.NET Developer Round Table

1. .NET Developer Round Table Facilitating a general discussion on .NET technologies Sierra Systems Fred Hirschfeld John Saunders 111 Market Street NE, Suite 225 360.570.4551 360.570.4538 Olympia, WA 98501

2. Agenda • Brief Introduction • Where is everyone today with .NET Technologies? • What challenges are you facing today? • Open Discussions • Questions / Comments?

3. Questions / Comments? • Thanks to Jim Culp and IPMA • Follow-up Contact Information:Name: Fred HirschfeldE-mail: FredHirschfeld@SierraSystems.com

4. .NET Framework 2.0 • Generics – Extension to the CLR type system allowing types with details left unspecified. • Type safety at compile-time • No need to create custom collection class implementations • Syntax: IDictionary<string, MyClass> (C#), IDictionary(Of string, MyClass) (VB.NET) • Nullable Types – Allows value types to have an undetermined value (NULL). • Transactions – System.Transaction namespace

5. .NET Framework 2.0

6. Visual Studio 2005 • Solution Folders – Allows better organization of projects and miscellaneous files (Solution Items). You can use this to group projects into a simpler solution structure. • Web Projects – • Dynamic project structure without a explicit project file (SP1 will allow us to use a 2003 style project structure too) • Does not compile solution to an assembly • XHTML 1.0 & 1.1 compliance

7. Visual Studio 2005 • ClientOnce Deployment & Installation • Code Refactoring • Renaming variables • Create methods from code • Reorder parameters • Clean Solution – Cleans up intermediate files created during build process • Design-Time Expression Evaluation – Run code without compiling or running (Immediate Window)

8. Visual Studio 2005 • ASP.NET • Accessibility Checker • File System-based Web Projects • Expression Handlers • HTML Source Preservation – VS2005 does not reformat your code! • HTML Intellisense • Object Data Source / Binding

9. ASP.NET 2.0 • Provider Model – “A provider is a software module that provides a uniform interface between a service and a data source.” • Mainly used in the ASP.NET architecture • Shields the application from the physical resource being used in a common interface • Change the application through configuration files without need to change code • Built-in: Membership, Role Management, Site Map, Profile, Session State, Web Events, Web Parts and Protected Configuration

10. ASP.NET 2.0 • Membership – Built on the Provider Model addressing the common need to manage user credentials • Cross Page Posting – Allows developers to post to a second page and access the server controls of the calling page through Page.PreviousPage property • Master Pages – Page that defines layout for a set of pages • Configuration Encryption – Allows web.config sections to be encrypted

11. ASP.NET 2.0 • Advanced Caching – Can add SQL dependencies so that as data is changed in the database, page caching will be expired. • View State – Microsoft split code control state data from optionally stored viewstate so developers could maintain behavioral state even when ViewState was disabled. • Validation Groups – Allows for grouping of validation controls so trigger can be controlled better. For example there may be several buttons on a page and only certain validations should happen for each one.

12. ASP.NET 2.0 • Control Adaptors – Used internally to control the rendering of controls based on the client browser. Can be used to change the rendering of a server control. For example, the menu control does generate the UI in a TABLE structure that is somewhat verbose. This can be modified very simply to render the menu using Styled DIV elements instead.

13. ASP.NET 2.0 • Themes & Skins – Separation of visual styling from markup and code • Change the site look dynamically using themes • Skins allow server controls to be styled at the server to have a consistent look from a central place • Web Parts – Integrated set of controls to enable users to customize content, appearance and behavior directly from a browser.

14. ASP.NET 2.0 • New Server Controls: • Wizard – simplifies the programming of a series of forms to direct the entry of user input. • TreeView • Menu • Login (set of controls)

15. SQL Server 2005 • .NET Runtime Support – Create stored procedure using a .NET language • XML Data Type – Native support for XML as a data type and XQuery • Notification Services – • Reporting Services (SSRS) – • Integration Services (SSIS) – Replaces DTS with enhanced services and extensible architecture

16. Tips & Tricks • Use the TryParse static method of intrinsic types to parse a value without the need for try / catch blocks • Wrap disposable objects in a using to ensure the Dispose method is called • Consider using StateServer for user session management instead of InProc so changes to Web.config file do not cause the session data to be lost. Could be useful if debug/verbose logging is needed for a short period in tracking a problem. ** Performance is marginally slower

17. Tips & Tricks • ASP.NET Menu must be slightly altered when exposed through Fortress (or any HTTPS to HTTP redirection). The menu control has some logic that cannot detect this and will cause a cross protocol error message on the client.

18. Helpful Tools • Microsoft Enterprise Library – Effective library to jumpstart .NET development. • Caching Application Block • Logging Application Block • Data Access Application Block • Security Application Block • Exception Handling Application Block • Cryptography Application Block

19. Helpful Tools • NUnit (www.nunit.org) – Automated Unit Testing • NCover (www.ncover.net) – Code Coverage reporting • TestDriven.net (www.testdriven.net) – Visual Studio integrated add-in for running NUnit and NCover • MyGeneration (www.mygenerationsoftware.com) – Template driven code / script generator • String Resource Tool (http://projectdistributor.readify.net/Releases/Release.aspx?releaseId=10) – A resource generator plug-in