Manuel Abadia's ASP.NET stuff - WPF/E

Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX v1.0 released!

Your DisplayName here! — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:17:12 GMT

Finally the Microsoft AJAX library 1.0 has been released. Take a look to ScottGu's blog for the details:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/01/23/asp-net-ajax-1-0-released.aspx

What is really cool about this is that Microsoft has also released the full source code for the AJAX library. That move can give a lot of people that do not work with Microsoft related technologies a reason to try it and use it, and for the rest of us a chance to take a look to some of the internals if it is needed.

It is a shame that some parts of the initial ATLAS library like the Bindings didn’t make it in the final release. Anyway, they’re available in the AJAX Futures CTP and someday will be part of the official release.

Will this mean that we will see a lot of .NET developers working directly with the Microsoft AJAX library? IMHO, no. Probably most developers will use the Ajax Control Toolkit and the UpdatePanel to add AJAX capabilities to their projects.

Creating ASP.NET components that make use the client side of the Microsoft AJAX library is not easy: You need to know quite a bunch of stuff: a .NET programming language, ASP.NET, Javascript, HTML, DHTML, CSS, XML and AJAX Library internals… so I guess a lot of developers are out of luck.

Fortunately, Nikhil’s Script# can help a bit, and finally changed the type system to be compatible with the AJAX Library (I asked Nikhil about this a few months ago and I wasn’t sure that he will do it, but I’m glad he did!).

Also, there is a lot of other new stuff to look as a .NET developer: WPF, WCF, WF, LINQ, DLINQ, WPF/E. And if you’re using SQL Server 2005, there are a lot of new things to look at…

Personally I have to learn the Microsoft AJAX Library in detail but I’m also interested in learning Windows Workflow Foundation, so I’m not sure in what to center my attention at the moment.

Happy 2007!

Your DisplayName here! — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 23:36:54 GMT

Another year ends and a new one comes. Life goes as fast as usual and we’re keep on our way. It’s time to think about it… our actions, hopes, wishes, mistakes, etc.

I usually listen to a special song a few minutes after the start of the year. In the last few years I have been choosing "Aerosmith – Full Circle" because it has special connotations for me.

I wish you the best in the coming year.

WPF/E - First impressions

Your DisplayName here! — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 18:02:16 GMT

I haven’t paid too much attention to WPF but after the first CTP of WPF/E I was curious to see what is the status of WPF/E (mostly, because I had a project in mind that needed some vector graphics and I was going to use SVG to do it) so I installed it and take a quick look at it.

You can install it here:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=77791&clcid=0x409

And an introduction video can be watched here:

http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=263358

The truth is that I am a bit dissapointed with it, but don’t get me wrong. WPF/E is a cool idea in the initial stages of development, so with a bit of luck it can evolve to something really useful. However, this initial release lacks a lot of stuff:
- there isn’t any direct pixel manipulation method available making this a very limiting factor for games.
- there isn’t any input control.
- missing keyboard support.
- Also there isn’t a linux version yet.
- The SDK samples aren't as good as the ones shown in the video.

Hopefully those problems will be addressed in future releases if Microsoft wants to create something that can replace flash in a lot of scenarios. Currently is only usable for displaying charts, shapes and video.

Also, as a MSDN professional subscriber, I’m a bit pissed of because the Microsoft Expression suite isn’t available to us, but that’s another story…