Rajesh Pillai

jQuery 1.4 Released

Rajesh Pillai — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:26:42 GMT

jQuery 1.4 released. You can find more info at http://api.jquery.com/category/version/1.4/

Also celebrate jQuery 1.4 release with 14 days of jquery at jquery14.com/pre-release-1

Learn about 15 new features of jQuery you must know net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/jquery-1-4-released-the-15-new-features-you-must-know/

Enjoy jQuerying.....

WCF 2 - Building Blocks

Rajesh Pillai — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:44:13 GMT

Building Blocks of Service

Service is a

Collection of operations that are exposed to the clients.
Service contract defines what operations are available and how clients use them.
Data contract describes data that the client and service can exchange.

Service Contracts

Describe the operations supported by a service, the message exhange pattern used and format of each
message.
ServiceContract attribute marks an interface as a service contract.
OperationContract attribute exposes methods of the interface.

Code snippet

[ServiceContract]
public interface IHelloService 
{
     [OperationContract]
     string SayHello (string yourName);
}

Data Contracts

A data contracts

Describes how CLR types are mapped to XSD schema definitions.
Enable complex types to be serialized and deserialized so it can be passed across.
DataContract attribute identiifes each class that can be serialized.
DataMember attribute identifies members that needs to be exposed to the clients.

Code snippet

Here's an example of a data contract for a account class.

[DataContract]

public class Account

{

    [DataMember]

    public sting AccountNo { get; set; }
    [DataMember]

    public sting AccountType { get; set; }

}

The DataContract is applied at the class level and the DataMember is applied at the individual member level.

Endpoints

The client communicates with service via endpoints.

Host application makes the service available by providing one or more endpoints to the clients.
Endpoint consist of
- Address of service (Where?)
- Binding (How?)
- Contract (What?)
Client and Service use the same endpoint.

Address-Binding-Contract are the ABC's of service.

Bindings

Specify how a service endpoint communicates with client endpoints.
Consist of binding elements describing some essential aspect of communication like
- Transport (HTTP, TCP, etc)
- Protocol (security, reliability, transctions, sessions etc)
- Messge encoding (text, binary etc)
Can be declared programatically or declaratively in the config file.

Out of box Bindings

BasicHttpBinding
Compatible with ASMX Web Services.
WSHttpBinding
- Conforms to WS* specifications for reliability, security and transactions.
- Default
WS2007HttpBinding
- Conforms to OASIS specifications for reliability, security and transactions.
WSDualHttpBinding
- Supports WS-* + two-way communication
WSFederationBinding
- Supports the WS-Federation specification for sharing identities across multiple systems.
WS2007FederationBinding
- Supports federated security.
NetTcpBinding
- Communicates across processes and machines.
NetNamedPipeBinding
- Communicates on same machine
NetPeerBinding
- Peer to peer communications over TCP
NetMsmqBinding
- Uses MSMQ to transmit messages
MsmqIntegrationBinding
- Service can send or receive messages from a MSMQ queue.

The most frequently used binding is the BasicHttpBinding, the WSHttpBinding and the NetTcpBinding.

That's it for now!!!

WCF 1 - Introduction

Rajesh Pillai — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:45:16 GMT

What is WCF?

Windows Communication Foundation aka WCF is a Microsoft platform for SOA
(Service Oriented Architecture). The following are some of the important aspects that WCF allows us to achieve.

Its used for building distributed and interoperatble applications.
Unifies ASMX, .NET Remoting, Enterprise Services, MSMQ etc.
A single programming model for all distributed computing technology.
Configuration driven protocol choices, messaging format, reliable transactions etc.
Built for service-oriented system design
Loosely coupled. Not bound to a particular protocol, encoding format or hosting environmnet.

Its built on top of .NET and is available with .net framework 3.0 and 3.5. The overall WCF structure revolves around the following three core contracts.

Service Contract Defines which operations on the service can be invoked by the client.
Data Contract Defines the structure of data included in the payloads of the messages flowing in
and out of the service.
Message Contract Enables the developer to control the headers that appear in the messages and how
the messages are structured.

