IronPython and ASP.NET - asp.net

Has anyone built a website with IronPython and ASP.NET. What were your experiences and is the combination ready for prime-time?

The current version of ASP.NET integration for IronPython is not very up-to-date and is more of a "proof-of-concept." I don't think I'd build a production website based on it.
Edit:: I have a very high level of expectation for how things like this should work, and might setting the bar a little high. Maybe you should take what's in "ASP.NET Futures", write a test application for it and see how it works for you. If you're successful, I'd like to hear about it. Otherwise, I think there should be a newer CTP of this in the next six months.
(I'm a developer on IronPython and IronRuby.)
Edit 2: Since I originally posted this, a newer version has been released.

Check out the Dynamic Languages in ASP.NET page on Codeplex. This has the newest IronPython bits. It doesn't give you any Visual Studio integration, other than the sample website project, but that's coming.

Keep a look out for ASP.NET MVC
The IronRuby guys have got some internal builds of MVC to work with IronRuby, and IronPython 2 and IronRuby have a lot of code in common with the DLR.
I'm not sure if they'll support IronPython/IronRuby when MVC is released, but it's definitely worth keeping your eye on anyway - The old ASP.NET forms-based development model is old, busted, and the sooner it goes away the better.

Related

Migrate Vb to Vb.net

Hai Friends
I having the project in Vb i want to migrate that project in the vb.net.any tool available pls inform me.i have tried a lot.i have not installed the visual basic.with the help of remote server i am running that project.
Quite a few versions of Visual studio have a built-in Upgrade Wizard to help you with converting VB6 to Vb.Net code. I know that VS 2005 Pro has it but I'm not sure what other versions.
Here's an article about how to go about upgrading. And there's even a complete free e-book about it as can be found here.
Aside from the sources Ho1 mentions some of the biggest pitfalls are the lack of control arrays, printing and graphics. The printing can be partly mitigated by the use of Printer Compatibility. You can download the PCL as part of the Visual Basic Power Pack 3.0.
If you have room in your budget I would recommend ArtinSoft. www.artinsoft.com. They have a trial version that you can test out. They have been named Microsoft's preferred VB to .NET upgrade solution provider.
I have trialed artinsoft's upgrade companion.
I have also looked at vbmigration partner.
This is my, very limited, anecdotal experience.
On vbmigration partner they have some sample conversions of projects they found on planat sourcecode.
One is call ezdatabase.
If you run vbmigration partner's conversion it will crash if you click the connect/disconnect button more than twice.
On the vb6 version you can click this all day without crashing.
This project is small enough to put through the artinsoft trial of vbuc in its entirety, so i did that.
However after i converted it, there seemed to be a lot of compile errors.
It's not a fair comparison as obviously vb migration partner had lots of opportunity to perfect it before putting the converted code on their website. and yet it was easy to crash.
However I was also disappointed with artinsoft's tool as this was just a small (few hundred lines) crud application and yet there were a lot of compile errors.
Make of this what you will. I would like to hear of others' experiences.
EDIT : On the other hand if this is a true test of the relative capabilities of vb migration partner and artinsoft vbuc then vb migration arner is clearly the winner in this example

It is okay to migrate to Asp.NET 4.0 now?

