I've been tasked with cleaning up a few remaining bugs in a system that is about to go live.  I spent most of last week trying to figure out this one. 

A page in a site included an asp:FileUpload control.  This was working fine but then suddenly stopped.  When the user submitted the form the FileUpload control would be cleared and nothing happened - no postback, no file uploaded, nothing.  Ah, but only in IE 7 (we didn't have 6 to test with), FireFox works fine.

So, to cut a very long story short and to save anyone else from murderous thoughts, here is the reason and solution (at least for me).

After turning on script debugging I could see an exception on the ASP.Net postback event:

function __doPostBack(eventTarget, eventArgument) {
    if (!theForm.onsubmit || (theForm.onsubmit() != false)) {
        theForm.__EVENTTARGET.value = eventTarget;
        theForm.__EVENTARGUMENT.value = eventArgument;
        theForm.submit();
    }
}

The message displayed was htmlFile: Access Denied.

After much googling I found a few forum threads (heres one) that indicated that this was a security feature introduced in XP SP2, the idea, I think, was to prevent files being uploaded without the user knowing about it. Unfortuately none of the suggested solutions apply or work for me. 

After winding back the source day by day to a version that worked I was able to determine that the inclusion of an onload event handler in the body tag of the page was the cause.  Removing this fix the problem immediately.

Conslusion?  Well, I think IE is thinking that the onload event handler could be doing something dodgey so it enters a hightened state of alert and locks out the upload control.

Parting Shot:  Why the frac is this behaviour not documented by Microsoft and the IE team?  Maybe it is and google can't find it... but I doubt that.

Heopfully you wont waste 3 days like I did trying to solve this.

Tommorow I leave Christchurch for (up to) 6 months work in Sydney.  I'll be working for Intergen Solutions Pty - the Oz version of Intergen NZ - on an EPiServer web site for one of our customers, but I'll be back in NZ as required, probably monthly.

I'm really looking forward to:

• doing some coding again - seems like I have not done any real coding for a year but I'm sure that's not strictly correct
• decent weather - winter has been long and cold and as I get older I enjoy it less and less
• the Sydney lifestyle - beaches, booze and babes :) (hope the wife isn't reading this!)
• getting involved with the Sydney .Net community.  I'm already booked to do the Office Dev Con and to see Steve Balmer at some MS event.
• doing stuff that is worthy of blogging again

but I worry about:

• the heat - it was 31c there on Monday - that's about my limit.  It will take me a few weeks to get used to that again
• the cost - finding accommodation is hard, finding cheap accommodation is very hard.  Plus, my 20yo daughter will be joining me in a few weeks for the summer so I need 2 bedrooms.   If you happen to have or know of a 2 bed furnished unit in Sydney that is available soon then please drop me a line!
• homesickness.  I normally enjoy the first 3 days in a big city and then want to be back in my own bed.  Being away from the family for up to a month at a time will be a challenge for everyone.

And I'll be missing Code Camp :( which sounds like it is going to be a great event.

 

 

Mainland Code Camp 2008 - Keeping It Real

Another Code Camp is being organised for Christchurch (see details below).  I'm taking a back seat this year with the organisation but I will be presenting a session or two.  I'm thinking:

100% Pure Javascript - All script and no controls

This session will demonstrate how to create a rich client application using javascript that uses an ASP.Net application for server side functionality - without using any (or at least very few) ASP.Net server controls. I guess you could call this hand-crafted AJAX.

Whats it all about, TFS?

Team System and Team Foundation Server are not particularly well understood.  In this short session I will attempt to explain (and possibly demonstrate) how the features of Team System impact & benefit developers and the project life cycle on a day to day basis.

---

Date: Saturday 1st November, Christchurch.  9am - 6pm
Location: Trimble Navigation, 11 Birmingham Drive (map)
Cost: Free! (Lunch provided)

Theme:  Keeping It Real
The sessions are designed to showcase .NET related tools and techniques that will be useful to you as a developer, focusing on real-world topics that will be of immediate use.

