What offers the recent versions of .NET technologies such as C#, ASP.NET MVC, WCF, WWF, WPF, Silverlight, LINQ, Entity Framework, OData Services, ASP.NET Web API…etc. for you

What offers the recent versions of .NET technologies such as C#, ASP.NET MVC, WCF, WWF, WPF, Silverlight, LINQ, Entity Framework, OData Services, ASP.NET Web API…etc. for you

The some of the features of the Microsoft .NET recent versions 4 and 4.5 are given below.

1. Please note that each and every version of Microsoft .NET release tight, improve the security model and performance in various areas.

2. Microsoft .NET framework 4 introduces a new programming model called Parallel Computing for writing multithreaded and asynchronous code that greatly simplifies the work of application and library developers. This model enables developers to write efficient, fine-grained, and scalable parallel code in a natural idiom without having to work directly with threads or the thread pool. The new System.Threading.Tasks namespace and other related types support this new model. Parallel LINQ (PLINQ), which is a parallel implementation of LINQ to Objects.

Please visit below URL’s to know more about parallel programming.

http://parallelpatterns.codeplex.com/

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsdesktop/Samples-for-Parallel-b4b76364

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/dd460693(v=vs.100).aspx

3. In ASP.NET MVC, many features such as new Razor view engine, HTML 5 & Mobile supported templates, powerful hooks with Dependency Injection & Global Action Filters, OData Services, ASP.NET Web API, Asynchronous methods etc.

References:

http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc3

http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc4

4. The named, optional parameters enabled the developers that don’t need to pass the common values in method calls.

Please visit the below URL’s to know more about the details

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd264739.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/gg581066.aspx

5. The Covariance and Contravariance in Generics.

In Covariance, Object=string.

In Contravariance, string=Object.

For example, In Covariance èClass Y: X then we can assign X = Y.

In Contravariance èClass Y: X then we can assign Y = X.

Please visit the below URL’s to know more details about Covariance & Contravariance

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/csharpfaq/archive/2010/02/16/covariance-and-contravariance-faq.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799517.aspx

6. Dynamic Language Runtime:  DLR makes it easier to develop dynamic languages like LISP, JavaScript, PHP, and Ruby to run on .NET framework and add dynamic features to statically typed languages.  Dynamic is behaves like type Object in most circumstances and resolved at runtime.

References:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd233052.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd264736.aspx

7. The special feature called Asynchronous Programming with Async and Wait. This feature helps to avoid the performance bottlenecks & improve the responsiveness.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Sharp_(programming_language)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/hh191443.aspx

8. Many features are improved and added in WCF, WPF, and WWF & AJAX library.

9. Tuple:  A Tuple has many items and each item can contains any type.   For example,

Tuple<int, string, string, bool> accountDetails = new Tuple<int, string, string, bool> (2345,

"ANZ Bank", “City”, true);   

Reference:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.tuple.aspx

Note:

If you would like to find the version of Microsoft .NET installed on your machine then use either

1. Open windows explorer and type %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\
2. Go to command prompt and type wmic product where "name like 'Microsoft .NET Framework%'" get name,version  and press enter
3. Type regedit in RUN or Start Menu search box and press enter and then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP

References:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171868.aspx

http://www.asp.net/vnext/overview/aspnet/whats-new

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Europe/2012/DEV331

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb822049.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Framework

Microsoft PowerShell

Microsoft PowerShell:

Microsoft PowerShell is power for everything. Microsoft PowerShell is a task based command line shell & scripting language and offers many things for you.

1. Its offers you the all equivalent command or task which UNIX commands does.  We can say Microsoft PowerShell is windows scripting language.
2. Special PowerShell commands are available for Visual Studio, IIS, and AppFabric caching, SQL Server…etc.
3. You can create the deployment scripts using Microsoft PowerShell and special PowerShell commands are available for this.
4. Please type get-command and press enter key on Windows PowerShell command prompt then it will give you all the command names and definition.
5. Please type get-help  “command name” and press enter key and will display the help for that command. For example,  get-help grep
6. You can use it for automated build process.
7. Special PowerShell commands are available for Network and DBA administrators.
8. You can use PowerShell for Workflow tasks.
9. Special PowerShell commands are available for Windows Azure.

Please try to use Microsoft PowerShell and you will say PowerShell is more powerful.

Please visit Microsoft site to know more about PowerShell and usage.

References:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb978526.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30002

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156055.aspx

About Author

Jayachandran(Jay) is working as a seasoned Developer/Architect and been working in various domain such as Telecom, Banking, Media, CMS, Printing, Government, Retail and Software Services…etc. He started his career at programmer level and been working as a various technical level positions. He is an expert in Design/Architect the various software systems & he would like to hands on programming. He is PMP and Microsoft certified holder and his main areas are not limited to C#, ASP.NET, WCF, ASP.NET Web API, WF, WPF ,Silverlight, ADO.NET Data Services, SharePoint, Service-Oriented Architectures(SOA), Cloud Computing…etc.  Jay will be contactable at Jayachandran.NET@hotmail.com.

Quick links

Please click the corresponding link which do you wish to know more details.

1. Coding standards & practices

2. OOAD

3. Design patterns

4. UML

5. Security

6. R & D for up to date technologies

7. Database design

8. Feeding the people technically

9. Testing framework

10. Documentation skills

11. Communication skill

12. Doing Certifications

13. SOA & Cloud Fundamentals

14. Building SOA & Cloud based services

15. Networking skills up to Architect level

16. Troubleshooting the problems

17. Lesson learned from your experience

3. Design patterns

What is Design Patterns?

