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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...
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Smart Clients/Orcas I am extremely pleased to see the .NET Framework (and Microsoft) finally gain the offline sync services that I have been talking about for quite a few years in my work at Groove and Adesso . You will be able to do synchronization from WinForms and WPF apps that you could do from Groove apps (in my case WinForms) 4 years ago and Adesso 2-3 years ago now. OR/M Excellent introduction to NHibernate here more in a little bit Currently listening to Tarkus by Emerson, Lake & Palmer on album Tarkus Technorati Tags: .NET , Orcas , Data , OR/M , NHibernate , Software Architecture , , TDD , Agile , Agile Development , Extreme Programming , CLR , .NET Framework , Click Once , Microsoft Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! Read More...
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This is it, the big 150! The first New and Notable was on May 19, 2003 , (my first post was March 29, 2002 ) and I paid homage to the master, "I have always admired Mike's ability to look at the world out there and put it all into one great post, The Daily Grind . While I can't pretend to have Mike's writing ability, I would like to start moving to something similar instead of multiple seperate posts." I wish I had the discipline of Mike because if I posted daily I would be well towards 1000 instead of 150-) but hey I'm pretty proud of my record. I love this community and in the last 25 years this community (and Microsoft) have been real good to me and my family. I hope that what I have been picking here has been of good use to the community to keep you informed on key .NET activities as well as the architectural and design side. Thus, I go forth and pick: Entity Framework, ADO.NET 3, Orcas, MVP Summit One of the best writers in the community today is certainly Jeremy Miller . His latest post, MVP Summit Recapped: Linq for Entities, MonoRail, and Shameless Name Dropping , is a fine example of why. In one post, he is able to write quite elequently on complex subjects like the subtle design flaws in Entity Framework 3 and why WF 4 will rock your world. He is able to take a technology, stick to his design principles and stand his ground, educating and helping all involved achieve something better than was there before. He certainly wasn't the only one of us doing that but his post really captures the core design principles of no infrastructure code in business logic classes. Infrastructure is Infrastructure, business logic is business logic. We want the same thing: No marker interfaces, no codegen, no partial classes. Just plain "PO" and support for the Unit of Work pattern. David Laribee also talks on this area and makes clear that its a vision thing that doesn't really compare to NHibernate which is just OR/M; it's a full Read More...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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A N&N from Brussels Belgium where I am up in the middle of the night (again I wake up at 3AM!) with my sleep hours all screwed up. I am enjoying my week here nonetheless. I don't know quite what to make of Brussels. Some parts remind me quite a bit of Paris but there is this weird mix of "modern" glass buildings although the style is a bit "older" than such US buildings. I don't know, I'm jet lagged and probably making no sense. The (potential) customer we are visiting is actually quite large > 3,000 employees most in one large building and I have been working hard on a "High Level Technical Document." Its' certainly some BDUF but this is a large SaS type architecture across 3 data centers that has many Enterprise issues (levels of Failover, SLAs, SQL Server Hot Mirroring, Perimeter Zone Security, etc. to deal with and get right. Anyhow, the food is good and there is a lot of espresso-). Architecture The Open Group (the TOGAF guys) has scheduled what appears to be an interesting conference on Enterprise Architecture and SOA in San Diego [via Architecture Blog ] Avalon/WCF Karsten gives an update on the North Face In Store Explorer WCF application that floored many of us at PDC05 and has now been deployed . He also reminds, "Note that the white paper written about this application is still relevant and worth reading. The code samples all work just fine on the final bits and have some useful code as far as state management, image montages and a 3D carousel." My good friend and fellow Smart Client track speaker, Walt Ritscher has started a new WCF blog at http://wpfwonderland.wordpress.com - Subscribed! Check out XAML to IL Explained Part 1 , WPF/e Example - Game of Life WCF/Indigo/SOA Nicholas Allan has his best of 2006 (and what a year it was for him/them!). Also check out Zen Faults Other Ted Neward has his predictions for 2007 , of which I mostly agree with all of them but one of the best qualities of Ted Read More...
