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  • PDL from .NET, Reporting, BIRT, Telerik, Orcas, URL Data Services and Astoria!

    There! Enough things in one title? The thing is that Steve Eichert and my whirlwind day covered all of that and more. Let me explain. So, for two weeks, Steve and I have been off discussing/pairing on some big ticket "Infrastructure" items. There are many things on the list and we have been applying both heavy design discussions on the whiteboard with practical prototypes or solutions. These areas have covered the whole spectrum from what will the world look like in 3 months, 6 months, a year, 3 years to caching architecture to workflow to to parallel computing to replacements for CAB to Services to reporting and much more. Yesterday, we spent a day on our "Reporting Strategy or Reporting Architecture." Being a large Enterprise platform, it is very important to have a comprehensive Reporting story on both the Smart Client side as well as on the Server side. I'll just leave it very generally that there are certain kind of reports for us that are really "Statements" and then Ad-Hoc Reporting. My story for most of the last year and half has been SQL Server Reporting Services . I have had good experiences with it at Adesso even as reporting on Oracle. Of course, there is that "small footprint" of having a "reporting database" for SQL Server but virtually all the "Enterprise Reporting" solutions require some footprint. However, lately it has become totally apparent to us that virtually every single Bank customer of ours is an Oracle shop only other than very small hedge funds and we have really de-emphasized SQL Server. Its still in our CI build and code gen but we are now optimizing for Oracle. Anyway, we wanted to keep the Statement stuff simple. Forget a whole reporting thing for that. We really only need to generate pretty much canned statements with customizable logos and footers. So Steve and I began to look at a whole bunch of HTML to PDF or .NET libraries for PDF generation. We ended up feeling real good Read More...
  • New and Notable 179

    Ever hear the story of the guy who responded to ScottW's Facebook NJ Developers and DonXML 's same email and gets addicted to Facebook ? CLR/Rotor Phil Haack has a most excellent tip on an easier way to see the Rotor code. Instead of doing the whole multi-hour Rotor unzipping and building dance, you can view most of the code online here ! Design Patterns/UI/CAB/Software Design/Agile Jeremy continues his brilliant series with his Build Your Own CAB #14 . I'm not going to quote the whole title as it has too many buzzwords to type :) Speaking of buzzwords, Chris combines a mouthfull in his most excellent post: NUnit, NBehave, DSLs, Fluent Interfaces - and other popular gibber jabber. You should read it. Windsor/IoC Jeremy Jarrell has started an excellent series on tools that we Agile developers use. The first piece is an excellent down-to-earth tutorial on Windsor, the Inversion of Control (IoC) container piece of the Castle Project , the same guys that bring you MonoRail IronRuby Scott Hanselman continues the Iron Ruby juice with a WPF Sample in IronRuby talking via C# to Wesabe WCF/Distributed .NET Matevz Gacnik has an interesting post where he managed to get distributed transaction scenario working using WCF , MTOM and WS-AtomicTransactions . [tags: CLR, C#, Rotor, WPF, LINQ, DLR, IronRuby, Castle, Windsorm MTOM, Distributed Transactions, Design Patterns, CAB, UI Design] Read More...
  • New and Notable 177

    Multithreading and Concurrency Software Transactional Memory Part IV - Thread-Bound Transactions Software Transactional Memory Part V - Integration with System.Transactions Parallel LINQ Restating the Concurrency Problem Herb Sutter is starting a new column on Effective Concurrency Shared nothing parallel programming \ Software Design/Smart Clients/CAB/Web Clients Using NUnitAsp to test Pages w/Forms Authentication Build your own CAB #12 - Rein in runaway events with the "Latch" Build your own CAB #13 - Embedded Controllers with a Dash of DSL A whole pile of goodness taking CAB forward from the folks at SCSFContrib . which includes A full implementation of the UI layer for CAB done in WPF with 100% code coverage in tests!! (see Bill's post ) WCF/SOA ChannelFactory Behaviors David Chappell declares the REST vs. WS-* War over . Here's hoping Orcas/LINQ ScottGu continues his excellent series with LINQ to SQL (Part 4 - Updating Our Database) ADO.NET Entity Framework The ADO.NET Entity Framework June 2007 CTP is now available. See the team blog for changes Ruby/Subversion My team-mate Steve points to some great resources on the Beauty of Ruby as well as finding a Web-based Subversion Browser Other Link Blogs Interesting Finds: July 10, 2007 PM Edition Daily Grind 1182 Technorati Tags: CAB , Ruby , Concurrency , Microsoft .NET , Software Transactional Memory , PLINQ , NUnitASP , Software Design , Design Patterns , Ruby on Rails , Subversion Read More...
  • New and Notable 176