Featuring mostly local presenters it's a time to talk and socialise and connect with others in the local community. An optional dinner in the evening is an ideal way to finish the day (the great restaurant last year is still being talked about!)

Speakers:  Looking at getting into speaking?  Email christchurch@dot.net.nz to register your interest. It's a great opportunity to give a talk on anything .NET related.  We have plenty of options

• 5mins (Lightning) - Powerpoint only (no live code).  Aim at getting a single point across - demonstrating a product, feature, tip, technique etc.  These sessions are a hit with audiences at other DNUG groups and code camps - fun and lightweight!
• 15mins (Thunder) - Enough time to show a single concept or demo without getting into too much detail.  eg Interesting practical code, fun side projects, favourite dev tool/trick , LINQ to XML example etc
• 30mins, 60mins - Useful for when you have something larger to demonstrate or feel really passionate about and need to spread the word!

 

Contact Details: If you have any questions, suggestions or want to offer sponsorship, please contact us at christchurch@dot.net.nz.

It's been a while since I've blogged about anything interesting - or had anything very interesting to blog about - so this is a bit of proof that I'm still alive and a catchup of what I've been up to.

iPhone
I succumed to the hype and was sucked into buying a new 3gesus phone.  This was also prompted by my realisation that my iMate SP5 was actually a peice of fecal matter.  iPhone rocks!  The UI is fantastic and so easy to use.  I was worried when it arrived without any sort of manual - a slim pamplet is all you get.  However a manual is unnecessary.

There's been some negative comments from people about drop-outs and slowness, but I haven't had any problems that I didn't cause myself.  The latest 2.1 OS patch has made the phone faster and the battery life does seem a tad better.  I did use the jailbreaking WinPwn on the phone pre-2.1 but this made the phone very slow and I really can't seen the point of doing this unless you really need to hack it to death. 

My only complaint is Safari - it locks the phone and crashes very easily.  However, I dont really use it much so this is no biggy.

Windows Server 2008
I updated my dev desktop to 2008 server x64 without much forethought or planning.  The upgrade painless but I've spent a lot of time getting all my VM's converted to HyperV.  Its faster then 2003 server and it seems more stable, but this might be more to do with 64bits and a cleanup of installed rubbish than anything else.

HyperV is great.  It's certainly a step up from Virtual Server.  Snapshots are a life saver!  I've been doing some work with Active Directory schemas so it's a peice of cake to make a change then roll back to a previous snapshot and try again.

Like all good Microsoft software there are a number of really annoying little quirks, missing features and unwelcome changes:  The HyperV VM Connection console doesn't do clipboard across machine so you still need RDP, which impossible if you only use the internal network connection.  The event viewer now has 4 hundredd thousand gazillion different nodes - finding a simple error in an event log can take a long time.  UAC still sucks and is unnecessary for anyone with an IQ above 12.

Chrome
For a version < 1 browser Chrome is excellent.  I use it in preference to FireFox which I use in preference to IEeeek (any version).  It's very fast, work on just about everything and has the typically clean Google UI.  Like Firefox though it's not the best for Windows authentication - IE still works better there.

EPiServer
EpiServer have released a new CTP of version 5.2.  It's hard to find exact details on what is included in this release but it does support Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and .Net 3.5.  The new Installation Manager is way better than EPiServer manager.

SharePoint & PowerShell
Most of my time is spent diddling around with SharePoint.  Most recently I've been heen helping out on a large MOSS project with a few small PowerShell scripts.  The entire MOSS site and migration of content from a SharePoint 1 site is scripted with PowerShell.  This has shaved months off the development time.

Code Camp
It's coming soon!  Stay tuned...

Holidays
Spring is hear at last - on and off - which is great cause I've had the winter from the cold part of hell.  We are packing up the kids and taking 2 week in Sydney and Queensland from next week.  Can't wait - and I may not come back until after the election!

Thanks Matt. I cringed when I first saw this, but it’s actually quite challenging remembering the past in any detail.

How old were you when you started programming?