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I am SO busy with INETA trips and tons to do at work. Here is what I have stored up for the last week or so. WCF/SOA/Workflow/WF Tomas blogs about something I face every day in WCF with WCF ServiceHost Failures and IDisposable with "The "don't call Close()/Dispose() if faulted" behavior that ServiceHost requires does not work well with IDisposable; it demands a behavior different from the standard IDisposable pattern." We're having a lot of issues with dealing with failures and what to do with them but Tomas definetly states a fundamental problem. Tomas has also WCF, WF and BizTalk Sample Posted with some interesting stuff!! MTOM Interoperability between Oracle Application Server and Windows Communication Foundation Part1: From WCF to Oracle Jesus Rodriguez as well, " I am happy to see this progress: " The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) announced the publication of three new Working Group Drafts : the Basic Profile 1.2, Basic Security Profile 1.1 and the Reliable Secure Profile 1.0 Usage Scenarios. Advancement of these documents to Working Group Draft status is an invitation to the Web services community to provide technical feedback." I could just list every single post that Mike Taulty writes on WF; they are all that good! In particular, WF and Versioning , MetaStorm and the Workflow Designer , Little Workflow Foundation Sample I could and have done the same with "Nicholas Allen's" posts on Indigo: ListenUriBindingElement , Creating Faults Part 1, and Part 2 CLR How to avoid assembly loads , and Getting the list of loaded assemblies from Richard Lander James Higgs talks about Garbage Collection and the IDisposable interface WPF/Avalon Karsten has an awesome Avalon demo - "The Woodgrove Finance Application is a great demo of how WPF can be used to create better data visualization, in this case for financial data. I've posted the source code -- there are some good nuggets in here worth exploring." Introducing the XML Assembly Generator Data V1 of Data Read More...
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Windows Vista The big news, according to News.com , Steve Ballmer will ring in availability of Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Exchange 2007 at the New York Stock Exchange on November 30th [via Robert ]. This should mean the proper release of WinFX .NET Framework 3 with WCXF, WPF, WF. It will be good to be mainstream again Software Architecture/SOA/WCF Looks like the very capable Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz , has essentially picked up the book on SOA Patterns/WCF that I was going to do for Manning. Hey, it looks like its in better hands as I read his first chapter and its great stuff. I look forward to this one.\ Speaking of Arnon on Architecture, check out his column , and in particular "The Saga Continues: "Queues are Databases?" where he responds to Udi who had a couple of comments regarding his second post on Queues Are Databases . Ted Neward has started an MSDN column based on his Pragmatic Architecture talks he has been doing and if the first article in the series on Layering, is any indication it's going to be a great series. Highly Recommended! Scott Hanselman has two great posts on Identity/CardSpaces; first here and then his latest Hanselminutes episode . Lots of great resources here. Also highly recommended! Jorgen points to a Craig McMurtry post on Versioning Service Interfaces, definitely an tricky area. The PAG folks have just released a very much needed " ClickOnce Resource Kit for SCSF " that was developed in partnership with ClickOnce guru Brian Noyes . Nicholas Allan: MixedMode Addressing WPF/Avalon I just discovered this series, which apparently is already in its eighth post; A Tour of XAML VIII: More Fun with Markup Compatability Technorati Tags: SOA , Service Oriented Architecture , Windows Communication Foundation , Software Architecture , WPF , Avalon , Windows Presentation Foundation , Microsoft Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! Read More...
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Now that I got my Feed Demon back, I actually have some stuff in the queue that is not so "new" but perhaps still "notable." Architecture/CAB/Smart Client Oldie but goodie: Eugenio has compiled a list of CAB and Smart Client Software Factory Resources You can also see my mini-tutorial combined with an Agile sense with CAB Smart Clients in an Agile World Part 1 , and Part 2 Microsoft Software Factory Architect Jack Greenfield on Ad-Hoc and Systematic Reuse where he differentiates the two and points out that the "i n the software factories book , we explain that systematic reuse is effective, but ad hoc reuse is not." Indigo/WCF/SOA/BPM/BPEL/Workflow More goodness from Tomas with IServiceBehavior, IDispatchMessageInspector, and Endpoints A pair from the master, David Chappell, with Why BEPL is Like Bytecode , and Standardizing the Right Thing: BPMN or BPEL? Avoiding OneWay Deadlocks from Nicholas Allen Data/SQL Server CTP6 of Data Dude (i.e. VSTS for Database Pros) is out . Cameron has the scoop on the new features. Other/Tools IE7 has made it out of beta and is released The very useful CodeSmith is out in a public Beta 4.2 Agile Martin Fowler calls it the ImprovementRavine Pattern: " If you care about what you do, you care about getting better at it. This involves reflecting about how you do things, and trying out new techniques to see if they make you better. Even if other people recommend new techniques, the only way you know if they work for you is by trying them out yourself and seeing if they improve your performance.The trouble is that improvement, particularly with new techniques isn't linear. Often there is a ravine that opens up when you try a new strategy ." Seventeen Tips for Iteration Planning [from Agile Advice ] Technorati Tags: SOA , Service Oriented Architecture , Windows Communication Foundation , Software Architecture , BPEL , Data , Agile , Agile Development , Microsoft Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! Read More...
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