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18 November 2007

SpringFramework.NET, Never Heard of it..

I've asked around 10 .NET developers tonight whether they've heard of this framework and the answer was no.

This isn't to say these aren't qualified .NET gurus, in fact they are in my book. It's something that made me stand up and take notice as to me SpringFramework is the ultimate coolest framework going.

I say this with a degree of bias, as you see prior to joining Microsoft I was coding happily away with Java and Coldfusion. I also used implementations of this framework for both these languages, so for me it's second nature.

Once I joined Microsoft, I forced myself to go 100% .NET and this wasn't because I'm officially on the kool aid, it was more to do with dogfooding what my employer had to offer the world in .NET (how can I evangelize Silverlights ROI on workflow unless I put myself in the shoes of the most developers first).

At any rate, I've been trying to build a .NET version of WordPress (what better way to learn a technology then to build projects) so I can keep it all 100% Microsoft. In the process I've come across a number of points where ASP.NET on it's own has frustrated me. It mostly came about with User Controls and nesting controls within them.

I'm not a DataBinding expert with ASP.NET so rather than head down that path, I wondered what frameworks are around that can do this kind of thing for me.

I remembered that SpringFramework.NET was being developed so I searched for it and found it again. This for me is a perfect fit and I'm loving combining a concept I used prior to Microsoft with Microsoft today.

Will it replace the upcoming MVC Framework?

Nope, in fact via Scott Gu's blog (does this man ever stop with the golden gems of ASP.NET goodness) I found this link today:

http://weblogs.asp.net/fredriknormen/archive/2007/11/17/asp-net-mvc-framework-create-your-own-icontrollerfactory-and-use-spring-net.aspx

I've done some initial tests and it holds water.

I'm contemplating doing a "Newbies Guide" to SpringFramework but not sure if I'm just the only newbie around? If you'd like me to do this, please drop me a vote "yes" or email etc and if the numbers stack, I'll do it.

SpringFramework.NET : http://www.springframework.net

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# Krishna said:

I have been a Java Programmer in my past life and continue to dabble in it. Spring started as a breath of fresh air compared to the miasma of J2EE (EJB2.0). However over the years it seems to have bloated. I saw it as an alternative to J2EE heavily leaning towards IOC and AOP but MS does not seem to prescribe this model of architecture, atleast not directly (ObjectBuilder from P&P is the closest).  I really would like to see your "Newbies Guide". I also would like to see how it can add value as a stack in MS technologies and what it provides that MS does not already provide. I personally do not want to use something just for the "coolness factor", but if it offered great productivity and maintenance gains I would adopt a framework.

Thanks.

18 November 07 at 2:56 PM
# Mike Wolf said:

this isn't very uncommon in the .net community for folks not to be aware of the non msft , aka alt.net technologies... ask those same people if they have heard of

nhibernate / log4net / monorail / subsonic / <insert open source .net project here>

this is really starting to change, especially over the past year or so.

I'd say yes!

18 November 07 at 3:37 PM
# Man Offer » Blog Archive » SpringFramework.NET, Never Heard of it.. said:

PingBack from http://www.manoffer.com/springframeworknet-never-heard-of-it/

18 November 07 at 4:43 PM
# Mike said:

Yeah, definitely do a first look, because with MVC going mainstream in the ASP.NET world many developers will end up looking at these frameworks. Because it's a natural extension into the test driven development where you can use Spring nicely.

18 November 07 at 6:15 PM
# DM said:

I vote Yes

18 November 07 at 8:46 PM
# scbarnes said:

Krishna: I'm a very tough grader on Frameworks in that I at times prefer not to always use them consistently but at the same time I use them to solvet he problems they were intended to solve. The biggest mistake a lot of developers do day in day out is adopt one particular framework and sit on it until they day they retire...

I've done this (experience matters heh) and at the same time one can also get bogged down with designer pattern overload.. (ie i make jokes - It takes 115 lines of code to write "hello world" via framework, where at times you can just write it in 2 lines).

I've looked at ObjectBuilder but I need to go deeper with it in order to weigh it up properly. That being said, I know what you mean by the bloat the trick is to keep it lightweight when you do use Spring (the biggest mistake I've seen in the past is developers get lazy and use it to do every single Object instantiation they have... respect what it does and use it sparingly).

Mike Wolf: heheh Well, I see mixed breeds of .NET developers and I take your point. I think being a Java/Coldfusion Developer of the past I guess I had to go deep in order to handle a lot of stuff that ASP.NET does for everyone. So unless you do this, you really don't have a need to see what's under the covers and if you haven't got that need then you generally aren't likely to research different ways of abstracting business logic from client etc as .NET Framework kind of does most of this for you in many ways.

Mike: Will do actually  :)

MVC Framework vs SpringFramework isn't what I meant btw, it's more to do with perception. If you never looked SpringFramework you could be forgiven in thinking that it's just yet another MVC Framework (it's not btw obviously) but you won't know this until you sit down and read what it *actually* does (ie don't prejudge frameworks, always research them, understand what problems they solve and how - then decided whether or not they are for you).

18 November 07 at 9:15 PM
# rolf said:

hi.

little off topic:

just interested what happened to your wordpress in .net project?

which blog tools do you know in .net?

i have looked at subtext and dotnetblogengine.

both are solala...

22 November 07 at 8:15 AM

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About scbarnes

Scott Barnes currently is a Rich Platform Product Manager (WPF & Silverlight). He has been working with Adobe/Macromedia technology for the past 10 years with a main focus specifically on Internet Applications (aka. RIA, Rich Client Technology etc).

Scott first started out as a graphic designer in the late 90’s and over the years developed a passion for programmatic art (Designer + Developer mind). He recently has branched out further into 3D modelling and animation making full use of both his designer + developer mindset.

"..The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man..." - George Bernard Shaw
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