My first computer was a ZX80 but I didn’t do much with it.  In fact, I think it turned me off computers for a while.  The first real programming I did was at high school in the 6th form.  Burnside didn’t have any computers in 1980-ish so we used to cycle to the university and submit our coding sheets or collect the punch cards and ‘run’ our Fortran 77 app’s on the PDP.

Later we discovered the DEC VDU’s where we could spend 30 minutes entering the code directly and see the results on the line printers.  I don’t know if it was the ozone or the clacking sound but I really miss using line printers as a terminal – they also had keyboards!  There is something very satisfying about mechanical interactions with a computer.   

How did you get started in programming?

I had a friend at Christs College and being a private school they could afford lots of cool stuff.  They had a small PDP.  Alex created some pretty nifty graphical applications on the this.  After I left school he introduced me to PC’s and it wasn’t long after that I had my own – 8086, 4.77 Mghz, green screen, 256K RAM I think and twin floppies! – no HDD.  

What was your first language?

Microsoft Basic Compiler – BASCOM – v 6 I think.  I created some large applications with that but gee, it was slow.  Before that I tried to learn COBOL via correspondence school.  That was like learning to drive without a car so I can’t really count that.

I guess the first real language I used was C which I learnt at Christchurch Poly night classes.  I soon realised it wasn’t for me though and discovered dBase and then Clipper.  Clipper is/was a dBase compiler (pcode only) and if you don’t know what dBase is then think Access for DOS. 

What was the first real program you wrote?

With Clipper I created my first applications that I actually got paid for.  It was a system for managing club memberships.  I formed a partnership with a friend of a friend and we sold about 20 of those I think mostly to Working Men’s clubs.  

The last of my Clipper apps was only decommissioned about a year ago – 15 years from a DOS application is pretty good I think.  

What languages have you used since you started programming?

Fortran, MS Basic, C, dBase, Clipper, Pascal, VB, Forte (4GL), Delphi, C#, VB.Net, Java, JavaScript, English, Geek and a little Klingon. 

What was your first professional programming gig?

My first real programming job was with a very small 1 product company.  The product recorded output from telephone systems and calculated usage and cost.  It was called CAPP Plus (CAPP, the original was written in Turbo Pascal and became unmaintainable – for various technical and personal reasons! I re-wrote it with Clipper).  It was through this job I met my wife and when the company karked we took over the product and sold it for a few more years until Telecom decided to get out of the business.   

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

When I was young I always said I had no regrets and while that’s still true – give or take a few stupid ideas that I shouldn’t have acted on! - I just wish I’d started sooner.  In the famous words of Oscar Wilde - ‘youth is wasted on the young’.  

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

If you love it, programming is easy, it’s humans that are hard.  Spend as much time learning the business as you do learning your craft.  Developers are easier to find than developers with real business knowledge.  If you don’t understand the business then software bombs are also a good way to get promotions – or legal trouble. 

What's the most fun you've ever had... programming?

I get a big kick hearing that an application you wrote years earlier is still being used every day and you never hear a word from the customer, but the best thing about this career is the opportunity to work with great people and maybe even marry them :) 

I Choose

Hmmmm.  The people I choose either don’t have a blog or their site is not working.  I’ll try to update later…

I'm on a client site this week upgrading TFS 05 to TFS 08 and unlike my previous installation, this one has not been quite as smooth. 

Server Setup

A brand new shiny server was proived for the update (dual quad core with 4Gb of ram).  Initially we had tried to install on another similar server that had some other software on it for their helpdesk.  Unfortunately, the install of TFS 05 or WSS 2 or both screwed this software and we had to restore the server and leave it alone.  Not good!

Lessons learnt 

1) don't expect any useful support from Symantec - Support guy:  "Sorry but that is not one of our products", Me: "Ahhh, but I downloaded a trial version from your web site!".

2) don't install TFS (05) onto a server running anything that uses SQL Reporting or the default web site or WSS (2 or 3).  I fact, it's way simpler to have a clean server.

Moving

I neglected to check that TFS SP1 was installed on the old server before configuring the new server with SP1 so I had to update the old server then redo the backups.  No biggy, but it meant sitting arond for an hour.