Okay today, as most of you noticed Framework 4.0 has been released. I've been working on a project which is being built on framework 3.5. Since I want to use dynamic keyword and most of the asp.net features like Tableless Menu Control, ClientIDMode and clean web.config etc. I am kinda urging to migrate the unfinished project to 4.0 but I am little hesitating about that.Some times I think it is way better to wait for SP1.
So what do you think about it? You guys will migrate to unfinished projects or will still hang out with 3.5 for a while.
Thanks.
The .Net 4.0 runtime environment has been out for a while (mind you not RTM, but RC1 and so forth). A lot of people have tested it and I would guess that almost all of the bugs have been shaken out. There should be no problem switching at this point. They have introduced a number of items that improve .Net. Are they necessary, no, but they can make programming in .Net easier.
You can always download 4.0 locally and test it out on your project. Worse comes to worse, the project blows up and you reload it from your source control system.
What you should be aware of is that there are breaking changes in both C# and VB.Net in 4.0 runtime environment. You'll need to watch out for those.
The following probably applies to most framework-base development.
Do the new features save more time than fixing the old things the upgrade breaks?
If you're going to waste lots of time making old things work, perhaps you're better off just to sit it out on 3.x and port to 4.x at a later phase.
If you really need features from 4.0 and would have to spend time implementing them yourself, perhaps it's a net time saving.
Can you support this version of the framework? (ie can your server people handle the upgrades and monitor things okay?)
If your server bods can't make this work in the field, give up now. I don't know your organisational structure or who runs your servers but I know some companies have a pretty thorough testing regime they'll put software through before allowing it. As a brand new version, they might be weary.
And let's be frank, just because something goes through several pre-release versions, they don't catch every bug because they're rarely used in production scenarios. You know the drill.
And if installing 4.0 on the server breaks old things, you might be waiting a long time.
Is your project's launch likely going to be after the first round of bug fixes?
If you're developing this for 3+ months away, you've probably got enough time to sort the platform issues, fix the code issues and get framework bugs reported with the (blind) hope that they fix them or you can work around them safely.
If you're launching tomorrow, it's not enough time to test it.
I will only upgrade when there is a need to do it. For example I have one application that must use features delivered in .Net Framework 4. So that application will get upgraded ASAP.
I have another application that is 3.5 with no driving need to upgrade at this time. That one will get upgraded when time and budget allows.

IronPython and ASP.NET: ready for prime time?

Has anyone actually built and deployed a website with IronPython and ASP.NET. What were your experiences and is the combination ready for prime-time?
I asked this question just over a year ago. And the consensus seemed to be "not really".
What's the status now?
I haven't actually ever tried it, however I do know there's a library available which allows you to write inline python in your ASP.NET.
It would seem to me that this is very usable in a production scenario.
Gestalt
I believe that if you want to do anthing useful/em> with .NET + IronPython, you need better support for the dynamicy of Microsoft's CLR environment, and you'll need VS2010 for that.
You may have better luck just building a strait up python app. Why bother using ASP.NET? Are you integrating with another codebase?
I don't believe that ASP.NET was ever ready for prime time. The framework is contrived and an awful fit for designing web applications. It was made for VB6 programmers that only know how to drag controls onto a design surface.
Most decent(and pretty much all bad) applications written on ASP.NET don't use it as it was designed, and if that's the case then what's the point.

Leading the jump from Classic ASP to ASP.NET, any advice?