    TGIF!! I am super busy right now designing a multi-CPU/multi-threaded Parallel Calculation Engine and diving into the science of Parallel Computing. I'll have some links when I get a chance. Windows Workflow Tomas talks about Silver , the integration of WF + WCF. The marriage is sorely needed because, as I have posted here , the current situation well, sucks. Silver uses Queues and bypasses EDS completely, which is what anyone needs to do to have any real success of communication into Workflows. Because we could not use Orcas here, we actually implemented our own version of the mechanism to avoid the hell that is EDS. Jon Flanders , the guy that helped me with the above, also worked on the PageFlow Sample that has been updated to V1.1 Even more interesting is that he has working on this project for hosting Workflows inside of BizTalk. This is very interesting as developing your own host is so not trivial, but I totally challenge Paul's assertion that " No BizTalk Experience Required ." Architecture Steve Jones has a post YAGNI, Requirements and why scaling isn't always important that I totally agree with and is in-line with what I try to do as an " Agile Architect ": "Split information exchange from the business services, and worry about the scaling that is appropriate for your information exchange. Don't worry about technical purity and some "wonder" architectural approach. Don't over engineer because if you do X (or R) then it will scale to 100,000 users, but your requirements say "6". Software Design/Agile/XP/Design Patterns/CAB Number 11 for Jeremy in his continuing excellent series on UI Design Patterns in Build your own CAB #11 - Event Aggregator Jeremy has another big AMEN post for me in his Design for Testability , which really goes with my Writing Maintainable Code post, "" Done, done, done " isn't just writing code. It's writing code and verifying that that code works correctly. Read More...
  • New and Notable 171

    Acropolis David Hill's blog is here and the Team Blog is here One nice post on the Team Blog is Extending the Notepad Sample with a Web Browser View Secret Themes in Acropolis Three New Acropolis Videos WCF/SOA/WF/Orcas Jesus Rodriguez on Orcas Durable Services Speaking of WCF, Steve details a really strange finding for both of us: that one way Indigo messages can block. I got the Indigo tracing turned on and it confirmed the results: closing the client proxy blocks until the one way message completes. Why? This seems to defeat the purpose of One Way Messages Harry rounds up the REST responses MAC OS/X OK, so two of my good friends dump Parallels for latest beta of VMWare Fusion . Time to look this weekend! Entity Framework Somehow, I forgot to blog Jeff's post about the good news: Entity Framework to Get Persistence Ignorance (PI) Blogging Good advice from Mr Hanselman on keeping your blog from sucking especially since I have violated some of the principles :) Silverlight/ASP.NET/Expression/Win2K8 Server Brad Abrams covers all of the above in one post Technorati Tags: Orcas. WCF , Durable Messaging , REST , MAC OS/X , Entity Framework , Blogging , Silverlight , ASP.NET , Acropolis , CAB Read More...
  • New and Notable 169

    Agile/TDD/Software Development MbUnit 2.4 RTM Rhino Commons, Repository<T> and Unit Of Work Setting up Windsor for auto registration of components Acropolis Brad Abrams has a follow-up post that has a lot more information including videos, links and tutorials As I figured, my friend Brad Wilson says it nice and neatly: CAB is dead! Long Live CAB! Glenn follows that up with what you need to know to migrate from CAB to Acropolis ASP.NET/Ajax/Visual Studio ScottGu has been doing these great weekly roll-up posts lately; Here's one from May 31st SQL Server Katmai Yes, there is a CTP already [via Euan ] Ayende has a Developer's Perspective on Katmai Windows Workflow The Page Flow WF sample that Jon showed me is out. It is tremendously useful and includes some nice tooling Speaking of Jon, he posted the code for his WCF and WF session at TechEd Community Ayende quite correctly says, " It's Not a War, It's Not even a hot argument " in response to Kevin . As I said there , "I said something to the effect that there is no war, there is not even violent disagreement. There are passionate people that deeply care about their craft and like to debate ideas. I might see 'can't we just get along?' as just accepting the status quo. I think we should constantly question the status quo, step out of our comfort zones to learn from each other. I have learned a lot by Ayende's questioning personally. I know O/RM for instance is 'new' for many of us and it challenges many assumptions over the years that Microsoft (wrongly) told us over the years with SPs. As I have expanded my horizons, I have learned a lot with the daily use of O/RM in my project and it has changed a lot of what I assumed and knew." Technorati Tags: Acropolis , Agile Development , Windsor , MbUnit , TDD , ASP.NET , SQL Server , Windows Workflow Read More...
  • New and Notable 146

