Vancouver DotNet CODER

Nice hotel, nice conference, there were over 2000 attendees. Amazing.

Location: Westin Bayshore Resort & Marina
Room: Grand Ballroom
City: Vancouver


Start Date: 14/06/2005
Start Time: 01:15 PM


End Date: 14/06/2005
End Time: 05:00 PM

http://msdn.microsoft.com/canada/MSDNSpringTour2005/

Windows Form Designer – simplifying the development process

New controls – allowing you to deliver professional applications more quickly

Click Once – simplifying application deployment

ADO.NET – data access made easy

SQL Server 2005 – easily integrate and leverage the enterprise strength of SQL Server 2005

http://channel9.msdn.com/ Interesting site. Nice interface, powered by asp.net forum, works well in mozilla and FF.
Btw, I seen some FF users just scream when they are forced to use IE again by poorly coded web site. FF and Mozilla are very addictive.

http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php

standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS;

dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model;

data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT;

asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest;

and JavaScript binding everything together.

Wehhost4life.com gets very good package (dotnet and SQL database)for a low price, but seems they are getting more troubles as well as negative comments, especially in blogsphere.

1and1.com 's price is not bad too, a very big company, a lot good comments from users, but seems you can not connect to SQL server with Enterprise Manager, and multiple IIS Application for one domain seems have some problem .

In Vancouver, there are 2 big web hosting companies in town, one is NetNation.ca, anthor is radiant.net, both of them are decent company, all provide dotnet web hosting, but there price is much higher for the same package from Webhost4life or 1and1.

Hmmm....

from msdn again : ASP.NET 2.0: A Step Up from the ASP.NET .NET Starter Kits

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/SKinVS2005.asp

Summary: The ASP.NET Starter Kits are five sample ASP.NET applications that provide code to accomplish common Web development tasks. This article looks at how the new features in ASP.NET 2.0 could be used to simplify the Starter Kits. (14 printed pages)

MSDN asp.net 2.0 sections

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/shared/deeptree/asp/deeptreedl.asp?dtcfg=/library/deeptreeconfig.xml&id=dnaspp2&xmlsrc=/library/en-us/toc/dnaspp/dnaspp2_.xml

http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/

This is a nice article

Why Writing Into .NET Application Configuration Files Is a Bad Idea
http://www.interact-sw.co.uk/iangblog/2004/11/25/savingconfig

A friend just sent me the link:

.NET Developers Blog

http://www.enderminh.com/netdev/

Nice idea.

http://blogs.borland.com/
Just wondering how come the company build Jbuilder using .text intead of some java blog system. I guess java just totally lost in the battle of open source blog software.

"......detailing the syntax of the new language features, including generics, anonymous delegates, iterators, and partial classes. Download the specification or discuss the new features on the C# Language message board. "

http://download.microsoft.com/download /8/1/6/81682478-4018-48fe-9e5e-f87a44af3db9/SpecificationVer2.doc

vancouver dotnet usergroup
This is from www.vandotnet.com

Welcome to the Vancouver .NET Website, the place to get information on the next .NET meetings coming to you in the Vancouver area. It provides online news, meeting times and other information, along with interactive discussion forums and member contact information (coming soon!).

DotNET User Group BC
Here is from netbc.ca/about/about.aspx

In August 2003, VanNetUg.ca and dotNetBC merged to form the .NET BC users group. The new group was formed as a community of technology professionals to facilitate learning and discussions about Microsoft .NET software development, and the opportunities this new technology brings.

