1. .NET Developer Round Table Facilitating a general discussion on.NET technologies Sierra Systems Fred HirschfeldJohn Saunders 111 Market Street NE, Suite 225 360.570.4551360.570.4538 Olympia, WA 98501

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

3. Sierra Systems Questions / Comments?  Thanks to Jim Culp and IPMA  Follow-up Contact Information: Name:Fred Hirschfeld E-mail:FredHirschfeld@SierraSystems.com

4. Sierra Systems.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 (C#), IDictionary(Of string, MyClass) (VB.NET)  Nullable Types – Allows value types to have an undetermined value (NULL).  Transactions – System.Transaction namespace

5. Sierra Systems.NET Framework 2.0

6. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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. Sierra Systems 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.asp x?releaseId=10) – A resource generator plug-in