Microsoft's data access strategy is built around Entity Framework, but is the .NET community on-board?
I talked with developers about latest version of the controversial framework, dubbed EF4, for the September cover story of Visual Studio Magazine.
Remember the ADO.NET Entity Framework Vote of No Confidence before EF1 was even released? That fervor has quieted down as Microsoft addresses some of the issues raised by the petitioners.
In EF4, Microsoft adds support for Plain Old CLR Objects (POCO) templates in VS2010 enabling persistence ignorance, lazy loading and better testing. All among the missing in the vote-of-no-confidence letter to Microsoft signed by 871 people in the summer of 2008.
Dane Morgridge, a Microsoft MVP for Data Platforms, wrote a technical sidebar for the cover story that explains how to use the new POCO templates.
"POCO support in Entity Framework 4 opens up the possibilities for architecting with repositories, if that's what you want to do, and doing unit testing and really building applications where you can have a good separation of concerns, which is really important when you're architecting large applications," says Julie Lerman, an independent .NET consultant who specializes in data platforms.
I was lucky to catch up with Julie Lerman, considered by many the expert on EF outside of Microsoft, and get her take on the second generation framework for the cover story, as she wrapped up the second edition of her book, Programming Entity Framework.
"It wasn't a simple revision, I spent a year writing it," says Lerman. "I thought second edition, no big deal--it took a year." The book is updated to cover Entity Framework 4, .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2010.
You may be in luck. A discount on the e-book edition was slated as a one-day special on August 30, but the code was still working earlier today. You can get the e-book for $9.99 as a special deal from the publisher O'Reilly by entering the discount code DDPEF.
Lerman shared other discount codes and options in her blog on Monday.
Read the cover story "Get Ready for the Entity Framework" here.
What's your take on Microsoft's data access strategy? Are you still writing your own data access code? Express your thoughts on LINQ, Entity Framework and n-tier architectures. Drop me a line at krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 08/31/2010 at 3:25 PM0 comments
The sun has finally returned after three days of rain and it is hard to think about clouds. Nevertheless, Microsoft has made several noteworthy updates to its Azure technologies this month.
In case you missed it:
The 4th update to its SQL Azure database service went live this week. The service updates for the relational database built on the Windows Azure platform, allow users to copy a database and back it up in real-time to another server in the same data center.
Wayne Walter Berry explained the new database copy capability in the SQL Azure team blog this way:
"This new copy feature is the first step in backup support for SQL Azure, allowing you to get a complete backup of any SQL Azure database before making schema or database changes to the source database. The ability to snapshot a database easily is our top requested feature for SQL Azure, and goes above and beyond our database center replication to keep your data always available."
Project 'Houston', the code name for a lightweight, Web-based management tool for SQL Azure databases currently in CTP1 from SQL Azure Labs was also refreshed (August 2010) this week. It is now supported in multiple datacenters, according to Berry. Currently, users can use Server Explorer in Visual Studio 2010 to access their SQL Azure database services.
Earlier this month, CTP3 of 'Dallas' was released. Dallas is the codename for Microsoft's upcoming subscription-based data marketplace built on Windows Azure for use by developers and businesses. The marketplace was announced alongside the Open Data Web protocol (OData) in March at the company's MIX10 conference, and is expected to become commercially available later this year. Dallas CTP3 is the first preview to feature live OData Services, according Microsoft. The roster of Dallas content providers continues to expand; it includes the Associated Press, DATA.Gov, InfoUSA Business Analytics, Weather Central, NAVTEQ, RiskMetrics Group and United Nations data, among several other providers.
Microsoft also released a major update to its Windows Azure AppFabric Access Control Services v1 earlier this month. The latest features support claims-based, federated identity (single sign-on) and authentication by integrating Windows Identity Foundation and adding support for Active Directory Federation Server v2.0 and Web identity providers such as Google, Facebook, Windows Live and Yahoo. Find out more about the host of new features in this latest Labs release on CodePlex.
At the beginning of August, Microsoft started to offer a one-month free pass to Windows Azure and SQL Azure to the first 500 U.S. developers who sign up each month. Find out more about the free accounts here. The user ids and passwords expire at the end of each calendar month. The promotional program is slated to run from August 1 to October 31, 2010.
The updates for these cloud services are coming at an impressive pace. Even so, many developers have indicated that a roadmap from Microsoft for SQL Azure would help their project planning. Information on Reporting Services in the cloud is another frequent request.
