Waiting all day long and finally it's released, the enterprise library. On the main page is a link, but the page cannot be found.
But you can grab it anyhow, right here.
With so many people in the blogging community talking about .Text and wether it's dead or not, all we can say is that Community Server is getting a good amount of attention, no matter if it's good or bad.
Anyway, I just read at Lamont Harrington's blog, that Rob Howard responded to a post of Lamont about CS Beta 3. He has put to words what partially was my feeling about CS, without even knowing. But the blogs, the forum and the gallery, aren't tight together into one product. It feels like three seperated products.
As Lamont says, when you look at SharePoint 2003, everything is tied together. People or projects have their own sub portal, and they can put a document online and discuss that with others, upload photos and more, all within their own little space. That's what CS is currently lacking.
But Rob Howard explains that version 1.0 isn't a feature release, but rather a stable release. In the future, further integration should be made available. Features like replying via email, viewing the forum via NNTP in Outlook Express (for example) should be in the next version. What I'm still missing here, is uploading images through a webservice. BlogJet for example, is able to upload files to an ftp server, but most of the time, I can't use ftp from within clients. So when CS supports this, and BlogJet or other tools support this, would be great!
Anway, a new difficulty in deciding to go for .Text .097 and further, or not. Because if we do go for .Text, we're getting seriously out of sync with CS. We would probably be able to create update scripts, but still.
So it's official, I'm going to the Dutch Developer Days 2005.
Seems I had the schedule interpreted wrong, but here's my current schedule for the event:
I was also thinking to go to TDD with TS for track 4, but I'd like to see Alex present this one! He'll discuss the new asynchronous support, improved databinding from proxies, control over proxy class generation and IXmlSerializable details. The TDD track won't probably go very deep into the subject, so I'll be reading Kent Beck's book and see how Alex does.
It's going to be a fun two days. Edwin Waegemakers is joining me those two days, as well as Ramon Smits and Marco Stolk. I hope to meet some people I've never met in person there as well, like other bloggers or visitors. Let me know if you're up for something.
So I just installed Community Server, Beta 3. I already have some minor problems, along with some comments, like links in de admin section not being consistent. Perhaps they need to have a graphical designer take a look at the admin section, because you almost get lost in there. This time, the links are in the middle of the screen, and when you click on one of them, the links suddenly appear at the top. These are small things, but they disturb me! ;-)
Anyhow, Scott noticed the questions raised about .Text, when, how and if we all could do something about it, as no progress is made on the latest version and Community Server won't be released for a while, as it seems. So he answered that .Text isn't dead, that CS is the next version of it, without a lot of bugs and with new features. He also said the source code will be released and that people will be able to contribute. People should also be able to only run the blog, or whatever types they want. I also noticed they had placed some pictures of the web setup procedure online.
I'm still wondering if we should upgrade to CS or stick to .Text and install it. I am seeing the new features, but some have already been placed online as mods, by several users. Other features aren't that huge. And my problem still is going to be the large codebase, containing all three products. We'll have to see how it's seperated, before we can decide if adding new features is going to be easy or not.When someone decides he's (or she) going to add features to CS:Blogs, but don't mind about the forum and gallery, they might create some serious bugs in those products, without knowing. Of course in the official release, everything will be tested very thoroughly. Right? :-)
I still don't know what to do. And here at BloggingAbout.NET we really need something to control the spam. So, still in doubt.
Currently we're using .Text 0.95 at BloggingAbout.NET. On some sites however, like weblogs.asp.net, they're using a newer version, which has some added features, like the comment moderation feature. Comments must first be approved before visitors can see them. We want these features as well!
I noticed Dave Burke was blogging about .Text 0.96 and how it's possible to download the sources. Somewhere around there I read that Thomas Freudenberg already upgraded his blog to 0.96 a year ago! Multiple people have several ideas on how to add more features to .Text, or already have done so.
