Ralf's Sudelbücher

Aspect-Oriented Programming made easy with Event-Based Components

2010-08-10T08:06:17Z

Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) can help to clearly separate concerns. But it´s kinda cumbersome to do without a tool. At least if you want to do it along the beaten path of object orientation. But things become much more easy, when you switch your thinking to a different paradigm at least during high level design. In a three part series on AOP with Event-Based Components (EBC) I´ve describe how this can be done. Easy AOP without a tool is possible. And it even makes your designs more understandable...(read more)

Event-Based Components – For Easier Software Design Say Goodbye to the Usual Object Orientation

2010-07-27T07:13:00Z

Have come to feel very uneasy with the usual object orientation. It simply does not deliver on its promises. That´s of course not the fault of object oriented languages like C# or Java or C++. It´s the fault of those who use them in a way that leads their code straight into a brownfield. And it´s the fault of those who cannot provide easy enough guidance in using these languages. The situation is very dire. I have seen only a very few developers who do not fear clean whiteboard. Because when they...(read more)

Doing asynchronous distributed request/response service calls without WCF

2010-03-15T17:47:37Z

In my previous blog post I hopefully was able to demonstrate how low the entry barrier is to asynchronous remote communication. It´s as easy as hosting a service like this 10 using ( var serverSpace = new CcrSpace ().ConfigureAsHost( "wcf.port=8000" )) 11 { 12 serverSpace.HostPort( 13 ...(read more)

Easy remote communication without WCF

2010-03-15T09:45:02Z

If you´ve read my previous posts about why I deem WCF more of a problem than a solution and how I think we should switch to asynchronous only communication in distributed application, you might be wondering, how this could be done in an easy way. Since a truely simple example to get started with WCF still is drawing quite some traffic to this blog, let me pick up on that and show you, how to accomplish the same but much easier with an async communication API. For simplicities sake let me put all...(read more)

Becoming asynchronous – The first step towards distributed applications

2010-02-21T10:41:01Z

In my previous blog post I argued WCF was not the most usable and most easy to learn way for communication in distributed applications. This is due to its focus on synchronous communication (even though you can do asynchronous communication as well). Distributed applications by their very nature cannot communicate synchronously. Their parts are running on different threads (or even machines). And communication between threads is asynchronous. Always. And if it appears otherwise then there is some...(read more)

WCF is not the solution but the problem

2010-02-20T03:43:08Z

The title of this post has caught your attention? So let me explain what I mean by it: I think WCF is great. It´s the best communication framework Microsoft ever has come up with. WCF solves a lot of problems of its predecessors, it is tremendously extensible, and it supports the main communication paradigms (sync, async, P2P). WCF certainly is a solution of some kind. But to whom? Who benefits from all these capabilities of WCF? Is it the average application programmer? I doubt it. Remember when...(read more)

Conscious Incompetence - The need to transcend conventions

2008-09-17T07:09:50Z

In his recent blog posting Seth Godin once again questions the value of competence. Sure, he does not want to people dumber. He just argues that sole reliance on competence as a compass to navigate the future can - well - be a hindrance. He´s written about it already in 1999 and made clear, that competence is about accomplishing something on the basis of existing knowledge - and thus is different from finding new ways of doing stuff. Whoever is competent is not necessarily innovative or imaginative...(read more)

What´s in a Book?

2008-07-25T21:58:46Z

As I read Kevin Kelly´s "Fate of the Book" I come to wonder what this debate he´s referring to is all about? Is it about form or content? Is is about texts as opposed to video or audio? Is it about texts of a certain minimum length and/or structure as opposed to text snippets? Or is it about a certain physical container for texts as opposed to digital texts? Or is it about certain types of physical containers? Until digital word processing it was pretty clear what a book was: a text longer than a...(read more)

New blog on software architecture - The Architect´s Napkin

2008-06-12T15:40:33Z

Since I´m mostly concerned with software architecture and my clients are asking again and again when I´m going to write a book about the topic, I finally decided to set out and compile the material to go into the book. And I decided to do it publicly, in a new blog. Not that I haven´t done that before here and in my German blog . But now I´ll try to be more comprehensive, put everything in a single place, and add some new stuff I have not written about before. Plus, through a blog all´s open for...(read more)

Software Architect 2008 Sample Code

2008-06-06T16:53:00Z

Please find the sample code for my presentations at Software Architect 2008 on Aspect Oriented Programming with PostSharp and Software Transactional Memory with NSTM here for download: http://www.ralfw.de/download/Software_Architect_08_Samples.zip If you´ve any questions, feel free to contact me by email. Enjoy!...(read more)

Component orientation explained - Modern software development viewed from a musical perspective

2008-03-02T21:36:28Z

You´re fluent in object oriented programming. But now and again you´re wondering what the fuzz about component orientation is? There is supposed to be more to it than just using 3rd party controls in your user interfaces. But, what and how? Component orientation is about higher productivity, easier maintenance, better testability, more flexibility, and - if you´re fond of it - reusability. But how´s that? How does component orientation reach all those lofty goals? The trick is pretty simple: component...(read more)

NSimpleDB - Use Amazon´s SimpleDB data model in your applications now - Part 4

2008-01-28T11:17:58Z

As explained in my previous postings , I implemented a local/embeddable version of the Amazon SimpleDB data model and API in C#. You can download the sources from my NSimpleDB Google Code Project and build the tuple space engine yourself, or you download the demo application which includes the engine as a single assembly: NSimpleDB.dll . Using the SimpleDB API then can be as easy as referencing the engine assembly and opening a local tuple space file like this: using NSimpleDB.Service.Contract; ISimpleDBService...(read more)

NSimpleDB - Use Amazon´s SimpleDB data model in your applications now - Part 3

2008-01-19T21:05:21Z

In my previous postings about Amazon´s SimpleDB data model and API I explained, what Amazon´s online database service - or to be more precise: tuple space - has to offer in general. If this sounds interesting to you, then now welcome to the desktop. Because it´s the desktop on which you can actually experience what it´s like to use such a tuple space. SimpleDB currently (as of Jan 08) is just in limited beta and you have to line up to get one of the limited test accounts. But you don´t need to wait...(read more)

NSimpleDB - Use Amazon´s SimpleDB data model in your applications now - Part 2

2008-01-19T08:14:07Z

Amazon´s SimpleDB is an exciting new player in the database world. It´s free, it´s online, it´s not relational. SimpleDB is a dynamic database implementing a tuple space . Currently SimpleDB (as of Jan 08) is in beta - but not everyone can get his hands on it. You have to apply and line up for one of the limited test accounts. Nevertheless it´s worthwhile to take a closer look at SimpleDB. It´s a brave step forward by Amazon to offer an online database (accessible via a web service) that´s deviating...(read more)

NSimpleDB - Use Amazon´s SimpleDB data model in your applications now - Part 1

2008-01-18T19:37:52Z

Have you heard about Amazon´s online "database service" SimpleDB ? They describe it like this: "Amazon SimpleDB is a web service for running queries on structured data in real time." So it´s not a RDBMS, because Amazon does not call the data "relational", but just "structured". And you use a web service based API to access the data, not good old ADO.NET. Currently SimpleDB is in beta. You can get a test account to play around with it - if you´re patient. As of this writing (Jan 08) evaluation is...(read more)