    Ah Saturday morning where we can sleep in, ah no wait...I have kids to wake me up at the crack of dawn... Software Architecture The PAG folks continue to deliver their goodness with their first weekly drop of the new version of the Smart Client Software Factory and they looked like they brought over some of the cool stuff from the Mobile version: What’s New In this drop, you have the first look at: • New Application Blocks. We have ported over four application blocks that were previously available as part of the Mobile Client Software Factory. We may refactor, remove, replace, this code in the future (we value your input), but we currently have the following: o Disconnected Agent Application Block. This application block provides management features for execution of Web services from occasionally connected smart clients. With a disconnected service agent, the device can maintain a queue of Web service requests when offline (disconnected) (emphasis mine) and then replay them when a connection to the server application becomes available. o Connection Monitor Application Block. This application block monitors and exposes the available connections and the associated networks. o Endpoint Catalog Application Block. This application block provides features to expose the physical addresses and other details of remote services. o Data Access Application Block. This application block provides support for SQL Server Compact Edition. This application block will be replaced when the factory migrates to the next version of Enterprise Library. Jeremy Miller continues his excellent posts and talks about something Steve and I approach in our architecture: Don't Let the Database Dictate Your Object Model . I have to admit to being dragged a bit by Steve into this approach with OR/M and dropping the whole data-centric database-out view I have had for many years. Also see his My Least Favorite Kind of Requirements Undocumented WCSF Feature: Global Exception Handling Udi tackles Can, or Read More...
  • New and Notable 145

    Architecture/SOA Blaine Wastell has posted that PAG planning an update of the Smart Client Software Factory to be released in late April of this year. They are encouraging feedback at http://www.codeplex.com/smartclient and enter critical items into the issue tracker ( http://www.codeplex.com/smartclient/WorkItem/List.... ). From where I sit, they have their Priority 1 stuff right with WPF Interoperability. We absolutely need to be able to move to WPF with the existing CAB/SCBAT infrastructure I have been listing posts on WS-RM and its implementation in WCF. Harry Pierson, has an autopost that builds on his recent epiphany about WCF and long running services. He speaks about his conversation with Shy and " At some point in the three years between March 2003 and February 2006, WS-RM went from being the enabler of long running services to "yet another misnamed WS-* protocol". And with it, WCF lost (never had?) the ability to support long running services (as I've written previously )." The main point is that it does not support RM-based durable messaging. As Harry says, "As I said before, lack of support for WS-RM based durable messaging isn't that big a deal. As long as you understand WCF's sweet spot - the current version's sweet spot anyway - and don't try and make it be something it's not, you should be fine. Furthermore, Shy mentions the need for an "interoperable Queued Messaging specification" and wrote that it's something he "expect that we will get to it in the near future". Here's hoping that spec is less flexible than WS-ReliableMessaging." CLR/Tools/Agile/TDD The most indispensable tool in the .NET universe, Reflector, has gone through a big update to V5! As Jamie states , "This is a significant update with lots of refinements and new features. Perhaps most significantly it includes support for C# 3.0 language features such as LINQ query expressions, lambda expressions and extension methods. See my screencast about using Reflector 5.0 from VS Orcas." He also Read More...
  • New and Notable 142

    Data/ADO.NET Orcas Two from the ADO.NET team: Entity Client and Nulls - LINQ to DataSets Part 3 Software Architecture/SOA/CAB Udi answers, Can or should SOA be implemented without Web Services? David Chappell on The Three Faces of SOA Eric Newcomer: WS-* vs. REST is not the question Another architect with a chronicle of How CAN and TDD helps doing better designs WCF/CardSpace Richard Turner gives an insightful report on RSA2007 especially on the "demo showed Wachovia 's website running on Corillian 's online banking platform using Arcot Systems ' security engine to generate managed cards and process token requests." Corrillian and Wachovia's work will be important for all of this in this sector as more and more backs embrace CardSpace and Identity management. We are seeing a lot of movement in this area. Jorgen provides some great links on Interoperability with WCF . This is an area that I am becoming more involved with Java systems communicating with our WCF Services. Dr. Nick continues with More Poison Message Handling Tomas on Writing a WCF Transport Channel - Part 1 Agile Architecture Uncertain Planning Nick talks about The minimum amount of architecture needed for Test Driven Design . .NET Framework 3/WF .NET Framework 3.0 training kit for WF, WCF and CardSpace [via Mike ] .NET 3.0 Middleware Technologies Day: Third Incarnation David Chappell: Why Workflow Matters WF, WCF and CardSpace training materials posted Technorati Tags: .NET , Smart Client , PAG , CAB , Software Architecture , Windows Communication Foundation , WCF , Windows Workflow , WF , Agile Architecture , TDD , .NET Framework 3 , ADO.NET , Orcas , Microsoft I'm listening to Street Life by Roxy Music on the album Stranded (Remastered) Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! Read More...
  • New and Notable 141

