Jim Zimmerman - ASP.NET, MVC, Ajax and ORM

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Atlas SDR (Strategic Design Review) last week in Redmond. For those of you who do not know what that is, what they do is invite 30 or so people for 3 days to help teach, discuss and learn what developers want to see in the product. Not knowing exactly what I can or can't say about the next version of Visual Studio, I will say that I want the next version of Visual Studio now!

My head is still spinning on the amazing things they are doing in Atlas. I must say that Nikhil Kothari is a genius. Being the architect of Atlas, he was easilty able to help me understand some very in-depth concepts on how Atlas works. I am very lucky to have met him and had some great instruction from. This javascript framework they have come up with goes so deep, that it is hard to grasp all at once. I am going to put up some demos soon on how to use some of this stuff in the real world. There are some very compelling scenarios that are not as hard as one might think.

If you haven't already be sure to download the April CTP from atlas.asp.net and download the docs. There are some pretty cool demos to get you started and the new control toolkit gives you a good on idea on how you can extend the framework yourself.

Ok, now some of you may already know this, so don't laugh too hard that I have been writing Ajax - style apps for almost a year and have just been using fiddler to do most of my debugging. If you have not heard of fiddler you can get that here.

Anyway, I stumbled across a very easy way to debug javascript with Visual Studio 2005. I assume this also works for older versions. All that you need to do is put debugger; on the line where you want to set a breakpoint and then open the page in IE and it will ask you if what debugger you want to use. Note: You need to make sure you are allowing javascript to be debugged in IE by checking the appropiate checkbox in intenet options > advanced.

Once the debugger is open you can step though the code like you normally would in a c# app and watch the variables. If you are making ajax calls and returning xml or javascript you can also see that data come back. If you are using JSON you can actually continue stepping through that code that was returned from you server in runtime. Pretty cool stuff! It has just made my life so much easier and I am suprised I have not heard of this before. I guess I had my head in the sand for a little bit. I hope this helps someone who has been looking for how to do this.

Looks like some people have been listening to us developers about what we want. Microsoft has released shared source controls to simplify Atlas development. Pretty cool stuff. I am already starting to create controls. Have fun!

http://atlas.asp.net/atlastoolkit/

Well better late than never. I have been wanting to tell about this great event, but as soon as I got back from vegas, my kids got me very sick. So here it is:

So, it was the coolest convention I have ever been too. This is no joke. Microsoft really outdid themselves this time. Not like a normal Microsoft event. It didn't even feel like one sometimes. The branding was different, not the bold Microsoft signs but MIX 06 signs everywhere with Microsoft on the top left corner. There were also media center lunges with bean bags to sit and play xbox 360 games and the new vista media center. What was also wierd was the number of apple laptops I saw. There were tons of flash and mac developers and graphic designers there. It truly was a mix of different people. It was bringing together the designer and the developer. It was really cool the kind of conversations I had. Here I am talking to someone from Adobe about how WPF/E will compete with flash. For those of you that don't know what I am talking about, WPF/E is Microsoft's version of Flash. Except better I think. Finally will have a way to wire up cool design to code-behind pages. You can get more information about Microsoft's new design tool called Expression here.

I played with the xaml stuff and wpf/e in the hands-on labs, but have yet to get it installed on my pc. I am very excited about where Microsoft is headed. It was definitely the early adopter crowd. I don't think WPF/E even comes out until Mid-2007.

So anyway, Vegas was lots of fun and I met alot of cool and fun people. Microsoft had a reception Monday night which was one of the best parties I have ever been too. I saw O'Reilly dancing, Gates wasn't there though. It felt like one of those parties you used to hear about in 2000 at the height of the dotcom boom. Lots of key companies there and everyone drinking and having fun.

For those who missed it, it is definitely worth going next year. It will be hard to top this year, but I am sure it will be somewhere fun.

This is a great find.

Scott Hanselman's 2005 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List

I have already downloaded 12 programs in the last few hours. Take some time and look at all of the tools. It will make you much more productive. I am excited to start using these tools now.

Well when I got home from MIX06, the viruses were mixing at my home with my 3 kids. I thought I could avoid it, but this morning, it hit me like a brick. I won't get into to details. Lets just say its not a cold.

To make it up I will come and speak to the users group in Orlando sometime in the next few months on AJAX, Atlas and some other fun things I learned at MIX06.

I was really looking forward to seeing you all up in Orlando and look forward to seeing you in Tampa Code Camp this summer. I will talk to someone up in Orlando and see when would be a good time to speak to the users group up there.

Have a great day! Wish I was there and not in the bathroom!

I am so excited, I am going to MIX 06 in a couple of days. It is going to be a very cool conversation. You can check it out at www.mix06.com. Lots of cool AJAX, ATLAS and web 2.0 stuff. I am very excited to talk to others and what apps they are working on. I will try to take as many notes as I can. I will be speaking in Orlando Code Camp on the Saturday following MIX 06 so I will have the new data fresh in my head to talk about. Here is a link to my session 7 Ways to AJAX. I will actually have more than that to talk about after Vegas, so we will see how much i can cover in that one session. If there is time, we can have a open discussion in another room I am sure. I'll see you in Orlando!

Here is Nikhil's Web Development Helper. This is a great tool for debugging ajax and atlas applications. Check it out here: http://www.nikhilk.net/Project.WebDevHelper.aspx


Make sure to follow instructions carefully to get this to work. Only will work on your own .net apps.