Is relational database storage in the Microsoft cloud a viable option for your applications? What limitations and features need to be addressed before you'd consider Windows Azure and SQL Azure? Express your thoughts on the latest developments below or drop me a line at krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 08/26/2010 at 2:57 PM0 comments
Microsoft released the first beta of its data-driven app tool LightSwitch to MSDN subscribers today. Announced at VSLive! earlier this month, LightSwitch is billed as a new edition of Visual Studio 2010 that is streamlined for business users to build small business or departmental-type apps such as order or inventory tracking, without having to write code or cobble together Access, SharePoint and Excel.
In LightSwitch, you create a data structure (SQL Server Express) or use an existing data source (SharePoint lists, WCF RIA Services), choose from common patterns (screen templates) and the wizard-driven tool applies the templates to the data to build an VB or C# application.
Visual Studio LightSwitch creates a Silverlight 4 out-of-browser desktop application by default. The app can be customized in LightSwitch or handed off to developers for further development in Visual Studio 2010 Professional.
The Visual Studio team has worked on the product for several years. The first public beta is expected on Monday, August 23. The team acknowledges that features are missing in the initial beta and they are requesting developer feedback. Microsoft is planning to support Windows Azure and SQL Azure in beta 2. Support for Microsoft Access as a data source is on the roadmap.
When it ships, LightSwitch will be available as a separate Visual Studio 2010 SKU or as a "vertically integrated product," which means that MSDN subscribers will be able to download it and access it from within Visual Studio 2010 as a project type.
The Internet offered a platform to the "citizen journalist" (no professional training or three reliable sources for verification required). Is application development headed down a similar path?
Express your thoughts on this emerging category of Microsoft app dev tools--LightSwitch and WebMatrix. Take LightSwitch for a spin and let us know what you think. Drop me a line at krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 08/19/2010 at 6:25 PM0 comments
Microsoft's Windows Mobile is in a freefall. Oracle is going after Google over licensing fees for 7 Java patents that may affect the open source Android OS. Will these developments help the launch of Windows Phone 7 later this year?
Gartner released its "Competitive Landscape: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 2Q10" report last week and sales of Windows Mobile smartphones ranked fifth in the second quarter, according to the firm's research, representing 5 percent of 61.6 million in unit sales to end users worldwide. That's down from 9.3 percent in 2Q 2009. Nokia's Symbian OS ranked first with 41.2 percent of the market, followed by Research in Motion with 18.2 percent.
The Android OS moved into third place worldwide in 2Q with 17.2 percent market share--up from 1.8 percent during the same period in 2009--overtaking Apple's iOS, which claimed 14.2 percent of smartphone unit sales worldwide, according to Gartner research.
Ally of San Francisco commented in response to Chris Pailo's news article about the Gartner data:
"The market share of Windows Mobile is basically in free fall. The real problem is that we're seeing OEMs lose interest. Microsoft can claim it will support it forever, but if the OEMs depart, the platform is finished. Enterprises really need to have a strategy in place to migrate to a different platform."
Other readers, who were in the market for new smartphones, indicated that they were willing to look at Windows Phone 7 and hoped that Microsoft didn't disappoint prospective buyers with its new platform.
If Microsoft can deliver on the WP7 platform, end user perception aided by the popularity of Windows 7 and global brand recognition, may be swayed in the company's favor.
Another development that may bode well for Redmond: The glorious rise of the Android OS hit a speed bump with Oracle's lawsuit against Google last week. As Forrester Research analyst John Rymer said in John K. Waters' article,Oracle Sues Google over Java IP in Android Phones:
"[Android] was on the cusp of generating a lot of revenue. I have to believe that others threatened by Google's Android are very happy about this lawsuit."
Did Microsoft catch a break? Windows Phone 7 and Android 3 smartphones are expected at retail before the end of the year.
The future of Windows Mobile is uncertain at best. Many Windows Mobile users don't understand that Windows Phone 7 is a different platform. It represents a clean break, not an upgrade of their existing Windows Mobile OS and current applications. That widely held misconception could create problems for Microsoft.
Developers will play a pivotal role in the success of the WP7 and Android platforms. Is Windows Mobile finished? Tell us what you think. Express your thoughts on the latest developments below or drop me a line at krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 08/17/2010 at 7:43 AM6 comments
VSLive! is taking place this week in Redmond at the Microsoft Convention Center. The 17-year-old event is the live counterpart to Visual Studio Magazine, both are owned by 1105 Media, the publisher of RedDevNews.com. The 70 in-depth technical sessions and Hands-on Labs are focused on the current wave of Microsoft technologies: Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4, Windows Azure, Silverlight, SharePoint, and the new data platforms, among them.
