Web Platform and Tools Product Management-- who we are, what we do now, and a place for you to tell us what to do

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re: Web Platform and Tools Product Management-- who we are, what we do now, and a place for you to tell us what to do

MikeJ — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 02:21:37 GMT

more things to build apps that everyone has to solve. the membership/roles thing is just brilliant - every app has this problem (and not everyone is going to do domain level authentication) . more things like this in the platform are needed.

figure out what Ruby on Rails is doing right and figure out how to do provide that with asp.net

more support/info on clustering is important. guidelines on how to build apps that can be expanded by plugging in a new IIS machine to handle requests. i know its not that simple but you need to aim higher.

decouple IIS from the OS. think of something that would be the best/only thing to run ASP.NET that uses less memory, serves asp.net faster/better.

think of other ways to serve of ASP.NET in embedded situations like the web app in most home routers. thinks like application appliances. like web apps that run doctors offices (billing scheduliling), but are deployed in a small box with almost nothing for the user to do but plug it in and point their browser.

re: Web Platform and Tools Product Management-- who we are, what we do now, and a place for you to tell us what to do

Steve — Mon, 22 May 2006 05:00:40 GMT

I got to thinking about my 'makes building Business objects' better in VS 2005.

I've seen several articles comparing the typed dataset and a business object.

I think this is because in VS 2005 it's one of the only ways to create objects in the designer based on xml schemas (right?).

So, my idea would be:
1. you create your class library
2. in addition to have an add 'typed dataset' from the add item menu - you have add 'business object' choice.
3. optional, but nice: ask the developer if they want to use a template, include in the product a few templates - ie. base them off the GOF patterns - so the developer could select 'abstract factory pattern' and the business object would have a template that the developer could build off of rather than from scratch.
4. Separate the object into two parts as an option:
a. the value object (see sample below, ie. Person object)
b. the business/collection object (see below, ie. People object)
5. Allow for creating the value object using a very similiar interface for that typed dataset uses - ie. adding 'fields' of types - the tool would produce the corresponding private member and it's public property in the class.
6. Have the business object include a List<> of that value object to act upon with your typical functions.

ie. I want a business object to hold a class Person.
the tool would help generate a Person object with the private member _firstName and a property with a get/set FirstName.

In a separate object that references the Person class is a 'People' class. This includes a List<Person> with the common AddPerson, DeletePerson, UpdatePerson, bare bone functions as a template that you can then add an specific logic to. Lastly, include something like Save - which would be something to help persist the object to the database and include a WriteXML and ReadXML for persistance to disk. If you needed to pull and fill this object from the database - the ability to call a tableadapter with it's current functionality would be great to have. ( I picture a GetPerson(int id), GetPeople(), etc... queries that call the stored procs).

This is my favorite wishlist item :)

(by the way - does anyone know of a add-in currently to VS 2005 that could do something similiar to what I'm asking? I don't know what to search on - ie. I get CLSA when I do a search for Business Objects for C#)

re: Web Platform and Tools Product Management-- who we are, what we do now, and a place for you to tell us what to do

Steve — Mon, 22 May 2006 04:31:08 GMT

Please give an option in the current web application (not the one ScottGu has put out) project to be prompted to add files to a project rather than just add whatever is in the folder. Include this ability in the publish.

I have a folder - ie. Uploads - I don't want that folder and it's underlying content in my VS 2005 project (and also it get's put in VSS) automatically. Additionally, this renders the 'publish' feature null and void because if I publish that folder then I'll be overwriting uploads on my production website.

(I don't goto ScottGu's new project solution because I still want to deploy on a per file basis rather than an entire dll, etc...)
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I've sent an email regarding the testing request earlier. I'm still miffed that I have a PROFESSIONAL version of VS 2005 that doesn't include the testing features. TDD isn't just for enterprise developers - it is something used by ALL developers. Again, I'm very annoyed by this decision, as it shows the team is out of touch with what developers are doing.
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Continue to provide development support for you applications within VS 2005. I see MCMS and other products are featuring this. I just did a Sharepoint 2003 setup for a customer and I was majorly disapointed that Frontpage was the product and the so called templates for the SPP. What a disaster - I've never seen such mangled html in my life! I pray that Sharepoint 2007 will be a totally different application that doesn't require or even mention the words Sharepoint or Expression.
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Speaking of Expression - just add the CSS capability to VS 2005. This is where VS 2005 should be at. Stop adding inline styles. When I select some text and make it bold - add it to a CSS not to the html (I know I'm lazy, but it's all the extra steps that use up all the customer's money to have me there). Don't make inline styles the default. Prompt the user "what external css file would you like" and write all styles into that file by DEFAULT!
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Speaking of CSS - this new release of CSS adapters : are there any better tutorials out there?
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Atlas - I love it. Great stuff. The Atlas Control Toolkit - well, it's ok - it's a start. But can we get some controls that would work for those of us building real applications? ie. I'd love to see a masked textbox in my Atlas toolkit.
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Validation controls: Great start, but I hope to see more advanced validation controls. First off - the checkboxlist needs a validator that works for senario's like 'confirmation that 2 out of the 5 were checked'. Saying a custom validator doesn't work with checkboxlist when you fire up the page to test it (it let's you put a checkboxlist control in the validatecontrol property but then throws an error when you fire up the page) is a problem. I thought the whole point of custom validator was to put your own validation - why would it care if you pointed it to a checkboxlist? This makes it more difficult to write the javascript function that uses args and source. Speaking of which - a more complex custom validator that let you assign multiple controls and had a signature of source[] array in javascript would allow a much richer validator without writing a ton of extra javascript.
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Did I say Atlas was great? :) The update panels. Although, I still don't know why a 'update progress' control can't be assigned to an update panel. ie. If I have multiple panels on a page, not all of them get the 'Please wait...searching....' just the search part.
Please include a drop panel object that fires an event on drop with an event to be handled. Would be really nice to have drag and drop built into the Treeview.
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Speaking of Treeview - can we have the Treeview, menu, etc... bind to an objectdatasource and not just an xmldatasource? I don't put stuff in xml files - the database is better for me.
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Please separate the table adapter from the actual entity object in a dataset. My snobbish developer friends cringe when they see me referencing the dataset this way.
Don't get me wrong - I love the ability to drag a stored proc from my sql window to the dataset and have it generate all that code (I smile even more when I drag the gridview on the page and use an objectdatasource to point to the table adapter - beautiful). I just ask that you let me separate it into the correct layers. I like the partial classes to inject my business logic into the adapter calls.

