 2005 is the best database to use with ASP.NET, and you will need to have a copy installed on your machine before you begin programming database connectivity into ASP.NET. MS SQL 2005 will work, too, of course. You can go to microsoft.com/downloads and there you search this product.

Today, you can get excellent books on database connectivity using ASP.NET, and in our forums have hundreds of code samples for you to try out and learn from.

Hosting your ASP Web site

When it is time to put your ASP.NET Web site on the Internet for others to use, Web hosting services such as aspspider.com will host your database-generated ASP Web site for free.

Not easy, but possible and very powerful

In the final, learning ASP.NET and database connectivity is not as easy as learning how to use other Windows applications. Programming involves another level of involvement and learning which for some is simply not a joy. However, if you are excited about learning basic programming skills and can invest a couple of months learning and experimenting with this technology, you will come out with skills with which you can create robust and useful database-generated Web applications such as virtual classrooms or e-commerce Web sites. You will also be able to market yourself as a highly paid Web developer. More power to you!

How Can I Improve performance of ASP.NET Application

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 06:44:00 +0300

Step1: Learn "Hot to work with strings?"

If you are c++ programmer and start with modern languages while Delphi, c# or Java, there have thausands of lines writen for working with strings.

Never not use:

string result = ""; //instead result = string.Empty.

For this method of initialization of string variable Microsoft are make couple of optimization.

If you want to format same string, don't write:

result = var1 + " this is " + var2 + " the best " var3 + " ."; //where var 1-3 are string variable

Just use:

result = String.Format("{0} this is {1} the best {2} ."

If you must concatenated more that four string, in language exist StringBuilder. I'm make test with 1000 concatanations of strin. For "result += result" this take about twenty

seconds, instead for StringBuilder is three seconds.

If you campare strings, don't use equals operator (this is stupid least). Use String.Compar() or string result = "test", result.Equals("tests")

Step2: Use "Using" block for working with database and file system.

if you open file or database connection just write:

        using(SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
        {
             connection.Open()
        } //after programs pass this line, connection is closed

What deliver this functionallity for you?

if you forgot to close connection, it's closed.
couple of lines code, that you have to write.

Step4: Use generics List instead ArrayList.

ArrayList object make boxing and unboxing in every operation with it, for this reason Microsoft ® release List<T> (generic lists) with .net 2.0. When they are make optimization , we just have to use it.

Never don't write:

ArrayList customers = new ArrayList(); // List<Customer> customer = new List<Customer>();

customers.add(new Customer()); // it's same

Customer temp = customers[i] as Customer; // Customer temp = customers[i];//without unboxing;

Step5: Don't use ssl on every pages

I'm look person that write e-commerce application and they put ssl on every web pages. This isn't right decision, you must implement you chec-out process with ASP.NET wizard

and put user iteration only on couple of pages. When user browse web site , there no reason to have SSL on every page. If you open sites while amazon i yahoo shopping you will

see, that use ssl when you buy product and must enter same sensitive information.

For you stay problem to define which pages exatly have need to be put on SSL line, this one will be perfect fix the problem with your ASP.NET perfomance.

Conclusion:

Working with string is imporatnt for web development.
Minimazing using of ArrayList, instead use Custom Obgects with Generic List.
Minimazing using of SSL, this will put down your web server.

A five-step for writing better project plans

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:35:00 +0300

A long time ago, in a lifetime far far away, a client asked me to help their PMO produce useful project plans. Never one to turn away a job, I agreed to speak with him and review the documents his team produced. Leafing though the packet, I found the same things I always find in project plans - lack of coherent planning, no focus on document purpose, and a very limited control of how tasks interact to create workable processes.

The good news, I assured my client, was that he had a lot of company in his situation. The better news was that it’s not that difficult to get out of the psychological rut which leads project managers to create useless project plans, post them, then ignore the hoary artifact in favor of more mutable spreedsheets or calendars.

I prescribed him a simple remedy - four questions I always ask myself before I sit down to wok on a project plan. These questions are as follows.

