.NET From India

Batching in ADO.NET 2.0 Beta 2

A wonderful post from Pablo on how batching works with SQL Server in ADO.NET 2.0 Beta 2. Even though SQL Profiler seems to say that there is no batching, looks like it is happening at a network level.

Refactoring in VB 2005

After cutting Refactoring from the core VB 2005, MS announced last week that they will ship Refactor! for Visual Basic from Dev Express free. This is a add in that will provide refactoring support for VB 2005.

You can download the free copy here. Note, that this works with VS 2005 Beta 2.

VS 2005 Beta 2

VS 2005 Beta 2 is out over the weekend. This avbl for download for MSDN subscribers.

And this does have a go live license.

Getting Indigo to Go

I installed the Indigo CTP on a VPC image. Well took almost a day to get the samples to run..:-)

If you are thinking of playing around with the CTP, read the Readme file and also visit the Indigo Forums. Without these, it is going to be next to impossible to get the samples to run.

Now that the Getting Started Sample is running, I am gonna try and get a completely new service up and running. I am not there yet, hopefully, by end of week..:-)

And dont forget to read the updated Release notes.

Whidbey Ship Dates and Prices

Microsoft announced the pricing for VS 2005 and MSDN subscriptions yesterday.

The important point that was hidden in that release was that VS 2005 is going to be available in the second half of the year.

in preparation for Visual Studio 2005, expected in the second half of calendar year 2005

So you are basically looking at an after August timeframe for the RTM..

Winform Controls

I am looking at developing some winform applications and am out looking for controls to use for my UI. I am looking for free controls that also has code. As I am using .NET 2.0 for my developments, I need to source so that I can modify when I come across a problem.

I am currently looking at winxpcc and code project. Are they any other good ones available??

EDRA in Whidbey Source Uploaded

I have uploaded the converted source code for the EDRA (Shadofax) framework 1.1 to the EDRA workspace in gotdotnet.

This download contains the converted solution and project files (for VS 2005) as well as fixes for the APIs that have been obseleted in .NET 2.0

EDRA runs on Whidbey!!!

Got EDRA(shadowfax) to run on .NET 2.0.. Hurray...

Learning - don't rely on the VS.NET converter. In Nov CTP, if the converter is unable to convert a project (seems to have trouble with web service projects), it removes it from the solution. So when I converted the fully created 1.1 solution, I got a new 2.0 solution, which did not have a project or two.

The easiest way to get it to run:

1. Copy the source code of EDRA into a diff directory. This step is needed, so that the msi does not think that the install is corrupted and ask you to reinstall it etc..
2. Convert the EDRA source tree to 2.0. Most prob, you got errors when conversion of WebServiceDispatcher and it got removed from the solution. Go ahead and manually create this project and copy the source code over.
3. Get the framework to compile. You will get quite a few obsolete warnings. If you do have the time, do convert these to the equivalent 2.0 functions/classes. Not too difficult, just read the relevant pages from MSDN.
4. Create the web service, BA and the client project. I found it was faster just creating these projects, instead of converting the 1.1 equivalents.

EDRA and .NET 2.0

I have been looking in Enterprise Development Reference Architecture aka Shadowfax for a day or two now. I have not really given it too much time till now, but my current assignment may be a well suited candidate for EDRA. The only hitch is that I am developing on .NET 2.0, while EDRA is on 1.1.

Well, atleast it ships with source. So did a conversion and came up with 50 odd places where things have changed and so have been marked obselete. After converting everything, EDRA compiles in Whidbey. Now I need to get it to run. As of now that is a no-go. The most troublesome part is that EDRA is tightly integrated into EIF and EIF is 1.1 only. It also does not ship source and so I cannot convert it to 2.0.

Anyway, if you are using a lot of XML, be warned, you may have some work converting stuff to 2.0. Especially if you are using XSD (ValidatingReader) or XSLT. Anyway, this is my first experience really migrating stuff from 1.1 to 2.0. Till now it had been either 1.1 or 2.0 development.

Hmm... Let me see if I can get that to really work...

SQL Server 2005 Express Manager

Microsoft has released a new tool that you can use to manage SQL 2005 express and MSDE 2000 version. This tool is free and is called the SQL Server 2005 Express Manager.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Manager is a new, free database management tool. Designed for ease of use SQL Server 2005 Express Manager is filled with features to simplify, automate, and reduce the complexity of database support and administration.