    Found some time to blog. Smart Client/UI Architecture V2 of the User Interface Process Application Block (UIPAB) is out from PAG [via Mike ]. I must confess to being confused on how this is different than CAB as "designed to abstract the control flow and state management out of the user interface layer into a user interface process layer," which CAB does with MVP as well until I saw. "helps you write generic code for the control flow and state management for different applications types (for example, Web and Windows) and helps manage user's tasks in complex scenarios." So which do you use in Smart Clients and why? Software Design/DDD As I have stated our Architecture reflects a strong, "proper" DDD Layer . Teammate Steve, is also a big believer and we have both lost focus a bit on it as we have been swamped with other things. His post is a good reminder to check out the experience reports on the DDD site. One reader once said I was using buzzwords. I think not. Especially in a large Financial Collateral application it is vitally important to use the UbiquitousLanguage of the actual Collateral banking domain that the analysts use and design a business layer reflecting that. And yeah, I'm astonished how many .NET developers have never even heard of the fundamental DDD patterns when I talk about SOA/Architecture for INETA around the country Data/OR/M One thing that goes well with a true domain layer is an OR/M implementing the Domain Mapper pattern . The ADO.NET team (along with some bloggers), which lately found religion, talks about the Entity Data Model 101 - Part 2 WCF/Indigo Confused about all the many WCF configuration options? Tomas has an excellent post on understanding the admittedly complex WCF configuration schema. In return, you get fine-grained control Technorati Tags: .NET , Smart Client , PAG , CAB , Software Architecture , Windows Communication Foundation , WCF , Microsoft I'm listening to Paranoid Android by Radiohead on the album Edinburgh, Meadowbank Read More...
  • Agile Project Use of CAB

    In comments to my post about our Agile project entering ship mode, a reader asked for more information about our use of CAB. While I intend to write more about OB and performance, here is a bunch of posts about CAB and our use of it during the last 14 months: Occasionally Connected Service Oriented Smart Clients New and Notable 93 New and Notable 94 Pair Programming at 33,000 Feet CAB Smart Clients in an Agile World Part 1 CAB Smart Clients in an Agile World Part 2 CAB, SCBAT and GAT New Drop of SCBAT Truckin' Along with Iteration 19 and Indigo/Contract First with Services BAT MSDN Architecture Webcast: Extending Microsoft patterns & practices ObjectBuilder Outlook Bar Workspace for CAB! How To: STS/Windows Authentication with ADAM/AD, Roles in AzMan with WCF Connecting up AzMan Roles with WCF Behaviors and CAB CTP and Diagnosing WCF, CAB and other Exceptions New and Notable 110 New and Notable 116 The Cabana Project and CAB Our Agile Project Goes into Ship/Performance Mode Technorati Tags: Software Development , Software Architecture , Agile , Agile Development , Extreme Programming , Smart Clients , CAB , SCBAT , OCC , MVP , Microsoft Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! Read More...
  • July Web Service Factory and Smart Client BAT is Out!

    Both the July drop of the Web Service Factory or Service BAT is out and the June SCBAT are out. I am super excited about this as it is nearing V1 and we are using both of these in production code. I have been blogging about the Service Bat since the begining . I talked about my SCBAT experiences here and that the SCBAT has helped us reduce our UI and CAB costs 5 to 1. Remember to install the the new June 2006 release of the Guidance Automation Extensions and Toolkit , first! A couple of real cool things on the Services BAT according to Tom : The installation process has been streamlined And the biggest news is that the Service Factory now has a brand new guidance package dedicated to helping you build data access layers using ADO.NET 2.0. The goal of this guidance was not to be an object-relational mapping framework or an entirely new approach to data access. Instead it's designed to take out some of the repetitive and error-prone work of creating a data access layer by hand, by helping to create some (but not all) of the key classes used in a data access layer. Most of you are probably already aware that the choice of available technologies for building data access layers will be changing significantly in the future with the advent of LINQ to ADO.NET . We're already working with these teams to start planning for these technologies, and we'll be publishing samples that show how the Service Factory guidance will look in a LINQ to ADO.NET world. I said this in all three of my recent INETA talks: PAG is the best group in Microsoft right now. Technorati Tags: Smart Client , CAB , Architecture , Software Architecture , ADO.NET , LINQ , SOA , WCF Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! Read More...

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