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Headwinds
MAY20
09
Volume19,
No.
5
VisualStudioMagazine.com
PLUS
Create Data-Driven Appswith Silverlight 3
Generate Code UsingT4 Templates
Why Redmond Needs toReturn to Its Roots
How are Microsoft, tool vendorsand development shops dealingwith the downturn? Our TechEdpreview offers a .NET forecast.
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harePoint is a trademark or a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. DataParts is a registered trademark of Software FX, Inc. Other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
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DepressingDevelopmentsThe economic downturn doesnt offer
many places to hide. Gartner predicts thatglobal IT spending this year will decline 3.8
percent from 2008. How is this slowdown
affecting the .NET developer community?
We checked in with developers and ISVs to
get a sense of how theyre adapting as
TechEd North America 2009 approaches.
The results, which are the basis of this
months cover story, were enlightening.
It turns out that different sectors are
experiencing different levels of dislocation.
One survey respondent in the building
industry says all new development is on
hold, we are working on maintenenance
only. But few are taking it harder thanthe auto industry.
A developer at a supplier of steering
columns and shifters for auto and
trucking manufacturers from Michigan
says, Our departmental budgets are
virtually non-existent.
Similar tales of layoffs, cutbacks and
bare maintenance-only budgets abound in
the travel, finance, energy utility and other
sectors. Heck, even collection agencies are
hurting. Yes, we have a lot of incoming
business. But while placements are up,
collections numbers are down, and we
cant spend money for new projects, says
the information services director of a
Houston-based collection agency.
Not everyone is cutting back.
Government, military, security and areas of
health care remain active. Respondents
working in the U.S. Army and Air Force say
dev activity is strong, and one government
developer writes, Were moving forward
with all current initiatives as planned.
Funding, while potentially reduced, will just
extend the time toward project completion.
How is your dev organization weather-
ing the downturn? And how is the slow-
down impacting your ability to adopt major
new Microsoft technologies? E-mail me [email protected].
VisualStudioMagazine.com May 2009 VISUAL STUDIO MAGAZINE 3
COVE
RI
LLUSTRATION
BY
RYAN
ETTER
FEATURES
14 HeadwindsDespite a troubled economy and falling IT budgets, Microsoft and its partners arebusy rolling out new tools and platforms. We preview some of the goings on atMicrosoft TechEd North America 2009, and talk to developers and ISVs about howtheyre managing in a sluggish software market. BY MICHAEL DESMOND
26 Silverlight 3 Enables Data-Driven App DevThe latest version of Silverlight boasts a new DataForm control and enhancedsupport for data-driven applications, enabling developers to deliver line-of-businessapplications to any user with a Silverlight-enabled Web browser. We walk throughthe new capabilities in the latest beta of Silverlight 3. BY PETER VOGEL
DEPARTMENTS
6 Letters to the Editor
8 DevDisastersGatekeepers of Bad Software BY ALEX PAPADIMOULIS (TheDailyWTF.com)
10 DevInsights DEVELOPER NEWS, REVIEWS, PRODUCT BRIEFSNews:TechEd Preview PAGE 10Product Review:Sybase PowerDesigner Data Modeling PAGE 11Product Briefs:Test Center Standard Edition and Connect ODBC 6.0 PAGE 12
36 LANGUAGE LAB
C# Corner PAGE 36
Covariance and contravariance are precise terms that describe which conversions aresafe on parameters and return types. Learn about new constructs to be supportedin C# 4.0, and how to live with the current limitations until Visual Studio 2010 isadopted by your organization. BY BILL WAGNER
Ask Kathleen PAGE 42Learn how to create and debug templates using Microsofts Text TransformationTemplating Toolkit (T4) language, which is included with Visual Studio 2008.BY KATHLEEN DOLLARD
COLUMNS
3 Frameworks BY MICHAEL DESMOND
48 Redmond Review BY ANDREW BRUST
47 Index of Advertisers
{ F R A M E W O R K S }
Contents
May 2009 // Volume19 // No. 5
14
Michael Desmond, Editor in Chief,
Visual Studio Magazine
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8/52VISUAL STUDIO MAGAZINE May2009 VisualStudioMagazine.com
Each month, Andrew Brust writes the Redmond Review column for the back
page of Visual Studio Magazine. His first column since arriving from the pages ofRedmond Developer Newsfocused on the late change of heart Microsoft had
regarding its SQL Data Services cloud-based data storage scheme. Longtime
VSM contributor Roger Jennings responds to Brusts column in a blog posting.
Andrew Brusts Whats Old Is New Again column for Visual Studio
Magazines April 2009 issue recounts the history of Visual Basic 3.0s adoption
of the Jet (Access) 1.1 relational database and the parallel with the SDS teams
course reversal from the Entity-Attribute-Value data model to a full-featured
relational database. Andrew concludes:
So Redmond listened to its customers, and the bizarre obsession with
copying Amazons SimpleDB Web service is over. Microsoft has given us a truly
simple offering: the SQL Server technology that most Microsoft developers have
been using for a decade and some have been using since even before my firstcolumn was published.
I couldnt agree more.
