new command interpreter : MONAD

Shells are used as the command interpreter in unix/linux. In Microsoft
windows, it is been done by cmd.exe. Microsoft is coming up with the
new command interpreter for Windows Vista and is termed as Monad
(Monad Shell) or MSH. This Monad interpreter runs in any OS where
.NET 2.0 can be installed such as Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server
2003 SP1. Learn more about Monad with http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx

Feb CTP : No Pain No Gain

Feb CTP is out on http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/
details.aspx?FamilyId=F51C4D96-9AEA-474F-86D3-1
72BFA3B828B&displaylang=en. There are lots of changes
between Jan and Feb CTP.If talked about WCF, November,
December and jan CTP are on the same track while on feb
CTP, they had added few DCRs that Microsoft was working
in silos earlier. Anyhow, its really a pain to see keywords and
namespace changing with every CTP but i do believe the
Feb CTP is now very stablized and close to what the final
RTM will look like.

 

 

WCF and WWF Go live

Microsoft announced Go Live licenses this morning for Windows
Communication Foundation (WCF, previously - Indigo) and
Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) , which lets customers
use the January Go Live releases of WCF and WWF in their
deployment environments. WPF is not included in it. More
information about the Go Live program is at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/getthebeta/
golive/default.aspx.

Windows Vista Release date , Nov 2, 2006

Microsoft are likely to hit final Vista product with a deadline of Nov, 2 , 2006. So now we are preety sure that we can get the hands on experience on RTM of Windows Vista in this year. Earlier the release date was scheduled on June,2006 but testing staff for Vista has proposed a new date for it

SetFocusOnError property in ASP.NET 2.0

In ASP.NET 1.x, if we want to put the focus on a control if a validation fails based on the validation control, we need to tweak around webUiValidation.Js and modify it to work for us. Now in ASP.NET 2.0, we got a couple of options to do it. We got a SetFocus method as a part of Page in which we can pass the id of the control to get focus,

 Page.SetFocus(txtName);

we got a new property called SetFocusOnError which is set on validator controls to cause the first invalid control to receive focus.

<asp:TextBox ID="txtRollId" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>

 <asp:RequiredFieldValidator SetFocusOnError="true"
 ErrorMessage="RollId is empty" ID="RequiredFieldValidator2"
 ControlToValidate=" txtRollId" Display="Dynamic"
runat="server">*
</asp:RequiredFieldValidator>

Check out the SetFocusOnError = true set in requiredFieldvalidator

MSBuild - Part 2

Implementing MSBuild in Whidbey

You can implement MSBuild in Whidbey by creating an MSBuild project file that you can use to compile a .NET project. The MSBuild project file is an XML file with the .proj extension. The MSBuild project file describes the build process of a .NET project. A console application of the MSBuild tool, called msbuild.exe, performs the build process. This application receives project files as input and processes them synchronously. You can create an MSBuild project file using the Visual Studio .NET IDE. To create an MSBuild project file:

1.         Create a folder, MSBuild, at the C:\WINNT\System32\ location to save the project file.

2.         Copy the msbuild.exe file from the C:\WINNT\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.40607 location and save it at the C:\WINNT\System32\MSBuild location.

3.         Select Start -> Programs -> Microsoft Visual Studio Whidbey -> Microsoft Visual Studio codename Whidbey to open the Microsoft Visual Studio Whidbey IDE.

4.         Select File -> New -> File to open the New File window

5.      Select XML File and click Open to open the Code Editor window
Enter the code in the Code Editor window to create an MSBuild project file.

6.      Select File -> XMLFile1.xml to open the Save File As dialog box.

7.      Select the MSBuild directory from the Save in drop-down list box to specify the location where you want to save the project file.

8.      Select the All Files (*.*) option from the Save as type drop-down list box and enter the MSBuildProj file name with the .proj extension in the File name text box to create an MSBuild project file.

9.      Enter the following command at the command prompt to build the MSBuild project file that you create:

       WINNT\System32\MSBuild MSBuild MSBuildProj.proj

MsBuild - Part 1

MSBuild - Part 1

From today, i will starting the tutorial on new tools available with .NET
Framework 2.0. so lets have some overview of MsBuild.
Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) is a tool to compile and build a Visual Studio (VS) .NET project without using the VS .NET Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The various open-source build tools include Build .NET, .NET Another Neat Tool (NAnt) etc

This tool enables you to customize the build process according to your requirements. For example, you can include functions, such as labeling builds and retrieving the latest versions of projects, from a source code control provider, such as Visual Source Safe, into the build process.

The MSBuild tool provides an execution engine, which builds and executes MSBuild project files. The MSBuild project file is an XML-based file that contains information about compiling .NET projects. The execution engine also synchronously runs all the tasks defined in MSBuild project files.

