Issue: 2009 - March/April

Mar/April 09 Editorial by Markus Egger

Software development is a lot more than just writing lines of code.You need to think about project management, prototyping, database design, software architecture, framework usage and a whole host of other factors. In this article you will learn one approach to developing software applications from start to finish.This approach has been used successfully to develop hundreds of applications by a software development company that has been around since 1991.

Silverlight 2 just went RTM. This product is unique because for the first time in the Microsoft world, you have .NET running cross platform, in a secure way, without all the deployment hassles. It has the ability to bring rich UI, right within the browser-much like Flash, but with more capabilities and a .NET heart.So, what does this mean to you-the SharePoint developer? Well, as I elucidated in my previous article, developing rich UIs in SharePoint 2007 isn’t exactly my... idea of a good time! In fact, it is a bit like a 3-year old playing drums on your head all night long while his 7-year old sister is sticking chewing gum in your hair as you are trying to sleep because you have an early morning 7 AM meeting tomorrow in a recessionary economy.Take heart! The thin .NET 3.5 development model makes it all easier.See More

Recently I started working with a client that was interested in using Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) in their application.Having never used WF before, I thought it might be interesting to document the experience and my assumptions as I started learning and implementing the technology in production.

Tapping the full potential of RIA applications means involving remote Web services. In this article, I’ll present techniques that demonstrate how to communicate between Silverlight and Live Search using Silverlight’s services infrastructure.

In the first installment of this article, I showed how to leverage C# syntax to create a specific type of domain specific language in C# called a fluent interface, converting an API into something with a fighting chance of readability. In this article, I’ll show you how to take advantage of some of the cool new features of C# to really push the envelope on this style of coding.

Social networking has reached critical mass. One unique social networking platform, Twitter, launched in March of 2006 and took the world by storm with its social networking and microblogging platform.The developers of Twitter had the forethought to provide a REST -based API. Numerous developers have used the REST-based API to build Twitter clients on dozens of different platforms. In this article I’ll demonstrate how to access Twitter using the .NET platform.

With WPF and Silverlight, Microsoft provides both Windows and Web developers with powerful technologies to create rich, professional, and exciting user experiences.However, in general, developers aren’t graphical designers, leaving most developers wondering how to cope with this new world of designed interfaces and polished user experiences. But fear not! With Expression Blend, Microsoft provides a great tool to create such UIs, and even developers with no graphical tale...nts whatsoever can learn a few techniques that allow for better looking applications.See More

The ASP.NET Provider Model drives many features within the ASP.NET architecture, yet most people only relate it to security or membership-related functionality. In this article, I’ll take you deep into the provider model, show you how it’s used from a security context, then take it up a notch and teach you how you can use it to turn any feature in your application into an extensible and swappable component. In fact, I’ll even show you why calling it the ‘ASP.NET’ Provide...r Model may be a misnomer.The ASP.NET Provider Model drives many features within the ASP.NET architecture, yet most people only relate it to security or membership-related functionality. In this article, I’ll take you deep into the provider model, show you how it’s used from a security context, then take it up a notch and teach you how you can use it to turn any feature in your application into an extensible and swappable component. In fact, I’ll even show you why calling it the ‘ASP.NET’ Provider Model may be a misnomer.See More

On the surface, this article is about the techniques of dependency injection and inversion of control.Underneath, the intent of the words and code samples is to get you to think about the questions of “why” and “when” you might want to use these two closely related techniques, as well a series of similar evolutionary techniques that lead up to the full-blown dependency injection. The initial code samples are admittedly (and deliberately) simple; I do not want the content... of the code to obscure the intent of the code.See More

Mar/Apr 09 .NET Rocks Column

Mar/Apr 09 Doc Detective Column.

Writing software is hard, particularly when the tools you use force you to think at too low a level; it’s time to start thinking about changing the way you write code… by making it easier to write code.Back in the days of our fathers, programming meant focusing on learning one language, one platform, and one environment, and mastering it over a span of years. Those years are long behind us, along with half-decade project development times and bell-bottomed pants. It’s ti...me to take a hard look at the “state of the union”, per se, and see how you can think about how to work better, rather than just putting in more time.See More