Latest Microsoft Blogs

Here is the latest in my link-listing series .  Also check out my ASP.NET Tips, Tricks and Tutorials page and Silverlight Tutorials page for links to popular articles I've done myself in the past. ASP.NET Amazon EC2 Support for Windows and ASP.NET: Big news announced this week: Amazon will be offering Windows Server 2008 as an option in their EC2 service.  This enables you to use ASP.NET, IIS7 and SQL Server in the cloud. Using ASP.NET WebForms, MVC and Dynamic Data in a Single Application : Scott Hanselman has a nice post that demonstrates how you can have a single ASP.NET application that uses ASP.NET WebForms, MVC, WebServices and Dynamic Data.  You have the flexibility to mix and match them however you want, which allows...

So MVC have been out now for a while, and I have seen a few things come by my way with it.  I just wanted to see who all was using it and how it was working out for you. I am really curious about things like: Did you have to modify your project plans to fit MVC or did it do exactly what you wanted? Have you run into any problems using MVC? Are the documentation that explains when you use MVC clear? How useful have you found the ability to use unit testing with your MVC site? Look forward to hearing from everyone.  Feel free to share other things as well.  I’d like to hear any success or failures you have had with it. Read More...

This past Thursday the ASP.NET MVC feature team published a new "Preview 5" release of the ASP.NET MVC framework.  You can download the new release here .  This "Preview 5" release works with both .NET 3.5 and the recently released .NET 3.5 SP1.  It can also now be used with both Visual Studio 2008 as well as (the free) Visual Web Developer 2008 Express SP1 edition (which now supports both class library and web application projects). Preview 5 includes a bunch of new features and refinements (these build on the additions in "Preview 4" ).  You can read detailed "Preview 5" release notes that cover changes/additions here .  In this blog post I'm going to cover one of the biggest...

Stephen Walther has a pretty cool post on using the new file-only version of the Ajax Control Toolkit from an MVC application: http://weblogs.asp.net/stephenwalther/archive/2008/08/22/asp-net-mvc-tip-36-create-a-popup-calendar-helper.aspx Read More...

I've been getting more and more interested in how folks extend their applications using plugins and things. In my new ongoing quest to read source code to be a better developer , Dear Reader, I present to you thirtieth in a infinite number of posts of " The Weekly Source Code ." Spark I'm really enjoying the extensibility points in ASP.NET MVC , but not as much as some people. Spark is a really promising ViewEngine from Louis DeJardin . You can download Spark here and join the mailing list here . Not only is it promising, it's also freaky. Freaky in that good, makes-you-think way. Louis says " The idea is to allow the html to dominate the flow and the code to fit seamlessly. " When he says HTML should dominate...

The ASP.NET MVC team is in the final stages of finishing up a new "Preview 4" release that they hope to ship later this week.  The Preview 3 release focused on finishing up a lot of the underlying core APIs and extensibility points in ASP.NET MVC.  Starting with Preview 4 this week you'll start to see more and more higher level features begin to appear that build on top of the core foundation and add nice productivity. There are a bunch of new features and capabilities in this new build - so much in fact that I decided I needed two posts to cover them all.  This first post will cover the new Caching, Error Handling and Security features in Preview 4, as well as some testing improvements it brings.  My next post...

Or, as my recent inbox tells me, you’re not afraid to ask. ;) A coworker recently asked for some good resources on getting up to speed on the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern. Around the same time, I received another email talking about how people are confused around the difference between MVC and the Model View Presenter (MVP) pattern. No better opportunity to apply the DRY principle by answering some of these questions with a blog post. MVC The first place to start digging into the MVC pattern is to look at the Wikipedia entry . That’ll get you a nice brief summary of the pattern along with a list of resources. In MVC, the Model represents the information (the data) of the application and the business rules used to manipulate the data,...

Since so many people mentioned MVC in my post asking about future updates that you are most looking forward to ( here ), I thought I would post some helpful information around MVC. Of course, Scott's blog has some great information on it - here ....

Last week I blogged about the ASP.NET MVC Preview 3 release .  One important thing I forgot to mention about this release is that you can now use it with both Visual Studio 2008 as well as the free Visual Web Developer 2008 Express edition.  The SP1 release of Visual Web Developer 2008 Express adds support for both class library projects as well as web application projects (previously only web site projects could be used with it).  This new support is useful in itself, as well as in enabling both ASP.NET MVC and Silverlight project support with VWD Express.  If you install the Visual Web Developer Express SP1 Beta you can start using ASP.NET MVC Preview 3 with it immediately. Important: ASP.NET MVC Preview 3 does not require...

This morning we released the Preview 3 build of the ASP.NET MVC framework.  I blogged details last month about an interim source release we did that included many of the changes with this Preview 3 release.  Today's build includes some additional features not in last month's drop, some nice enhancements/refinements, as well as Visual Studio tool integration and documentation. You can download an integrated ASP.NET MVC Preview 3 setup package here .  You can also optionally download the ASP.NET MVC Preview 3 framework source code and framework unit tests here . Controller Action Method Changes ASP.NET MVC Preview 3 includes the MVC Controller changes we first discussed and previewed with the April MVC source release , along...