Thoughts on WebMatrix (Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:13:32 GMT) 
The WebMatrix announcement last week triggered a range of reactions on Twitter. It also brought back some personal memories. A decade ago (wow), I started a little tool to simplify using and developing asp.net server controls as a side project, and it grew bigger and was eventually released using the name "WebMatrix". It was a fun project, and my first "serious" side project so to speak. There were a few interesting things we did there, both technical and non-technical. It is great seeing similar things happening in this generation of WebMatrix branded tooling . :-) Vertical and Scenario-Focused Tooling I personally think having a variety of tools is good, especially if they can focus on different verticals, and are optimized...(read more)

Config-free IHttpModule Registration (Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:29:57 GMT) 
The ASP.NET pipeline allows HTTP modules to plug in into the request processing lifecycle and do work at various stages. For example, output caching, authentication, authorization etc. are all implemented as HTTP modules. However one of the problems is that HTTP modules must be registered in configuration. This is a little painful for writing framework components where an HTTP module is essentially an implementation detail. You don't want every app developer using your framework to have to add in some configuration entries. What you want is the ability to programmatically add HTTP modules to the pipeline. This isn't available out-of-the-box today. I faced this problem in my previous post around RIA Services, Authentication and Roles...(read more)

RIA Services and Authentication - Part 2 (Using Roles) (Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:12:20 GMT) 
When I posted my RIA Services and Authentication post earlier in the week (which I highly recommend checking out first if you haven't), the first comments/tweets I saw indicated people also want to see roles working in the application. So I decided to add this bit of functionality, both in the Book Club application and the supporting functionality in the RIAEssentials framework, so you can use it easily in your own applications as well. From a scenario perspective, what I am going to do is require an Admin role to browse and add book club members. Adding and Using Roles The first step is to update the AuthenticationService implementation I showed earlier to add roles into the authentication process. It only requires quite literally a couple...(read more)

Does jQuery ship with SharePoint 2010? (and why you should be using an Ajax CDN) (Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:09:34 GMT) 
NOTE: This was cross posted from here . jQuery is one of the most popular javascript libraries used by ASP.NET developers.  In fact, jQuery ships with Visual Studio 2010.  It is in the “Scripts” folder of a new “ASP.NET Web Application” or “ASP.NET MVC 2 Web Application” project template. Does jQuery ship with SharePoint 2010?  Short answer: No.  I see this asked (publicly and internally) a few times a month.  Long answer: You don’t need it to.  Just use it from the Microsoft Ajax CDN .  Assuming you don’t have to build a solution on a closed network with no internet access, then one of the first things you should consider is to replace all the references in your code to local javascript files to CDN references...(read more)

RIA Services and Authentication (Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:51:26 GMT) 
Authentication is the third in a series of posts covering the key concepts of RIA Services using the Book Club application to digger deeper and go beyond the basics. Links to the first two posts on validation and authorization as well as an overview of the application/source code are at the end of this post. Authentication Overview Like authorization, RIA Services provides a higher level programming model, and out-of-the-box, but extensible solution. Authentication answers the question: "Do these credentials represent a valid user?" Credentials might be user name and password, or any other piece of data that can be used to verify that the user is who he/she says they are. Generally, a side-effect of authentication is to produce a representation...(read more)

RIA Services and Authorization (Wed, 16 Jun 2010 07:38:54 GMT) 
This post digs deeper into the Book Club application from the perspective of the authorization feature of RIA Services. You can check out more information about the application via its associated table of contents post. The post covers how the out-of-box authorization rules can be applied, how custom rules that can be implemented, how custom rules can use additional bits of information in their implementation, and how client-side UI can be customized to account for authorization. The sample application has been updated, so you might want to download the latest release of the code from the RIA Services Essentials project on CodePlex or browse the checkin history . Authorization and validation share a lot of common concepts and patterns, so the...(read more)

ToC for the Book Club RIA Services Application (Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:32:23 GMT) 
Earlier this week, I published the RIA Services Essentials project on CodePlex to share some sample code. The first sample included is an updated version of the Book Club application. This application has become sort of a reference application. It was written to demonstrate some aspects of writing a semi-real-worldish application (note that it is still very much a demo app), but more importantly, demonstrating how you can use RIA Services effectively by going beyond the basics. As such, it isn't meant to be a HelloWorld app, which I agree would be useful. This post is a sort of guide for what is in the sample. Here is a list of what the application demonstrates: Entity framework data model with one-to-many and many-to-many relationships...(read more)