P.S. Andrew and I started writing for Visual Studio Magazines predecessor
about 15 years ago when it had just been re-named from BASIC Pro to Visual
Basic Programmers Journal.
Roger Jennings
Principal, OakLeaf Systems
Oakland, Calif.
On the New Redesign
VSM redesigned its cover and pages with the April 2009 issue. A reader shares
his thoughts.
I want you to know that I 'm totally offended by Aprils front cover.Having both the female sexual computer model and the evolution icon is
the last straw. Your magazine has bleak content anyway. I threw it in the trash.
Evolution is nothing but a false faith in garbage science. I want to terminate my
subscription immediately.
Dennis Parks
Beaverton, Ore.
LettersVisualStudioMagazine.com
May 2009 Volume 19 No. 5
Editorial Staff
Vice President, Doug BarneyEditorial Director
Editor in Chief Michael DesmondExecutive Editor Kathleen Richards
News Editor Jeffrey Schwartz
Managing Editor Wendy Gonchar
Associate Managing Editor Katrina Carrasco
Contributing Editors
Andrew J. Brust, Kathleen Dollard, Ken Cox, John Cronan,
Dan Fergus, John Gavilan, Roger Jennings,
Don Kiely, Martin Kulov, Jeff Levinson, Bill McCarthy,
John Charles Olamendy Turruellas,
Keith Pleas, Bill Wagner
Art Staff
Creative Director Scott Shultz
Graphic Designer Erin Horlacher
Online/Digital MediaEditor, VisualStudio Becky Nagel
Magazine.com
Executive Editor, New Media Michael Domingo
Online News Editor Kurt Mackie
Associate Editor, Web Gladys Rama
Web Producer Shane Lee
Director, Web Development Rita Zurcher
President Henry Allain
Vice President, Publishing Matt N. Morollo
Director of Marketing Michele Imgrund
Online Marketing Director Tracy S. Cook
President & Neal VitaleChief Executive Officer
Senior Vice President Richard Vitale& Chief Financial Officer
Executive Vice President Michael J. Valenti
Vice President, Finance Christopher M. Coates& Administration
Vice President, Digital Media, Abraham M. LangerAudience Development
Vice President, Information Erik A. LindgrenTechnology &Web Operations
Vice President, Digital Media, Doug MashkuriAdvertising
Vice President, Carmel McDonaghAttendee Marketing
Chairman of the Board Jeffrey S. Klein
REACHING THE EDITORS
Editors can be reached via e-mail, fax, telephone or mail.A list of editors and contact information is available atVisualStudioMagazine.com.
E-mail: E-mail isrouted to individuals desktops. Please use thefollowing form: [email protected] not include a middle name or middle initials.
Telephone: The switchboard is open weekdays 8:30 a.m.to 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time. After 5:30 p.m. you will be directedto individual extensions.
San Francisco Office 415-814-0950; Fax 415-814-0961
Irvine Office 949-265-1520; Fax 949-265-1528
Corporate Office 818-734-1520; Fax 818-734-1528
Visual Studio Magazine
The opinions expressed within the articles and other contentsherein do not necessarily express those of the publisher.
Visual Studio Magazine wants to hear from you! Send us your thoughtsabout recent stories, technology updates or whatevers on your mind.E-mail us at [email protected] and be sure to includeyour first and last name, city and state. Please note that letters may beedited for form, fit and style. They express the views of the individualauthors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the VSM editors or1105 Media Inc.
Whats Old IsNew Again
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The HR department at a financial services
firm wanted to hire GlobalComp to build a
Web portal.
Getting approval was straight-
forward: the purchaser set up a meet-
ing between GlobalComp and an inte-
gration services developer on the ITteam, and then waited a few days.
After a brief spiel from the
GlobalComp sales rep, Steve
opened with a softball question:
Is it secure?
Of course its secure, the
rep said. At GlobalComp we take
security very seriously. In fact, our
pages are delivered over Secure
Socket Lay
Wait a sec, Steve cut him off, as
he played around with the Web portal. I
think I just broke into your admin console.The GlobalComp rep stumbled through
an apology. It was clear that the developers
had never anticipated someone typing ' OR
''=' in the password field. Steve thought
itd be a good idea to do a code review to see
what else they had missed.
A Code TourBefore Steve was permitted to even talk to a
developer at GlobalComp, they had him sign a
an NDA. As an added security measure, Steve
could only review the code while the immacu-
lately dressed Dave, GlobalComps lead devel-oper, watched him. Youd be surprised, Dave
said in a serious tone, there are a lot of peo-
ple who would steal our software ideas.
Steves first port of call was login.asp.
But it wasnt the security snafus or the
FrontPage meta-tags that caught his eye.
Not only were they using Access, but they
had come up with a rather interesting way of
caching huge amounts (400K+) of user-spe-
cific info. They used the ASP Session object:
I cant help but notice
that this is in ASP, Steve said to
Dave. Im curious: why not .NET?
Do you have a lot of ASP libraries that
youre reusing?
Its 2006, Dave snapped back, not
2015. Everyone knows that .NET hasnt
really taken off yet. Its slow, difficult to
code and very buggy. Maybe in a few years
well consider it, but until then, ASP is farquicker and more powerful.
