Tom Richards .NET Weblog

Learning process, take N

I started a project a while back as part of my .NET learning process.  It is based on a distributed app that I did a while back using CORBA.  I planned to proceed as if is a "real" project but haven't really accomplished as much as I hoped.   I have webservices working with soap headers for authentication,  database stuff for also for Auth. and some client stuff.  I am currently proceeding along the curve to UDDI.  Slow since I let my day job get in the way.

Matt Griffith has posted regarding his Satyr project that I like a lot. http://mattgriffith.net/permalink.aspx/382cf4e9-127e-4785-a235-5adcd9bb6b5d

Using his blog this way is what I need to do.  Right now I am just playing around with some general ideas on what I want to accompish.  This blog is a better way to proceed.

We'll see...

Build and Deployment - take 2

We are currently involved in going "live" with our first beta.  This is a mid-sized .NET application using all the .NET pieces - winforms, webforms, webservices, ...

Of course, while we are trying to get a CD to send to our data center we are still finding bugs and patching.  The configuration managment process is very interesting to me.

How to patch by rebuilding only what's necessary and copying the dlls where they need to go is a manual process right now - and mistake prone.   This process will be automated. 

I have a working build process that uses an xml config file containing a list of projects, in no particular order.  The process gets those projects from VSS and builds them in build order.  I use makefiles and nmake.exe to compile.

Nant http://nant.sourceforge.net would have been a better solution, perhaps, but I'm not going to change now.

Other solutions might be:

Build It: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/tdlg_app.asp

or Build: http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/UserSamples/Details.aspx?SampleGuid=2cb20e79-d706-4706-9ea0-26188257ee7d

Currently the build process is very stable and since I'm not that interested in "improving" it the process will left alone.  The initial deploy/installation process is also stable.

The patch process is another story...

FxCopy and Partially Constructed Objects

I mentioned last time the thread about partially constructed object.  I tried running FxCop 1.2.1 on my little test project. Gives me:

Virtual methods defined on the class should not be called from constructors. If a derived class has overridden the method, the derived class version will be called (before the derived class constructor is called).

For me this is pretty cool.  I haven't been using FxCopy much but I plan to use it a lot more.  In my C++ lint was my friend and this is part of what I need to keep me from getting into too much trouble.

C# Inheritance lesson

Today there was a pretty active thread on the Advanced DotNet mailing list entitled: "Partially constructed objects in C#"

http://discuss.develop.com/archives/wa.exe?A1=ind0306c&L=advanced-dotnet

I found had noticed this just the other day when "playing" with inheritance and was surprised coming from a C++ background.  I had to try it out in C# and C++ just to make sure.

I created a BaseClass in C# and C++ with a constructor and a single virtual method f1();

The BaseClass CTOR prints an I am here message and then calls f1()

A second class is derived from BaseClass and overrides f1()

In C# the output is:

BaseClass.CTOR
DerivedClass.f1
DerivedClass.CTOR

and in C++ I get:

BaseClass.CTOR
BaseClass.f1
DerivedClass.CTOR

I suppose this shouldn't have been surprising if I had RTFB but ...

The thread is interesting.  C# and Java have the same behavior.  There was argument as to which is a better way, the C++ or the C#.  It really doesn't matter because each language is  the way it is.  But I hadn't really thought about calling virtual methods from the construct as being unsafe.

Learn every day.  My motto.

Learning process

I have written a lot of C# over the last two years but have felt that I need to go to the next level of .NET.  For me the learning curve is really a stair case with differing sizes of steps.  A while back I started a learning project - a distributed data acquistion system based on a Corba project that I did a while ago.

I have managed to get into security (encryption at least) and SOAP beyond the VS.NET users level.  I can log into my project, be validated by a database and receive an encrypted ticket as a soap header.  Then use log into other services using this ticket.

Works ok.  Doesn't sound like much compared to most bloggers but it's a start. The next step is to define the Corba equivalent of name service - UDDI?

Going live ...

I haven't posted in a while due to work.  We have been getting ready for our first beta next month.  We just delivered a CD to our data center.  My contribution has mostly been in the build process (described previously) and deployment tools.  Also, kind of the go between between different departments,dev, is, qa to get this ready.

This is a fairly large .NET project (>250 assemblies) consisting of WinForms, WebForms, WebServices and some COM.  We have been very lucky to have one of the MS Regional Directors consulting.  In addition to getting ready for this we switched to .NET 1.1 and Win2003 at the last minute.  Oh well..