Real World Consideration

To design real world service contracts, we have leave our object oriented thinking behind. We have to think in
terms of messages. Messages are flowing in and out of the system. For instance, you might have a
SignatureScanningService that would recieve a SignatureDocuments in a message payload, which would in turn
trigger the processing of signature. This is typically used in banks wherein the clients signature needs to
be captured and processed. You can also consider the example of LoanProcessingApplication. The processing
may be a long running task, in that case some kind of acknowledgement should be return frrm the service to the
client. We have to move towards more document centric thinking.

WCF and Web Services Standards

The WCF contrcts directly maps to the following web services in the following way.

Service contracts map to WSDL (Web Service Description Language)
Data contracts map to XSD (xTensibile Schema Definition)
Message contracts map to SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) [The abbreviation is no longer important
as SOAP is more that a simple object access).

SOA (Service Oriented Architecture)

The following points briefly highlights the essence of SOA.

A service is a program that performs some task and the client can interact with the service using well-defined
contracts.
A service-oriented applciation consists of loosely coupled services that communicates through messages
and contracts. They directly don't instantiate the service but interacts through messages.

Principles

Boundaries are explicit
- Services communicate by sending messages across their boundary.
- All communication occur through messages.
Services are autonomous
- Services are build, managed and version independently.
- Services can be changed without affecting clients as long as clients can continue sending and receiving
the same messages.
Services share contracts and schema
- Contracts describe the messages services can send and receive.
- Schemas define how the client and service construct the messages they exchange.
Compatibility is policy based
- Services can define the policiies under which the clients can communicate with them.

In the next post we will quickly have a look at the building blocks of WCF and continue our discussion on
contracts, services, data and messages...

Cheers till then !!

WSS 1 : Introduction

Rajesh Pillai — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:48:28 GMT

Introduction

Welcome to this series of blog post that deals with Windows Sharepoint Services aka WSS. In this first part we will
review the basics of a content management system, the types of content management system and the fitment of
WSS in this space. We will delve into the technical details of WSS in the subsequent posts. The content that follows
provide a birds eye view into the basics of a CMS system.

Overview

Basically a CMS is a system for organizing and facilitating collaborative creation of documents and other type of contents.
Basically it can be broadly classified as follows (though this is not a strict classification)

Web CMS

A web CMS is a system for creating and managing HTML content. It facilitates content creation, content control,
editing and essential administrative functionalities.

Enterprise CMS

An Enterprise CMS is used to manage an enterprise content i.e. content that relates to organization and its
processes

Records Management

RMS (Records Management System) refers to content that is mostly history kind of data. Data which needs to
stored for longer period as per specific policies. These data is not normalyy used.

Document Management

Document Management specifically relates to management, creation, controlling of various kinds of documents
including workflows that is attached to the specific document.

The above is the basic categorization. There are more specific catgegories, but thats not that important for our discussion.

What is WSS?

Windows Sharepoint Services is a set of services which provide basic content management functionalities. Specifically
it includes document management, simple workflow, list management, blogs, wikis etc.

Besides since WSS is developed on top of .net framework 2.0, we have all the extensibilty that the framework provides.
More commonly we will use webpart to customize the required functionlities and provide addition functionlities and
services.

WSS allows teams to create web sites for information sharing and document collaboration. WSS is a component of
Windows Server 2003. WSS also serves as a platform for application development.

The second post will deal with the architecture of WSS which provides a base framework for application development
as well.

VS Theme generator

Rajesh Pillai — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:25:15 GMT

I don't usually prefer posting links to other blogs unless I find it absolutely useful. I was always wondering how to genreate themes with different color combinations for my visual studio. Luckily there is the cute theme generator tool at

http://www.frickinsweet.com/tools/Theme.mvc.aspx

Just select the color combination and click on "Create" and follow the instruction.

Hope you find this useful.

jQuery Limit text entry

Rajesh Pillai — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:10:31 GMT

Lets quickly have a look at how you can limit the entry to textbox and display the character input left to be keyed in.