For optimization, Steve commented,
wouldnt it have made sense to go with
SQL Server? This portal is meant to be used
by thousands of users across the country.
Do you think Access is up to the job?
Whats wrong with Access? Dave
defensively questioned. When I was at
Accenture, we used it all the time.
Steve had seen enough. In light of the
numerous performance, security and data-
integrity issues, his review read, we do not
approve GlobalComps Web portal softwarefor use in our production environments.
It was the first time anyone in the
department had ever given a non-approval
for vendor software. They felt relieved to
have successfully acted as the gatekeeper
of bad software. VSM
{ S O F T W A R E D E V E L O P M E N T G O N E W R O N G }
SERVED UP BY ALEX PAPADIMOULIS
Gatekeepers of Bad Software
Each issue Alex Papadimoulis, publisher of the popular Web site The Daily WTF (thedailywtf.com),recounts first-person tales of software development gone terribly wrong. Have youexperienced the darker side of development? We want to publish your story. E-mail your tale
to Executive Editor Kathleen Richards at [email protected] and put DevDisastersas the subject line.
Tell Us Your Tale
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11/52
Develop your application with the same robust imaging technologies used by Microsoft, HP, Sony,Canon, Kodak, GE, Siemens, theUS Air Force and Veterans Affairs Hospitals.
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12/52VISUAL STUDIO MAGAZINE May 2009 VisualStudioMagazine.com0
Tech-Ed
Microsofts TechEd North America 2009 confab this month is
expected to center around Windows 7, Windows Server 2008
R2, Exchange 14 and the numerous technologies that the com-
pany has rolled out during the last 12 to 18 months.
Registered attendees will receive the latest versions of
Windows 7likely the first release candidate (RC)and Windows
Server 2008 R2. As part of an included TechNet Plus annual sub-
scription, conference goers will also receive licensed copies of the
technologies when they first become available later this year.
For developers, the annual conference will offer more than
a sneak peek at Visual Studio 2010, which is close to beta 1;
the last preview bits were offered in October at MicrosoftPDC2008 and expired in January. According to multiple sources,
Microsoft is targeting TechEd for the beta 1 release.
SQL Server Kilamanjaro, the upcoming business intelli-
gence (BI) release that enables users to create reports using
SharePoint and Excel, will be highlighted during the keynote for
the database platforms and BI tracks, which are targeted at both
developers and IT professionals.
Usually TechEd is not hugely filled with beta technology
sessions, so the fact that some of these things that are a little
prerelease are kind of coming out shows that theyre either closer
to market or more important, says Stephen Forte, chief strategy
officer at Telerik Inc. Forte is leading several TechEd sessions,
including a drill-down on SQL Server 2008 with Richard Campbell,co-host of .NET Rocks.
REALITY BYTES
Despite the anticipated releases, TechEd is facing the same hur-
dles that conferences in every industry have encountered during
the recession: attendance issues. The conference will take place
at the Los Angeles Convention Center, the same venue as last
years PDC. After a two week TechEd in Orlando, Fla., in June
2008 that separated the developer and IT tracks, Microsoft is
back to a combined, one-week model. Last years event, which
marked chairman Bill Gates last official keynote, attracted
around 5,000 developers and 10,000 IT professionals, accordingto Microsoft.
The current climate has meant some unwelcome
changes: In April, registrants were notified of the cancellation
of on-site exams for Microsoft certifications, the traditional
Thursday night attendee party and the popular Jam
Sessions that occurred nightly at past TechEd events.
The Server and Tools News Bytes blog on Microsoft
TechNet recommended the press attend the show virtually
this year, noting that there would be limited access to
Microsoft executives and on-site facilities.
The cutbacks are not a reflection on Microsoft or
TechEds robust technical content. Generally, Im hearing
conferences are just not being as well attended for obviousreasons this year, says Rob Sanfilippo, research vice president
of developer platforms at Directions on Microsoft. Looking
across at MIX, TechEd and PDC, I definitely would rank PDC as
the first conference to attend from a developer standpoint for
someone thats interested in planning technology that will be
used two or three years out for their organization.
PDC2009, which is expected to focus on the release of
Microsofts cloud-computing platform, Windows Azure, is
scheduled for Nov. 17-20 in Los Angeles.
LOTS TO LEARN
Despite the troublesome economy, Microsoft received a record
number of more than 1,600 submissions for technical sessionsfrom inside and outside of the company, according to a post by
Brian Marble, worldwide TechEd lead. That has been whittled
down to 20 tracks, with about 440 breakout sessions and 200
or so hands-on labs. The theme this year is Potential Lives
Here, and the focusas in years pastis on technical education,
community and product evaluation.
Windows 7 is the clear headliner at TechEd. The
Windows Azure Services Platform will also get some play with
26 sessions, although the licensing and pricing structure
information that could definitely spur serious interest among
decision makersis expected to remain under wraps until later
this year.
TechEd will also be the first conference stateside to offerplenty of information for developers interested in Windows
D E V E L O P E R N E W S / / / R E V I E W S / / / P R O D U C T S
D E V E L O P E R N E W S
ISTOCKPHOTO.C
OM
TechEd PreviewIs the Visual Studio 2010 beta finally here?