Held at Microsoft for the first time, the developer conference sold out. On Tuesday, 1105 Media announced that the name of the conference had been changed to Visual Studio Live! The new name is based on a tighter association with the Microsoft Visual Studio team.
"I was extremely surprised at how many people are here," said Steve Forte, a Visual Studio Live! presenter and chief strategy officer at Telerik. "It is interesting having a third-party conference on campus –- I don't know if it has ever been done before. I would argue that there is definitely a cache of going to the Microsoft campus even though it is only the conference center." One of the benefits is that it is easier for Microsoft employees to pop-in and interact with attendees, he said.
Several announcements were made during the keynotes at Visual Studio Live! Redmond. The buzz at the show was around the introduction of Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch, a new standalone product for developing business applications, based around data and screens (desktop and cloud). The technology, designed to be easy enough for non-programmers, will be integrated into future versions of Visual Studio Professional and above, according to Microsoft's Jason Zander.
Visual Studio LightSwitch is available this week for attendees to try out in Hands-on Labs at Visual Studio Live! The beta is expected later this month.
The release date of Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 was also announced. The virtual lab manager will be available to all Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 users by the end of August, according to Microsoft's Dave Mendlen.
Find out more about Visual Studio Live! news and product announcements. Check out Visual Studio Magazine Editor-in-Chief Michael Desmond's show coverage:
If you missed this event, Visual Studio Live! Orlando takes place November 14-17.
Express your thoughts on the Visual Studio Live! announcements and what you'd like to see at upcoming events. Drop me a line at krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 08/05/2010 at 5:00 PM0 comments
Louis-Philippe Pinsonneault, a senior .NET developer and trainer at
RunAtServer, an ASP.NET and Silverlight consulting firm in Montréal, shares his tips with RedDevNews for building applications with Silverlight 4.
The question he gets asked again and again is: "Should I use Visual Studio or Expression Blend to build my application?" His answer is both.
"The Silverlight Designer embedded in Visual Studio 2010 is very simple in its functionality. You can add, resize and position controls, but you cannot edit templates or work with some storyboards using this editor," he advises.
"Creating a storyboard manually in Visual Studio is not something to consider based on the complexity of it. But when it's time to implement some code, Visual Studio is more efficient. Visual Studio also supports debugging, which is not available in Expression Blend."
Get more advice from Pinsonneault, who specializes in Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 development, in "Top 10 Things I Wish I knew Before I Started My Silverlight 4 Project."
As developers start to build Silverlight 4 business apps, the volume is getting turned up on the HTML5 question, which is apparently stirring up some debate within Microsoft.
RedDevNews contributor Andrew Brust, chief of new technology for consultancy twentysix New York, ponders Microsoft's stance on HTML5 in his latest column:
"HTML5 includes a number of new capabilities and many of them pose an existential threat to Microsoft and desktop software in general. With Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and the new <canvas> tag, developers can render graphics and animation in the browser from JavaScript that IE8 can only display using Flash or Silverlight. With the new <audio> and <video> tags, media can be similarly embedded and played without the use of rich Internet application (RIA) plug-ins. And with the Web Open Font Format (WOFF), refined typography can be rendered in a Web page as true text, rather than as images. Taken together, these features allow HTML5 to compete vigorously with the media and presentation capabilities of Silverlight (and Flash)."
Read Brust's August column, "IE9 and HTML5: Deep Romance or Strange Bedfellows?"
Are you developing in Silverlight 4? Share your experiences with the latest platform and express your thoughts on HTML5 and what the future may hold. Drop me a line at krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 08/03/2010 at 3:56 PM0 comments
Microsoft released the first preview of version 3 of its popular model-view-controller framework for building ASP.NET Web applications. An alternative to Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC is used to establish a separation of concerns in Web applications that facilitates test-driven development and maintenance.
ASP.NET MVC 2 shipped in March with support for .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008 project templates. An updated version shipped as part of the Visual Studio 2010/.NET 4 release in April. The updates have come quickly since ASP.NET MVC 1 was first released in April 2009.
ASP.NET MVC 3 is built on top of the ASP.NET 4 runtime and requires Visual Studio 2010. It is backwards compatible with version 2 and can be used on the same server as ASP.NET MVC 2 projects, according to Microsoft.