Then the fit hit the shan.  After 3 hours trying to figure out why the restorative move process was giving me stupid TFS errors I realised the TFS 05 installation media I was using was for the Workgroup edition.  Dur!  Luckily, it was a simple matter of removing WSS2 and TFS 05 then running through the process again (for the 4th time) with the correct installation.

At the end of this everything was working apart from SQL Reports - which I ignored as it was late in the day.

I then upgraded TFS 05 to TFS 08 which tool another hour, tested and I was done!

Lessons learnt

1) Make sure the source and target TFS installations are patched to the same levels.  Same goes for WSS.

2) Make sure the installation media is the correct version/edition!

3) Create and save the DB restore scripts the first time you do it - it gets borng very quickly having to redo the restore 4 times using the SQL Management Studio GUI.

SharePoint

Thanks to a useful blog post I felt a lot more comfortable about attempting a SharePoint upgrade.  The customer had not done any customisations to the project portal site so the prescan ran without issue and the upgrade comlpeted without errors.

Lessions learnt

1) An inplace upgrade is ok if the prescan is completely clean and you have experts available to help (or google).

Other Tips

I had made a binder with all the documentation I needed, including the Move instructions from MSDN, the TFS P&P Guide (all 500 pages), the licensing white paper, my upgrade plan - including the steps, servers, logins and other site relevant information - and a DVD with the software I needed in case the client could not find something (next time I'll check the DVD works tough as the TFS 08 iso was corrupt - thankfully the client had this).  I'll leave this binder with the client as a parting gift :)

I'm not quite done yet, I still need to configure some build scripts.. will update this post later.

As usual, we get ripped. http://www.stuff.co.nz/4610626a28.html

Will someone please do something about corporate greed/crime in New Zealand?

My advice, if you really want one of the new iPhone, buy it overseas and hack it to work here – don’t give your money to Vodafone.  Better yet – leave New Zealand.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find themselves driven to buy funny stuff?

A couple of weeks ago I upgraded our Team Foundation Server from 2005 to 2008.  This is my story…

I was very nervous about upgrading the server as the installation procedure requires un-installation of the existing TFS2005 version and an install of TFS 2008 over the top.  The source code and work items are very important asset for us and loosing them, even for a day, would cost us a lot of money (and be somewhat embarrassing).  So, I was very careful about the process. 

Preparation

I needed to ensure that I could recover our current TFS installation should the upgrade go pair-shape so I created a Virtual Server image on our main domain with a clean install of TFS 2005.  I then restored the TFS setup to this new server, which had a new name.  Microsoft provide detailed instructions on how to move a TFS install here:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms404860(VS.80).aspx. This process also taught me how to do a disaster recovery – a very useful and necessary skill!

The creation of the VM, getting it on the domain, installing TFS, migrating the databases and reconfiguring the server took me the best part of 3 days.  I took my time and followed the instructions precisely.  If I had to do this again it don’t think it would take more than a day.

I also migrated the SharePoint content to the new server.  This is documented in the above MSDN article.

I tested this new install, and while it was slow, it all worked and developers could connect and do work.

The testing highlighted a couple of issues.  I had installed Conchango’s Scrum Template on TFS but it was not being used so I had uninstalled it. Unfortunately it had made some changes to the TfsWarehouse database that did not get removed during uninstall.  The test scrum projects were deleted but I didn’t want to futz with the database directly so the scrum stuff had to stay.

Doing it for real

After all the preparation, the upgrade process was somewhat anti-climatic.  It took an hour and half to uninstall TFS 05 and install TFS 08.  Again, the instructions provided my Microsoft are precise and simple to follow.

I next updated Team Build and Web Access with the latest versions,  Again, this was very simple and painless.

Problems

On the Monday morning following the upgrade I found that the Warehouse cube was not being updated.  In fact, some of the dimensions were empty.  It turned out there was a permissions issue with the analysis services. The error in the event log was :

Some or all identity references could not be translated.