BY KATHLEEN RICHARDS
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14/52VISUAL STUDIO MAGAZINE May 2009 VisualStudioMagazine.com2
DatabaseTools
Test Center Standard Editionand Connect ODBC 6.0
LOWER COST APM
Two months after releasing an application performance manage-
ment (APM) suite that ranges in price from $30,000 to $60,000,
Linz, Austria-based dynaTrace Software is now offering a scaled-
down version. dynaTrace Test Center Standard Edition has a
good portion of the application testing features found in the
core dynaTrace 3 suite, the company says. But it costs about
20 percent of the suites price.
That full-scale suite is designed to let developers trace
transactions across geographically distributed systems with large,scalable virtualized server clusters for business-critical applica-
tions that require 24x7 uptime (for more on that release, see
http://tinyurl.com/csvyn2).
Like the larger version, the Standard Edition comes with Visual
Studio, Visual Studio Team System Test Edition and Eclipse plug-ins.
It diagnoses and isolates typical Web application issues, notably
database performance problems and chattiness. The software also
documents issues for developers including SQL statements and bind
values, and various other transaction characteristics. The software
takes every transaction and displays the slowest running ones or
those that are broken. When the developer clicks on a transaction,
he can view the whole path with all the context. If a developer
sees hundreds of extra calls to a database, he can click on it andautomatically open up the source code in Visual Studio.
Although not as well known as some of its rivals, dynaTrace
says it has made inroads in the U.S. market over the past year with
customers such as Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, LinkedIn
and Macys. It has 100 customers but has seen rapid growth in recent
quarters, the company says. But dynaTrace, which is backed by Bain
Capital and Bay Partners, is a much smaller player than market leader
CA, whose Wily Technology is used by more than 1,000 customers.
Test Center Standard Edition
dynaTrace Software
Price: $6,000 per developer license
www.dynaTrace.com
781-674-4000
DRIVING ODBC HARDER
Looking to give a boost to applications that rely on Microsofts
Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) standard, DataDirectTechnologies has updated its drivers.
The new DataDirect Connect for ODBC version 6.0 increases
the speed at which data is loaded into an application or into a
database, says Rob Steward, the companys vice president of R&D.
It allows for exporting of data from one database into another and
performs bulk transfers without having to use Microsofts batch
processing utility.
Existing batch processes will run faster without requiring
changes to application code, he adds. Version 6.0 adds application
failover: The features will allow developers to better tune their
applications, he explains.
In addition to Microsofts SQL Server, DataDirects ODBC drivers
provide connectivity to databases from Oracle Corp., IBM Corp. (DB2and Informix) and Sybase Inc., among others. With the new release,
the company has added connectivity to PostgresSQL and Greenblum.
DataDirect, a Bedford, Mass.-based subsidiary of Progress
Software Corp., is among a handful of companies that provide
ODBC drivers. Most leading database vendors offer their own
ODBC drivers and there are a number of less-expensive, open
source alternatives as well. DataDirect says its drivers are aimed
at ISVs and large enterprises. DI
Connect for ODBC 6.0
DataDirect Technologies
Price: $4,000 per single core
www.datadirect.com
800-876-3101
PRODUCTS
standard Microsoft tools (SQL Server and
Access), PowerDesigner also supports
Oracle, DB2 and MySQL (again, among
other database engines).Given its pricing and functionality,
PowerDesigner is not for the faint
heartedand its also not for those
with limited goals. If all you need is a
database design tool for your organiza-
tions RDBMS, PowerDesigner is far more
tool than you need. But if you want to
create a repository for analyzing your
organizations data usage, PowerDesigner
will do the job. DI
Peter Vogel ([email protected]) is a principal
in PH&V Information Services, specializing in
ASP.NET development with expertise in SOA,
XML, database and User Interface design. Hes
written several books on application develop-
ment using Microsoft technologies and presents
at conferences around the world.
SYBASE POWERDESIGNER 15
Sybase Inc.www.sybase.com800-792-2735
Price: $2,995 to $7,495 per developerseat
Quick Facts: One-stop shopping fordata modeling and analysis using avariety of notations.
Pros: High functionality withsupport for all the tools that Microsoftdevelopers use.
Cons: Expensive; PowerDesigner is abig tool to handle big problemsnot atool for developers just needing a data-base modeling tool.
Developers can examine code to trace transaction bottlenecksthrough the dynaTrace Visual Studio plug-in.
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ILL
USTRATIONB
YR
YANE
TTER
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TECH-ED 2009 FEATURE
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. At least,
thats the hope of most conference organizers in the software
development sector. With IT and dev budgets slashed andmost organizations hunkering down for a long downturn, its
no surprise that attendance at many industry events
is off sharply from two or three years ago. Still, Microsoft is
hoping to draw a crowd to TechEd North America 2009 in Los
Angeles this month.
Despite tough times, developers, ISVs
and Microsoft are keeping plenty busy.
BY MICHAEL DESMOND
HEADWINDS
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It takes a team to produce better code on faster timelines. Visual
StudioTeam System 2008 makes it easier to track work items, update
everyone, analyze code, and get the job done, from UX to database.
