Introduction

Data-driven, or dynamic, programming is a series of techniques for modifying an application at runtime. You can accomplish this by storing screen definitions, business rules, and source code in a data source and then restoring them at runtime to alter the functionality of an application. The technology to perform data-driven programming encompasses many areas of software development. Languagespecific source code is used as well as the metadata from whatever RDBMS you are using for the back end. Data-driven development is used in code generation, for adding features to an installed application, and for altering the user interface and application response based on previously selected choices.This book explains the hows and whys of data-driven development. Here’s how it’s structured:

• Chapter 1 introduces the technology and explains the use of database metadata and its role in code generation.
• Chapter 2 explains Reflection, which is needed to examine the internals of a compiled assembly and manipulate objects at runtime.
• Chapter 3 shows how to compile .NET source code at runtime, thus altering its response completely.
• Chapters 4 , 5, and 6 explain the specifics of data-driven programming as it relates to WinForms, WebForms, and WPF development, respectively.
• Chapter 7 explains data-driven reports. It covers output to Excel, PDF, Crystal Reports, and SQL Server Reporting Services.
• Finally, Chapter 8 reviews optimal database design for data-driven applications.

Introduction

When .NET first appeared, it introduced a small avalanche of new technologies. There was a whole new way to write web applications (ASP.NET), a whole new way to connect to databases (ADO.NET), new typesafe languages (C# and VB .NET), and a managed runtime (the CLR). Not least among these new technologies was Windows Forms, a library of classes for building Windows applications.

Although Windows Forms is a mature and full-featured toolkit, it’s hardwired to essential bits of Windows plumbing that haven’t changed much in the past ten years. Most significantly, Windows Forms relies on the Windows API to create the visual appearance of standard user interface elements such as buttons, text boxes, check boxes, and so on. As a result, these ingredients are essentially uncustomizable. For example, if you want to create a stylish glow button you need to create a custom control and paint every aspect of the button (in all its different states) using a lower-level drawing model. Even worse, ordinary windows are carved up into distinct regions, with each control getting its own piece of real estate. As a result, there’s no good way for the painting in one control (for example, the glow effect behind a button) to spread into the area owned by another control. And don’t even think about introducing animated effects such as spinning text, shimmering buttons, shrinking windows, or live previews because you’ll have to paint every detail by hand.

Introducing the ADO.NET 4.0 Entity Framework

In July 2008 Microsoft released the first version of the ADO.NET Entity Framework as part of the Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 as well as the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1. At the time, Microsoft LINQ (Language Integrated Query) and LINQ to SQL had been out for a while and were gaining a lot of attention. Both the Entity Framework and LINQ to SQL showed that Microsoft was very serious about improving developer productivity, by providing an infrastructure for managing relational data as objects and programming against a conceptual model instead of directly against a storage schema. While Microsoft did its best to tout the Entity Framework, it went somewhat unnoticed out of the gate, primarily due to the rise in popularity of LINQ to SQL and the misunderstanding from the public of what the Entity Framework really was.

By the time this book hits the shelves, Visual Studio 2010 with the .NET Framework 4.0 and ADO.NET Entity Framework will have just been released or will be very shortly. Yet, I still get questions from people wondering what the Entity Framework is or how it differs from LINQ to SQL. Thus, the reason for this book is twofold; first, it will answer the question of what the Entity Framework is and why Microsoft is dedicating a lot of resources and energy to its development, advancement, and developer acceptance. Second, it will discuss all the new features and enhancements that will be available in ADO.NET 4.0, which will be released with Visual Studio 2010. This book is intended to address two types of developers: those who have never worked with the Entity Framework before, and those who have but are looking at what the ADO.NET 4.0 Entity Framework has to offer. As such, it will cover all aspects of the Entity Framework and, where appropriate, point out the new features and enhancements found in the EF 4.0.

The Entity Framework does not, nor is intended to, replace existing ADO.NET data access technologies; rather, it is an enhancement to ADO.NET, providing developers an augmented approach to accessing data, letting them work with a conceptual model, and thus enabling developers to deal with data as objects and properties, a concept already familiar to them.

Introduction

We’ve waited a long time for this! The first rough early preview release of ASP.NET MVC was made public in December 2007, and immediately the software development world was filled with eager enthusiasm for it. Could this be the most exciting advancement in Microsoft web technology since ASP.NET itself was born way back in 2002? Would we, at last, have a web development framework that encourages and supports high-quality software engineering?

Since then, we’ve had five further community technology preview (CTP) releases, one beta release, two release candidates, and now at last in March 2009, the finished 1.0 release. Some releases were just incremental improvements on their predecessors; others were sub-stantial shifts in the framework’s mechanics and aesthetics (e.g., the whole notion of model binding, covered in Chapter 11, didn’t appear until preview 5). At each stage, the ASP.NET MVC team invited feedback and guided their development efforts according to real-world usage experiences. Not all Microsoft products are built this way; consequently, ASP.NET MVC 1.0 is much more mature than the average 1.0 release.

I started work on this book in December 2007, foolishly anticipating a summer 2008 pub-lication date.With every new preview release, the whole manuscript was updated, reworked, expanded, polished even more—sometimes even whole chapters became obsolete and simply had to be discarded. The project became so ingrained into my life that every conversation with friends, family, or colleagues began by them asking “How’s the book?” shortly followed by, “Tell me again—what’s the book about?” I hope that this finished manuscript, created in par-allel with ASP.NET MVC itself, gives you not just a clear understanding of what the framework does today, but also why it was designed this way and how the same principles can improve the quality of your own code.

Introduction

We have been working with SharePoint technology since the beta release of SharePoint Portal Server 2001 and have seen the product evolve to SharePoint 2007. The sheer number of new fea- tures added to this product line is huge, and we are pleased to note how popular this product has become, since we love working with it.

You should read this book if you want to expand your knowledge about developing solutions for both Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. A few sections only apply to MOSS 2007, but those have been clearly identified.

Unfortunately, nowadays SharePoint is such a big topic that you cannot cover every available topic and still provide in-depth information, so we had to choose which topics to include. Since we have started working with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, we have noticed time and again that all SharePoint developers seem to share a common interest in four topics: building workflows, improving business intelligence, using InfoPath, and creating interactive web environments using Ajax techniques. Therefore, when we decided to write a new book about Share- Point 2007, it was crystal clear to us that we needed to dedicate a considerable portion to these Big Four topics.

That is not all we discuss in this book. With the passage of time, we have seen that new and interesting topics related to SharePoint technologies have arisen, and we have made sure to include a bunch of them. These topics will not be found in the typical SharePoint book you might have lying about, and we hope you will have fun learning about them.