How ASP.NET Web Pages are Processed on the Web Server - Nice article
By Scott Mitchell
http://aspnet.4GuysFromRolla.com//articles/011404-1.aspx

HTTP Handlers and HTTP Modules in ASP.NET
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/020417.htm

A Programmer's Introduction to Visual Studio .NET "Whidbey"

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/whidbey/default.aspx? pull=/library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html/vs2004_intro.asp
The Top 10
In our opinion, these are the best features introduced in Visual Studio .NET Whidbey:

• Refactoring
• Edit and Continue
• ClickOnce
• Smart Tags
• Code Snippets
• Exporting IDE Settings
• Line Revision Marks
• Temporary Projects
• Data Inspection Improvements
• Docking Window Changes

from MSDN

Nested Grids for Hierarchical Data
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/03/10/CuttingEdge/default.aspx
Hierarchical Data Binding in ASP.NET
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp? url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/aspn-hierdatabinding.asp

An Introduction to C# Generics

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp/default.aspx?pull= /library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html/csharp_generics.asp

Generics are the most powerful and anticipated feature of C# 2.0. Generics allow you to define type-safe data structures, without committing to actual data types. This results in a significant performance boost and higher quality code, because you get to reuse data processing algorithms without duplicating type-specific code. In concept, generics are similar to C++ templates, but are drastically different in implementation and capabilities.

bcchinese.net got over 1500 concurrent users and most of them looking for a dbdriven 100k aspx page, and the whole server just hang up there. ISP end up with taking the site off line, after move it to a html page, finally sever back online.
Limitation of concurrent users for the dotnet site, at this point, is 1500.

The next generation of .net is called WinFx
longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com
wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2003/10/winfx.html

ScottGu's Blog

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/posts/32965.aspx

-- Cross Page Postback between pages. Yup -- you can now do it. And it is easy.
-- Using ValidationGroups. You can now have validator controls optionally validate depending on which button on the page is pushed. You can group validation rules into “groups“ so that all controls within that group fire or don't fire.
-- Building workflow on a page using the new asp:Wizard control. Handle next/back, step1->n workflows easily now (no funky state management tricks for controls required).

http://authors.aspalliance.com/PaulWilson/Articles/?id=14
"MasterPages is the most flexible and easiest to use of Page Template solutions........"

From "Microsoft Developer Tools Roadmap 2003-2005"

"

Web Application Development (ASP.NET)

Providing the thin-client counterpart to Windows client development is the Web application infrastructure ASP.NET, introduced as part of version 1.0 of the .NET Framework. In the Whidbey release, ASP.NET will feature a new set of controls that simplify Web-based data access and will include functionality that facilitates code reuse, visual consistency, and aesthetic appeal.

First, ASP.NET data access will be refined in the Whidbey release through the introduction of new controls for interacting with data, such as the DataSource. This control will be used declaratively or programmatically in an application to encapsulate the query logic required to work with data from a database, XML file, middle tier business object, or numerous other sources. The DataSource exposes a set of common interfaces so that data-bound controls can easily consume different types of data without requiring a unique API for each data type it supports.

While the DataSource control helps simplify the retrieval and update of data, ASP.NET will also provide new controls that display data. The GridView control is a successor to the ASP.NET DataGrid that adds the ability to automatically handle paging, sorting, editing, and deleting of data. The DetailsView is a data-bound control that renders a single record at a time from its associated data source. Similar to the Form View of a Microsoft Access database, the DetailsView provides paging buttons to navigate between records. Developers can use the DetailsView control in a master-details scenario for updating and inserting new records where the selected record of the master control determines the DetailsView display record.

Second, Whidbey will include features that ensure consistency and code reuse across pages within a Web site. The introduction of Master Pages will enable developers to quickly share layout across multiple pages by designing templates that specify the location of controls, menu bars, headers, and footers. Similar to visual inheritance in Windows Forms, Master Pages allow other pages on a Web site to inherit from a Master Page, automatically acquiring its look and feel. When a developer wishes to change the layout of all the pages, they need only make updates to the Master Page.

Finally, ASP.NET will incorporate themes and skins to enhance the visual appearance of Web applications. A skin is a set of properties and templates that can be used to standardize the size, font, and other characteristics of controls on a page. A theme incorporates multiple skins and stylesheets to specify the overall look and feel of a Web site. Themes and skins will be simple to package, transfer, and apply to other Web sites. In addition, ASP.NET will provide several built-in themes that developers can use to build aesthetically appealing Web sites out of the box."

Looks not too much companies are doing DotNet consulting seriously at this point according to google, (except me and frinds in link800 :P ), but actually there are some quite active.