First things first, the script.

<script type="text/javascript">
    $(function() {
        var limit = 250;
        $('#dvLimit').text('250 characters left');
        $('textarea[id$=txtDemoLimit]').keyup(function() {
            var len = $(this).val().length;
            if (len > limit) {
                this.value = this.value.substring(0, limit);
            }
            $("#dvLimit").text(limit - len + " characters left");
        });
    });
</script>

The $() function does the following things on startup.

1. Set a variable to a limit of 250 characters.

2. Assign a default value to the "div" element with id "dvLimit"

3. Find the control that contains the id "txtDemoLimit" and hook up the keyup event.

4. In the keyup event get the length of the current text.

5. If len is greater than the limit set, set the text value as a substring within the specified limit.

6. Update the div with the no. of characters left to be keyed in.

The HTML is shown below.

<div id="dvLimit"></div>
<div>
    <asp:TextBox ID="txtDemoLimit" TextMode="MultiLine" Columns = "40" Rows = "10" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
</div>

The following is the application in action.

Modify this as per your requiement and enjoy jQuerying !!!

<a href="http://www.codeproject.com/script/Articles/BlogFeedList.aspx?amid=48141" style="display:none" rel="tag">CodeProject</a>

Summary of MVP in Action - Unit Testing

Rajesh Pillai — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:01:08 GMT

MVP in Action - Unit Test

Read the post here..geekswithblogs.net/rajeshpillai/archive/2009/11/30/mvp2.aspx

Synopsis

This is in continuation to the article geekswithblogs.net/rajeshpillai/archive/2009/11/29/mvp1.aspx. This post will deal with
writing simple unit test case for the "User" user creation use case we covered in the above blog post.

Background

Unit testing means testing a piece of code or a method. White unit testing we need to stub or fake out external dependencies
so that the test can run in isolation. The following two test cases we will cover

When saving a user with valid data should display "Successfully submitted the user." message on the view.
When saving a user with empty name should display "<ul><li>user:User name cannot be empty</li></ul>" the
following message on the view.

Read the post here..geekswithblogs.net/rajeshpillai/archive/2009/11/30/mvp2.aspx

MVP Pattern in action

Rajesh Pillai — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:34:29 GMT

Just published an article on MVP Pattern in action. You can read it here
geekswithblogs.net/rajeshpillai/archive/2009/11/29/mvp1.aspx

Extract...

This edition of blog post deals with a simple example of MVP pattern in action. Model View Presenter is a UI pattern which separates the
presentation concerns with the presentation logic. There are three elements to it

Model - This is the data or business object
View - The User interface dealing with displaying data. It routes user commands to the presenter.
Presenter - Interaction of UI with UI logic. It retrieves the data from repositories, persistsit, manipulates
it and determines how it will be displayed in the view.

The core strength of MVP is testability and view switchability. You can create views for different environment like windows, mobile, web etc and share the same presentation logic.......

More geekswithblogs.net/rajeshpillai/archive/2009/11/29/mvp1.aspx.

Some notes from my tdd session

Rajesh Pillai — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:17:01 GMT

Here's a quick notes from the TDD session which I conducted some time back.

Introduction

Writing test before writing production code.
Design as you go along.
Follow Red-Green-Refactor paradigm

Benefits

Spot design flow early.
Test before the production code is built.
Identify poort requirements or requirement gaps.
Reduced testing time.
The test forms the functional document for your code.
Quickly identify bugs.
Reduces the cost of bugs in the long run.
Low level regression test suite.

Road blocks to TDD

When doing TDD the following road blocks you may hit.

Real objects are slow
Ral objecs are difficult to mock.
Rad object may be unavailable.
Real object may be costly.
Real object does not yet exits.

Here "Real Object" is the object under test.

The solution - Enter Mocking

What is a mock object?
- Mock objects are stand-in-object for real object.
Use of mock object
- Real object has non-deterministic behaviour.
- Real object is slow.
- Real object is difficult to setup.
- Real object is expensive.