The big reveal in this preview is the first look at the "Razor" syntax markup template, the new view engine that Scott Guthrie and others described earlier this month. Guthrie walks through a simple example using Razor in his
blog and outlines upcoming features expected in future previews, intellisense and colorization support, among them.
"The VS 2010 editor will support Razor file intellisense for C#/VB code, as well as for HTML/CSS/JavaScript," he said.
The ASP.NET MVC 3 preview introduces support for multiple view engines--the built-in Razor, third party or custom templates. New features in .NET 4 such as model validation attributes (System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations) in ASP.NET and dynamic properties (View and ViewModel) in VB and C# are supported. Developers can also expect broader support for Dependency Injections, as Microsoft adds support for Inversion of Control containers and formalizes the process of registering a service locator, which remains optional. Microsoft is also working on JavaScript improvements in Version 3; JSON binding is supported in the first preview.
Check out the new technology and tell us what you think. Get the ASP.NET MVC 3 Preview 1 download here.
Express your thoughts below or drop me a line at krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 07/27/2010 at 4:38 PM0 comments
With the Kin gone, the stakes for Windows Phone 7 are higher than ever. This week, Microsoft is taking 'dogfooding' to a whole new level.
Microsoft's Senior Vice President of the Mobile Communications Business, Andy Lees announced on Wednesday that the company is giving Windows Phone 7 devices to its roughly 90,000 employees, who are invited to write WP7 applications in their free time as part of an employee developer program. Employees will get the devices, when they are launched in their respective markets. The first devices are expected in the United States, before the end of the year.
Who da' Punk, the alleged Microsoft employee who anonymously writes the Mini-Microsoft blog is excited about the opportunity:
"In a move that has totally delighted me, Microsoft is giving every employee the ability to write and deploy WP7 applications (and, what, ability to get a device at launch, too?) - wow! Now's the time to truly show off your stuff and write for WP7 and get your app out the door."
Reports have surfaced that Microsoft is also subsidizing third-party mobile developers to create apps or port their existing apps to Windows Phone 7. The company took a similar approach when the Xbox was launched.
Among the companies that have announced plans to build WP7 apps: Associated Press, EA, Foursquare, Namco, Netflix, Pageonce, Pandora, Shazam and Sling.
Microsoft released the beta of the Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools on Monday and select, third-party developers are expected to get prototype devices from Asus, LG and Samsung, starting this week.
Brandon Watson, director of Windows Phone 7, explained what's new in the beta and anticipated a shortage of prototype phones, which are limited in quantity, in the Windows Phone Developer blog on July 12:
"Sadly, we will not be able to meet all of that demand. We are planning to set up deploy and test labs in major cities to make it a little easier for everyone who wants to have access to a preview phone to have it. More on that soon."
Visit the Windows Phone Developer blog to learn more about how to sign up and get in the queue to receive a WP7 prototype device.
Is mobile development on your radar? Express your thoughts on the different platforms and your experiences with Windows Phone 7 development. Are you optimistic about the platform, tools and the potential market? Drop me a line krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 07/22/2010 at 2:21 PM2 comments
Microsoft's new Scrum template for Team Foundation Server 2010 is now available for
download from the Visual Studio Gallery, following a 30-day sprint (weekends not included) after
the template was announced and released in beta at Tech Ed in June.
The Visual Studio Scrum v1.0 template (renamed since the Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 beta) differs from the Microsoft Solutions Framework for Agile Software Development 5.0 process template in TFS 2010, primarily in its use of standard Scrum terminology, reporting metrics and state transition models.
As reported earlier, the Scrum process template supports the new hierarchical work items in TFS 2010, which means it is not compatible with TFS 2008/2005. For now, the work items in the Scrum v1.0 template do not integrate with the Excel-based Product Backlog (prioritized list of required features) and Iteration Backlog workbooks, a popular new feature of the MSF Agile 5.0 template. Microsoft Technical Fellow Brian Harry, TFS product unit manager, blogged:
"We've…had a fair amount of requests for the Agile Project Management workbooks to support the Scrum Template. We were not able to get that in for this release but will investigate it for the next one."
According to Harry:
"Most of the changes since the Beta are pretty small. The biggest feedback we got was that people wanted some of the reports from the MSF Agile template to be included in the Scrum template."