Download a trial at microsoft.com/defyallchallenges/team
SURROUNDED UP AGAINST IT AND FALLING BEHIND.SURROUNDED, UP AGAINST IT, AND FALLING BEHIND.
YOU NEED A TEAM SYSTEM.YOU NEED A TEAM SYSTEM.
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TECH-ED 2009FEATURE
Attendees certainly wont be staying away for lack of things
to explore at the four-day conference, which combines IT and
development tracks focused on Microsoft platforms, servicesand products.On the dev side, TechEd arrives as a host of strate-
gic Microsoft development technologies emerge. From Azure
cloud computing to Silverlight 3 Web development to the antici-
pated beta of Visual Studio 2010,TechEd offers a chance to catch
up on the latest Microsoft-driven dev technologies.
No surprise, independent tool companies are busy as well,
as they rush to fill gaps in Microsofts expanded dev platforms
and tap powerful, new features in the latest versions of .NET
Framework,Silverlight,Visual Studio and ASP.NET.
Nowhere to Hide:Developers Test Strategies in a Terrible Market
A market report by research firm Gartner Inc. provided grimcontext just six weeks ahead of the May TechEd confab.
According to the March 31 report, worldwide spending on infor-
mation technology was expected to fall 3.8 percent in 2009, to
$3.2 trillion from $3.4 trillion. That decline, Gartner Research
Vice President Richard Gordon notes, would be worse than the
2.1 percent reduction the industry weathered in 2001 during the
dot-com bubble burst.
Ask Julian Bucknall how his company, .NET componentmaker Developer Express Inc. plans to get through the dour
economy, and he is refreshingly candid.
The economy being what it is, weve concentrated a lot on
making our current customers happy, says Bucknall,the compa-
nys chief technology officer, who notes the importance of
Developer Express subscription model.The only way we could
encourage people to stick with us is to concentrate an awful lot
on stability,reliability, discoverabilitymaking things easier and
more stable to use, and then adding more functionality when we
feel its necessary.
Like many rank-and-file dev shops, Bucknall says
Developer Express has decided to pick its spots carefully, invest-
ing in select areas and emphasizing maintenance and refinementover lavish new initiatives or product launches. Its an approach
being repeated all over the development sector.
2009 is seriously quite a tough year, but I suspect for most
people it will be just carrying on doing what theyre doing, says
Bola Rotibi, principal analyst at research firm Macehiter
Ward-Dutton (MWD).Outside of the core areas of keeping the
business going, I think [new initiatives] are going to be few and
far between.
Our survey of more than 350 .NET developers ahead of
TechEd bears out the cautious, go-slow approach.Asked about the
biggest challenge facing their organizations, the largest percentage
of respondents singled out the economy (32 percent). The
second most-cited response was the challenge of managing all thedeveloper technologies coming from Microsoft (23 percent).No
other response drew more than 8 percent of the vote.
Many dev shops report falling back into maintenance
mode. Im in pharmaceuticals, writes one senior analyst.
There are mergers, but with each merger come wholesale
layoffs. My IT department is down to doing maintenance only,
with a budget freeze in place.
An application solutions architect with a major insurance
carrier says his group is trying to do more with less. In the
health-care insurance sector, were still actively trying to handle
new projects from the business, but with smaller dev staff, or at
least fewer subject-matter experts.
While 32 percent of survey respondents report limiting workto maintenance, a surprising percentage (31 percent) say they
continue to move forward with new platforms and technologies.
My opinion is that we should be focusing on migrating our large
number of VB 6.0 and legacy ASP applications to help ramp some
of the newer or more junior staff up with the latest Microsoft dev
technologies, the solutions architect says.
A lot of developers are concerned about their ability to
adopt and master all the new technologies Microsoft has been
rolling out. Survey respondents indicate excitement about
inbound tooling like Visual Studio, .NET Framework 4.0 and
Windows 7, yet nearly seven in 10 respondents expressed
fatigue with the pace of Microsoft technology rollouts over
the past year. Nearly one-quarter of all respondents (24 percent)categorized the fatigue as significant.
We polled 369 developers for theirthoughts on the .NET dev arena.Heres what they said:
WHATS YOUR READ ON THE DEVELOPMENT MARKETFOR THE SECOND HALF OF 2009?
Difficult 39%
Hopeful 29%
Neutral 23%
Terrible 4%
Terrific 4%
HOW IS YOUR ORGANIZATION APPROACHINGAPPLICATION DEVELOPMENT?
Working on existing projects and app
maintenance only 32%
Moving forward to adopt new platforms andtechnologies 31%
Embracing Agile development methodologies 13%
Adopting more open source platforms and
development tools 9%
Investigating cloud computing options 8%
Outsourcing 7%
DO YOU SENSE DEVELOPER FATIGUE DUE TO THE PACEOF MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY INTRODUCTIONS?
Yes, some fatigue 45%
No, little or no fatigue 26%
Yes, significant fatigue 24%
Dont know 5%
IS YOUR ORGANIZATION SPECIFICALLY TARGETINGDEVELOPMENT FOR THE WINDOWS 7 CLIENT OS?
