Bryan Sampica : .NET 3.5

Jamcast Official Beta

Freakyuno — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:12:00 GMT

A good friend of mine recently revealed to me that he's released a beta to the public of a neat piece of software. Jamcast allows the user to stream their digital audio across their network to devices with built in support like Playstation 3, XBox 360. I can't do the description justice, so swing over to his site and read about it. Sounds like wicked code. Even better is, it's entirely built with a .NET foundation!

http://www.sdstechnologies.com/

HDC Omaha 2008 - Code and Slides

Freakyuno — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:12:00 GMT

This is the application I demonstrated during my WPF Line of Business presentation, as well as my slide deck.

Demonstrated:

WPF Commanding

Provider based Data Source Handling

Validation

Collections and Binding (ObservableCollection<T>)

LINQ to XML

{ T }rite - Source Code Release

Freakyuno — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:20:00 GMT

I've had a few ask for the source control to this project, and amidst my objections, I tried to come up with a good reason not to release it and couldn't find one. :)

The goal of this project was really to push through the app and get a working model up. There are some things that still aren't implemented, or known bugs.

The refresh button does nothing!
Update gives no notification
160 char limit vs 140 (the API says 160!)
No startup notification
Weak threading model (background worker)
No friend interaction
No timeline interaction
I could go on forever on this...those are the big ones
Oh yea, no settings window at all. :)

So without further ramblings by the estranged coder....here's the source. You'll need to modify the settings to reflect your own, if you aren't sure how to do that, read the Twitter documentation on the API.

This is a source code release - this is not a finished, nor a working product and is not intended for end users.

This release includes a precompiled version of FluidKit - more information on FluidKit is available HERE.

If you modify this source, and release something of your own, I only ask that you keep the name the same and add your own spin - such as { T }rite | by Johnson or { T }rite | by Freakyuno....etc

You will need Visual Studio 2008 AND / OR Microsoft Expression Blend March 2.5 Preview installed to work with this project, and knowledge of WPF (XAML) and C#.

Source Code HERE

Good luck, feel free to get in touch with questions.

Bryan Sampica (freakyuno)

{ T } rite - twitter toys

Freakyuno — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:19:00 GMT

Just a quick post tonight. I'm working on a little app (mainly for practice), that some have requested a screenshot of, so here it is:

It uses a coverflow system for the people you're following, and a very up2date look for the tweets of the people on your timeline. It's a work in progress. Take a look.

Happy coding -

Bryan ( Freakyuno )

Solving LINQ's N-Tier Issues

Freakyuno — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:44:49 GMT

Ok, so maybe solving is somewhat of a misnomer, but we certainly can combat them with strength and conviction. A little background on the subject first; LINQ has proven to be somewhat of a booger when attempting to work with it in a streamlined development environment when incorporating any sort of N-Tier pattern.

Why you ask should it be a problem...the common answer I've heard many many times is, why should it be any different? You have at the essence of it some pretty simple logical and physical layer guidelines right? It's well known in the industry at this point to create N-Layer app's to solve things like SOC (separation of concerns) and physical or network boundaries.

But what about LINQ....how does it change anything we've done before? Here's the tricky part: LINQ objects, created outside a context are considered unattached - which works great...but the moment you have to refer to an object in relation to it's context you run into major issues. That object is then tied to that context and believe it or not; there's no easy or reliable way to detach it.

Not such a big deal right...statefull objects are a good thing! Not really...

Imagine the very common scenario below:

You use LINQ to query for a customer reference
You add an order to the reference of that customer
You try to put the customer back with the order now attached...

BOOM....head-shot - unless you've got the original context that you queried for the customer under...there is no way to get that customer back into the database. Keep in mind that a DataContext is not serializeable, so if your response is to pass the datacontext around, you'd be right as soon as you enter an SOA pattern.

Now, before you go off the deep end, I realize that this problem is CAUSED by the Utilization of LINQ itself. Because we are passing objects around - we run into the very real situation that the object is carrying a reference to it's context. Rick Strahl has done quite a few posts as of late on this same topic.