A bit of Googling around quickly solved that one: http://blog.salvoz.com/2008/01/26/TFSWarehouseIssues.aspx

During my test run I had a lot of trouble with the SharePoint Services upgrade.  As we don’t use the project portals very much. I made the decision to stick with WSS2 for now.  Next time one of our SharePoint config guru’s is in town I may get it updated, or we might just switch to using the corporate MOSS platform.

I’ve now also notices that some Team Builds are failing.  It appears that projects using our custom Work Items are having a problem building.  I haven’t had time to investigate this yet, but I don’t expect it will be too hard to solve.

Recommendations

If you need to do any work with TFS read the MSDN documentation first – it’s exhaustive and complete. For any issues or problems Google first then post a message on the MSDN TFS forums – you will almost always get a quick answer from a Microsoft expert, MVP or other similarly brainy person.

Put your hand up if you can afford to lose all your source code – for even a day.   Hmmm, I thought so.  Create a disaster recovery plan and test it.  Yet again, Microsoft provide all the documentation you need for this on MSDN, but here’s what I did:

1. Create a VM with Windows Server installed on it.
2. Add the server to the same domain as your current TFS install.
3. Install TFS and all the same bits you have on your production system.
4. Backup the VM.
5. Now test the DS plan on the VM using the move instructions from MSDN (above).
6. If you update your production server then remember to update and test the DS system again.  In fact, test the DS system regularly - once a year or more often.

In summary I found the upgrade a very pleasant experience, aided greatly by the detailed and copious documentation from the tireless TFS team at Microsoft and the large volume of community blogs and forums.

Have you ever wanted to share your desktop with another user somewhere on the Internet or in another office?  There are a few tools available to do this but I recently found Microsoft SharedView.  This is great free utility that works everytime. 

You can share your whole desktop or just a single window with as many users as you like.  You can grant control to any of those users and chat with them online.  Users connect via HTTP over port 80 and are authenticated with a Live login so it's pretty safe.

I've found this a life save several times recently, most recently today when I needed someone in our Wellington office to configure a VM on my local machine.  Access through the domain wasn't working for some reason - firewall issues or something like that - but SharedView just cut through the noise brilliantly.

Check it out!

Yesturday Microsoft announced the Visual Studio 2008 version of Visual Studio extensions for WSS (v 1.2). It is available for download now!  This took me by surprise as I thought it was scheduled for next month - but earlier is better!

Also, checkout the spunky new site for SharePoint developers:  http://www.mssharepointdeveloper.com/.  This is a great central resource for getting started with SharePoint dev.  It contains a bunch of FREE learning material - 10 Virtual Hands On Labs to be precise - and links to other goodies.

FYI: A gang of kiwi's were heavily involved in creating some of this material, including myself and some other's at Intergen and of course Paul Andrew.

So here is how to loose a server off the domain without even touching it.

1. Grab any old machine (or VM in my case) that is in a WORKGROUP and give it a name the same as a machine on the domain.  Reboot.
2. Rename the machine but dont reboot.
3. Join the machine to a new workgroup but dont reboot.
4. Join the machine to the domain.
5. Bingo!  The real machine with the old name will be removed from the domain!  Cool eh?

In my case this was bad.  VERY bad as the VM in question had the same name as our TFS server.  After joining the newly named VM to the domain our devs started whining about TFS being down.  There was a brief OMG moment.  But then it got worse when we found that the local machine account password wouldn't work.  To cut a long story short, phycially disconnecting the server from the network allowed us to login with my domain account (using cached credentials) and from there we were able to rejoin the machine to the domain.

Phew!

Rod makes some interesting observations and suggestions for Microsoft.  While there is less chance of me being CEO at Microsoft than there is of Helen Clarke being PM one more time (might live to regret those words...) here's what I would do.

