I write this as I’m sitting here working on a .NET CF 2.0 project in Visual Studio 2005 while installing Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 onto my laptop which is running windows 7 installed on a vhd file booted natively. I look at the list of components being installed with 2010 Beta 1 and I’m just left feeling inadequate. The one that really tipped it was Visual F# 1.0. F# has been out in for a while now and I’ve only seen talks on it. I haven’t written a line of code in it. I can also say the same for Work Flow and many other MS/.NET technologies.

I sat in on an interview today with a rock star programmer. His code sample he sent in to us was the best we’ve ever seen. He’s got strong ASP.NET (and MVC) skill along with HTML/CSS-fu. Then I ask the questions about what else he has done in .NET.. barely any WinForms, no compact framework, little WPF. I do not hold any of this against him, I know full well what it is like to try and keep up with things when your current job doesn’t entail them. Here at Sierra Bravo my job does entail them, sometimes. We do such a large variety of projects I’ve had to learn almost everything under the .NET sun and I still feel like I’m behind.

I’ve spent the last few months trying to write a talk on Visual Studio 2010 Extensions and I sure hope my talk goes well but I’m not optimistic. After getting into doing the extensions, hoping for a nice easy to use SDK as was promised, I found still a complex system of interfaces, attributes and unclear APIs. Mind you, it is still beyond  what was available in 2008. I also gave a talk on SQL CLR programming and have been working on learning ASP.NET MVC. Beyond that, reading a WPF certification book and hoping to one day expand my certifications passed the VS 2005 realm. I spend nearly every minute of my spare time reading, coding and learning.

Things I have done

• .NET CF 1-3.5 (about 10 applications)
• ASP.NET 1.1 – 3.5 (lost count of how many sites)
• .NET WinForms 1.1 – 3.5 (about 20 applications)
• Windows Services (around 10)
• ASMX (lost count)
• WCF ( a few)
• SQL Server 2000-2008 (full and express)
• SQL Reporting Services
• SQL CLR
• SharePoint integration (2)
• Visual Studio Extensions (a few)
• Command line Programs (20+)
• Library development (HtmlAgilityPack, Sierra Bravo Connector aka PickDB)
• TCP Client/Server protocols
• Serial Port controlled vending machines
• RFID integration
• Surface
• Silverlight 1.1-3.0
• C# and VB.NET
• Dabbled in XNA
• Dabbled in MVC
• Office Integration
• LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Entities
• T4 programming
• Got MCTS WinForms/ASP.NET 2.0 and MCPD ASP.NET 2.0 certified

Things I still need more experience in, have yet to do, work with or even look at

• TDD/DI/IoC – I’ve dabbled a bit but feel like I’m really falling behind with these dev patterns
• Micro Framework
• F#
• Work Flow
• TFS
• Full WPF Application
• Full Mono application
• M/Oslo
• Parallel Extensions
• Tons of the new stuff in VS2010/.NET 4.0 (like the asp.net 4 features)
• Write a LINQ provider

While the latter list seems small, I’m sure it will grow again. The first list covers 4 1/2 years of work. To me it is mind boggling that I’ve done so much and also a testament to how powerful the .NET framework is. In the PHP world there are a couple great frameworks these days but it has taken many many years to get to that point. Also PHP 6 is turning into PERL 6 with it being on the horizon for many years now. It also has the issue of only being a web language.

I really hope after VS2010 Microsoft slows down for a bit and waits until VS2015 or something. I’m not sure if I can keep up on this pace much longer. Some days I wish for a job where I’m working on a product, or in a slower paced project. Other days I think I’d go crazy if I was working on the same thing all the time. One thing is for certain, I need to start doing things outside of work again.

With the advent of ASP.NET MVC 2.0 and the new templated helpers we’re once again having to write out our entire data objects. This is something that ORM tools like LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities were supposed to alleviate. Even better is we must now implement a class in 3 files.

Case in point: http://blog.pagedesigners.co.nz/archive/2009/08/06/asp.net-mvc-2-ndash-buddy-classes-for-your-models.aspx

The idea of “Partial Properties” follows the convention for Partial Classes and not Partial Methods. With Partial classes you can have the same class defined in two files. This is extremely helpful with extending generated code. With Partial Methods, one partial class file defines a method and another partial class file may if it choose implement that method. If the method is never implemented then the compiler completely throws away any code that may have referenced that method.

During a PDC talk Anders said that he couldn’t see a reason why we should implement Partial Properties but it’s becoming clear to me that we are starting to have the need.

Here’s the current situation:

1. You create your models with LINQ to SQL or LINQ to Entities.
2. You have no control over the auto-generated code so you implement partial classes for each class made in a separate file
3. You need to annotate the properties in the generated classes so you then have to create a buddy class
4. You take all the properties of the generated class and type them in and add attributes to them and thus mostly defeating the purpose of #1

//GeneratedClass.Designer.cs (the generated file)
public partial class GeneratedClass
{
	private string _name;
	public string Name
	{
		get{return _name;}
		set{_name = value;}
	}
}

//GeneratedClass.cs (your file)
[MetadataType(typeof(GeneratedClass_Metadata))]
public partial class GeneratedClass
{
	
}

//GeneratedClass.cs or GeneratedClass.Meta.cs (your other file)
public partial class GeneratedClass_Metadata
{
	[Required(ErrorMessage="Name Required")]
	public string Name{get;set;}
}

In the end you end up with 2-3 files and 3 implementations of your class. You also end up with the compiler generating more classes that their only use are for attributes.

With a “Partial Property” generated code could expose all of the public properties like so

//GeneratedClass.Designer.cs (the generated file)
public partial class GeneratedClass
{
	private string _name;
	public partial string Name
	{
		get{return _name;}
		set{_name = value;}
	}
}
//GeneratedClass.cs (your file)
public partial class GeneratedClass
{
	[Required(ErrorMessage="Name Required")]
	public partial string Name;
}

This may all be moot if we can at least get some tooling support for MetaDataType. We could use a Refactor –> Generate Buddy Class. This could auto-gen the metadata class for you so all you have to do is write the attributes in. Maybe even Class Diagram support?

• None of the sites will compile in Visual Studio
• All of the sites were running in ASP.NET 2.0 but none used master pages. They all used Server-Side Includes (which should be banned) to include common blocks.
  
• No use of controls or classes.
• No use of code-behind
• All SQL is dynamic and full of SQL Injection vulnerabilities
• All used include files which set up global variables and functions to be used in the page lifecycle (one of the main reasons the sites wont compile)
• One of the sites had every folder set up as it's own application in IIS. Their hosting provider has no interface for even seeing this, the developer used to call in to have this set up. More on this site later (refered to as BS1)
  
• Most of the sites only make use of the most basic controls
• One site (BS1) tried to use more advanced controls like Formview but failed miserably. In this instance, used all over the site, the developer made a formview, used an EditTemplate and bound a dataset to the formview. Sounds decent so far right? The issue came in after I made some changes that my data was not being updated in the dataset. Tracking down the issue was very hard to do when you have no "Go to Definition" and there are tons of "Include Files" that are copied and pasted throughout the site. I found that there was a  "Magic" function that did what databinding is supposed to do. It looked for any controls in the formview that matched the exact name of a column and bound the data.
  
• BS1 includes so many functions that recreate .NET functionality that his developer seemed to give up on getting to work within an hour or trying. I want to go home sick everytime a change comes up on this site.