Rene Schrieken

Bye Bye Application Blocks and Shadowfax

So I'm half way Tech Ed and I'm quitte statisfied. This morning started with a session from Wojtek Kozaczynski about how to realize a Service Oriented Architecture. Pat Helland was assisting Wojtek as he talked us throug 9 points you need to realize when you start building SO software. Some things were obvious (leave the legacy where it is, just wrap it) but some others were eye openers to me:

Performance (just accept that WebService is slower than Remoting (Is your businesslogic that simple that the action taking the most time is the communication?),

Store the messages you receive and the results of the mesage (because a message can come in multiple times)

Cache ( to beef up some loss of performance )

Aggregation (use some service to just aggregate data from one or more services,)

Based on my day-to-day activities in our Software Development Line I attend the session from Rafal Lukawiecki on the Micorosft Solution Framework. It gives guidance on how to do software development and has a lot of simalarities with RUP (from Rational). I feel that Rational has better support for here RUP approach with their tools but Visual Studio Team System is going to be a major threat to that position (although I don't thin Visual Studio 2005 will hit a RC before Q2 of 2005). I think we will have to review all our processes for MS based projects...

The session on new goodies in the CLR 2.0 was not that spectactular. Generics is great, some performance goodies. Funny to see that MS is back in the Ex ing their classes and API's. Also in .Net we are going to see the same Class in v1.0/1.1 and in v2.0 (with Ex). Interface versioning is still very complex. The only thing I hope we can stay away for ExEx-ed classes... ;)

Wojtek did also a session on Patterns and Practises Application Blocks. Poor Wojtek is a great thinker but not a great programmer (or he is not using Visual Studio on a day-to-day basis) but he managed very well. He talked about all Application Blocks and what the idea was behind them and what they can do for you at this moment. He admotted that there are some flaws in the blocks. They don't operate always well together, they are not designed/programmed/documented with the same principles in mind, complexity and so on. He appoligized for that a few times (we kept the tomatoes in our pockets ;-)). Amazingly this will be the last version of the application blocks.

The new kid to look out for is Application Block Library. (EnterpriseBlock). The major blocks (not the UI blocks) are being converted to a new Application Block Library that is go developed with a partner. It will ship in decmber. It will bring the app blocks to more stable level but I don't think you shouild heavily invest in them right now.

Then there is Shadowfax. It is gone! Shadowfax will be broken up in smaller pieces and become blocks in the new Application Block Library. So MS is stepping out of her own implementation of the reference architecture and is just putting the lessons learned into application blocks. I wonder, is that the reason that Fabriq is so prominent on this TechEd?

Anyway, learned a lot, drink a lot, eat a lot and now up to the final session for today.

Don Box

Ok, I've attended two sessions with Don Box (http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/dbox) and I must warn you guys(girls). Don is doing Questions upfront NOT on the end of the session. The first session (on hosting, app domains etc) (CTS405) this did not work very well as no one asked any questions. So Don simply walked us through the powerpoints and explained and showed usefull things about AppDomains and Hosting platforms.

Lessons Learned:

Use IIS/ ASP.NET as a host

Stay away or move away from .Net remoting and the TcpChannel and BinaryFormatter

CTS200 should address Service Orientation and the .Net developer. Here the Question trick worked very well and Don didn't touched his powerpoint sheets but answered great questions from the audience. He will answer all the questions within 48 hours in his blogs but there are a few highlights I will share here with you (i hope I don't mis quote)

.Net Remoting is reenginered DCOM in managed code. It is wonderfull but it has not a lot of usage and is onmly advisable in small projects. Performance is not as good as it should be and security is (out-of-the-box) missing. Major issue is that .Net Remoting is not a good way of implementing a SO based architecture because: for .net Remoting to work you need the .dll on both sides of the wire. And this means that it is not really messagebased.

Ok for now, going to take a snack and then a ride home.

TechEd four o'clock break

Here at TechEd it is time for the four o'clock break.

I will try to summarize the key note:

Longhorn is definitively to 2006 but luckily Yukon (SQLserver 2005) and Whidby (Visual Studio 2005) will arrive in time.  It is nice to see that Microsoft is working very very hard to try to overcome the mistake they made when Bill Gates forgot to buy Rational. (I know now why they didn't, there are big holes in Rational Tools integration and Rational does have a big *nix developer crowd). Team services should compete with XDE from Rational and so far it looks like thjey have done a pretty good job (although I hope there is an option to choose for UML notation instead  of those funky MS look). Still have to find out if Source Control has changed....

The home developer could be happy with the Express version of Visual Studio (or maybe for our customers who don't want to buy licenses for the whole product).