If I can find the time tonight, I'll try and get the 0.96 code working at home. I also want to take a look at CS Beta 3, to see what features it has. But I have the same problem as Thomas has, I'm not looking for a full blown product which also includes a forum and a gallery. I just want my blog. And if Telligent Systems decides to release the code, it'll probably much harder to add features to it, as there's so much code. As said, I'll have a look at both.
First thing I want to implement, is something to fight the comment spamming. Chrissy LeMaire has already created some really great addons by updating stored procedures and triggers and creating a page which shows all rejected comments. I was thinking of using her input, add the page to the admin section and be able to reset some flag on banned comments, so they'll show up as real comments again.I think this is better then the moderation queue, as most comments should show up immediatly. The blogger should be able to flag comments as bad, and reset the flag on good comments.
A while ago, Patrick Bes blogged about ReSharper, and that it's such a wonderful tool. I had already tried it a few months before, while it was still in beta. For some reason I still had the idea it was beta, because I kept getting these spam messages from JetBrains about updates, but I never read these.
Ruurd however incisted I tried, so I finally picked it up. And I love it!Not because of the intellisense. As Ramon, I don't like it that much, but maybe I have to get used to it. I think it's slow, the font and box is too big and I don't like the fact that it removes items the more characters you type.
But I do like a lot of other features. For example, the fact that it informs you you're missing a using reference, or refactors the redudant ones. As Patrick says, it informes you even before you compile that some variables aren't used, etc, etc. But one of the coolest features? You won't believe this!
You know when you copy-n-paste some code from where-ever, and don't like the layout of it? Gotta remove a few tabs, add some, etc, etc. But because of the outlining, when your cursor is at the end of a line, and you press the delete button, the line kind of dissapears. That's because in front of the next line, there were like 8 tabs, and the entire line goes offscreen! Not with ReSharper! No kidding folks! It immediatly removes those tabs and places all code one space behind your cursor! Now tell me, is this a tool to love or not?! *grin*
Last year a technology preview of the Microsoft Tools for Domain-Specific Languages was released. A few days ago, a set of three documents with a walkthrough was added to this, to help you work with and understand the tools.
More information can be found on the special Team System DSL Tools website, where an rss feed can also be found.
”Barring any major catastrophes, it is official. On January 28th Enterprise Library will be up and available on MSDN. Spread the word… download the code, give us feedback, join the GotDotNet workspace. Tell your mom, it could change her life”
Matt Joe en Dennis Mulder (Avanade) will be presenting the Enterprise Library on the Dutch Developer Days.
I'm becoming pretty interested in DDD (Domain Driven Design) and TDD (Test Driven Development). Via Steve Eichert I found a link to a post on Keith Ray's blog, with a short explanation about TDD, and why TDD is faster then writing unit tests after you're done coding your functionality.
He describes in short how TDD works, and it kind of reminds me of the old asp days. Because it was so difficult to test the functionality in our layers in asp, we used to write windows forms code on top of our layers, before writing the asp code. It contained very basic what the web gui was supposed to do, so we could easily test our layers and our sql.
But in TDD we wouldn't write the windows gui, but instead write the unit tests of what we'd expect the gui would require, before ever touching our layers behind it. After writing the tests, you'd write the layers beneath the gui and tests and every little circle would eventually turn green. When I look at it that way, it's (for me) much easier to understand and could really work faster then anything else. Of course I'm not touching everything that is TDD, not even close, but it's a start.
It's just too bad that at most project, both client, project leader and developers don't see the huge benefits of unit tests. I'm currently at a medium size project, 3 to 4 developers. But it's already running for over a year and it's unbelievable how many bugs would've turned up with unit tests, that we now only discover weeks after we added new functionality that broke code that was already there for ages!
We're doing a little promotion of our weblogs within our company. That might result in visitors that have never heard of weblogs, and probably even more haven't heard about RSS and its readers. So I did a little article on it, with some popular feed readers and where to get the RSS from our blogs.
You can find the article here.
I'm looking at the sessions that are being held at the Dutch Microsoft DevDays in Den Haag. Noticable is that development processes get extra attention this year. I think this is very good, because a lot of people don't use these and are even unaware of their existence. Some might already use some form of them, but not know they do.