Rhino Mock (The mocking framework)

A dynamic mock object framework for the .NET platform.
Objective is to ease testing by allowing the developer to create mock implementation of custom
objects and verify the interactions using unit testing.

Stubs and Mocks

A mock is an object that we can set expectations on, and which will verify that the expected actions have
indeed occurred.
A stub is an object that you use in order to pass to the code under test. You can setup expectations on it,
so it would act in certain ways, but those expectations will never be verified. A stub's properties will
automatically behave like normal properties and you cann't set expectations on them.
If you want to verify the behaviour of the code under test, you wil use a mock with the appropriate
expectation and verify that. I you want to just pass a value that may need to act in a certain way, but isn't the
focus of the test you will use a stub.

IMPORTANT: A stub will never cause a test to fail.

Rhino Mocks - 1

CreateMock / StrickMock
- For strict mockign
DynamicMock
- Flexible
PartialMock
- Mock concrete class
- Only mock virtual methods

AAA approach

A - Arrange
- Arrange your tests. Setup your values.
A - Act/action
- Execute the testing condition.
A - Assert
- Assert on expectations.

Happy TDD'ing....

c# 4.0 Part 1

Rajesh Pillai — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:35:40 GMT

c# 4.0 Part 1

The following are some of the new features and few interesting things you can do with c# 4.0.

- Named and Optional Parameters
- ExpandoObject
- Interface with Python (and example)

Program 1

class Program
{
   // Optional parameters should be at the end
   static void PrintMessage(string name = "World", string greeting = "Hello")
   {
       Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}", greeting, name);
   } 
   static void Main (string[] args)
   {
       PrintMessage("World", "Hello");  // prints "Hello World"
       PrintMessage(greeting:"Goodbye");  // prints "Goodbye World"

   }
}

Program 2

- Dynamic Invocation


class Person
{
   public string FirstName {get;set;}
   public string LastName {get;set;}
}

class Program
{
   static void Main (string[] args)
   {
       var person = new Person();
       person.FirstName = "Rajesh";
       person.LastName = "Pillai";
     
       object o = person;
       // o.GetType().InvokeMember(....);   older method of late binding
     
       // hold ref. to almost anything, but more extensible (like  interface with python or ruby
       dynamic dp = person; 
     
       // The below code compiles "even though FullName is not declared".  You get runtime exception
       Console.WriteLine(dp.FullName);
     
   }
}

Program 3


// Build Person object at runtime
using System.Dynamic;
class Program
{
   static void Main (string[] args)
   {
       // ExpandoObject :  similar to javascript object works (add dynamic prop and funcs
       dynamic dp = new ExpandoObject();
     
       // Dynamically create "FirstName"
       dp.FirstName = "Rajesh";
       dp.LastName = "Pillai";
     
       Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}", dp.FirstName, dp.LastName);
     
       // Add methods  (methods need to be delegate)
       dp.Print = new Action(delegate ()
       {
           Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}", dp.FirstName, dp.LastNmae);
       });
     
       // OR use lambda syntax
       dp.PrintPretty = new Action(() =>
       {
           Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}", dp.FirstName, dp.LastNmae);
       });
     
     
       dp.Print();
       dp.PrintPretty();
         
   }
}

Program 4

Reference with other language IronPyton 2.6 CTP for .NET 4.0 Beta 1


using IronPython.Hosting;
class Program
{
   static void Main (string[] args)
   {
       var py = Python.CreateEngine();  // may be used for end user scripting customization
     
       // UseFile->ScriptScope is similar to ExpandoObject
       dynamic sample = py.Runtime.UseFile("Sample.py");  // refer the python file
       dynamic sum =  sample.add(5, 6);
     
       Console.WriteLine(sum);
       Console.WriteLine(sum.GetType());  // System.Int32
 

       dynamic sum1 =  sample.add(5.6, 6.7);
     
       Console.WriteLine(sum1);
       Console.WriteLine(sum1.GetType());  // System.Double
     
   }
}

// some python code
Sample.py (add two numbers)
------------------------------


def add(x,y):
   return x + y

Tip : ASP.NET 4 Setting Client IDs

Rajesh Pillai — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:16:41 GMT

ASP.NET 4 Setting Client IDs

Another most wanted feature of asp.net 4 is the ability control client ID generation. At least I am happy with this. With prior
version of asp.net it was always difficult control the control id generation though not impossible. Why is this important? If you
can control ID generation then the markup size may dramatially reduce which may result in improved performance. The gain
may around 15% reduction in terms of markup size in case of complicated nested pages.