The typical solution, and usually one of the first answers on forums, blogs, and otherwise is...pass messages, not objects. Ok, I can concede to that. In true N-Layer applications we can very well send messages. This achieves the whole "loosely coupled" layers, and enables easily things like a provider model, a stateless BLL, an application aware server...etc. My response usually is: I don't need all that...what I need to be able to do is pass the objects back and forth. LINQ was nice enough to generate them for me, so why should I recreate each and every one of my objects (about 300 of them), in a serialized or class object format - just to overcome LINQ being a pain in the ass.

If you read Rick's blog, you'll see a very complete example of creating a set of business objects wrapping the LINQ functionality, where he abstracts out things like the context creation, the submit changes, and attachment of objects. That's pretty cool stuff...but yet even a little to big for my project.

Without you as the reader knowing specifically the scope of my project - it's hard to get behind this article...so let me help you out a little:

Our physical boundary is the SQL state machine, which we can overcome with SQL Protocols
We are working in a thick client, 1 to 3 user environment without a lot of need for initial scalability
Our application state will be managed individually by the client. They don't need to be sentient to other running app's.
We will maintain database concurrence through a first write wins methodology.

Ok, so now that you have the basic layout - you can see that we aren't truly trying to build an N-Layer application. Our use for N-Layer would have been to separate concerns between business logic, and data access. These would be logical layers with little or no need to exist outside the maintainability in our programming model.

Ok, so on to what I'll call the X-Layer pattern. ;) It's always nice to invent something new huh. Maybe it will catch fire. Keep in mind, that the representation of this is only as a "prototype" pattern. I don't have security, object state, or validation included. Those things snap easily into the datacontext though through the extension of the LINQ partial classes.

I could describe the project all day long, but it's just as easy to look at it. So I'll include it for your review:

Download Source

AuctionSite Starter-kit Update

Freakyuno — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:49:00 GMT

I've done an update to the starterkit today, and figured it might be a good idea to get some screenshots in front of people, as well as a demo site up - so I've done both. :)

The demo site is available at

http://ask.proessent.com/default.aspx

Feel free to register a username and look around. If you don't want to register a username you may use

Username: Testing

Password: testing!

note: the website may be going up and down as I make changes and perform updates. Please be patient. :)

AuctionSite Starterkit Alpha Release

Freakyuno — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 02:46:00 GMT

Just a quick plug to the community. I've gotten to the Alpha release of my AuctionSite Starterkit and have published a release on Codeplex

http://www.codeplex.com/auctionsk

It's designed and produced in .net 3.5 utilizing some cool features like LINQ, the new Listview, the .NET membership, full CSS design and some other goodies like some Ajax sections. It's freely available for download, take it - use it - abuse it. Its designed to give users a good start in the LINQ world, with a real world application on a smaller scale. It's database is extensible, and pages have been intentionally kept simple and straight forward, so they can be modified, tailored.

I'll be continuing to update it it through a stable release, then refactoring some of the "goofier" sections.

Have Fun!

Converting Sql.LINQ.Binary to Byte()

Freakyuno — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:35:18 GMT

Just a real short entry today. I had some trouble with this one - took me a little bit to figure out so I figured I would post a quick note about it. Mostly to remind myself how I did it next time I need to.

I'm working in a starterkit that I'm designing. It's not ready for general public publicity yet - but I can tell you that I have a database storing images, and typically in .net 2.0 I'd create an imagehandler.ashx for this and just use the querystring to parse out and grab the binary using a Datareader.

It'd typically look like this: (hijacked from http://www.123aspx.com/redir.aspx?res=36098)

public class ImageHandler : IHttpHandler {
    
    public void ProcessRequest (HttpContext context) {
        string imageid = context.Request.QueryString["ImID"];
        SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection
        (ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings
        ["connectionString"].ConnectionString);
        connection.Open();
        SqlCommand command = new 
        SqlCommand("select Image from Image where ImageID="+imageid, connection);
        SqlDataReader dr = command.ExecuteReader();
        dr.Read();
        context.Response.BinaryWrite((Byte[])dr[0]);
        connection.Close();
        context.Response.End();              
        
    }

I however am in a LINQ .net 3.5 project, and I didn't want to use SQL commands and data readers, I wanted to do it the new fan dangled way.