1) What do you want this project plan to do?

My client’s eye’s crossed when I gave him the first question. “A project plan organizes project work in a reportable fashion” he mumbled, trying to understand what the frak I was saying.

A project plan is, when we get right down to it, a document. Documents exist for a variety of reasons. We use them to record information, to communicate information to one or more audiences, to brainstorm possibilities, or as records of exercises undertaken to understand a problem to name just a few.

The first step to creating a “useful” project plan is to figure out what, in a given context, we need the project plan to convey in order for it to be useful. A project plan written to satisfy auditors must meet very specific criteria which might not have anything to do with actually running a project. A project plan written to aid executive reporting might not contain the information an auditor wants, just as one written to help the project manager actually track multiple interwoven sites will read differently than any of the above.

Trying to write a project plan to cover all “whats” generally leaves the author with a confused, useless mess. Not unlike what I find in organizations all over the country.

2) Who will use this project plan?

My client’s suspicions raised even further when I showed him this one. “Didn’t we answer that in the first question?”

Well, yes and no. When we asked the first question we defined a use and an audience. In this question, we try to dig down and figure out who will interact with the project plan and in what ways. Some of this is contextual. In one organization the PMO may dictate that developers always create and update their own tasks, while another may put all the weight onto the project manager’s shoulders.

I generally create a chart when I try to answer this question. In the first column I put roles and/or names if I know them. In the second column I put in how I expect them to interact with the project plan. In the third I put in how frequently they will interact with it.

3) What will the project plan contain?

“Ummm…” my client said. “Don’t project plans contain tasks, dates, and precursor information?”

By this time, he had pretty much figured out my standard “yes but” answer. Yes, a project plan by convention contains all those things.

However, the real question is what tasks? How do we filter and vet the vast amounts of process information required to run a project into a useful document based on what we need it for and who will interact with it? Do we just drop everything into the project plan and hope someone will get around to updating it? Do we use a very minimalistic, critical path kind of approach. If we do the later, how do we determine what needs to be in the project plan and what doesn’t?

I wish I had a handy trick for making this filter. Unfortunately, this is one of those “technique=time+context+person” things. How we build the filter depends entirely on the answers to the previous two questions along with a host of other process related variables. This is why, I suppose, we have consultants.

4) Why is the project plan important?
“Okay. I get the first three. But this is…” I thought I would cut to the chase, because it looked like my client was about to get a headache.

Every document can be important in at least two contexts - the author’s and the reader’s. It’s vitally important to differentiate between the two, otherwise we end up with yet another confused mess involving poor communication and broken expectations.

For an author, the act of writing the document is often sufficient to organize his thoughts and allow him to move forward. He may never have to revisit the document again to gain benefits from it. We generally call this a success, especially if we see a positive improvement in the author’s productivity or development.

For a given reader, the document is only successful if it meets his expectations about what information he will find. To use this blog as an example, if I titled this article “How to make a great cake”, my gentle readers would justifiably want to flog me. For a project plan, we have to know why a reader feels the document might be important to him. Then, and only then, can we hope to meet his expectations.

Each author can with a little bit of work uncover his own motivations. Uncovering the why of a document in a corporate setting can become unwarrentedly challenging due to politics, lack of focus, and compromises which the author might know nothing about. This situation unfortunately dooms the fledgling project manager, but that’s just the way the world works sometimes.

5) What is deadline of project plan?

if project plan does't contains exactly defined deadline date, how project manager can maintain the project. Typacaly project plan are writen without final date. Then developer said when i hasn't deadline I will make

this future tomorrow, why now. In the last week everyone in company fast to complete his tasks, because they all are for last time. If exist project plan with strong defined dates, this problem don't appearance.

