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I really don't like AJAX Beta 1 and probably will wait a few weeks/months before updating books/classes and whatever.
I don't want to question changes. But timing. Why Beta 1 now? The July CTP was a pretty good one and ready for Beta stage. What we have now is a brand new start and is probably less than a stable alpha. So again why now?
Not to mention the confusion generated by having two versions of AJAX--Beta 1 and value-add CTP. I can't just make sense of this and the strategy behind it. Just wait and see.
Which version should I study and teach? Both?
Which version should I recommend to clients and which to implement?
What if I have sites using July CTP? I feel comfortable only with Web services and UpdatePanel stuff
XML Script and page method don't work in my pages--it could just be me but this is a fact as of today. A lot of ugly JS code is being injected in my pages and should be programmed instead of XML Script. Really hope to be deadly wrong here ...
My guess is that A LOT of this stuff will dramatically change in the near future. So I won't call it a Beta and still wonder why now ...
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I've never been a quick learner student since high-school. It always took me time to figure out things, tell pros and cons apart of any technology or topic. So when ASP.NET introduced Web services -- sure MS didn't invent Web services, but I'm not sure it would have been the same had ASP.NET not fully supported Web services <g> -- I promptly picked it up the wrong way. For quite some time, I perceived Web services as a smart way of building BLL and make it remote with no significant effort on my own.
Then friends and colleagues explained the right way to look at a Web service. Can you see the "service" in it? Is there any "service" in it? Web is just the transportation layer. Oh cool... thank you.
So what about ASMX Web services in ASP.NET AJAX?
They're ASP.NET Web services, although local to the same hosting application. And they seem to suggest they're a way for you to call into the back-end of the application. Yep, just your BLL.
From an AJAX perspective, ASMX Web services are to be a simple facade to route calls to proper BLL after a proper filtering. It is worth noting, in fact, that AJAX Web services have no security layer around. And any security layer you might want to consider would make AJAX apps complex and cumbersome and anyway sending packets via clear text unless HTTPS is used.
AJAX applications using ASMX web services should consider the following:
- Use ASMX as a facade pointing to the real BLL -- the critical part of it at least -- only after due checks or through a weak account.
- Use ASMX to point to UI-level BLL -- that is, the security neutral part of it. For example, methods that return products catalog but not methods that verify credit card or start checkout procedures
- Do not use ASMX for security critical postbacks, but resort to UpdatePanel controls
There's more, though, about ASMX in ASP.NET AJAX applications.
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I'll be teaching in Wien next week.
Solid Quality Learning is pleased to offer a special Atlas night, Thursday Oct 12. Full details here (in German).
See you then
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It's been a while since my last post, but I'm in the blogsphere again.
When I did it, I was relatively new to Atlas. Can you believe that? Ages ago :)
I spent last 5 months writing and even teaching Atlas stuff. The final result is a book for Microsoft Press, due out in November. The title is "Introducing ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions". Yes, we've been lucky (just lucky, trust me) to ship to printers late enough to rework the cover and even remove a few occurrences of the now meaningless word "Atlas" throughout the text.
The book covers all key (and hot) topics of Atlas, including Web Services and remote procedure calls, client-side data binding, Web Service bridging, gadgets, UpdatePanel and partial rendering. Source code and text are as up-to-date as humanly possible. Readers, though, will receive online updates should the text in the book prove clearly outdated sometime soon.
Check it out, and don't hesitate to ask questions if you have some. The TOC is below:
- Building Blocks of Ajax-style Web Applications
- Building Blocks of the Atlas Application Framework
- Updatable Page Fragments
- Atlas Control Toolbox & Behaviors
- The Atlas Client Library
- Web Services
- Client-side Data Binding
- Atlas Gadgets
Hey, I forgot to say that you can get a sample chapter from the MS Press web site or from the Telerik Web site. I'd love to spend a few words on Telerik asn maybe other great vendors of Web tools, but I will make it in another post to share some high-level perspective on Atlas development.
Have a nice weekend.