Suresh Behera

A quick summary on ASP.NET 2.0

some abstract on ASP.NET   ..............................

1. You will be able to drag a SQL Server table and drop it into a page, which will give you a data binded datagrid, mostly through property manipulation, the grid will be sortable, editable and updatable
2. One goal of ASP.NET 2.0 is to reduce the amount of code needed by 70-75%, Scott thinks Whidbey will get very close to that mark
3. Another goal is to simplify administration, ASP.NET 2.0 will offer a rich configuration API along with rich admin tools, in the bottom you will still have good old XML config files
4. We will get Intellisense in config files and in code embedded in web forms (as opposed to code-behind classes)
5. We will get some 40 new controls, including things like a rich treeview and security controls (authentication). Controls will work with both two-tier and three-tier data models.
6. Next releases of Commerce Server, Sharepoint Server and Content Management Server will use all these new facilities
7. We will have building blocks APIs services, like for example: membership services, role management and a personalization system
8. This APIs will use a provider model, so that you can create, for example, your own credentials provider and replace the one that's used out of the box by the authentication block (SQL Server tables, it seems)
9. The template columns design-time editor will get a major update, including two-way databinding and custom controls that can be dragged and dropped into the column (for example, drop-downs)
10. They're striving to have 100% backwards compatibility with ASP.NET 1.0 and 1.1
11. ASP.NET 2.0 will be 64-bit enabled
12. It will support IIS 5.0 and up, Windows Server 2000 and up
13. In particular, IIS 6.0 will allow two use the ASP.NET authentication information to control access to classic ASP pages and even other resources like images or JSP pages
14. An administrator could be notified by e-mail every time a certain exception raises
15. Nothing to do with ASP.NET 2.0: in a few weeks a utility to convert classic ASP pages to ASP.NET will be available at www.asp.net
16. Enterprise Services will allow you to start/stop a transaction at any fixed point in your code, you will not be constrained to object boundaries
17. There will be a data access layer designer which will allow you to choose tables, views, add properties and then access all this elements in a strongly-typed way
18. Alternatively, you will be able to use Object Spaces, which is an object-relational mapping tool that will be released as part of Whidbey
19. Yukon and Whidbey have the same release timeframe
20. To create Yukon user-defined types you will be able to use any CLR value class (C# struct)
21. The Cache object will be enhanced so that you can, for example, make a dataset valid as long as the underlaying source (a table, usually) doesn't change.
22. Whidbey is currently in alpha, an early beta will be available (may be) in the spring of 2004
23. Check out for a special section on Whidbey that will appear at www.asp.net
24. All the stuff discussed in the interview, probably doesn't cover more than a 2% of all the new things in Whidbey

As I said, this list could have a number of mistakes and misundersanding so I urge to listen to the interview or, better yet, go to the PDC and get the early Whidbey bits.

JAVA VS .NET

I always get question about Java vs .Net ,so ,I tried to find few points about it and also love to have others comment on it. Thanks to Narayan, Sudhakar and Nauzad for valuable feedback.

From Narayan's Desk

My ten cents: Also find my answers in-line to your forwarded questions.

1> When Sun entered the Web application space, they stole everything they
could from ASP and even now Sun has started to respond to C# in the JDK 1.5
that will have features that are clearly inspired directly from C#. At Java
One they announced some kind of new desktop development system where they
want to make the creation of GUI desktop apps easier than VB.

NRS: It indicates that Sun in reality accepts the technical superiority of
the C# and .NET platform in a way.

Suggest reading the following article as well:

Sun, Microsoft officials face off in Java vs. .Net debate
http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/development/java/story/0,10801,78026,00.html

2> Java has taken more than a decade to mature and even today is not the
perfect answer to many computing needs. In less than two years of its
release .NET has praises even from their counterparts. Recommend reading the
following article;
http://www.computerweekly.com/Article111133.htm
http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/292

NRS: Notice that the executives from Borland, IBM and others have silently
acknowledged the acceptance of .NET in the enterprise and have not made any
comment against .NET :-)


3> Open source stance by big names is a gimmick to attract developers and
small businesses. How many products from IBM, SUN and others are really open
source implementations? Are they giving everything that they develop free of
cost? If so, where from their revenues come from? If they are so open, why
are they not supporting the CLI specification which got ratified by a
neutral body like ECMA unlike Java? Does this mean that they have vested
interests in protecting Java supremacy in the whole range of their product
suits that they sell? If these companies are so big fans of open source why
are these companies filing IPR's on their own company names?