Object-Relational Mapping

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 05:54:00 +0300

Introduction

Currently, Object-Relational mapping is probably the hottest topic of discussion on the internet in terms of the various software development circles. With all the hype surrounding ORM, it is easy to forget the why?. Why does ORM exist? It would seem that ORM has become somewhat of a religious war. One can only wonder if the ORM war will have people in the future asking a why? The focus of Object-Relational mapping is to solve the object-relational impedance mismatch. I.e. the object model does not equal the relational model and this is considered by many to be a problem. There are those that have subscribed to the viability of ORM as a persistence strategy, and there are those that have not. Some have questioned whether the object-relational impedance mismatch is a problem at all. Others argue that the object-relational impedance mismatch issue is being solved on the wrong side of the equation. I.e. there are those that advocate the use of Object-Oriented databases as a solution and not ORM. The fact that ORM has created so much attention and heated debate implies that there is something of importance or at least perceived importance. I leave it up to you to decide. That something deserves a closer inspection to separate the hype from the fact. The aim of this article is to encompass important a view for and against ORM. By so doing, it is intended to establish a different, or at least more informed, perception of ORM regardless of what the current perception may be.

Intent

To be fair, the topic of Object-Relational Mapping requires a book to address all the matters relating to it in its entirety. I provide just enough information in this article to allow one to consider ORM from a pragmatic perspective.

Object-Relational Mapping as a persistence strategy is both a statement and a question. In the first instance, I am implying that ORM is a persistence strategy. In other words, ORM is a viable technology in terms of satisfying ones persistence requirements. In the second instance, I am questioning ORM as a persistence strategy. I.e. Is ORM a viable solution in terms of satisfying ones persistence requirements. The focus of this article is not on the best ORM tools that are available. Best is at best transient and what is best today may not be whats best tomorrow. Instead, the focus is on ORM at a conceptual level. The reason that I have chosen to focus my attention at a conceptual level is due to the nature of change. ORM tools will appear, change, disappear and reappear. Technology will evolve and so will ORM tools. I consider the concepts behind ORM to be of far more significance and value. This allows one to view ORM in a pragmatic and hopefully unbiased view. Therefore, the intent of this article is to view ORM at a conceptual level, in an unbiased manner, and assume a technology agnostic approach.

For the purpose of clarity, the intent of this article is further summarized to be as follows:

Description of ORM
- What is ORM?
- Why does it exist?
- In what form does it exist?
- What are the problems associated with ORM?

Viability of ORM as a persistence strategy
- Discussion on the requirements of a persistence strategy. Determining how well if at all ORM satisfies persistence requirements.
- Reusability
- Maturity
- Time and Cost
- Architecture

Choosing an ORM
- Commercial vs. Open Source vs. In-house

Succeeding with ORM

Failing with ORM

Object-Relational Mapping

Often, a good way of understanding what something does, is to understand the reason for its existence. I.e. why does it exist? In terms of enterprise software development, most if not all software systems deal with getting data in and out of a data store. In this context the form of data store is unimportant. What is important is how one deals with the data store persistence. Data persistence implies the concept of persisting and retrieving data. It is a common and recurring development challenge. For those that are familiar with design patterns, the aforementioned statement should sound oddly familiar. Design patterns, at their simplest definition, are tried and tested solutions to common and recurring challenges. Therefore, is there or are there design patterns to deal with data persistence. Yes, there are many patterns that one might employ to deal with the data persistence challenge. Is ORM such a design pattern? ORM may use many design patterns to achieve its end. Whether it in and of itself is a pattern is probably a discussion best left to another article or forum. ORM is a technique that one might choose as a data persistence strategy. ORM is a solution, not the solution. It does help address a common development challenge, that being of data persistence. The popular term to describe the data persistence issue is that of the object-relational impedance mismatch. The question that arises is whether the impedance mismatch is really an issue. The Java development community seems to have adopted ORM well before any of the other development communities. I used the word seem as I have not encountered all development communities and therefore cannot say with certainty that this is the case. The Microsoft development community has chosen to ignore the object-relational mismatch until recently. I say recently because there only seems to be a boom in terms of the availability of ORM tools in recent times. I am not, however, implying that Microsoft has chosen to ignore the mismatch issue. Before continuing the discussion of ORM, the following points are highlighted in terms of understanding the definition of ORM.