It turns out that it's not straightforward to grab an SQL.Linq.Binary field and convert it to a byte array. It's not hard mind you, but there really isn't any clue on how to make it work. So I fiddled around with it and here's what I came up with.

Sub ProcessRequest(ByVal context As HttpContext) Implements IHttpHandler.ProcessRequest
        If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString("imageID")) Then
            Dim imageID = HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString("imageID")
            Dim db As New AuctionsDataContext
            Dim result = From img In db.Images _
                         Where img.imageID = imageID _
                         Select img.image


            HttpContext.Current.Response.BinaryWrite(CType(result.First.ToArray, Byte()))
            context.Response.End()
        End If
    End Sub

The key line being the BinaryWrite portion towards the bottom. result.first.toArray didnt make a lot of sense to me, but it seems to work, and pretty quickly. :)

Good luck!

DLINQ + Solving the Many to Many problem

Freakyuno — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:42:17 GMT

A while back, Scott Guthrie posted in the comments, that LINQ didn't support, or had trouble with Many to Many relationships. I'm not sure if the code-base has changed, or I haven't considered a full scope, but I've managed to get it to work, and it's slick! I'll jump straight to the magic here.

I've created a Web Project, and added an SQL Database. I'm keeping this example simple, so for this example, we have Products, and Categories. Products can be a member of multiple categories, so lets get started!

I'm using the standard many to many method of using a interim table between the two tables, using a 1 to many on each side. Here's my LINQ diagram to illustrate:

It's important to note, that for this to work, your interim table MUST have an identity field defined. In this case I just called it RowID

I've loaded up my tables with some example data to test with, you can create your own, or follow my example.

1	Hotdog's
2	Soda
3	Tea
4	Beer
5	Hamburgers
6	Chips
7	Dip
8	Meat Cake

1	Food
2	Beverage

1	1
2	2
2	3
2	4
1	4
1	5
1	6
1	7
2	8
1	8

Ok, from this set of data, we can see that most things only have one category, but both Beer and Meat Cake are both a beverage, and a food! Right on! Ok, so now to test the functionality, lets jump into a class

First we need to try a simple select that's meaningful. In this case, lets select all the products that are beverages, and all the products that are food. :)

Food:

Public Class TestMany
    Public Shared Function Testing()
        Dim db As New ManyToManyDataContext
        Dim query = From p In db.ProductCategories _
                    Where p.Category.CategoryName = "Food" _
                    Select p.Product.ProductName



    End Function
End Class

The important thing to note here, is we START at the linking table between the two

Beverage:

Public Class TestMany
    Public Shared Function Testing()
        Dim db As New ManyToManyDataContext
        Dim query = From p In db.ProductCategories _
                    Where p.Category.CategoryName = "Beverage" _
                    Select p.Product.ProductName



    End Function
End Class

Now - you're saying, but what if I want the products that are JUST in the food AND beverage category. Here's where it gets a little tricky, but yes my good friend, it can be done!

Dim db As New ManyToManyDataContext
        Dim prod1 = (From c In db.ProductCategories _
                     Where (c.Category.CategoryName = "Beverage") _
                     Select c.Product.ProductName, c.Category.CategoryName)

        Dim prod2 = (From c In db.ProductCategories _
                     Where (c.Category.CategoryName = "Food") _
                     Select c.Product.ProductName, c.Category.CategoryName)

        Dim result = (From c In prod1 Join d In prod2 On c.CategoryName Equals d.CategoryName _
                      Select c.ProductName)

And there you have it. LINQ's inline ability to query a result set, and JOIN right in code, creates a listing of only products that are in both the food and beverage category.

Have fun!

Bryan Sampica