The new ClientIDMode property addresses this long standing issue in ASP.NET. Knowing the id attribute for rendered
elements are important if your application uses client script that references these elements.

The new CLientIDMode property lets you specify more precisely how the client ID is generated for controls. You can set the
ClientIDMode property for any control, including for the page. Following are the possible settings

AutoID
This is the same as earlier versions of asp.net.

Static
This specifies that the ClientID value will be the same as the ID without concatenating the IDs of parent naming
containers. This can be useful in Web user controls.

Predictable
This option is primarily for use in data controls that use repeating templates. It concatenates the ID properties
of the control's naming containers, but generated ClientID values do not contain strings like "ctlxxx". This setting
works in conjuction with the ClientIDRowSuffix propertyof the control. You set the ClientIDRowSuffix property to
the name of a data field, and the vlaue of that field is used as the suffix for the generated ClientID value. It's
recommended to use the primary key of a data record as the ClientIDRowSuffix value.

Inherit
This setting is the default behaviour for controls. It specifie that a control's ID generation is the same as its parent.

ClientIDMode can be set at the page or control level or in the configuration. To set it at the page level refer the below example

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default"
ClientIDMode = "Predictbale" %>

The following example shows hwo to To set it in the configuration file
<system.web>
<pages clientIDMode ="Predictable"></pages>
</system.web>

For detailed reading refer
www.asp.net/LEARN/whitepapers/aspnet4/default.aspx

I have found this feature very handy. Hope you will like it too.

Happy Programming !!!

Tip: ASP.NET 4 Permanently Redirecting a page

Rajesh Pillai — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:46:42 GMT

ASP.NET 4 Permanently Redirecting a page

You may have faced this problem of moving pages in a web applications around which can leat to an
accumulation of state links in search engines. Traditionally developers have handled requests to old URL's by using
Response.Redirect method to forward request to new URL.

However as you may be aware of the Redirect method issues an HTTP 302 Found status (temporary redirect) response
, which results in an extra HTTP round trip to the server when users attempt to access the old URL's. This has a performance
implication as well because of the round trip.

ASP.NET 4 adds a new RedirectPermannent helper method which makes it easy to issue HTTP 301 Moved Permanently
responses.

RedirectPermanent("/newlocation/oldcontent.aspx")

With this addition the search engines and other user agents that recognizse permanent redirects will store the new URL
that is associated with the content, which eliminates the unnecessary round trip made by the browser for temporary redirects.

You can verify this by observing the request in the Fiddler. For me I think this feature is pretty useful in migrating application
from old website to the new one. Will definitely save a lot of headache.

Tip: ASP.NET 4.0 State Compression

Rajesh Pillai — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:34:04 GMT

ASP.NET 4.0 State Compression

Session state compression was always a worry in the past. With asp.net 4.0 this feature is built into the framework.
Just modify your web.config with the following changes and you are ready to go. Now there will be less data travelling
through the wire.

<sessionState
  mode="SqlServer"
  sqlConnectionString="data source=dbserver;Initial Catalog=aspnetstate"
  allowCustomSqlDatabase="true"
  compressionEnabled="true"
/>

Just add the "compressionEnabled="true" to sessionState config. The compression is done by
.NET framework System.IO.Compression.GZipStream class.

Some thoughts about application architecture

Rajesh Pillai — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:32:42 GMT

Application Architecture Consideration

The following is the topics that we have to be good at as part of our understanding about "Application Architecture". I am noting these points
as it crosses my mind. Will need to add more depth to these points.