Speaking of which - it would be nice to have functions in there that don't goto a data source. Perhaps instead tell it to point to a List<> instead of a data source ?
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Not sure if IIS 7 has this - but I need a way to 'export' a website or virtual directory out of one instance of IIS into another. This would be far better than trying to duplicate all the security, etc.. when I need to move a project from one IIS on a server to another. Especially if I have developed my code on a VM instance.
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Give an option on VS 2005 and VSS so that when another developer pulls down the project, instead of locking the referenced dll's from projects in the solution instead they aren't included. When someone pulls the solution from source safe - VS tries to checkout the referenced dll's rather than see that when the developer builds the project it needs to built it - not pull it from sourcesafe. (I think this problem stems from the problem I have above).
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Lastly - put some focus on building good Business objects rather than concentrate so much on just UI stuff. Perhaps some ORM tools, as well as little things like generating getters and setters properties by selecting a group of private member variables. There is so much in this area of development that VS could help provide.
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Glad to see the team is taking feedback on this stuff - I think it's important - I like how ScottGu operates - and the way the team is releasing CTP's for items like Atlas really help keep the community engaged. Also - keep posting the 'how to' video's.

re: Web Platform and Tools Product Management-- who we are, what we do now, and a place for you to tell us what to do

Marc Brooks — Fri, 19 May 2006 02:06:03 GMT

1) Fix ObjectDataSource to properly support object resurection from (e.g. instead of always doing an Activator.CreateInstance) when using DataObjectType.

2) CSS Adapters for GridView, DetailsView, FormView, and WebParts.

3) Atlas Control Toolkit updates for Validator extenders, Formatted input extenders.

4) Make www.asp.net source (the site itself) downloadable.

re: Web Platform and Tools Product Management-- who we are, what we do now, and a place for you to tell us what to do

keiths — Fri, 19 May 2006 01:24:50 GMT

Zubair.NET!:

I think it's great that your company has adopted v1.1 (thank you!) and are planning a migration/upgrade to v2.0.

I would love to hear what issues you and your company is seeing that is leading to the "stability" concerns with ASP.NET 2.0. Many of the most popular and most visited sites are running ASP.NET 2.0 today and have been running it for some time. This includes http://www.microsoft.com/, http://www.msn.com/, and http://www.asp.net/.

ASP.NET 2.0 released just a few months ago and I'm sure you will see more case studies comparing it to v1.1 and other web application frameworks. In the interim, if you're really looking for some compelling "material for the boss" regarding ASP.NET scalability and stability, send this link:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/03/25/441074.aspx

While we don't currently have any plans for comparing v1.1 to v2.0 there are so many productivity enhancements and technical advancements in the new version that allows developers to build even more complex, standards-based, feature-rich sites with fewer lines of code. Off the top of my head:

- Membership & Role Management
- Login controls
- Master Pages
- Profile service
- Themes & Skins
- Web Parts portal framework
- Built-in ASP.NET Development Server*
- Data source controls and enhanced data-binding
- Adaptive rendering
- XHTML control rendering & XHTML validation*
- The list goes on...

* = requires Visual Web Developer or Visual Studio 2005

Keith

re: Web Platform and Tools Product Management-- who we are, what we do now, and a place for you to tell us what to do

keiths — Fri, 19 May 2006 00:51:20 GMT

Jeffrey McManus:

More Atlas goodies is at the top of my list for our FY07 planning. You can expect new samples, new docs, new tutorials, new videos and more controls courtesy of the Atlas Control Toolkit.

The engineering team is focused on getting Atlas into your hands as quickly as possible and we product managers will do everything we can to make it easier for new and existing ASP.NET developers to learn how to Atlas-enable their sites.

re: Web Platform and Tools Product Management-- who we are, what we do now, and a place for you to tell us what to do

keiths — Fri, 19 May 2006 00:45:48 GMT

Dan B.:

Browser compatibility has been central to the Atlas execution plan from the start. Our support for Firefox is on par with IE and Safari support is not too far behind. What level, if any, of support we will have for Opera as we get closer to shipping Atlas is still being discussed as it will have a direct effect on what other features get cut or postponed.

In short: We hear you and will do what makes sense for the majority of developers and end-users factoring in the trade-offs.

Keith