A continuation to Blog post on Entity Framework 4.0 and its Features [More]

Entity Framework 4.0  Over a period of time ADO.NET has been the primary gizmo for accessing data while building applications using Microsoft Technologies. Entity Framework is one more enhancement over ADO.NET from Microsoft. Entity framework builds a layer of abstraction called Entity Data Model (EDM) over the traditional data model, which actually allows the developer to interact with a model (Set of classes) rather than interacting directly with the database.  Before we see how Entity Framework works let us consider few areas where developers need to put some extra effort when... [More]

The Silverlight wrap panel is a great control which automatically wraps the elements in it either horizontally or vertically as required to fit them within the size of the panel. Using a wrap panel is fairly simple and straight forward. <ControlsToolkit:WrapPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> <TextBlock Text="Item 1"/> <TextBlock Text="Item 2"/> <TextBlock Text="Item 3"/> <TextBlock Text="Item 4"/> <TextBlock Text="Item 5"/> <TextBlock Text="Item 6"/> ... [More]

 So, the news of Sharepoint being RTM’ed excited me as much as it would excite any above average and ardent follower of the product. I have been working quite a bit on the beta version. Learning my way around, getting trained and all that! The one-stop link for Sharepoint 2010 beta installation was http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869(office.14).aspx. So, before starting the installation of the RTM version, I un-installed Foundation Server 2010 beta and Sharepoint Server 2010 beta. Downloaded and extracted the Sharepoint 2010 RTM from my MSDN subscription and e... [More]

Yet another project and I feel we seriously lack a good modelling tool which enables modelling the entities/ services in a n-tier SOA application. Why I say that is we have Service Factory modelling edition which is pretty neat for what it does, Service Design and Data Contract design. But then, we also have ADO.net entity designer (visual editor) which again is pretty neat, but the point is the entities generated can actually be used by the Services as direct input and output and the service modeller in Service Factory is totally oblivious of ADO.net entity types. And of course ADO.net entit... [More]

Every phase of an application development lifecycle is interesting and each has got its own set of opportunities to improvise and challenges to understand and address from previous experience. And that’s what makes it interesting. Its evolution at its best when during the requirement cycle what seems impossible to understand during the first week of requirements analysis seems in control the week after that after those brainstorming discussions with the team (which involves the customer and the development team). Around that time you pretty much start off with putting the architectural b... [More]