NRS: I feel that open source is a wagon being exploited by big brands
protect their vested interests.

1) The .NET framework serves little purpose for a
CD-ROM-distributed product, that may run on one machine / the local
LAN at a customer's premises.

NRS: .NET Framework and MSDE technologies (both of which are free and
distributable) could be used in conjunction to address this with lot of
superiority over the existing technologies.

2) There are open-source free software including databases, which
require no licensing fees.

NRS: Both .NET Frmework & MSDE are free of cost and are freely
distributable.
Suggest visting the following link which removes the mis-conceptions that
.NET framework
solution can't be packed into a CD-ROM for demonstrating purposes at the
client locations.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/addins/msde/genfaq.aspx

3) The costs of developing in Java is lower, both in terms of
costs of development software and the availablity of skilled manpower
working with legal products.

NRS: This statement is contrary to the many industry reports which mention
about
Java Developers being paid more! Suggest going through one of the latest
reports.
And I don't think any vendor is selling illegal products!

Average Salary by Skill Area 2003 Report - Native Currency
http://crm.ittoolbox.com/research/2003ITSalarySurvey.asp?i=23

Single vendor solution provide lot of productivity, maintenance and
integration benefits while providing option for the interoperability and
integration with other products and applications. Further they also reduce
the TCO.

Even Sun themselves have realized the importance of providing single vendor
solutions and Sun ONE is nothing but presenting collection of different
kind of tools and servers under a single umbrella (by Sun) which they
acquired in the recent times.


4) The availability of skilled manpower, on opensource software,
opens up new models for providing support on a national level.

NRS: Because open-source software's are ''free,'' the thinking seems to go,
it will reduce TCO. This reasoning is flawed, because open-source software
can require more manpower and attention to match the reliability,
availability, and scalability of high-end Unix and Windows 2000 or XP
servers. And there's the cost of high-availability add-ons, such as
clustering partitioning and ''journaled'' file systems, as well as
third-party support -- all of which jack up the overall cost and complexity
of open-source software.

License is free probably has little impact on the TCO of significant
projects, such as ERP and CRM implementations. This is because the license
is typically less than 2% or 3% of the TCO of such projects. - Meta Group

With regards to the availability of skilled resources almost all the reports
suggests that MS platform developers out number Java Developers. So, it
would be unfair to think that there is shortage of skilled manpower w.r.t MS
technologies.



5) Java is a more stable platfrom as compared to .Net, which is
fairly new and designed to mimic J2EE.

NRS: Even the most renowned fans of J2EE agree to the fact that J2EE is
getting increasingly complex and feel that the structure of the JEEP needs
some kind of overhauling. You could go though the comments that were posted
after the Java Pet Store Vs .NET Pet store implementation.
Most of them even agree to the fact that the deployment of the J2EE
application across various vendor solutions is not so easy.

Also suggest going through my comments in paragraphs 1 & 2 in the beginning
of the mail


6) With a price-point of around Rs.20,000, the product is
targeted at the mass market. The costs of entry is significantly
lower with Java, than with a .NET solution. At the very least,
customers would be required to invest in a .NET-compliant server,
resulting in investments in both hardware and OS. With Java, the
CDROM can ship with the necessary frameworks, for free, such as
Apache, Struts or JBoss, and installation can be made seamless.

NRS: Please refer to the answer provided in under question no 4

7) Java is becoming increasingly pervasive on mobile devices,
with most major manufacturers suppporting the standard. The wireless
offering you are proposing will be easier with a Java solution,
rather than having to force customers to purchase the relatively
fewer Microsoft-compliant handheld devices.

NRS: I am in agreement with this statement but however am confident that
MS would come up with a befitting answer to this. I feel that the latest
revamping of mobile initiative also a good thing in that direction

8) The development team is being formed from scratch. Existing
developers can easily move to the Java platform, at the application
development level

NRS: Any one who is in the IT for quite some time perhaps will not agree to
this statement
as the ease of learning of MS tools and technologies is far better when
compared with existing tools and technolgies. MS technolgies are always
known for their ease of use and faster learning.

Thanks

-Suresh

Graphics on C#

Nice article on Creating banner ad ASP.NET usercontrols – know your impressions and click-throughs!