No 60%
Yes, but it will take time 23%
Yes, but only limited development 14%
Yes, aggressively 3%
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The staff is concerned about the ability to learn and apply
new technology in products that have a solid base of code,says the
vice president of engineering for a telecommunications consulting
firm. Our market problem is we need to maintain compliance
with .NET 2.0,.NET 3.5, multiple versions of SQL Server and mul-
tiple operating systems.
A Web application developer for a large construction andengineering firm says his shop is busy, but risks falling behind in
the adoption of new technologies.Our biggest challenge is not the
economy, but rather maintaining our
suite of Web applications (hundreds!) and
at the same time keep up with the pace of
technology, he says. We essentially fall
further and further behind every year.
Our most heavily used apps are classic
ASP, we have many .NET 1.1 apps, and a
sprinkling of .NET 2.0 apps. Our data-
bases have been recently upgraded to SQL
Server 2005, he says.
One major .NET component makerisnt surprised at these struggles:
Microsoft has been really aggressive
with new products and releases over the
past one to two years, and some of [our]
customers are finding it difficult to keep
pace with all the new technologies and
are sometimes confused [about] whats
best to use for their projects.
Anthony Lombardo, lead evangel-
ist for component maker Infragistics
and a Microsoft MVP, says developers
need to be smart to avoid getting over-
whelmed. Just keeping track of all ofthe different code names can be a chore.
The main thing for developers to do is
focus on the technologies that are
important to them.
Slowdown StrategiesCorporate dev shops arent the only ones
struggling to keep pace. Developer
Express Bucknall says his company has
made the decision to focus tightly on
Silverlight for its next component launch,
rather than aggressively update its suite
of ASP.NET, Windows PresentationFoundation (WPF) and new SharePoint
controls.Case in point, Developer Express
is updating its Express App Framework
(XAF) for Silverlight.
What XAF does is very quickly allow
you to write business applications just by
defining a data model, says Bucknall,not-
ing that Developer Express has added grid,
navigation, reporting and menu controls
to its Silverlight suite.XAF requires a cer-
tain number of controls before you can
generate an application. So now well be
able to write a business app for Silverlightand WPF. Those are the kind of things
were going to be concentrating on with regard to Silverlight. What
you call the business control.
A lot of firms are also looking at how they license and sell
software. Microsoft at the MIX09 conference in March demoed
the Web Platform Installer, which bundles together a complete
stack of Microsoft-based Web server products and technologies
and provides an easy-to-use installer interface.MWDs Rotibi calls the Microsoft utility a neat little solu-
tion that portends things to come. She points to the All-Access
TECH-ED 2009 FEATURE
Powerful Imaging for .NET
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DotImage 7 Affordable imaging toolkits for .NET.
Runtime royalty-free deployment to the desktop, scalable
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Visit Atalasoft.com for web demos, video tutorials, and a free trial.
Call us toll free at 866-568-0129
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TECH-ED 2009FEATURE
service provided by database tools vendor Embarcadero
Technologies Inc. as an example of how vendors can provide
rich integration to reduce application cost and complexity.
Subscribers are able to quickly download, license, provision and
deploy Embarcadero products from an online console. TheInstantOn feature enables access to Embarcadero tooling with-
out installation.
Its about reducing friction and getting the integration par-
ticularly strong. Its about the different tools, Rotibi says.Being
able to download and manage a whole series of things in an
instant, thats the next stage.
At SAP AG, the company recently overhauled the licensing
around Crystal Reports, providing a simple, flat-rate license for
companies wanting to distribute Crystal Reports functionality in
software they intend to sell or distribute. The new approach
replaces a complicated scheme, whereby ISVs had to obtain a
separate license for each distributed instance of an application
containing Crystal Reports.We found that there are tens of thousands of ISVs out there
who were building their own reporting because they felt it was
too expensive to work with a company like us, says James
Thomas, vice president of product management in the Volume
Business Unit at SAP. He cites rapid application cycles, an
increasing mix of software and services, and pressure from open
source competition for the switch.
More and more companies are looking hard at licensing and
compliance practices as a way to face down budget challenges and
ease management overhead. Jon Gillespie-Brown, chief executive
officer at licensing services firm Nalpeiron,says ISVs are scrambling
to adopt subscription models as a way to ensure constant revenue
and provide a lower barrier to entry for customers.I think that the end user is clearly pushing very hard for a
more flexible way to buy, Gillespie-Brown says.
He adds that customers are attracted to the pay-as-you-go
nature of Nalpeirons hosted license management and tracking
features. But what customers are looking for, says Gillespie-
Brown, are more streamlined ways to track and secure licensed
software, and to provide feature-complete trial software without
having to support multiple code bases . I think the perpetual
[license] model is close to dead, personally.
Touring TechEdFor all the sturm und drang of the current recession, its clear
from talking to ISVs and dev tool companies that .NET toolsdevelopment remains an active endeavor. A lot of that has to do
with Microsoft, of course. Companies like Developer Express,
Infragistics and ComponentOne LLC are constantly rushing
around behind major Microsoft platform releases, filling holes,
bridging gaps and extending the reach of technologies like WPF,
Silverlight,ASP.NET and SharePoint.