It provides a way to resolve the object-relational impedance mismatch. This object-relational impedance mismatch is considered to be the core problem.
It is a technique for converting data between a relational database and an object-oriented programming language
It is an abstraction of data persistence code
The result of an ORM implementation is often likened to that of a virtual object database.
ORM provides us with database independence

To further elaborate on what ORM is, I discuss ORM in terms of the following challenges:

Core Challenge
Conceptual Challenge
Legacy Challenge
Usability Challenge

Using Web 2.0 for Career Development

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 05:16:00 +0300

Web 2.0

refers to the usage of the World Wide Web as an interactive medium, inviting users to take part in shaping the content of their favorite websites. A few examples include Wikipedia, Myspace, and Del.icio.us. All these sites allow users to create their own content, which then becomes available for everyone to read. Many magazines and newspapers have done articles stating that web 2.0 is the next evolution of the Internet and the Web, and a conscious person will want to take advantage of Web 2.0 for career development and advancement. So what can you do with Web 2.0 to further your career?

One easy way is to use LinkedIn.com’s networking feature. LinkedIn is similar to Myspace and other social networking sites, which allow the user to create a specialized profile detailing their personality. However, LinkedIn is especially focused towards business use, and being “Linked In” could help enormously when you meet and network with other professionals in your field. It also can help when potential employers use the site to search for relevant candidates for a job search they’re performing.

Another possible way is to self-promote by submitting relevant websites to the various Web 2.0 sites that promote sharing of bookmarks and interesting sites, such as del.icio.us and Digg. These sites allow anyone to post a website, which then becomes publicly viewable by all site viewers. As more and more people submit a link to the same post, it becomes more highly rated and easily viewed by people coming to the site. If you are a photographer, for instance, you could submit a link to an amazing photo you took to all the different bookmarking sites, which would broaden exposure to your photography by putting the image in front of a large set of eyes.

A third popular way is to use Myspace’s networking feature. Myspace is a website which allows people to create profiles unique to themselves or their band. Within a Myspace profile, you can select several different job titles as ones you would like to inform people that you are interested in. In this manner, you can start to network with other people who have profiles on Myspace and are also interested in networking about the same job. Myspace is especially valuable simply because so many millions of people use it everyday.

A commonality between Web 2.0 sites is that the ability to post content is free, and thus is a great place to market yourself and your skill set while still remaining within a specific budget to handle your personal advertising. This is in contrast to traditional methods of promotion, such as direct mail, that have high costs. Therefore if you run your own business, or feel that your name recognition is important, Web 2.0 sites can be invaluable self-promoting mechanisms, both within your industry and across the web.

In summation, Web 2.0 offers someone looking to further their career many different options for enhancing their visibility within a particular industry. Try and submit great content, across a broad range of Web 2.0 sites, and see where the technology revolution takes you!

Web Site Design

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 06:09:00 +0300

Websites should have a clear, clean design with the focus

being on the information, product, or service you offer. Put away those fancy backgrounds because they just distract from the text.

The content on your site should stand out, not the background. Any colors you use should be pleasing to the eye and not clash. Take the time to visit some larger sites on the Internet for different companies and corporations. While you may be just one person or a small company, you should display the same level of professionalism in your
design.

Stick with the traditional light or white background for text. Other darker colors should be used for side columns and to dress up the white, not to take over and distract the reader from what you really want them to notice.It’s important to remember that you’re bringing the visitor to your site to read the content, not to be blinded by your incredible use of color or the beautiful background. So, focus on the content. Make it visible and make it the focus.