This year there are two preconference tracks. One is about Team System, which I'm very interested about. The other is on SQL-Server 2005, ofcourse specially for developers.
One architecture track is about Software Factories, maybe the next hype. Avanade is doing this presentation and they hopefully bring some DSL into the presentation. Avanade is also presenting the new Enterprise Library which should be released this month. Microsoft is having a presentation about WhiteHorse. Most of the time, presentations won't dive very deep into the subject, so I think the last two presentation are only interesting if you're new to app blocks or whitehorse.
On the technology tracks, ASP.NET 2.0 is explained, an Indigo update is presented by Microsoft and VC++ 2005 is presented by Info Support. Again, the first two presentations won't probably dive deep into the subject and if you're interested in those subjects, you should already have seen enough of those. VC++ is probably only interesting if you're into C++. Also Webservices in 2.0 is presented by Alex Thissen of Twice, but no description was available yet.
In the tools track, InfoPath is explained, but in the server tracks, there's a BizTalk & InfoPath presentation also, where a full blown demo is presented. So you'd probably have to figure out which suits you best. Another interesting presentation is the Test Driven Development one by Info Support.Also in the server track, a SQL-Server 2005 BI & Reporting Services is presented, the service broker of SQL2005 where asynchronity in T-SQL is shown, and SQL2005 and CLR Deployment is explained through Team System and best practices.
For some tracks no description is available yet.On this page a full overview is available.
My choice would probably be:
But of course I might not be going, that entirely depends on our management, so Mark... :-)
Well, seems telligent systems themselves are already blogging on Community Server :: Blogs.When can we download, install and join?!
UPDATE!People (on other websites) have implemented this search feature, without adding the appropriate (uneditted) Google logo on their website, as described mandatory in this, this and this document. It seems that for some, all indexed pages on Google have been removed because of this!What other websites decide, is up to them. Here on BloggingAbout.NET we've decided it's no longer allowed to add Google search, so there's no doubt we'll never run into 'troubles'.
David Cumps has created javascript code to add search to his weblog. It's a simple but very effective solution, and I always wanted search on my blog. So until the next version of .Text is released (or CommunityServer :: Blogs) I have 'implemented' David's search.
As David's code is for weblogs.asp.net I changed the bit for our own blogs. If bloggers here also want to use it, follow these steps:
<h3>Searchh3> <input class="BlogSearch" type="text" name="searchBox" id="blogSearchText" value="" onkeypress="return blogSearch(event, this);"> <input type="button" value="Search" onclick="return blogSearch2('blogSearchText');" class="BlogSearchButton"> <script type="text/javascript"> function blogSearch(event, oInput) { var keyCode = (event) ? event.keyCode : keyStroke.which; if (keyCode == 13) { top.location = 'http://www.google.com/search?q=' + escape(oInput.value) + '+inurl%3Adennis+site%3Awww.bloggingabout.net'; return false; } return true; } function blogSearch2(oInputId) { var oInput = document.getElementById(oInputId); top.location = 'http://www.google.com/search?q=' + escape(oInput.value) + '+inurl%3Adennis+site%3Awww.bloggingabout.net'; return false; } script>
All credits of course go to David and apperently Geoff.
Richard Grimes from IDesign has posted a free workshop, kind of a handson lab, that explains how .NET loads it's assemblies.
The workshop teaches you:
Aaargh. After installing Visual Studio 2005, the december release, my first thought was to try out Team System. Of course I need a server installation for that, so I was looking to install it. Read the manual.chm and found out it needs 1GB ram. Not only that, it also needs Windows 2003 Server with AD to work properly. And ofcourse if you really want to get going, MS Project, SharePoint, the works.
Too bad my Pentium 2 with 512MB memory can't handle those requirements. Maybe at work we can arrange something over an internet connection.
I would love to test Team System, also over internet. See if source control works well, create unit tests and do performance tests. But also everything from start to end of a project. Analysis, design, development, testing, etc. All with bug tracking, etc, etc.
For now, I guess all I can do is watch those presentations...