To be continued

Need of Service Oriented Designing

If we look on any of enterprise standards, we always find that enterprise are presently accumulated with lots of software made up of new and old architecture, tightly integrated with each other and dependent on specific platform. If we look at the history of architecture, earlier in 1980s, most of the architecture was monolithic and there was no need to concentrate on the integration part of the product. At that time, if the product is doing the desired task, it was treated as the good software. But as soon as market changes and so technology too, company then look for some more loosely coupled architecture. There comes the magic of client/Server and then 3-tier, N tier and also distributed components. Object Oriented was really helpful in solving the problems of day today applications and making the life easier for the developers. One of the basic problems with Object oriented design is to modelling the application interaction. Presently the need of the market for the software is something like pluggable components, which can be changed according to market needs, business trends or on company’s needs there was a need of loosely coupled architecture and this is where Service oriented architecture comes into the scene. Reusable application components will continue to find new clients that will need to consume them. In the past, component-based code reuse would suffice, but in most companies today the need for cross-platform reuse makes any proprietary strategy very short-sighted. The constant need for agility, platform independence, and return on investment (ROI), and multi-client capabilities will continue to drive any enterprise to service-oriented design.

To be continued …

Visual Studio 2005 will support .NET 1.X

In my previous post , i mentioned that what are the issues that stops Whidbey team to target 1.x and reasons for that. But here is something good news !!!. In an effort to support 1.x, Microsoft MsBuild team will be targetting 1.x. Project name is MSBee, which stands for MSBuild Everett Environment. For more details, look out for the same in some MSDN blogs.. Everett was the code name for Visual Studio 2003. Though the release date of the same has not been fixed, but still hoping to get it released by june, 2006 something with the release of longhorn :)

Visual studio 2005 targets only one versions

After the release of VS.NET 2005, I was always having a thought about why this new versions doesn't supports .NET 1.x. After a lot of reasearch and interacts with microsoft newsgroups,  i had found something reasonable. I had a talk with Microsoft team guys about it and what they provide me was some links pointing to few blogs. One of them which i found really fascinating was

http://blogs.msdn.com/johnri/archive/2005
/11/29/498219.aspx

look at the blog and got your answer why VS.NET 8 targets only 1 version. I am also looking forward from the answers from other building team in MS and would be certainly posting it soon.

Was Web Services the first SOA Implementation

That’s sounds really great to hear the music of SOA prevailing all around with the WCF.I would like to mention here is that SOA and WCF are two different things. Many of us are of false impression that SOA and WCF are the two phases of the same coin.SOA are another guidelines of implementing the distributed apps. It is a design guideliness and helps us to get benefited from the past bitter experiences and WCF is the practical implementation of SOA.We always says that we are selling Services through SOA. So what’s the difference between web services and services of SOA? Of course it’s quiet debating that web services are the first step to achieve SOA implementation. But are web services practically implementing the so called four tenets of SOA. First of all, web services are only invoked through HTTP which makes it tightly coupled with the HTTP transport protocol. Though it has been a bit changes after WSE 2.0. What about the communication techniques in ASMX? It has only one i.e. request/response. WCF on the other hand implements all the four tenets of SOA. With Unification of distributed technologies that are prevailing till now. SOA has a messaging protocol as SOAP but the communication techniques can be duplex, simplex and even request response. I often heard that services needs to be asynchronous to be scalable but we also can't deny the fact that applications do requires immediate response. Nevertheless, if we say that web services was the first step for implementing SOA , I do feel to shout about its negligence of practically implementing the autonomous tenet of Service Orientation.

Is remoting Dead with WCF?

Well, Many a times it happens that we use a technology and set some best patterns and practices for the same. As and when a technology ceases, we start looking for new patterns and practices. Microsoft has also had a group for the same. Ofcourse , since the last few years, we were always been in comparing .NET remoting vs web services. Ofcourse, former is been known for its performance and later is known for the interoperability. With the new distributed technology coming into the arena,i.e. Windows Communication Foundation(WCF), formely known as indigo, there is lot of hustle bustle in the developers. Will the existing application will be able to work with it ? What about upgradation path ? One of the main queries that i got when we talk about SOA and WCF with my peers Is Remoting Dead ? What will happen to Web Services etc..I always try to reply it in different ways until i heard the best one from Steve Swartz
which states "When you have another child, do you stop loving your previously conceived children? No, you love and support them all". I hope after publishing this on my blogs, I would make some of you remember abt it :)

Managed Objects in Yukon

Got some time to wrote another article on using Managed Objects in Yukon. You can get the link at http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/
CLR_in_Sql_Server_2005.asp
in case URLs still working . Happy Christmas and Happy Coding too!!!! J