1) Forget office.   It's not going anywhere.  With the new Office Xml and ODF file formats there is plenty of room for any coding monkey to whip up a compatible niche product. These apps will chip away till there's nothing left.  90% of Word is never used, web based mail does a better job than Outlook for day to day mail needs - or at least good enough, Excel - I guess a few people use it but does it do anything that any other spreadsheet app can't do - AND - people use regularly?  The Office dominance is mostly due to the Office dominance and unless they do something radical about the rediculous licensing cost then it will dissapear faster than an litre of $1.99 petrol.

2) Branding is nothing without good product.  I'm sure I'm more gullable thant most at the subconcious level but dont get me started!  I'd sack the whole Marketting department (and shoot Apple's, Google's and any other Marketting guy in sight).  Brainwashers all of them!  Hire a few talented artists and just state the facts, eg: 'Word - use it to do stuff - $99'.

3) Open Source if you have to, but it's far less relevant than good WELL DOCUMENTED, SIMPLE product.  I love SharePoint now but if I have to work that hard again for another enterprise product, I'll be changing careers (oh crap, another burnt bridge).

4) Forget the aquisitions.  Microsoft is stacked with exceptional talent already.  Free up the brains and let them loose on creating something new and extraordinary, like...

5) Create a new OS that throws out all the old bagage.  You dont need to start from scratch - we need something this century - but dump support for the old shit.  90% of the OS should be SaaS'ed.   And there has to be zero maintenance.  My TV, fridge, phone, oven and toilet work with very little maintenance.  Why should I have to spend so much time keeping my PC working??  And I dont want to have to upgrade every 3 years.  My cars are 15 years old and get me from A to B just as well as anything else.

6) Make products my mother could use.  As an industry we are all guilty of missing the small picture.  By all means, cater for the enterprise geeks but remember the noobs too.  Imagine if you had to go to night school to learn how to use a TV . Computers need to be made simpler.

7) Consistancy please! The box-of-choclates strategy may have worked for Forest Gump, but it fails misserably for software.  Users/developers dont like surprises.  It feels like the different teams at Microsoft are not aligned very well.  Need to mix things up a little more often.

8) Make licensing simpler.  If you need a computer to figure out the license cost then it's too complex.  Instead, set a realistic per user/server price for each market and let the regional offices do deals.

9) Don't become the next IBM!  Stay away from hardware and services.  Stick to what you know best - creating innovation and integrating it.

10) Linux is not a threat to the desktop so ignore it.  For the server, concentrate on making it easier and more fun for developers and administrators.  And when I say easy, I really mean SIMPLE.  For example, you should be able to explain every technology on a single white board in less than 10 minutes, well enough for an intermediate level techo to run with.  If you can do that well then Linux for the server will also die it's well deserved death.

11) Buy Apple and cancel the iPhone.  I dont have one so no-one else can either! 

12) Social networking sites are just a string of uselsss fad's.  They do nothing to improve the human race. Dont get sucked in!  Unless of course you do it with a decent mobile device... maybe something like an iPhone... but much better.


I did say up front I would never be CEO of Microsoft :)

The Team System and .Net User Group are having a combined session next week.

Ron Jacobs!!!

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The Perfect Pattern Storm, where Test Driven development (TDD) meets User Experience (UX) and MVP
Christchurch 20/05/2008
Gather at 5:00 pm, starting at 5:30 pm

Presented by Ron Jacobs

As long time host  of ARCast.TV, Ron Jacobs has a front row seat to observe the constantly shifting architectural landscape. In this session we will consider what happens when the force of test driven development (TDD) collides with the demand for better UX.

Ron Jacobs is a Sr. Technical Evangelist in the Microsoft Platform Evangelism group based at the company headquarters in Redmond Washington. Ron's evangelism is focused on Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) Since 1999 Ron has been a product and program manager on various Microsoft products including the .Net Framework, Windows Communication Foundation and COM+. A top-rated conference speaker, author and podcaster, Ron brings over 20 years of industry experience to his role of helping Microsoft customers and partners to build architecturally sound and secure applications.

---

RSVP via the link on the .Net User Group Site.  Space is limited so get in early.  Note, this session is at Intergen rather than the usual venue.