RIA Services Samples Project on CodePlex (Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:38:12 GMT) 
Announcing a CodePlex project with RIA Services sample apps and extensions... [ Full post continued here... ] Read More......(read more)

JavaScript local alias pattern (Tue, 18 May 2010 00:48:00 GMT) 
Here’s a little pattern that is fairly common from JavaScript developers but that is not very well known from C# developers or people doing only occasional JavaScript development. In C#, you can use a “using” directive to create aliases of namespaces or bring them to the global scope: namespace Fluent.IO { using System; using System.Collections; using SystemIO = System.IO; In JavaScript, the only scoping construct there is is the function, but it can also be used as a local aliasing device, just like the above using directive: ( function ($, dv) { $( "#foo" ).doSomething(); var a = new dv( "#bar" ); })(jQuery, Sys.UI.DataView); This piece of code is making the jQuery object accessible using the $ alias throughout the code...(read more)

RIA Services - v1 Shipped! (Mon, 17 May 2010 17:01:27 GMT) 
"Those Who Ship, Win!" This used to be written on a giant poster in the hallways of building 42 (original home of the .net framework) ... should have taken a picture of it while it used to be around. (missed classic photo opportunity - anyone have a shot of it?) Today, we delivered one of the most important features, shipping a v1. Yes, WCF RIA Services v1 is done, and shipped! You can get the final build along with the final build of Silverlight 4 tools, right here on the RIA Services landing page, that also has links to blogs, tweets, docs, forums and all things RIA Services. It has been an exciting ride building this technology from the ground-up, seeing people use it live even with early preview builds, and providing tons of feedback...(read more)

Upcoming Script# Release and LIDNUG presentation (Tue, 04 May 2010 18:32:44 GMT) 
A quick heads up on a Script# presentation for the Linked.NET user group on LinkedIn, and some words (ummm... teasers) on the upcoming script# release... [ Full post continued here... ] Read More......(read more)

My Last Day at Microsoft (Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:51:40 GMT) 
Wow – I can’t believe it has already been 13 years at Microsoft.  I have had a great time here and learned so much from the smart and passionate people I work with as well as the incredible developer community around .NET.  But I have decided it is time for me to try something new – so my last day at Microsoft will be Friday, April 23rd .  While I am leaving Microsoft, I continue to have a positive view of the company.   No other company has the footprint that Microsoft does on the industry.   I am confident that the company will continue to have an impact in the years to come.   I will be looking forward to watching the next release of .NET from outside.  Of course, there is never a good time...(read more)

Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Ajax Endpoint (Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:13:00 GMT) 
Continuing in our series , I wanted to touch on how a RIA Services can be exposed  your service in JSON .  This is very handy for Ajax clients.   The great thing is that enabling the JSON endpoint is that it requires NO changes whatsoever to the DomainService.  All you need to do is enable it is to add the JSON endpoint in web.config 1: < system.serviceModel > 2: < domainServices > 3: < endpoints > 4: < add name = "JSON" 5: type = "Microsoft.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting.JsonEndpointFactory, Microsoft.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> 6: < add name = "OData" 7: type = "System.ServiceModel...(read more)

Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Exposing WCF (SOAP\WSDL) Services (Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:31:00 GMT) 
Continuing in our series , I wanted to touch on how a RIA Services can be exposed as a Soap\WSDL service. This is very useful if you want to enable the exact same business logic\data access logic is available to clients other than Silverlight. For example to a WinForms application or WPF or even a console application. SOAP is a particularly good model for interop with the Java\JEE world as well. First you need to add a reference to Microsoft.ServiceModel.DomainSerivves.Hosting.EndPoints assembly from the RIA Services toolkit. Then you need to edit the endpoints section of the domainserivces config in web.config file. Below I am showing the SOAP and OData endpoints enabled. < system.serviceModel > < domainServices > < endpoints...(read more)

iPhone SDK vs. Windows Phone 7 Series SDK Challenge, Part 2: MoveMe (Sat, 27 Mar 2010 01:42:00 GMT) 
In this series, I will be taking sample applications from the iPhone SDK and implementing them on Windows Phone 7 Series. My goal is to do as much of an “apples-to-apples” comparison as I can. This series will be written to not only compare and contrast how easy or difficult it is to complete tasks on either platform, how many lines of code, etc., but I’d also like it to be a way for iPhone developers to either get started on Windows Phone 7 Series development, or for developers in general to learn the platform. Here’s my methodology: Run the iPhone SDK app in the iPhone Simulator to get a feel for what it does and how it works, without looking at the implementation Implement the equivalent functionality on Windows Phone 7 Series using Silverlight...(read more)