Steve Sharrock

Mono Project Presentation

Last week's BayNet User Group's presentation of the Mono Project by Christian Gross revealed some unexpected information--at least for me. First, let me say that the presentation was great, and the scope of a project like this is huge. Even running a console "Hello World" application on both a Windows platform and on Linux is impressive.

What I didn't realize is that the goal of the project isn't necessarily 100% compatibility. As I understand, the primary goal is to provide a better development environment for Linux; specifically, C# and the underlying framework. While a great deal of the code can be run from IL on either platform, it appears unlikely that complex WinForm applications developed for Windows will run on the Linux platform. It was pointed out that most everything developed for Linux would run on Windows, and that ASP.NET (for the most part) was compatible on both platforms.

My hope is that at some point ISPs will be able to offer ASP.NET hosting on inexpensive Linux servers using Apache--and that as ASP.NET developers we won't have to worry about the underlying platform.

Managed C++ / A Trip Down Memory Lane

I'm working with a client that has a large suite of desktop applications that we're converting to use web application front ends. The existing code is all written in C++/MFC, and this is the current language of choice for the client. Before I came onto the project he had already developed several interface bridges from the managed Framework into the unmanaged legacy business logic using Managed C++. My job has been writing C# XML Web Services to access his Managed (C++) business logic, and then the ASP.NET presentation layer that accesses the XML Web Services.

The client wants to continue with Managed C++, but is replacing more and more of the unmanaged business logic with managed code and would like to start using ADO.NET with ODBC to directly access the backend database. To this end, I wrote some sample code in Managed C++ that provided  basic CRUD functionality to a few of the existing tables.

After writing in C# for over two years now, going back to C++ was a real trip down memory lane. In addition to learning the managed extensions (which aren't too difficult), some of the old pointer reference issues, with which I had become so familiar with in the past, seemed so foreign to me these days. I never thought that typing the asterisk so much would drudge up so many fond old memories.

But after reliving some of these programming joys of the past, I'm so happy to have left all those pointers where they belong--in the past. I sure do love C#.

Hmmm... I wonder if I should add Managed C++ to my resume?

More San Francisco Events

 Last night included dinner with ASPAlliance owner Steven Smith. We solved most of the world problems, and no doubt all of the software development issues that could ever arise.

We did have an interesting discussion about the DataAdapter's "Fill" method, which has a few (seemingly) overlooked overloads. Specifically, the ability to specify a starting row number and row count. It looks like a very simple way of handling custom paging in a DataGrid. Preliminary tests certainly proves this out.

The real issue, of course, is how is this functionality implemented. If the entire result set is dragged across from the server anyway, then the advantages of the clearer code are probably not worth it--at least for large result sets. But, even if it works like a DataReader (fire hose) that reads past the unused rows before the start, I suppose there is some value. And, if it's implemented all perfectly using server-side cursors, then we've really stumbled onto something. More testing is in order.

Tonight in Mountain View at the Microsoft Campus, the BayNet User Group has a presentation on the Mono project (.NET on Linux) featuring Christian Gross. I'm looking forward to this presentation--it should be very interesting.

See: http://dotnetweblogs.com/ssmith/posts/4361.aspx

ASP.NET FTP Deployment Tool

I have about 40 beta copies downloaded, but I'm sure they're not all being used yet. With the exception of the earlier "splash" screen problem, there have not yet been any negative responses, and a few "glowing" reports. I'm figuring about two more weeks of beta testing, and then some decisions need to be made about how (and if) to market.

You can beta download at:

http://www.dotnetftp.com

If you can take the time to do a test, please send me your comments.

Alan Shalloway

What a great presentation by Alan Shalloway last night in San Francisco. He's really able to merge the concepts of agile software development with design patterns and present it all in a very understable way. I'll be adding NUnit to my normal development cycle very soon.

An added, and unexpected treat were the other members of Alan's group. Specifically, Dan Rawsthorne who spoke at the end about process. The presentation he made was worthy of the whole two hours by itself.  See: NetObjectives.com

ASP.NET FTP Deployment Tool

I've now got about 30 beta testers. Received my first negatory--application exception during the "splash" screen. This wasn't a very good start--at least for this tester. I sure hope these bugs aren't too prevalent!

Alan Shalloway in San Francisco

Our local (www.baynetug.org) user group has a pretty good show tonight with Alan Shalloway of Design Pattern's Explained fame.

In addition, I'm looking forward to meeting Mr. ASPAlliance: Steven Smith--who will be in attendance.

Since this is my first BLOG here, I'll start some notes on my current projects...

1. Working hard to complete the first release of the ASP.NET FTP Deployment Tool. This is a developer tool that will easily deploy ASP.NET Visual Studio projects from you workstation's localserver to a remote server using FTP--rather than VS's FrontPage extensions or file share copy. A beta download is currently available at:

www.dotnetftp.com

2. Working with my current client on the east coast creating a bunch of web application front-ends to existing desktop applications. This has been a great project allowing me to create several XML Web Services and ASP.NET web applications. I look forward to a long relationship with the great client.