We invited dev tool providers to give us a heads up on their
plans for the May TechEd event. Heres what we learned:
Infragistics NetAdvantage for Web Clients: Silverlight
Leading component maker Infragistics is rolling out a new spin
on its NetAdvantage line of components,this one aimed at devel-
opers working with Silverlight 3, which is currently in beta. TheNetAdvantage for Web Clients Silverlight toolset offers advanced
controls designed to help developers craft line-of-business appli-
cations using Microsofts RIA platform. Included in the package
are data grid, Web tree, dialog window and other controls.
www.infragistics.com
Altova MissionKit 2009
Few companies know XML the way Altova does.As if to make the
point, Altova in February began bundling its broad suite of XML
and data manipulation tools under the MissionKit banner,creating
a one-stop shop for .NET developers. At Tech-Ed,Altova plans to
demo MissionKit Tool Suite version 2009, which now supports
Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) data in XMLSpy,
MapForce,and StyleVision.Version 2009 also lets developers work
with Health Level 7 messages in the MapForce module.
www.altova.com
Resco MobileForms Toolkit 2009
Resco MobileForms Toolkit 2009 bundles developer componentsand tools for applications developed for Microsoft .NET Compact
Framework 3.5.The latest version adds tooling for touch interfaces,
polished UI support and a trio of new app components including
tab, tooltip and toolbar controls. MobileForms Toolkit 2009 sup-
ports Visual Studio 2008,2005 and 2003.
www.resco.net
The Imaging Source TX TextControl 15.0
The TX Text Control family of word processing components for
Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 has been updated to add support for
Adobe .PDF file format export, enabling Microsoft Word and com-
patible documents to be viewed and filled out in any browser.
According to The Imaging Source, completed forms can beprocessed server-side and then printed or saved as PDF documents.
Improved support for columns and structured numbered lists has
been added. The Imaging Source is also distributing TX Text
Control RapidSpell .NET, a spell check add-on for TX Text Control
currently supporting English and German dictionaries, with addi-
tional languages and specialist dictionaries expected.
www.textcontrol.com
PureCM 2009-1
Source control management (SCM) toolmaker PureCM.com has
a new version of its eponymous product, PureCM 2009-1, that
aims to enable parallel development for cash-strapped organiza-
tions. With a newly streamlined interface and supporting agilemethodologies, PureCM is available for Windows, Linux and
Mac OS environments and integrates with the Visual Studio and
Eclipse IDEs. The new version adds real-time tracking and guid-
ance for managing merged changes. PureCM says its tooling can
scale up to thousands of end users and manage terabytes of
dataenough to handle enterprise-scale development.
www.purecm.com
REALBasic 2009 Release 1 and REAL Studio
Sure, Silverlight 3 promises to let you take your mad Visual
Basic.NET skills cross platform. But open source toolmaker
REAL Software offers another optiona cross-platform tool and
version of the Basic programming language (called,you guessedit, REALbasic) that lets developers work onand create applica-
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TECH-ED 2009 FEATURE
tions forWindows, Linux and Mac OS. REALbasic 2009
Release 1 adds ease-of-use tweaks like a Quickstart window to
help attract new users, as well as a host of improvements
designed to improve reliability.
A more robust version of the tooling released in April, calledREAL Studio, targets full-time developers and adds features like a
Profiler for optimizing performance and scripted build automation.
www.realsoftware.com
Nevron .NET Vision Q3 2008
.NET component maker Nevron
Software boasts a large collection of
chart, diagram and UI controls for
Windows Forms and ASP.NET (includ-
ing AJAX) application development.All
three component families are currently
available as part of the companys all-in-
one Nevron .NET Vision Q3 2008 com-ponent suite, which may see a major
upgrade by the time this issue reaches
your hands. The new package, reportedly
due out at the end of April, is set to intro-
duce new charts, gauge, diagram and
mapping features. .NET Vision comes in
two editions,Pro and Enterprise.
www.nevron.com
Telerik WebUI Studio
Telerik specializes in making UI controls
for a wide range of Microsoft and .NET
platforms, including ASP.NET AJAX,Silverlight, WinForms and WPF. The
company recently announced that its
RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX product
fully supports the open source Mono
runtime environment for enabling .NET
applications on Linux and Mac OS plat-
forms. Now Telerik adds WebUI Test
Studio to its RadControls for ASP.NET
AJAX. The automated testing module
uses the ArtofTest Automation Design
Canvas and WebAii Automation
Framework (reviewed in the April issue
ofVisual Studio Magazine) to let devel-opers create and run tests across Internet
Explorer and Firefox browser platforms.
Support for Safari and Google Chrome
browsers is expected soon, and Telerik
says Silverlight support will be added in
the next release. WebUI Test Studio inte-
grates with Visual Studio Professional
and Visual Studio Team System.
www.telerik.com
Nalpeiron Licensing Service
Tough times demand tough choices
when it comes to paying for software andservices. Licensing solutions firm
Nalpeiron aims to help ISVs streamline operations and better
communicate with potential customers,with its updated,hosted
suite of licensing services. New to Nalpeirons offering is the
TrialMaximizer feature for presenting e-mail campaigns and
HTML advertisements to users using a firms product under atrial license. The OverdraftTracker module promises to give ISVs
a glimpse into hidden customer demand. ISVs can flexibly con-
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For maximum efficiency, follow ourthree profiling tips outlined below.1. Profile your .NET code
A code profiler is an essential
tool to have in your development
toolkit. Although manual logging
can sometimes help, it is often
impossible to find performance
bottlenecks without a code profiler.