Based on that feedback changes since the beta include the addition of four MSF Agile 5.0 Build/Test reports: Build Summary, Builds Success Over Time, Test Case Readiness and Test Plan Progress. The new report types join the three that surfaced in the beta: Release Burndown, Velocity and Sprint Burndown. Integration with SharePoint project portals is supported.
Microsoft Program Manager Aaron Bjork describes the other changes since the beta in v1.0 in his blog. Process guidance, as promised at Tech Ed, is now available on MSDN.
In lieu of the Excel-based planning workbooks, companies may want to check out Urban Turtle 3.2, a Scrum extension to TFS Team Web Access 2010 that supports drag-and-drop management of work items, and sprint and releasing planning. The Scrum Task Board, which has been updated to support Microsoft's new process template, is from Agile consulting firm Pyxis Technologies. Read a fun take on the company's story, "A Retrospective of 840 Sprints."
Urban Turtle gets a nod from Microsoft's Brian Harry, who said:
"I've played with pre-release versions of the Urban Turtle tool and I recommend it. It's a nice tool!"
Microsoft has clearly embraced Agile development and Scrum. Will Scrum work at larger organizations? Express your thoughts on adoption and what you'd like to see going forward. Drop me a line krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 07/20/2010 at 2:49 PM0 comments
If you've followed the data access story at Microsoft, the frameworks on ice, mutilated backwards compatibility, and ongoing twists and turns remain a bit of a mystery. This week, Microsoft shed some light on vNext of its "official" object-relational mapping tool, ADO.NET Entity Framework.
On Wednesday, the first preview of a "simpler API surface" and related functionality was made available for download. The productivity improvements are part of Entity Framework Feature Community Technical Preview 4, a feature set for EF4 (the second version of the framework) which was released in April with .NET 4.
When the productivity improvements were first announced in June, Rowan Miller, a Microsoft program manager on the Entity Framework Team,blogged:
"At the heart of the Entity Framework Productivity Improvements are two new types, DbContext and DbSet<TEntity> DbContext is a simplified alternative to ObjectContext and is the primary object for interacting with a database using a specific model. DbSet<TEntity> is a simplified alternative to ObjectSet<TEntity>and is used to perform CRUD operations against a specific type from the model. These new types can be used regardless of whether you created your model using the Entity Designer or code."
Miller stressed that the improvements did not signal a move toward yet another data access framework:
"We hope you will enjoy this simpler experience, but we should be quick to assure you that this is NOT a new data access technology. These improvements are built on the same technology for mapping, LINQ, providers and every other part of the Entity Framework. Think of this as a fast path to writing data access code using conventions over configuration, better tuned APIs and other techniques intended to reduce development time when using the EF."
Preview 4 also features Code-First enhancements. The Code-First programming model, when it ships, will enable developers to create Entity Data Models for the EF in C# or VB. Microsoft is trying to determine a ship vehicle for a Go-Live version of Code-First. In EF4, Microsoft added Model-First capability to the Entity Data Model designer. Entity Framework in .NET 3.5 SP1 only supported Database First (reverse engineering).
As Microsoft improves ease of use and flexibility of EF largely based on feedback from early adopters, Telerik appears to be going them one better. The company is releasing an updated version of its OpenAccess ORM this week. Among the new features is Round Trip Mapping, which supports forward or reverse mapping at any time in a project through a visual designer that is integrated with Visual Studio.
"The challenge that developers face today, including with Entity Framework, is that you have to make that choice up front in a project, am I going to do reverse mapping, or am I going to do forward mapping?" said Todd Anglin, Telerik chief evangelist.
With Round Trip Mapping, developers, for example, can start with reverse mapping, get their existing schema into code and then use forward mapping so that any changes can be easily applied to the database with the tool, easily keeping the database and code in sync.
"This allows you to develop as a developer and write code, and not have to change between a developer and DBA hat," said Anglin.
With Microsoft in the mix, ORMs are getting more attention in the .NET community. Express your thoughts on Entity Framework, OpenAccess, NHibernate and other frameworks. Drop me a line krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 07/15/2010 at 6:16 PM0 comments
Last week, Microsoft released a preview of WebMatrix, a free, lightweight Web tool for building ASP.NET and PHP apps outside of Visual Studio (and its free Express counterpart, Visual Web Developer). Curiously, WebMatrix has the same name as an earlier Microsoft project with a similar purpose that is now defunct.
The new syntax (code-named Razor) and lack of a visual designer in WebMatrix indicate that Microsoft is focused on the PHP and open source crowd, observed Todd Anglin, who is curious to see how Microsoft packages the technology when it is past the beta stage.