Today I notice a blog thread initiated by a post from MVP Jeffrey Palermo on the merits of SharePoint as a development platform

Jeffrey lists a few facets of what makes a great development platform, most of which I agree with. 

• Easy to install
• Easy to configure
• Integrates well with simple tools
• Easily extended to make simple tools
• Easy to debug
• Easy to create test automation
• All configuration stores easily in source control
• (Others He forgot)

I'm the first to moan and rant about the pain of SharePoint but this is mostly based on ignorance and impatience.  I'm learning fast and am starting to appreciate the benefits of using SharePoint as a development platform.

But back to the original question:  Is SharePoint a Great Development Platform? Using Jeffry's list above lets see.

Easy to install :  There's only a few options in the installer and once you understand what each means and why you would chose each option, then yes, I think it's very easy to install.

Easy to configure : For out of the box operation of WSS or MOSS it's not too bad.  If you want some enterprise features then there is quite a bit of configuration to wade through.  So, maybe yes, maybe no - it depends.

Integrates well with simple tools : Not totally sure what Jeffrey means here but I think he's talking about development tools.  On that basis, you would have to say yes.  Visual Studio 2005 and the SharePoint extensions make it very easy to create and deploy features.  Visual Studio 2008 support is coming for VSeWSS but it does a better job with SharePoint sites already.  There is also a huge number of tools and samples for SharePoint from the community and vendors.

Easily extended to make simple tools : Not sure this really applies to SharePoint. It can certainly be extended - very easily in fact - but for simple tools?  Simple is not a word I associate with SharePoint.

Easy to debug :  Definitely yes - from within Visual Studio.  However, diagnostically it can be tricky so I'd say that's a maybe.

Easy to create test automation : It's no harder than any other server platform.  We have created unit tests for MS CRM - if you can test that you can test anything! 

All configuration stores easily in source control : Source control of web.config is a pain for most web sites, more so with SharePoint. If your doing SharePoint development properly then you may have less configuration that normal web sites.

Other Stuff : SharePoint provides so much base functionality out of the box.  Any pain you experience must be weighed against the benefits and time savings that are delivered by this.

 

To fail SharePoint for development on the basis that you have to use a server OS ??  Sorry, but this is ridiculous.  I can't imagine any serious developer using XP or Vista as a development OS.  Why? 

• It's not what you are delivering applications to - certainly with SharePoint. 100% of the solutions I have delivered in the last 3 years have been for Windows 2003 Server and one of the server products running on it (SQL 2k, SQL 05, WSS etc).
• You can only easily run 1 web site at a time - yes yes, you can fiddle that but it's a PITA
• You can't run any of the server software you need to code against.

Of course, if you only create single user desktop widgets then you can probably use XP or Vista quite happily.

SharePoint is a large complex beast.  It's not another .Net API or some little platform you can learn in 20 minutes.  It's designed to solve complex human problems and manage data in many different formats.  I can't say for sure if it's a great development platform or not, but I KNOW for a FACT that Microsoft are working very, very hard to make it so.

 

I often spend a lot of time trying to find stock images and fluff for sites. Luckily our office has a talented chap who normally does all this stuff before we need it.  However, occassionally he's not around or I need something at home.

I just found this site:  http://www.ajaxload.info.  You can use this to generate a stack of spinny progress indicated thingies.  Very useful!

 

A few people have been doing some great things in the community and it's fantastic to see them get recognition.

Congradulations to :

JD Trask (ASP.Net)

Ivan Towlson (Windows Client - WPF) (having an MVP award will soon be a pre-req to getting a job at Mindscape! :)

Zachary Smith (Sharepoint)

 

Somehow I also managed to scrape in for another year.

Keep these dates free if you can afford it:

  May 20 in Sydney
  May 22 in Melbourne

Booking open from 7 April ish.

More details soon.

Thanks to Chris Johnson I now know how to create a feature staple with VSeWSS.

If you don't know what a staple is then Chris has a good description on his blog.  You should read this first for more background but my simple explanation of a feature staple follows.

