Fabrice's weblog

Future of blogging

Robert Scoble is giving his vision of blogging's future as requested by Dave Winer.

I though I could give it a try too. Of course my ideas overlap with the ones already given. Here is how I see blogging in the future, well some visions at least:

• Blogging is transparent, you can blog from anywhere, using a smart client and working in disconnected mode.
• Reading and writing happens in the same place. Remember the two-way web back in 1997?
• An e-mail or a usenet news post or a forum post or an IM entry can easily become a weblog post.
• A weblog post can easily become an e-mail or a usenet new post or a forum post.
• Weblog post forwarding is just a click away.
• Flagging and archiving others' posts for further reading allows you not to miss some content.
• Weblog feeds can be filtered easily in many ways.
• Notifications for everything you wish (new comment, new trackback, new friend post...), the way you wish (e-mail, alert, IM, etc.). Following and being part of discussions is natural.
• Weblogs evolve from a simple time orientation to a richer one where older items retain value.
• Your traditional RSS aggregator becomes your Media Center, not only where you read weblog entries, but also where you consume news, e-mails, notifications... This is not only about text, it could also be sound or video. This app is what you launch first when your computer starts, your personal window to the web and the world. Web browsing is integrated within this tool.
• Everyone has a weblog (or multiple), the way you have an e-mail address and an instant messaging ID.
• Weblogs have channels allowing content you put there to be selectively available to some persons or the whole wide web. Your weblog is the place where you publish information, business or personal, public or private. This is the place where your friends go to learn about you or to get in touch with you.
• The visible part of my weblog is only 1/9 of the whole content.
• Your grand-mother uses her weblog to stay in touch with her grand-children.
• Weblogs can be aggregated, to create communities or enterprise project billboards.
• Backup and cross-post.
• Content management and weblogs getting closer. This means you can feed your CMS with your blogging tool and your weblog content is versioned and staged and validated.
• Wikis and weblogs getting closer.
• and a lot more...

Of course some of this already exists in different solutions and tools, but none offers an integrated experience yet. Weblogs and blogging tools should be personal and collaborative at the same time.

BTW, if you are working on such a solution, I'd enjoy being involved ;-)

Introducing SOA (bis)

My new article has now been published in English: Getting a little closer to SOA.

SOA. This acronym is everywhere and seems to be the next revolution. But how to put it into practice? Are we going to have to forget most of what we know today and learn yet a new technology? Moreover, is it so revolutionary?

This article presents a pragmatic approach to SOA, oriented towards multi-tiered architectures. I tried not to delve too much into theory.
An article for your colleagues that don't get SOA yet or find it too complex.

This is on DotNetGuru. A big THANK YOU to Thomas Gil for the translation (maybe we should call him Tom Agile...).

La version française c'est par là...

CodeSmith 2.5 released, now with IDE

Services vs. Components

Scoble and zombies

Three important news for this Friday:

• I've been Scobleized
• This is my post number 199. Wow! I opened this weblog one year ago, that makes almost 200 posts plus some articles.
• I spotted zombies in the framework!

This is from SqlTransaction.Rollback:

public void Rollback()
{
  if (sqlConnection == null)
    throw ADP.TransactionZombied(this);
  try
  {
    sqlConnection.ExecuteTransaction(
      "IF @@TRANCOUNT > 0 ROLLBACK TRANSACTION",
      "RollbackTransaction");
    Zombie();
  }
  catch (object obj1)
  {
    if ((_sqlConnection != null) && (GetServerTransactionLevel() == 0))
      Zombie();
    if (!_disposing)
      throw;
  }
}

Spotted with the Reflector.

Introducing SOA

My new article has been published: Approaching SOA smoothly (or pragmatism required).
It is currently available only in French, but translation is pending. In the meantime, you can use your favorite fish for translation.
I'll tell you more when the English version is available.

Update:  The English version of this article is now online on DotNetGuru.

Mon nouvel article intitulé Approcher SOA en douceur (ou le pragmatisme de rigueur) a été publié sur DotNetGuru.
Introduction : SOA, ce terme est partout. La prochaine révolution est en marche. Mais comment l'aborder ? Devons-nous encore apprendre une nouvelle technologie et oublier la majeure partie de ce que nous connaissons aujourd'hui ? D'ailleurs, est-ce si révolutionnaire ?

Il vous permettra de retrouver plusieurs des concepts et des règles liées à la SOA, sans trop aller dans la théorie. A transmettre à vos collègues qui trouvent le sujet trop complexe ou trop abstrait.

Scott Guthrie explains the Whidbey release timing

If you are wondering about the release timing for the next release of .NET and Visual Studio, Chris Garty's weblog is the place to go.

Quick summary: June for the beta 1 with interim releases before that...

Saving Microsoft streaming media files

In case you ever wanted to save a local copy of that streaming movie trailer or funny video a friend sent, there's a neat little program called SDP (Streaming Download Project) Receiver which allows you to do this.  Best of all, it's freeware.

It's available here: http://sdp.ppona.com/

[Jason Nadal]

Coaching on the Microsoft Application Blocks

Masterline and I are proposing a coaching session about the Microsoft Application Blocks by way of the Brainsonic company. Of course, this is in France...

Masterline et moi proposons une session de coaching sur les Application Blocks de Microsoft par le biais de la société Brainsonic. Le sujet est "Gagner en productivité sur vos développements .NET avec les Application Blocks"

Dans le cadre de son activité "Patterns & Practices", Microsoft offre les Application Blocks pour .NET. Répondant à des besoins récurrents et reprenant des solutions éprouvées, les Application Blocks encapsulent certaines fonctionnalités clefs en ajoutant une couche supérieure au framework .NET. Les objectifs des Applications Blocks sont multiples : accélérer le développement d'applications, et mettre en avant les bonnes pratiques pouvant servir de modèle de conception.
Aujourd'hui, une dizaine de blocs sont disponibles, couvrant des domaines tels que l'accès aux données, le traçage des applications, la mise à jour des applications, la gestion du cache, le modèle MVC, l'agrégation de services, l'invocation asynchrone, etc. Chaque bloc est livré sous la forme de code source accompagné d'une documentation technique et d'une application de démonstration de la mise en œuvre.
Les Application Blocks sont les compagnons incontournables des guides de conception et d'architecture, ainsi que des Design Patterns. Il est important de connaître ces briques logicielles pour être à même de les utiliser pour vos propres développements.

Pour en savoir plus...

An Extensive Examination of Data Structures

Scott Mitchell has already delivered three parts of his six-part series on data structures:

• Part 1 : An Introduction to Data Structures (includes Array and ArrayList)
• Part 2 : The Queue, Stack, and Hashtable
• Part 3 : Binary Trees and BSTs

Wow, impressive job!

Update:

• Part 4 : Building a Better Binary Search Tree
• Part 5 : From Trees to Graphs

Update: last part

• Part 6 : Efficiently Representing Sets