ASP.NET

Do You Use a Web Component Suite?

Scott Kuhl — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:49:13 GMT

We're considering purchasing a component suite for web development to spice up our interface and make the UI side if things a little faster.

My question is, have any of you used any of these suites and what was your experience?

The ones we are looking at are telerik, ComponentArt and ComponentOne.

September Release of AJAX Control Toolkit

Scott Kuhl — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 21:34:10 GMT

The September release of the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit is now available for download. Looks like this one only contains bug fixes. No new controls that I can see.

AJAX Control Toolkit on CodePlex

Basic Chat Using ASP .NET AJAX

Scott Kuhl — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:04:00 GMT

The AJAX Chat Sample shows how to build a browser based chat using ASP .NET and AJAX. ASP.NET AJAX is the easiest and most enjoyable way to start writing asynchronous Web applications using ASP.NET. The official ASP.NET AJAX site is here, and you will want to make sure you have downloaded the last version of the framework and the control toolkit before continuing with this example.

Code is available for download at Coding4Fun

Design Patterns for ASP.NET Developers (Part 2)

Scott Kuhl — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:03:00 GMT

Part 2 of the DevX series, Design Patterns for ASP.NET Developers, is now online. This one focuses on Custom Controller Patterns.

Read Part 2: Custom Controller Patterns

Read Part 1: Basic Patterns

OpenID control for ASP.NET

Scott Kuhl — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:58:00 GMT

What is OpenID?

OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity.

How do you implement it in ASP.NET?

Add references.
Add two lines of code.

Get the ASP.NET control and library here.

ASP.NET ViewState Helper

Scott Kuhl — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 01:26:00 GMT

In real-time you can see your web pages being analyzed while you browse to them using Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher.

Download ViewState Helper

Learn ASP.NET 2.0

Scott Kuhl — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 00:52:00 GMT

Step 1 - Get the Tools

Cost - $0
Time - About 3 hours to download an install

Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition
Visual C# 2005 Express Edition
SQL Server 2005 Express Edition - You will have the option of downloading this when you download Visual Web Developer and Visual C#, but I recommend downloading SQL Server separately with Advanced Services for reporting.

Step 2 - Getting Comfortable

Cost - $0 to $30 if you purchase the eBook
Time - 30 hours for either the video or book route

Start with video tutorials. They won't teach you everything, but they will get you comfortable with the language and tools.

If you're not a video kind of person, read Build Your Own ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site Using C# & VB, 2nd Edition By Cristian Darie & Zak Ruvalcaba instead. This book does not cover Ajax or SubSonic at all, so you are still going to want to visit the ASP.NET Ajax site and read the SubSonic documentation. I have written a Getting Started with SubSonic article that can be found here, or on the SubSonic CodePlex site with the video.

Step 3 - Time to Read

Cost - $60
Time - 36 hours

Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS by Ian Lloyd - You absolutely need a grounding in developing web sites without dynamic content.

Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005 by Matthew MacDonald and Mario Szpuszta - This is the most in depth material you will cover, but it's also the core set of knowledge you must know. You will probably reference this book often when starting out. If you are having problems with C#, try Pro C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform by Andrew Troelsen , it's another long read, but it really nails the fundamentals of the C# language. (This book is not included in the cost or time estimates.)

That's is. Your ready to go.

Resources

Moving forward I would recommend subscribing to RSS feeds or Newsletters and visiting the following sites: SitePoint, ASP.NET, The Code Project, and 4 Guys From Rolla. When you're ready to launch your site to the world, check out DiscountASP.

There are many other books, and training options available, but I wanted to keep this list as short and cost effective as possible. Your learning will naturally evolve as you read more articles and books and write more code. If you have a .NET User Groups in your area, sign up. But most of all, have fun.

Is ASP.NET Too Easy?

Scott Kuhl — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:19:00 GMT

This seems like one of those questions like: Is my girlfriend too hot? or Do I have too much money? Those are problems we love to live with.

Mads Kristensen has a blog post where he discusses how easy it is to build a website with Visual Studio and questions if that is a good thing. He discussed the designer and drag-and-drop methods of development where, in the end, you don't learn anything and that can be bad.

I agree the designer hides a lot. But I also heard these same arguments way back between VB and C++ guys. I don't think the problem is that ASP.NET is too easy. I think the problem is the way Microsoft makes it easy.

I have basically two problems with the quick and dirty approach.

1 - Horrible HTML

Problem: The designers still produce bad HTML. I have yet to find a good web design tool that is both as easy to use as Word and still produces clean XHTML 1.1 with CSS positioning. You just need to learn how to do this. (Maybe Expression tools are better, but I have not used them much yet.)

Solution: Better templates. Most sites follow one of several standard layouts. I would love a template generator that asks a few simple questions such as fixed width or not, header, footer, columns, where do you want menus? But in the end Microsoft needs to make CSS positioning and styling part of their quickstarts and authors need to make this part of the learning process.

2 - DataSets and SQL

Problem: I don't have a strong aversion to DataSets. But I hate the way Microsoft generates SQL to build your data layer. So much is hidden and hard to change. What I have seen is people just blow away there DataSet and fire up the wizard again to recreate everything. This entire approach is just awkward.

Solution: SubSonic. Ruby on Rails got this right, and SubSonic is the best ASP.NET alternative to the active record approach. For more complex projects the developer should be introduce to CSLA, but for simpler web only projects, SubSonic is gold.

Design Patterns for ASP.NET Developers

Scott Kuhl — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 19:01:00 GMT

DevX is starting a new series of articles entitled Design Patterns for ASP.NET Developers by Alex Homer. Part 1 is an introduction to design patterns and sets the focus for the rest of the series.

I didn't see anything in the article that indicated a time table for release of the remaining parts or how many to expect. In the past their agile development series was only 2 parts and was published over 6 days, but their UML series was 6 parts and was published over 8 months. So who knows how long the series will be or how long it will take. A lot probably depends both on the author and how many hits they get.

Read Design Patterns for ASP.NET Developers, Part 1: Basic Patterns

A Better BulletedList

Scott Kuhl — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 19:36:00 GMT

Enhanced version of the ASP.NET 2.0 BulletedList control to allow embedded HTML tags.

Read A Better BulletedList