“Why not use the built-in ASP.NET AdRotator?”, I hear someone ask. Well, can you monitor the impressions and click through ratios with AdRotator? Can you tell AdRotator to stop displaying a particular ad once a certain number of impressions has been reached? No? Exactly, and that’s why I’ve built two ASP.NET usercontrols to do just that.
A SQL Server database is used to retrieve the banner ad information and monitor impressions and click-through. SQL scripts and the sample project are provided in the code download.

http://www.wimdows.net/articles/article.aspx?aid=24

Suresh

Microsoft and .Net

Very nice post from Sudhakar 

VB vs. VB.NET: Here is a recent benchmark that we published: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/productinfo/benchmarks/. Bottom-line – “Visual Basic .NET Significantly outperforms Visual Basic 6.0”. Unfortunately it’s a nile benchmark and talks mostly about asp/asp.net – worse it ropes in Windows Server 2003/IIS6 which dilutes the VB vs. VB.NET scenario a little. Still worth a look.

 b.)     We have had to make some changes to the way IE works with Active X controls. This might break some of your code. I highly recommend taking a quick look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/ieupdate/. Here is a short synopsis on what’s in it:

 “This section describes changes to Internet Explorer's handling of ActiveX controls and Java applets. Developers who build ActiveX controls, Web developers who use ActiveX and Java Applets on their Web sites, and developers who host the Web Browser OC or MSHTML should consult this documentation to understand how the user experience is changing, and also how to modify their pages to manage the user experience for their content.”

 c.)     After 100 VB.NET samples, its now turn of some neat C# samples. http://msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp/downloads/samples/23samples/default.aspx. Some of them address interesting FAQs like “Read and Write Images to a SQL Server Database with C#”, “Implementing Drag and Drop in Windows Forms with C#” and “Creating a Masked Edit Control using .NET Framework Regular Expressions with C#”. Worth a look!

 e.)     Some commentary on Viruses on Linux vs. Windows: “Linux vs. Windows viruses: a rebuttal”, http://www.virusbtn.com/news/latest_news/granneman.xml

Viewing an XML file in Excel

You can work with any well-formed Extensible Markup Language (XML) file in Microsoft Excel. (This means any file that is structurally correct according to the XML standard.) Microsoft has also defined the XML Spreadsheet (XMLSS) format designed specifically for Excel worksheets. This means you can:

• Open any well-formed XML file.
• Create Web queries to well-formed XML data sources.
• Save an entire workbook in the XML Spreadsheet (XMLSS) format.

This article explains how an XML file is displayed when you open it in Excel

for more...

http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HA010346451033&CTT=6&Origin=EC010553071033

XSL vs XSLT

I found very good post about XSL and XSLT on BDOTNET(http://groups.msn.com/bdotnet). 

Here is the

    It would be gr8 if you could post questions on BDOTNET so that others could also benefit.

    Well as for your question.

    Assuming when I refer to XML Application, we all agree that it is a (data) language created using XML.

    XSL is an XML Application, A language to create style sheets the XML Way(in XML syntax).

    They, like CSS helps define or modify styles, but are much more programmable, powerful and extensible.

    1.    Primarily "applying style" can be thought of a way to add or modify the qualities (display or non display) of an existing element. Sort of transformation.
    2.    Also it requires to be able to apply to a particular element or a particular occurence of an element or attribute. Sort of selection.
    3.    And a way to format the style. Sort of formatting.

    Hence for the above three requirements XSL is split into 3 parts.

    1.    XSLT - XSL Transformation
    2.    XPath - for selecting precise nodes
    3.    XSL-FO - XSL Formatting Objects

    In relation.

    An XSL file contains an XSLTransform for some input elements identified by XPath and formatted optionally using XSL-FO.

    XSL-FO is more powerful than words. Normally for XML to XML or XML to HTML etc we use templates and spit out XML or HTML and dont use XSL-FO. XSL-FO is used for generating WORD Documents, RTF Documents, PDF, TeX, etc.

    So in general every XSL file contains XSLTransforms cum XPaths with optionally XSL-FO's. you dont need to have a file with .XSLT extension.

    Please visit these URLs for more info

    1.    Intro to XSL - http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/xsl_intro.asp
    2.    What is XSL-FO? http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/03/20/xsl-fo.html?page=1

Cheers ...

Suresh