Site Content

Your site’s content is very important to your search engine ranking. If you’re an online florist, do not type online floristrepeatedly on your first page with the hopes of tricking the
search engines into giving your site a higher ranking. You’lljust be banned. However, it’s very important to have keywords placed in your legitimate text because spiders and
crawlers will pick those up. Quality content can help you rank higher in the search engines, but it also keeps visitors coming back. Site traffic
is not only essential to the site itself and the business it represents, but also to your AdSense CTR. A certain
percentage of your traffic will ultimately click through yourads.

Which is best suitable for SOA: .NET or J2EE?

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:58:00 +0300

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) - Which is best suitable for SOA: .NET or J2EE?

This is the most complicated question among many people. Microsoft claims that its architecture is great; similar claims come from Sun also. None of them could beat each other in any of its technologies. No one can give an immediate decision or solution to any of such questions.

Although the rivalry between .NET and J2EE continues, neither platform is expected to dominate business-application development in the near term. Instead, their roughly equal capabilities will win roughly equal market share for .NET and J2EE. That means the two technologies will be used in 80 to 90 percent of business-application development over the next five years.

Both .NET and J2EE are good platforms for developing and hosting business applications. Both support n-tier architectures via client- and server-side component models for assembling enterprise applications. This allows for use of either fat or thin user interfaces with both platforms.

However, .NET and J2EE are far from identical, and each platform has distinct strengths. The primary strength of .NET is its use of multiple programming languages running on a single platform to finish of 2007 eyar , because mono-project goes on scene. This eliminates the programming language as a barrier for adoption. Further .NET strengths include ease of use and speed of development as programmers might be transitioning from COBOL or C. (In contrast, transitioning to Java usually takes greater skill in object orientation.)

J2EE takes .NET's multiple programming-language/single-platform paradigm and turns it around: The primary strength of J2EE is its use of a single programming language capable of running on multiple platforms. This eliminates the platform as a barrier for adoption. Further J2EE strengths include vendor neutrality and the active involvement of a large, open-source community.

From an integration standpoint, JDBC is actually more promising than J2CA. This API provides access to virtually any data source, from relational databases to spreadsheets and flat files. With a JDBC driver, all corporate data can be connected, even in a heterogeneous environment. In addition to its support for actual relational databases, JDBC can also support emulated relational models based on legacy information sources. But to do this, JDBC requires an integration product that can map the legacy-application functions to emulate a relational database model. The .NET platform, with its dependence on Microsoft BizTalk Server, has the same drawbacks for legacy-application integration as it does for packaged-application integration. So, despite the very real integration potential of .NET and J2EE, both platforms have their associated limitations. And when it comes to legacy-application integration, neither platform can complete the job on its own.

Although Web services were not conceived as an integration technology, they can be effective in the application-integration process. Web services provide a standard way to expose application interfaces through XML (Extensible Markup Language) and WSDL (Web Services Description Language). They also use a standard way to communicate, via SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). These features help reduce the cost and complexity of integration, as well as the cost and complexity of building new applications. Web services are made even more interesting by the fact that they are supported by both .NET and J2EE, and run equally well on both platforms. Therefore, Web services are ideal for bridging the two platforms.

Only large businesses are in a position to adopt both .NET and J2EE, due to two circumstances: 1) they have sufficient resources to train their development staff on both platforms, and 2) they have the capacity to develop best practices for managing environments that include elements from both platforms. Unlike very larger counterparts, small and midsize organizations won't have the luxury of supporting both platforms simultaneously. Due to limited resources, they will probably be forced to choose between .NET and J2EE. And because Microsoft has established a strong presence in small and midsize businesses, .NET can reasonably be expected to prevail in this market.

Web development as a career

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 07:09:00 +0300

There was a time when Web development was about CGI scripting, JavaScript, and Java. Not any more. A series of articles from various sources suggest that a career path focused on honing skills for Web-ware (Web + Software) development can pay rich dividends. Now on scene goes ASP.NET for Windows and Mono for Linux, JAVA and PHP.