Anglin, Telerik's chief evangelist, sees WebMatrix as a bridge to Visual Studio for the open source crowd:
"Obviously, there is an upgrade story in WebMatrix and it reaches out to people who are taking the low friction path toward PHP today and gives them a Microsoft ASP.NET-oriented solution. I think it will be interesting to see how it affects the existing Microsoft .NET community. Certainly, as you build tools that are easier and low barrier, reaching out to communities that don't use .NET today, it is bound to have some impact on your existing community."
In my blog about the WebMatrix announcement, I asked if Visual Studio, Visual Web Developer, Expression Web, WebMatrix, the assorted ASP.NET frameworks and even SharePoint, offered too many choices to ASP.NET developers as Redmond casts a wider .NET.
Long time developers, who weighed in, appeared comfortable with the company's expanding toolset. John didn't see my point:
Most seasoned devs understand the importance of each of those [products] and they are not all meant to achieve the same goal, what is your point in listing all those products together? Each of those products has gone through many years of evolution and they are worth their price--personal opinion. If they were open source products based on standards I would argue that their rate of evolution would have been several orders of magnitude slower. I'm glad MS has these products, and that their pay model helps evolve them.
Lonnie was excited about what WebMatrix offered:
"I think WebMatrix is great. I do a lot of work for charities and WebMatrix allows me to buy hosting without having to buy SQL. Also WebMatrix will allow [me to] feel more comfortable passing my code to others."
JP wasn't thrilled with the idea of a lightweight tool that could attract non-professional developers:
"I cut my teeth with Visual Basic, so I have a lot of experience with tools oriented towards the non-professional. The thought makes me cringe. While I like the idea of empowering people, most [people] who use tools like this don't have any business creating public websites with them."
David also recalled Microsoft's decisions around Visual Basic and viewed Redmond's current Web strategy as somewhat adrift in "uncharted waters":
"Microsoft has, as a matter of its emergence and presence, enjoyed no small ability to dictate much of the direction of the programming community. They blurred the distinctions between (and wars among) what might be considered "real" developers versus "pretenders" back in the Visual Basic "classic" and early C++/ATL-based programming eras. By covering both bases, they substantively guaranteed their own success. However, twenty years later, Microsoft no longer controls the agenda, and when it comes to their web development strategy, it is as muddled as their corporate direction on the Web itself.
"Now, Microsoft finds itself in what might [be] construed as uncharted waters. It no longer dictates terms, it responds to shifting winds and tries as best it can to remain anchored to its Internet Explorer, Office, and .NET enterprise framework roots. At the same time, however, Microsoft finds itself trying to spread itself in multiple directions, hoping it happens to be aimed in the right direction when the market points a certain way. They've tried to embrace a little bit of everything, from cloud computing to semi-open-source software, from standards-based web development to one that seems still beholden, at least in part, to its COM-based roots."
Our Redmond Review columnist Andrew Brust has witnessed a lot over the years as a Microsoft developer and sees WebMatrix as a "radical departure" from the current state of ASP.NET and Visual Studio. He applauds what he calls the "return to simplicity." Andrew provides an excellent perspective on the history of Microsoft's dev tools and how we got here in his Redmond Diary blog
.
Express your thoughts on Microsoft's Web development strategy. How will WebMatrix affect the existing Microsoft .NET community? Drop me a line
krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 07/13/2010 at 6:26 PM0 comments
This week, Scott Guthrie and his team released a preview of WebMatrix, a free tool for developing ASP.NET or PHP-based Web sites.
WebMatrix includes ASP.NET extensions, IIS Express (free developer Web server) and SQL Server Compact Edition 4 (free embedded database). It links to an open source Web Gallery of apps—most of which currently do not support these emerging technologies—and provides access to Web hosting through third-party providers.
The new tool also supports Microsoft's syntax/view engine codenamed ASP.NET "Razor," which can be used in ASP.NET MVC or to create ASP.NET Web pages. Razor will be part of ASP.NET MVC preview, expected later this month, according to Guthrie, a corporate VP in Microsoft's Developer Division. He describes Razor as "code-focused templating syntax optimized around HTML generation" that can be used to "easily embed VB or C# within HTML."