Feature staples are a way of attaching customisations to existing features and hence site definitions.  This is acheived by creating a feature that associates itself with another feature.  You can also add Feature Receiver code (which is like an event handler for feature activation) that lets you do all sorts of goodness that you can't do with CAML.

Feature stapling is the reccommened way of customising SharePoint.  Site definitions may appear to be a good way to go, but dont.  Andrew Connell explains why.

To create a staple you actually need to create two features:  the feature that you want activated and a feature to do the stapling. 

Update:  I just found a much better description of the process here.

VSeWSS 1.1 does not yet support feature stapling via an item template, but you can still do this via a neat trick that the VSeWSS team provided.  Here's the steps.

1. Create an Empty VSeWSS project:
   
   
   
2. Add a module for the feature you want stapled.  This this case I just used the default module that copies sample.txt.
3. Switch to WSP View and refresh.
4. Open the module feature.xml and change the scope to Site.
5. Open the Module.xml for the new module and change the Url to "MyModule" and add RootWebOnly="FALSE":
   
   
   
6. Deploy the solution and make sure that you get sample.txt in a new folder MyModule.
7. Now for the stapler.  In the solution explorer, create a new folder called Stapler.  Add a new XML filed to this called element.xml.  This will contain the feature associations:
   
   This element.xml contains 3 associations for the new Module.  The Id GUID is from Module1.  Get this value from the WSP View of Module1 feature.xml.  The TemplateName is found in 12\TEMPLATE\1033\XML\WEBTEMP.XML - STS is the name of the templte and #0, #1, #2 is the configuration.  So, this staple associates Module1 with Blank Site, Team Site and Document Workspace.
   
   Make sure the element Id is a new unique GUID.  WSP uses this.
   
   Note: there are issues with the blank site.  I can't find the reference to the explaination of this.. will update when I do.
   
8. Switch to WSP View and refresh.  You should see a new Feature appear for the staple called Untitiled1.  Rename the folders to the name of your stapler thus:
   
   
   You should also change the Title in the feature.xml.
   
9. Edit the feature.xml for the Stapler and set the Scope to Farm:  
    
10. Deploy and pray.
11. Test & checking.  The stapler feature will be deployed to the farm.  Check the Farm Features to make sure it's there. VSeWSS will also deploy the module to the default site so you need to create a new site to test that the staple works. 
12. Create a new Team site.  Use SharePoint designer to see if the MyModule folder is created.
13. Now that you have the stapler working you can create a feature receiver to perform any code based actions.  I haven't done this part yet.  I'll post again when I do.

Normally you will use this method to deploy a master page, aspx page, css etc.  If this is the case then you probably don't need to copy these files to every sub-site, just to the root site.  Set RootWebOnly to TRUE if you want.  Remember that if Module1 is copying files to a library then you need Type=GhostableInLibrary for each file that is copied.

 

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I'm often asked 'How do I get to be a great programmer like you Pete?'.  Well not quite, I added the last bit, but Tokes provides a better answer than I ever could. 

I completely agree with Tokes, being a (Microsoft) developer is getter way harder. But it's not Microsoft's fault.  It's those pesky users.  I always said that being a developer would be a piece of cake if it wasn't for users!  They seem to want more and more every year and are less impressed by coded coolness.   In fact, I think there is a formula to calculate coolness:

  

(C is Coolness, loc is lines of code, si is systems integrated, To is time overrun)

Time seems to be suffering too.  As systems and requirements grow in complexity there seems to be some sort of temporal distortion reducing the amount of time available to a developer. I think Stephen Hawking discovered this when he ran out of budget for his black hole simulator (SimHole).

Developers must also share the blame for increasing complexity. We are always chasing the next best thing without much regard for using what we already have.  Microsoft's job is to create temptation - it's us developers that can't keep our hands out of the cookie jar.  Visual Basic 6 is still a great tool.  Visual Studio 2008 just looks prettier!

It's no wonder that fewer and fewer kids are taking up IT as a career. Although, with both parents in the industry my 3 kids seem to be heading in the right direction.  Maybe we as developers should procreate more?