T4MVC for ASP.NET MVC2

This T4 tool really provides a lot of very nice strongly typed capabilities in MVC related code. Check it out at http://aspnet.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=T4MVC

WPF and Silverlight and multi-targeting

There seems to be much more groundswell and interest in WPF and Silverlight in general which is a good thing. Something that I have been hearing and seeing is a lot of company chief technologists are thinking that in order to do Silverlight applications, it is something vastly different from WPF desktop or rich client apps.

The WPF in Silverlight is a subset of the full .NET 3.5 Framework WPF library. The design patterns and architectural patterns are either identical or very slightly varied.

Yes, because Silverlight is run in a browser plugin there are security constraints and there are some complications of getting and putting data in a line of business type of application but certainly not insurmountable.

I guess because the XAML language is a new paradigm of how to think about designing an architecture and has a steep learning curve, many companies that want to get up to speed with it are looking for more experienced resources in just Silverlight. The thing is, theres not a lot of full web based line of business apps being done completely in Silverlight.

With the Prism Framework and Composite Application Guidance Library, its possible to have a common code base for targeting both WPF desktop and Silverlight web. The underlying main core business logic layer is common to both and is architected in such a way that the main view XAML is designed with Silverlight in mind and keeping track of the limits of the WPF subset in Silverlight.

Contact me at info@kistner.net to get more info on how we can contract with your organization to provide some WPF/Silverlight/Prism consulting services to get you up to speed.

Sharepoint WSS Web Apps

Involved in a situation where there has been some efforts to build a complex line of business application on the Sharepoint platform.

I love Sharepoint and its capabilities for portals or lightweight apps that can take advantage of many of the collaborative capabilities, but there is a point of diminishing return if youre going to have to build an infrastructure of logic and functionality for the type of business workflows that exist in most mission critical applications.

Can all of that be fit into web parts? Can web parts be made to exist as views in an MVC architectural pattern. Well, maybe but its not purposeful as its not intended to be able to do that really. You can do it but should you want to?

Getting started...

wanted to get this started today and will customize later. im going to see if i can mention items from some of the more advanced software development technology and approaches.