Guthrie explained the thinking behind Razor in
his blog last week in response to a comment:
"We created Razor partly because we wanted to have an option where developers could re-use the languages they already knew (C#/VB/Whatever) and not have to learn a new imperative language purely for templating. One challenge with declarative templating languages is that you have to effectively learn a new syntax for doing things - and the tools (intellisense, refactoring, debugging, profiling) also all have to be written from scratch to support it. As traditional languages have gotten richer (C# and VB with .NET 4, and other dynamic languages) the expressiveness that you can achieve with existing imperative languages has also gotten a lot richer. We wanted to be able to leverage all that within our view templates - which is why we introduced Razor as an option."
At this point, IIS Developer Express, which fully supports IIS 7.5, and SQL Server Compact Edition 4, a file-based database, which can be migrated to SQL Server, are both in beta and only available as part of the WebMatrix download. With .NET Framework 4, the WebMatrix download is 15MB, without the framework, it's 50MB, according to Microsoft.
Web development outside of Visual Studio and Visual Web Developer Express makes a lot of sense when you consider today's market demands. Every small company, organization, event and an increasing number of individuals from all walks of life need to create Web sites or update Web applications. Most people don't want to shell out $1,000 for a class in Dreamweaver or go anywhere near a professional development environment like Visual Studio or its lesser known, free subset, Visual Web Developer Express.
Microsoft is simply casting a wider .NET. As Guthrie explained in his blog, about the new Web dev tool, to a commenter who liked the concept but worried that "SQL CE is MS Access in disguise and WebMatrix is likewise FrontPage in a new toupee":
"A lot of the value of WebMatrix is that it provides some nice integration and is task focused. All the pieces can also be used in our full professional stack (which makes them really powerful). What we are trying to-do with WebMatrix is have a nice integrated story for the 80 [percent] of common web-site tasks which tend to be very task focused -- and increasingly are centered around tweaking apps as opposed to writing them from scratch."
If the name sounds familiar, Microsoft had a similar project with the same name a few years ago. "We liked the name and so decided to re-use it for this (since it has the same purpose as back then)," Guthrie acknowledged.
Developers who weighed in on the announcements by and large applauded the new technologies. Still, so many choices—Visual Studio, Visual Web Developer Express, Expression Web, WebMatrix, WebPlatform Installer, ASP.NET WebForms, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Razor, Silverlight (did I mention SharePoint?) —could raise concern among ASP.NET developers, who may be wondering where Microsoft's Web strategy is headed. Can Microsoft adequately support and evolve this many products?
Is Microsoft advancing the cause, or making your life harder, by introducing too many Web technologies and targeting non-professional developers outside of the Visual Studio environment? Express your thoughts on Web development for Windows and where it's headed below or drop me a line krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 07/08/2010 at 5:10 PM5 comments
Microsoft's Pivot-themed technology is getting a lot of play in the company's latest generation of products, which offer new ways to analyze and consume massive amounts of data: PowerPivot for Excel 2010, PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010 and now Silverlight 4.
The latest Pivot, developed by Microsoft's Live Labs, attempts to give meaning to data through visualization of "collections" of up to 3000 related items that are hosted on a Web server and accessed via a Web page. Think photo mosaics for mining and dissecting data trends.
Microsoft is encouraging developers to think outside of the box to create these Deep Zoom collections (DZC), which can run the gamut from simple to complex (dynamic). Collections are built using Collection XML (CXML) Schema and Deep Zoom images (DZI). Deep Zoom technology debuted alongside Silverlight 2.0. It is billed as an interactive Silverlight technology based on "tiles of jpeg or png files at different resolutions" which create images that can be zoomed in or out.
Today Microsoft released the Silverlight PivotViewer Control, which can be embedded in Web sites on PCs and Macs running Silverlight 4, and used for viewing Pivot collections. Pivot collections can be built using a command line authoring tool or the Pivot Collection Tool for Excel.
The PivotViewer Control works just like other Silverlight controls, according to Microsoft. It requires the PivotViewer SDK, Visual Studio 2010, Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 and the Silverlight 4 Toolkit (April 2010).
For people who are wondering about Pivot apps for WPF, Microsoft's Pete Brown explained in his blog today:
"I've passed this along to the Pivot team as a feature request. Right now, the main issue is that WPF does not include MultiScaleImage (Deep Zoom)."
This stuff is cool. But will you use it? Express your thoughts on Silverlight 4 and the real world applications of advances like Pivot. Drop me a line krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 06/29/2010 at 4:20 PM0 comments
With the latest releases of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server, Microsoft is making a pitch for smaller .NET shops to adopt its application lifecycle management tooling.