I just started at a new company that has 99% of their code written in classic ASP (most of it poorly written) and part of the reason they hired me was because I had worked with both ASP and ASP.NET in the past. The ASP.NET experience was VB.NET but I've worked with C# in college but I prefer it just because I've worked a lot with PHP in the past and when I'm not focusing I just start typing C syntax and have had many occasions here in ASP where I end lines in a semi colon just out of habit and have to go back and delete it.
But I digress, basically I just don't have the knowledge I need to make the best decisions on things have made notes of some key processes that I'd like advice on:
Version Control - truth be told I've never really used it. On my own I just never had that whoops moment to push me to use it and shops I've worked in have always just thrown caution to the wind. Would like to know what you all think I should use as far as the server side and
Local Dev Environment - Probably something I'll just quickly Google but I want to setup a local dev environment so I can test stuff without having to FTP it somewhere first.
Pushing Changes Live - I've never really understood the step between checking something into version control and seeing it live, is there some sort of automated system that can go "hey I see you checked in, let me see what's different between this and the live version and push the affected files" – possibly just a lack of vc understanding all together: (
IDE - Downloading VS2010 Beta 10 now, hoping it's stable
MVC.NET - Easy to pickup? I always hated the whole concept of Web Forms, seemed like it didn't ultimately fit the Internet the rest of the world is developing.
Anything Else - Like I said I'm relatively new to this stack so I'd love any advice I can get early on to avoid any "shit, I wish I knew that 3 months ago" moments.
Version Control:
Definately have a look at SubVersion, its free, we use a paid-for hosted service called Assembla (www.assembla.com) but you can install the server on your network. Themost popular client is called TortoiseSVN (http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/) its also free.
You can also have a look at VisualSVN (http://www.visualsvn.com/) which integrated into the VS IDE, their site also has a handy SVN server installation.
Local Dev Environment
Local IIS or Built-in VS web-server in VS are both fine, it really down to preference I think. Opening a website (File-system based) rather than IIS based seems to work quite well for us.
Pushing Changes Live
ASP is very page by page based development and doesnt require compiling, copying files up to a test or production site is quite easy. Depending on how you compile/publish your asp.net site, you will need to consider how you compile library code and publish your web application/website.
I would recommend starting off by using SVN to commit changes and to update test/production sites.
IDE:
I would recommend updating to the latest Beta version of VS2010 and use that.
Anything else:
Consider the rollout, are you replacing everything before going live?
Consider adopting an existing framework, use an ORM, or Business Objects framework, possibly even use Code-Generation. Have a look at CodeSmith, it has various ORM/Business Object Frameworks associated with it. (these will use various teqniques and technologies in the .net framework, which you will need to learn)
Look at the basic structure of the site:
Consider asp.net WebForms (Applications) or MVC (Websites) [yes, this is a very basic analysis of the differences]
Site Membership and Permissions: Have a look at the MembershipProvider, RoleProvider and build your own.
File System: Consider how and where you will upload files.
Separate UI into re-usable UserControls.
HTH, Good Luck you have a lot to do...
Wow. lots of questions here:
Version Control - Look into Subversion and Git. They represent two kinds of version control, you might like one more than the other. Git is free for open source projects.
Local Dev Environment - I would recommend using the built-in web server in Visual Studio. You can right-click a page in your solution explorer and say "view in browser". Then it will just compile it right there and open up an instance of the local web server.
Pushing Changes Live - I am not gonna offer advice here. Someone smarter than me will surely do so.
IDE - Yeah, just stick with the current version of Visual Studio. If you don't have any active (for pay) projects, I think the VS2010 is a good idea because it supports the newest upcoming features of asp.net and by the time you learn them, it will probably be released to the public anyways.
Anything Else - It's worthwhile (from getting work perspective) to know WebForms in and out. But I would highly suggest learning ASp.Net MVC (if, for no other reason than, "it's more fun").
After reading Mark Redman's answer, it triggered something for me. I would recommend (as he does) that you investigate some sort of ORM. I use SubSonic and really love it. Bu t there are lots of options out there.
Those are my 2 cents.
I'm going to focus on versioning and project tracking here. Development environments for ASP.Net are well documented.
Version Control - I use SVN (version control) with Tortoise SVN (windows client integration) and Trac (project tracking). SVN and Trac both run on Apache (a web server).
Pushing Changes Live - Commit your changes to SVN from your dev machine, do a SVN update on your test site to pull down the latest changes from the repository, run tests, then do a SVN update on your production site.
Anything Else - In this scheme Apache, Subversion, and Trac will be running on a server that is NOT your development machine and hopefully (but not necessarily) also not the same server that is running your production IIS.
Check out:
Apache HTTP server: http://httpd.apache.org/
Subversion: http://subversion.apache.org/
Tortoise SVN: http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/
Trac: http://trac.edgewall.org/
One thing to take account of is basically going from Classical ASP to ASP.NET is about as similar as going from COBOL to ASP.NET. Everything will basically need to be a complete rewrite (especially as you said there were poor development practices in the original codebase)
Version Control: Definitely use it, there's also Team Foundation Server which if you can convince the company in the value of purchasing you a MSDN subscription TFS is included at no additional cost for 5 or less users.
Pushing changes live: I currently use Web Deployment projects (not sure if they're compatible with VS2010), TFS is also a build server I just haven't had time to setup the responsibility for that. If you take advantage of TFS fully I'd also recommend looking into a continuous integration (CI) tool something along the lines of Jetbrains's TeamCity or CruiseControl etc.
Local Dev Enviroment: Get Jetbrains's Resharper! This is the number one most important tool to developing software in .NET second only to Visual Studio itself!
Anything else: Learn generics and lambdas/expression trees both are integral to proper software development in .NET and both are moderately to extremely complex topics (IMO).
Version control: I see many recomendations of SVN here but... it's just outdated. Use GIT or Mercurial. They merge algorithms are more robust. The are faster and safere because they are distributed. They are more flexible - you can construct a workflow model that suits your company well while there is basically one way of using SVN.
Pushing changes live: After you have version control, the next thing to do is making a Continous Integration server thah repeatedly checks out repository and perform automated build. You can get immediate information who and where made an error. You can make this build do anytking you want: perform static code analysis, unit tests, deployment. You can make several builds - one, automatic, that builds a project and deploys it to a testing environment. And another one, triggered manually, that will deploy to live. I worked with Hudson, Jenkins, CruiseControl.NET, TeamCity and I've found TeamCity to be the most user friendly tool of that four.
Local dev env: Althoug IIS Express (that Visual Studio built-in) is OK in many cases, you have to know where it differs from the 'real' one. I would just recommend using the full IIS 7.
IDE: Visual Studio + Resharper + Notepad++ + LINQPad.
Anything else: Have some bug tracking/planning software. Even as simple as http://www.trello.com, but use it. My favourite is http://www.pivotaltracker.com
Introduce code review into the workflow. http://www.reviewboard.org might help.

