ASP.NET MVC Nearing Release!
November 19th, 2007
I’m getting very exciting about the imminent release of a CTP for the ASP.NET MVC Framework. For anyone who has not heard of it yet, check out this overview on ScottGu’s blog. There have been some great samples posted already, as teasers for this release. If you’re interested in seeing what this framework can do, check out Brad Abram’s example of creating an RSS feed. Hanselman also has some good demos he put together for DevConnections.
I can’t wait to check this stuff out. It’s a very exciting time for ASP.NET developers. I wonder how long it will take before we see a full implementation of Action Pack for ASP.NET (ala ASP.NET on Rails)?
Re: Explain to me the value of Silverlight
November 2nd, 2007
Milan at ASP.NET Resources wants to know the value of Silverlight. Quite frankly, so do I.
In response to: Explain to me the value of Silverlight
Maybe I’m ignorant, I haven’t spent much time looking at the technical capabilities, but it doesn’t look much different from Flash. I’m guessing you can interact with the .NET Framework on the backend, but woopee. It just seems like another example of Microsoft’s terrible case of NIH. Couldn’t they also have partnered with Adobe to create a .NET version of Flash? I mean, everyone already uses Flash, so it would have been easier. As for the .NET integration, I think Ajax would be a better fit. Of course, I mean REAL Ajax, not the Ajax wrapper toolkit, but that’s for another day.
Implementing an RSS Feed
November 1st, 2007
I recently implemented an RSS feed for Road and Travel here. I learned an important lesson working on that feature.
Some developers prefer to loop through their results and manually build the XML necessary for an RSS feed. While this method may work, it is very difficult to maintain & you lose compatibility with other syndication formats (such as Atom or RDF). I implemented this feed using the ASP.NET RSS Toolkit. It was very easy, maybe 20 lines of code. It seems fairly lightweight, at 122kb, and supports multiple syndication formats out of the box.
When it comes to implementing a feature like this, don’t discount third-party frameworks. They may greatly improve the maintainability of your code, and allow you to write your code much more quickly.
Introduction to Monorail (not mine)
September 1st, 2007
I’ve been working on an introduction to Monorail. Admittedly, it’s been taking me awhile to get it done. In the process, I found an article that presents a good overview of getting started with Monorail.
Enjoy that! Hopefully I’ll have my introduction up soon.
Update (9/24): I haven’t forgotten about this and hope to have it finished soon, when/if my personal/professional workload subsides somewhat.
ASP.NET and MVC: Most Viable Solution?
August 23rd, 2007
The following is my response to ScribeSonic’s article on MVC & ASP.NET. The author discusses the different frameworks that are currently available and which is the most viable solution.
I’ve used Monorail on a couple projects now. I feel so much faster working with a pure MVC implementation than I did in classic Web Forms. However, Monorail is most likely going to get the ax by our CTO due to the learning curve required for a) the MVC framework, and most importantly b) having different view engines and losing support for web forms development, page lifecycle, and third-party controls. Point (b) is one of my favorite features of Monorail, but our CTO brings up a good point in that we don’t have time to retrain EVERYBODY on a new framework with a completely new train of thought.
According to the codebetter.com article linked above, the Microsoft MVC implementation will allow for true webforms usage. This will be the single greatest feature that makes companies decide upon the MS implementation vs. Monorail or ProMesh.Net. Companies today don’t have the time or interest to retrain an entire dev team away from everything they’ve been learning for the past five years. It’s a tough situation, and while I love and will continue to support Monorail as much as possible, I’m not sure it’s the most viable option for companies that are already knee-deep in Web Forms code.