TFS is the source control and build system that anchors Microsoft's ALM tools suite, which was repackaged as Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate (formerly Visual Studio Team System) with this release.
The once enterprise-focused TFS now covers the high end--and the low end--with Microsoft positioning it as potential upgrade for Visual SourceSafe, a version control system that the company acquired in the mid-90s.
When I talked to Microsoft's Sean McBreen for the July cover story, Visual Studio 2010: Enabling ALM, he explained:
"In this release we did a lot of things to help bring ALM to the masses. We reduced the price, we included TFS in all of our MSDN subscriptions and we've really focused on simplifying the experience as well."
Read more of my interview with Sean McBreen here.
Ben Day, a Visual Studio ALM MVP, who was also interviewed for the article, concurred:
"Now they've made the deployment a lot easier. The licensing is $500 retail and TFS comes with just about every MSDN license that's out there. Microsoft is trying to make it so that no one has an excuse to go to Subversion or Git or any of those other free, open source version control systems. Since that has changed, I personally see a lot more people who are interested in moving to TFS off of Visual SourceSafe."
Brian Harry, part of the One Tree Software team that developed SourceSafe and now lead of the Microsoft's TFS effort, outlined the strategy in his blog last October:
"TFS 2010 represents a huge step forward in making TFS more approachable by smaller teams. With software development technology continuing to advance and SourceSafe slowly looking older, TFS 2010 is a great opportunity for SourceSafe users to look at updating their toolset."
Harry said that the price, pre-requisites and installation were the pain points that Microsoft addressed in TFS 2010 to try to attract smaller teams. TFS 2010, now has Basic, Standard and Advanced installer wizards. It can be installed on a domain controller, client OSes as well as 32- and 64-bit OSes.
TFS supports integrated ALM in a client-server model, which is still the norm in enterprise environments. However, some open source developers are moving toward distributed version control systems (DVCS) such as Git and Mercurial. Microsoft acknowledged that trend in late January when it added support for Mercurial on CodePlex, and indicated that it would support migration from TFS to DVCS.
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and TFS 2010 definitely raised the bar for ALM for large enterprise and small shops. Read Visual Studio 2010: Enabling ALM, for an in-depth look at the new tooling and what developers are saying about it.
Express your thoughts on version control systems and TFS 2010. Is Microsoft's new strategy a good one? Drop me a line krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 06/24/2010 at 5:31 PM0 comments
Silverlight 4, released in April, offers new functionality aimed at developers building business apps, but testing SL apps is still a bit of a quagmire.
Microsoft updated the Silverlight Toolkit to target Silverlight 4 in April. The toolkit includes the Silverlight Unit Test Framework, which can be run in Visual Studio 2010, but the framework is not integrated with Visual Studio test features. Integrating Team Foundation Server 2010 with Silverlight unit tests is also problematic.
According to a Microsoft spokeswoman:
"The recommended way for developers to run tests of their Silverlight applications is by building and running the test application. Visual Studio has a separate set of integrated test tools that are not connected to the Silverlight Unit Test Framework, which is the same for all previous releases of the Silverlight testing work."
Jeff Wilcox, a senior software development engineer for Silverlight at Microsoft offers a good overview of the Silverlight Unit Test Framework in an April blog.
The April version of the Silverlight Unit Test Framework features an enhanced UI – it is now a SL app. It also adds support for Out of Browser apps and the emerging Windows Phone interface, when it is used in conjunction with Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010.
Microsoft is working to make testing Silverlight apps easier. "We are looking at making the integration with [the] VS unit test framework stronger for SL in the next releases," said Microsoft's Anutthara Bharadwaj in an email last month.
Bharadwaj provides a comprehensive overview of Microsoft's current Silverlight test support in her Anu-tations on Software Testing blog, which was updated in late May. Microsoft is planning to release an out of band technology preview of a VS2010 plug-in for SL UI automation to MSDN subscribers with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Premium and Test Professional, according to Bharadwaj:
"We are working on adding support for Silverlight controls for 'Fast forward for manual testing' and 'Coded UI Tests'. The focus is on line-of-business applications built with Silverlight 4 for both in-browser and on the desktop."
The technology preview of the plug-in is expected in Q2. Third party tooling for Silverlight unit testing such as WebUI Test Studio from Telerik and Statlight is also worth checking out.
Have you put Silverlight 4 to the test? Express your thoughtson useful tooling and best practices below or drop me a line at krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 06/22/2010 at 3:59 PM6 comments