Here are some DotNet based (and well designed) websites in vancouver

• Canada.com got some nice sites:
  homes.canada.com/ autos.canada.com/ and classifieds.canada.com/
  The 3 sites seems are using a same dotnet ads software. Clean html code, quite fast. Nice job. But their other sites are still using cfm, asp and jsp.
• builddirect.com.
  
• www.netbc.ca.
• www.dotnetecommerce.com, they also get iiscart and iisprotect.
• www.canonline.com, an interesting flash site, guess it's powered by dotnet. Not very friendly to google, no-flash guys or mozilla.
  
• www.emenus.ca
  
• www.projux.com
  
• www.davidsuzuki.org/Subscribe/default.aspx
  

One site google found related to dotnet is ObjectSharp Consulting www.objectsharp.com, but they only provide DotNet training. And they supposed all uses have flash plugin.



My contact info admin_alt_bcchinese.net.

builder.com have a nice article about dotnet 1.0 .1.1 compatibility issues.

Because there are now two versions of the .NET Framework out there (there will be three by 2005), .NET developers should be concerned with making sure their applications use the proper version of the Framework at runtime. Most of the time, Web applications compiled with VS.NET 2002 will run on 1.1-enabled Web servers without having to make any changes at all. Microsoft did an outstanding job ensuring that there were as few code-breaking changes between 1.0 and 1.1 as possible.

Basic .NET: Framework compatibility issues
gotdotnet: Compatibility Considerations and Version Changes

http://weblogs.asp.net/pwilson/posts/31449.aspx
The blog get a nice category ".NET Tips and Tricks"

Tip on Getting ViewState past Some Proxies
http://weblogs.asp.net/pwilson/posts/24867.aspx...

http://codeguru.com/net_general/Meditating.html
"Meditating Upon the ASP.NET Code-Behind Model "

" * The code-behind model is mandatory
* Visual Studio .NET compiles down to a single DLL and causes the application to restart when updates are deployed
* Lack of compile-on-demand features. It requires an explicit compile step to deploy and run
* Inability to open single .aspx page without a project file
* Missing support for direct (local) IIS access or FTP access to files
* IIS must be installed on the development machine and administrative privileges are required to edit files
* Debugging different scenarios is quite hard and moving projects to another machine can be a nightmare
"

It's a pretty good article.
And I can add some more problems in vs.net:

vs2k2 only work for dotnet1.0, you need pay more to get one work for 1.1, called vs2k3.

vs2k3 may be out of date very soon too, cause dotnet 2.0 is coming soon, get your money ready for that.

can not color coding code inline.

it's a bad html editor, comparing with dreamweaver.

it will add garbage tag in your aspx pages. ....

Nant is a extreme powerful tool for real .net develper, but it 's not easy to let it compile project with 1.1.
In NAnt.exe.config if you turn on defaultframework="net-1.1" , you will get a lot warning or error message and the project is still compiled with framework 1.0, looks the current version of nant 0.8.3 get some bug here.
I add a new frameworkinfo under framworks section

<frameworkinfo name="hardcoded1_1" description="1.1" version="1.0.0000" runtimeengine="" csharpcompilername="csc" basiccompilername="" jsharpcompilername="" jscriptcompilername="jsc" resgenname="resgen">

<sdkdirectory dir="C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322" />

<frameworkdirectory dir="C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322" />

<frameworkassemblydirectory dir="C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322" />

</frameworkinfo>


and set the default framework to "hardcoded1_1", and it work very well
The blogx I am using here is compiled by Nant with this configurateion.

Ref : http://nant.sourceforge.net/

Ref IT market in Vancouver

netbc.ca organized the events, pretty interesting. sound the .net job market is better than java this year.

Installed DotNet SP2, and it didn't break the os or other applications this time. That's good.
Service Pack 2 Download
List of Bugs Fixed in Microsoft .NET Framework Service Pack 2

Some people think it's not so bad, considering the huge overload of DotNet Framework, it's pretty good actually. http://www.vertigosoftware.com/Quake2.htm