Pat Halland (GNLARC) did an intro on WebServices based on his ' metropolis' paradigm. I think it made a lot clear and gives me some guidance on how to tell managers and our customers how they should look to the concept of SOA. I didn't knew Pat was a great singer but go see the video to judge his perfromance (and that of Don Box). On wednesday the video will be online at http://www.pathelland.com

Last session (ARC301) was about Business Alignment and SOA. A grest conceptual overview with two techniques (module maps and business event decomposition) to make it easier for IT architects and Business Analystist to make proper (business driven ? (wow!)) descission about what functionalitiy to bring to SOA (and what not). I'm eager to try this at home.

Ok, so far from TechEd

Day two of TechEd

Ok, I' ve managed to arrive in Amsterdam before 08:00 so I've plenty of time to blog now. The first coffee was great. Already I'm joined by Ilske, Carlo, Wim and Pascal.

I want to reflect on the pre- conference session of Tech-Ed 2004 of David LeBlanc on Writing secure code:

I really should read the book to make sure I understand everything David told me during his session. I do understand the need for threat modelling  (although I don't support him in the way they model (DFD's yeaaagghh)  (Why don't they use some UML model) but the problem is that is not quite scientific. When you ask how he really determins the threats, how you review for security it comes to human knowledge and hard labour. Not that it is a problem but it is an indication that myself, our developers, our testers, our analists and our managers need to invest to become a 'Thrustworthy'  software deliverer.

I don't think many companies are eager to invest in something that is as fuzzy as  'Writing Secure Code'.

Primary Questions:

- Am I writing non-secure code now: (yes)

- Am I going to change my attitude to Thrustworthy computing: (I need to)

- Am I going to convince my colegaues (YES)

- Am I going to convince my management (I hope so)

Lot to think of

I'm posting from TechEd

It worked out well. I'm on TechEd right now!

Unfortenately my wifi card is not working so I'm stuck with Dell pc's in the communications hall.

Currently I'm attending Writing Secure Code. I've been re-educated in DFD's again (that is Data Flow Diagrams) and our speaker states that you should always model your apps with that ancient modeling technic. I do not hope DFD's are becoming THE major design standard for microsoft and microsoft whitehorse because that will complicate OO/CBD development a little bit.

Saw some nice stuff on C++ with the SafeInt class. I never realized all problems with that (probally caused a zillion bugs in a project I tried to manage two year ago).

.Net security is somewhat dark magic and it didn't get any clearer but that has to change from next monday whem I'm back on the project. I think I'll have to change the complete security design ;-)

Session starting again.. have to leave.

TechEd schedule

I don't know how I did it but I managed to schedule my teched sessions. After my first initial selection I ended up with 4 double sessions on Tuesday and thursday.

Last friday we went to Harry Potter's prisoner of Azkaban. Hermoine demonstrates time travelling so she can attend ALL classes. I hope I run into the same functionality some day.

Unfortenately I'm going to miss Ingo Rammer on monday evening (it's quitte impossible to travel back in time from Amsterdam to Purmerend by 30 minutes) as I'm attending the tech-ed pre conference.

I reshuffeld and dopped some session and here is what I come up with:

Mon:

Guidance about Patterns and Practices

Tue:

• Keynote;
• Metropolis Envisioning the Service-Oriented Enterprise;
• Service-Oriented Business Architecture: A Conceptual Model
• Choosing a Hosting Model - Dealing with Threads, AppDomains and Processes
• Service-Orientation and the Windows/.NET Developer

Wed:

• Realizing Services-Oriented Architecture (but attend the session with Gerke Geurts (CHT047)!)
• New Developments in Microsoft Solutions Framework
• Visual Studio 2005 Team System - Part 1
• Building Applications with the Patterns & Practices Application Blocks Tools for Architecture: Designing for Deployment
• Bridging the Gap Between IT and Application Developers
• Dutch Party

Thu:

• Prescriptive Guidance for Building with Web Services, WSE, .NET Remoting, System.EnterpriseServices and MSMQ
• Metropolis: Using Interchangeabiliy Patterns in the Enterprise
  Threading Pleasures and Pitfalls
• Enterprise Information Integration and Entity Aggregation in Service-Oriented Architecture (I hope Maarten has adapted his presentation skills)
• Best Practices for Dealing With State at Multiple Layers Within Your .NET Applications Microsoft
• Tech Ed 2004 Europe Party

Fri:

• .NET Architecture Clinic
• Understanding the Grey Area Between Service and Object-Oriented Design
• The Nerd, The Suit and The Fortune Teller
• .NET Compact Framework Performance and Best Practices
• Building Extensible Applications using Attributes, Reflection and Code Generation

Asp.net callbacks

A promissing future article from Nikhil Kothari about CallBacks in ASP.NET 2.0. Powerful but handle with care is my opinion now

[UPDATE: Tnx Pascal]

http://www.nikhilk.net/Entry.aspx?id=35

I'll be at the TechEd 2004 in Amsterdam