APIs everywhere

Social networking has been booming and so has the avenue to monetize from the increased user base, so much so that firms have realized that the best strategy to capture market share is to have a roster of developer-converts a.k.a the users to chug out applications. It’s a win-win situation. The company gets the benefit of increased adoption due to increased utility. The developers get a share of revenue their apps generate. And the recent announcement from codeplex.com that it will reward developers creating same apps is just the beginning. LinkedIN and MySpace, other popular social networking sites will also be releasing their APIs soon.

Online Competitions

Competitions provide an understanding of a person's capabilities through a demonstration of skill. What was lacking in the world of programming competitions was a format that offered immediate and objective scoring. The solution was the creation of a "Single Round Match", after that development, and then topcoder.com.

Mash-ups

Also, Google announced a mega mash-up to mash all mash-ups, opening another opportunity for wannabe Web developers to take the plunge. Mash-ups are a technique to merge various services (such as Google Maps) to tailor data from various sources to user-specific needs (such as mark out local grocery stores on a region map). Mash-ups rely heavily on AJAX technology (it’s a debate whether AJAX is a new technology as such since the features were always there, but let’s not get into that). Here’s a blog I scooped from the Net as a starting point for mash-ups development.

And if you are still wondering if it’s all worth the effort, apart from the fact that Web development can be a deeply gratifying experience, perhaps this piece from silicon.com can give more reasons for you to start.

software as service - fundamental

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:28:00 +0300

Software as a Service

A profound shift in the development and distribution of software has transformed the industry. The Software as a Service (SaaS) business model is impacting the software industry and how your customers acquire business functionality and solutions. In this model,

application functionality is delivered through a subscription model over the Internet. The customer does not take ownership of the software, but instead rents a total solution

that is delivered remotely. With the SaaS model, you can reduce up-front support costs because you no longer need to support multiple platforms and versions. This rapidly emerging delivery model can help you, as an ISV, enter new markets.

In the software as a service model,

the application, or service, is deployed from a centralized data center

across a network - Internet or private network - providing access and use on a recurring fee basis. Users
"rent," "subscribe to," “are assigned”, or "are granted access to" the application from a central provider.
Business models vary according to the level to which the software is streamlined, to lower price and
increase efficiency, or value-added through customization to further improve digitized business processes.
The potential benefits of the model are significant for both the vendor and the customer.
In the past few years, many new companies have been established that took this new paradigm into
consideration from the onset. However, what about the traditional independent software vendor (ISV)
whose products were not designed or optimized to be utilized in a service model? Should they be worried
that their products will become relics in today's distributed computing environment? Or is a service model
even appropriate for these products? Many ISVs are therefore asking themselves whether to
service or not to service?

ISVs contemplating such a move want to consider the following:

· What is the strategic motivation for considering offering Software as a Service?
· Has a competitor created one yet?
· Is there pressure from the customer community to offer one?
· Is the company highly profitable and in no hurry to threaten the current business model?
· Is the company losing money and feels a need to offer a new product?
· Does the application lend itself EASILY to an application-hosted product or is there a significant
development investment needed to get it ready?
· Is the service offering targeted at existing prospects (and can therefore threaten current revenue
from license sales) or is targeted at new markets?
The decision to develop a service offering necessitates significant changes in the software development
cycle and can have a profound effect on the operations and bottom line of a company. It requires a new
skill set that many traditional ISVs may not currently possess. Once this strategic decision to proceed has
been made, a whole new set of questions comes to the fore.
· Does the ISV host and manage its own service? Do they go with a third-party xSP to manage it for
them? How do they get to either?
· Does the ISV hire an application infrastructure provider to provide the technology for the service and
the integration with legacy systems?
· And what about the changes in the ISV business model. How does it impact internal operations? How
does it impact revenue streams?
· What about the channel?
· Where to begin?

The answers to these and other questions lie in this white paper. Through real world explanations and
examples, it outlines such topics as the technical considerations of selecting a SaaS partner, how
applications will integrate into your current business model, the long-range impact on revenue, and how
to manage this new channel. It's a tool to assist the ISV as they begin to address this burgeoning model
of software as a service.