Go Live with .NET 3.0

Ivan Towlson, ECN Group

Agenda

• What is .NET 3.0?• Should I be

considering/recommending it for current projects?

What is .NET 3.0?

• .NET Framework 2.0 CLR, BCL and compilers plus

• Windows Presentation Foundation• Windows Communication Foundation• Windows Workflow Foundation• Windows CardSpace

Where do customers get it?

• Out of the box with Windows Vista• 50 Mb redistributable or download for

XP SP2 and 2003• Not available on earlier versions

What do I need to develop on it?

• Runtime• Vista SDK• Optionally, VS2005 integration

What is its status?

• Runtime – released and fully supported• SDK – released and fully supported• Visual Studio

– 2005 integration – CTP, not being progressed

– ‘Orcas’ – no release date, current CTP does not include all designers

Windows Presentation Foundation

• Common user input and output API– Mouse, keyboard, ink, speech– Controls, graphics, text, audio/speech, video

• DirectX based• Declarative programming model

– XAML: HTML-like description of UI– Data binding

Consider WPF If You Need...

• Custom graphics– Even something as simple as a Gantt chart

• Animation• Document-type layouts (rich text,

adaptive layouts, mixed text and media)• Navigation

Windows Communication Foundation

• Common framework for message-oriented communication– SOAP-based– Transport agnostic (HTTP, TCP, MSMQ...)– Interface oriented– Configurable composition of policies

(security, reliability, transactionality, etc.)– Address, binding, contract in configuration

Consider WCF If You Need...

• Messaging• Policy-driven capabilities (security,

reliability, etc.)• Communication between your own

processes (rather than running in IIS)

Windows Workflow Foundation

• Workflow– Sequential workflow – e.g. expense

application– State machine – e.g. bug tracking– Host-based, configurable policies e.g.

persistence, tracking

• Rules engine

Consider WF If You Need...

• Long-running processes• State tracking / progress tracking• Externalised (configurable) rules

– This can be used for a lot more than business rules – e.g. configuration-driven validation, enabling/disabling, navigation control

• BAM (Business Activity Monitoring)

Development Tradeoffs – WPF

• Incumbent technology: Windows Forms

• Tooling (‘Cider’ VS designer, Blend)– XAML + Intellisense = not so bad

• Controls• Third-party support

Development Tradeoffs – WCF

• Incumbent technologies: WSE, ASMX, Remoting, MSMQ, Enterprise Services (COM+)

• Protocols have two ends

Development Tradeoffs – WF

• Incumbent technologies: only at enterprise server level, e.g. BizTalk, BPM tools

• Tooling– VS05 integration stable in practice but not

supported (underlying designer is supported)• Extra work to match enterprise tools

– Robustness, scaling, load balancing, etc.– Adapters, transforms, resources/roles

Development Tradeoffs – General

• Documentation and samples• Community support / knowledge• Best practices• Diagnostic and debugging tools not

as mature as core CLR/procedural tools

Development Tradeoffs – General

• Investment in existing codebases – migration or interoperation

• Availability of skilled developers (able to work without tooling, able to mentor)

Deployment Considerations – Consumer / Personal Apps• That’s a big download• Users may not be allowed to install the

framework on their work machines• Rules out Win2000 and Win9x

customers– Win2000 still the standard desktop at many

big companies

Deployment Considerations – Corporate Apps

• Another piece of plumbing to roll out• Education

– The “3.0” moniker may make IT groups resistant even though it’s really 2.0 + libraries

– Compatibility fears

• Corporate PCs often have low-end graphics capabilities (WPF)

Deployment Considerations – General

• Do operations staff know how to configure it, secure it, back it up, diagnose faults, plan capacity, perform failover etc.?– This is often more of an application issue, but

consider WCF/WF configuration files, WF dehydration/rehydration (e.g. SQL Server considerations, versioning)

Management Fears

• Development and deployment considerations discussed earlier

• Microsoft’s commitment – anyone remember Web classes?

• Support status – hotfixes etc.

Management Fears

• ‘Let’s wait until other people are using it’ – technology seen as unproven – case studies

• Wait for migration path instead of starting over

• Technology roadmap

Summary

• Should I be considering .NET 3.0 for my next project?

• Yes!• But, as with any new technology, be

realistic about the implications: would you have moved from VB6 to .NET in 2002?

Questions?

Ivan Towlson, ECN Groupivan@hestia.cc

http://hestia.typepad.com/flatlander