A profiling tool takes the guesswork
out of performance analysis and
drastically reduces the amount of
time taken to find problem code.
2. Quickly locate your
performance bottleneck
Run ANTS Profiler Pro to obtain
detailed quantitative data that will
help you identify inefficient resource
usage. ANTS Profiler gives you hit
count and line-level timings, so you
can quickly identify the specific
lines of code which are affecting the
performance of your application.
No time wasting. No guessing.
Use real data instead!
3. Optimize efficiently
Now that you know exactly where
to focus your performance-boosting
work, you can start optimizing your
code effectively. Optimize your code
only where it needs to be improved,
and don't try to make unnecessary
changes that will not solve your
performance problem.
How to boost the performance of your
.NET applications with ANTS Profiler
Performance is crucial, so here are some tips to make sure
that your applications run efficiently.
Download your 14-day, fully functionalfree trial from www.red-gate.com
ANTS Profiler shows you line-level timings, so you can drill down to the specific lines of code responsiblefor performance inefficiencies.
Select a region on the timeline and get the performance data just for that region.
"We were able to improve
performance in parts of
the application up to 10 times,
and our customer noticed the
results. A powerful, instantly
understandable profiler.Highly recommended."
Dan Ports Lead Developer, Intrigma Inc
"ANTS Profiler took us
straight to the specific areas
of our code which were the
cause of our performanceissues."
Terry Phillips Sr. Developer,
Harley-Davidson Dealer Systems
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As announced in March at the MIX09 conference in Las
Vegas, Silverlight 3 adds a host of data-oriented features that go a
long way toward providing critical support for LOB develop-
ment. Ill show you how to build a Silverlight 3 client that access-
es a Web service to retrieve and update data. My initial version
will be a form that displays a single entity. But by leveraging the
new data binding and validation features in Silverlight 3, Ill
illustrate how I can migrate my solution to a full-featuredmaster-detail page in just a few minutes.
If you want to try out the new features in Silverlight 3 your-
self, you can download the beta from http://tinyurl.com/dcs3fj.
There are two caveats that apply. First: Dont install the beta on a
computer where you want to continue creating Silverlight 2
applicationsinstalling the beta converts Visual Studio to a
Silverlight 3 development tool. Second: This is still a beta release
and no go-livelicense is available. Any applications you develop
at this point arent supported by Microsoft.
A Sample ApplicationOK, enough warnings. For this article, I created a
simple Silverlight application that interacts witha Web service on my server. The application
pulls down a collection of objects representing
Customers entities in the Northwind Database
and displays them in a DataForm .
To create this application yourself, after
installing the Silverlight 3 beta package,select File |
New Project in Visual Studio and choose Silverlight
under the language of your choice (I chose Visual
Basic). From the available Templates, select
Silverlight Application,enter a name for the project
(I used DataDrivenSL) and click the OK button. In
the New Silverlight Application dialog that appears,
change the project type to ASP.NET Web Site beforeclicking OK.I got the solution you see in Figure 1:an
ASP.NET Web Site and a Silverlight app.
In the Web site, I added a service with two
methods: one that returns Customer objects
(GetCustomers) and one that, when passed a sin-
gle Customer object, updates the database with
the values on the object (UpdateCustomer). I
made the .ASPX page my start page. In the
Silverlight app, I knocked together a simple user
interface in the MainPage.xaml file, using a Button
and the new DataForm control inside a StackPanel:
In the code file for MainPage.XAML, to retrieve the Customer
entity objects from my Web service, I created an EndPoint object
for my services URL,a variable to hold a reference to my service
and a BasicHttpBinding object. In the Click event for the Button,
I used those objects to retrieve a collection of Customer entities
by calling the GetCustomers method on my service:
Private WithEventsnwd As_
While Silverlight 1 and 2 concentrated on helping developers deliver rich Internetapplications (RIAs), coders building line-of-business (LOB) applications had little tocheer about. The limited support for data binding and data validation complicatedbasic data management tasks in LOB applications. Thats about to change.
SILVERLIGHT HOW-TO
VisualStudioMagazine.com May 2009 VISUAL STUDIO MAGAZINE 27
FIGURE 1. The Web site in a Silverlight solution has an HTML page and an.ASPX page, both of which host the Silverlight application thats part of the
same solution.
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NorthwindData.NorthwindDataSoapClient
Dim bind As New System.ServiceModel.BasicHttpBinding
Dim ep As New System.ServiceModel.EndpointAddress( _
URL for Web Service)
Private Sub ButtonGet_Click( _
ByVal sender As System.Object, _
ByVal e As System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs)nwd = New NorthwindData.NorthwindDataSoapClient( _
bind, ep)
nwd.GetCustomersAsync()
End Sub
Binding to Local Objects
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