- Performance
- Reliability
- Availability
- Security
- Modifiability
- Portability
- Functionality
- Extensibility
- Interoperability
- Usability
- Maintainability
- Efficiecy
- Reusability
- Ease of Deployment
- Rollback strategy
- Configuration Management
- Administration
- Scalability
- Monitoring
- Development Productivity

We will be delving deeper into these areas as we go along. As I delve deeper into these areas the more depth it seems to have. Never know
when the hunger for knowledge ends. The deal is to identify appropriate tools and resources for each are.

I will invite you you have a look the the following resource highscalability.com/. These site details some of the high level architecture of sites
like ebay, google, 37signals and many more. I bet you will find this pretty interesting and addictive.

Happy reading.

How would you like to grow your skill/career path?

Rajesh Pillai — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:19:03 GMT

Career/Skill Path

Each individual is playing different roles. Some are software engineer, some are programmer, tech lead, architect, project manager
and so on… How would your skill to develop over a period of time so that you can take the next step and will prove to be true to your designation.
Here are some of the check list… Check what skills you have and develop the one which you don’t currently possess. It’s not just about
superficial skill, but true skill I am talking about.

Don’t go over the list by names and say I know this…. Check whether you truly understand this.

AND ALSO DON’T RUN AWAY FROM THIS LIST.

Over a period of time I will send some useful info about each of the below areas.

Those who are more inclined towards technology here’s the basic skillset you should have.

- Domain Knowledge

o Finance/Banking

o Healthcare

o Insurance

- OO

o Principles and Practices

o SOLID Principles

§ S – SRP – Single Responsibility Principle

§ O – OCP – Open Closed Principle

§ L – LSP – Liskov Substitution Principle

§ I – ISP – Interface Segregation Principle

§ D – DIP – Dependency Inversion Principle

- TDD/BDD (It’s not just about creating test class, its about understanding the whole process)

o Understanding and appreciating TDD or TFD

o How to move towards BDD (Behaviour Driven Development)

- DDD (Domain Driven Design)

- Databases

o SQL Server

o Business Intelligence

o Datawarehouse

- Design Patterns

o Good awareness about GOF patterns (All 23)

o Enterprise patterns

§ Domain Logic Pattens

· Transaction Script

· Domain Model

· Table Module

· Service Layer

§ Data Source Patterns

· Table Data Gateway

· Row Data Gateway

· Active Record

· Data Mapper

§ Object Relational Behavioral Pattern

· Unit of Work

· Identity Map

· Lazy Load

§ Object Relational Metadata Mapping Patterns

· Metadata Mapping

· Query Object

· Repository

§ Web Presentation Patterns

· MVC

· Page Controller

· Front Controller

· Template View

· Application Controller

· MVP

· MVVM

§ Distribution Patterns

· Remote Façade

· Data Transfer Object

§ Offline Concurrency Patterns

· Optimistic Offline Lock

· Pessimistic Offline Lock

· Coarse-Grained Lock

· Implicit Lock

§ Session State Patterns

· Client Session State

· Server Session State

· Database Session State

§ Foundational Patterns

· Gateway

· Mapper

· Layer Supertype

· Value Object

· Plugin

· Service Stub

o Refactoring Patterns

o Dependency Injection/IOC Framework

§ Unity Application Block

§ StructureMap

§ Castle Windsor

§ Spring.NET

§ Autofac

§ LinFu

§ PicoContainer.NET

o Instrumentation (includes logging)

o Technologies

§ ASP.NET 3.5 +

§ WCF (XML + XSD + WSDL + SOAP + REST + SOA)

§ LINQ

§ ASP.NET MVC

§ WF

§ Sharepoint 2007

Those interested in project management here’s the basic skillset

Apart from good awareness of the above skills following are some areas where you need to concentrate on

- People skills

o Dealing with people

o Effective communication

o Goal orientation

o Target setting

- Estimation Techniques

o Use case

o Function points (…. More)

- Agile Methodology

o SCRUM

o DSDM

- Tools

o MS Excel/Word

o MS Project

- Hope you enjoyed this post.