CLR Inside Out: .Net Extensibility
(5/16/08, updated MSDN links )
The March MSDN issue is now available on-line. In this issue you will find our second of two MSDN articles introducing the new System.Addin* Base Class Libraries (BCL).
In our first article we walked through the typical process customers undertake in offering extensibility through their Host applications. We discussed the functionality that is necessary in offering a comprehensive AddIn solution (i.e., Discovery, Activation, Isolation, Lifetime, Security, Unloadability, and Versioning). We also walked through some sample Host code and the new System AddIn API’s utilized by the Host. In addition, we showed some sample AddIn code that clearly demonstrated how the AddIn developer is blissfully ignorant of the underlying mechanics in consuming the object model provided by the Host.
In our first article we postponed discussing the System Addin pipeline and we promised to show the utilization of the model to enable compatibility as your Host and Add-In version independently. In this article we’ll first go into detail about the architecture of the model. Then we’ll look at version 2.0 of the application we reviewed last month, using it to get an in-depth view of how our pipeline works, and finally using it to demonstrate how you can use our system to keep add-ins working even as the host changes.