In software world, a design pattern is repeatable solution which is used to solve the software problems in the software design. We can also say that design pattern is model or template which can be often used when we write the software programs.

The Gang of Four (GoF) authors namely Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides are spent lot of time on the software design and they come with in total 23 design patterns with their hard work and they proved that any software design which will fall under any one of the these 23 design patterns.

Why do we need to use or consider design patterns when we write software programs?

Design Patterns are designed for reducing the software hassles & will show you how you can reusable OOAD in different situations.

What are the GoF design patterns (23 design patterns)?

Please refer the below chart will shows various types of design patterns & how to remember them easily.

GoF Design Patterns

Note:

Architecture patterns are well known patterns for solving software application architecture problems. Examples of the architecture patterns are 

1. MVC

2. MVP

3. MVVM
4. N-layer depends upon the domain project

Architecture pattern is need to decide before start developing the project and very hard to change once its built.

Next, I will suggest to visit the topic number 4. UML and come back here to continue reading the remaining page because we are going to use the UML in each design pattern. So I would suggest to get know more about the UML first and keep reading.

6. R & D for up to date technologies

You may think, why title of this post called “R & D for up to date technologies”.

R & D – stands for Research & Development

We can elaborate into many things from this title. Technology is dynamic world. i.e.) technologies are keep on changing and exploring into the world.  In order to keep track on technologies side, we need to keep on doing research, studying latest technologies and use them in our software development to get benefited.

We need research/ and find out is there are new technologies can use for our software development which can increase our productivity and reduce the time/cost.

As we know, our existing systems are running smoothly, making money and why we should upgrade our systems into new technologies.

The answer for above question is not that straight forward and simple. But the reasons are

1. Increase productivity
2. Interoperability
3. Increase flexibility…etc.

Let’s spend some time and go through, travel on modern technologies technical track and we will decide how new technologies help us to increase the above functionalities.

As of now, I think of the below latest technologies. Let’s discuss about the below technologies and will see what can offer you for your business.

Microsoft offers many things in .NET space for us. Sometimes, we have not tasted all the features which Microsoft offers. Please try to taste which useful for your business which Microsoft offers.

Here tasted = using

I am not going to explain each and every feature as Microsoft .NET space is a big ocean and cannot swim all over the ocean.  However, I will show you how to swim (I mean some of the features) and you will learn how to swim other sides (to extend for other features) of the ocean.

Please click on the item to know more about corresponding technologies.

1. Microsoft PowerShell

2. What offers the recent versions of .NET technologies such as C#, ASP.NET MVC, WCF, WPF, Silverlight, LINQ, Entity Framework, OData Services, ASP.NET Web API…etc. for you.

3. Microsoft Business Intelligence Stack (SSIS, SSRS, SSAS)

4. HTML 5 /CSS 3

5. jQuery

6. Windows 8 Apps

7.  Windows Azure

8. What offers the recent versions of source versions controls systems such TFS, TortoiseSVN…etc. for you.

9. SharePoint

10. BizTalk Server

11.  Android

12. Other technologies which is not in the above .

8. Feeding the people technically

What is mean by feeding the people technically?

Most of the people don’t understand straightway that what is mean by feeding the people technically? Let me explain more about this. We can see so many people posting their technical articles, technical solutions for the hard problems, their technical experience and expertise on the internet in such a way that to help other people. This is called feeding the people technically.

If you share your technical knowledge with your co-workers and this is also called feeding the people technically. So generally whatever you share in terms of technical stuff or teaching to someone technical stuff is called feeding the people technically.

When we need any technical help or if we cannot find the answer then we search on www.bing.com or www.google.com or www.yahoo.com to find the answer as our technical people posted their gained experience. So feeding the people technically is a good habit and its help you to grow as well.

If you find the answer for the difficult problems please feel free to share with everyone. There is a proverb called “what you give is what you get”

You can share either on internet or with colleagues.

What are benefits we get when we feed the people technically?

1. You never forget that technical concept when you share with someone.
2. If you share technical stuff with someone, then they will ask questions related to that topic and it make you to think more and more. So this will help you to grow yourself technically.
3. The proverb “What you give you is what you get” is applicable for everyone who share the technical stuff.
4. Team work with sharing the technical knowledge with others is the strongest value added service for the project.
5. Definitely it’s worth of sharing your technical stuff to others and there is lot of good things behind on this. You will know gradually when you share the technical stuff to others.  I am not going to explain those things now and you will know when you share it. Please try to find out what they are.

How do you share your technical skills and knowledge with others?

1. You can organize the technical sharing meeting with your team by weekly or monthly depends upon the team member’s availability.
2.  Each and every team member can talk about particular technical topic such as caching, cloud computing…etc. by weekly or monthly basis. So in this way everyone get to know all the topics and it’s good for everyone including the organization.
3. Apart from your work, you can share your technical knowledge with your family and friends.
4. Writing technical articles or blog and posting on the internet.
5. Depends upon your time availability, you can conduct the technical classes for university students or who need technical help  and help them to get the jobs as well.
6. You can form the team with your friends to play (either cricket or your favourite games) in the weekend and during that time you can also share and talk about the technical stuff and your technical experience.
7. Other than above, there are many ways to share the technical knowledge with your friends. Please try to find the best way which is suitable for you and share your technical knowledge with everyone

So finally, I would strongly recommend that please feed the people technically whenever you can.

Thanks for visiting.