How long to get up to speed with ASP.NET?

This question is similar to my earlier question.
I have used ASP .Net in Visual Studio 2005 about 4 years ago. How long would it take to get back up to speed with the latest versions?
That depends on how much you "used" it. An experienced developer should have no trouble updating his knowledge of the 3.0 to 3.5 Framework changes and language specific changes. The largest introduction, I'd say since then has been LINQ, giving the ability to query data from the language level rather than SQL.
But if you're not an experience developer and don't have a good foundation in the previous version, most of what you'll be learning will be the Framework 3.0 and VS2005.
So, ultimately, if you're just going from VS2005 to 2008, it shouldn't be much trouble at all.
Not very long. The major addition to VS 2008 is support for Linq, but you don't have to use this (or any of the new features).
The IDE is extremely similar to VS 2005.
Essentially, 2005 targets the 3.0 framework, and 2008 target the 3.5 framework, but these are both just expansions of the 2.0 framework, and not new versions (unlike the change from 1.1 to 2.0).
If you were already proficient in it earlier, then you'll be able to jump into it very quickly again. The core concepts haven't changed much, so you should feel right at home.
If you were able to produce and application back then, you can probably still build exactly the same application now.
As has already been stated, .NET v3.5 is merely v2.0 with extra bells and whistles, like LINQ and AJAX. These are tools in a broader toolkit, and there is no requirement that you must use any/all of them.
So start where you left off. Refresh yourself, and once you are back in the swing of things, have a look through some of the latest enhancements, and pick out one or two that you think will be useful to you. One step at a time!
Everyone else is correct that it should be easy. I'd just add that the ListView control is one of the additions, so be sure to check that one out.
It depends on what you want to use ASP.NET for.
If you live in the HTTP Request/Response world, it will take time. Most of that time will be spent trying to shift documentations which completely ignore the Requrest/Respone world in favor of ViewState and other similar items.
If you want to go ViewState way, not too long, since Microsoft's website is overflowing with tutorials on it.
Take a look at some of the starter kits like Kigg, DinnerNow, and DropThings . You'll get an idea of MVC, WCF and LINQ. Ignore that sinking feeling and get to work learning!

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