Blog

Sharepoint – what’s wrong ?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:21:26 GMT

I’m trying to do some Sharepoint (WSS/MOSS) 2007 development, mostly advanced custom forms …. .
I’m little bit flustrated and right now I think (feel) that SHAREPOINT SUCKS.

It’s so … overcomplicated … unclear … strange.
Sharepoint Designer is so unfriendly tool.

I’m … angry and typed ‘Sharepoint sucks’ into google:

http://furuknap.blogspot.com/2009/10/sharepoint-sucks-and-heres-why-part-1.html
http://furuknap.blogspot.com/2009/10/sharepoint-sucks-and-heres-why-part-2.html
Customers are easily impressed and sold when a salesperson, whether that person is a consultant or a bone-fide seller, demonstrate how easy it is to hack together a working proof-of-concept.
When a real architect or developer enters the project,
customers are shocked to learn that developing a SharePoint solution is nothing different from any other software development project and is a lot more expensive than the impression left by the sales process.

When shit hits the fan, blame is easily placed, but the customer is still left without what they want. So, the customer is asked, again, to adjust their requirements to meet the solution.
http://www.realsoftwaredevelopment.com/why-sharepoint-portal-server-is-terrible/
http://sheehantu.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/sharepoint-sucks/ – & comments
And finally post from 2005 about SPS 2003. It’s like a prophet :-):
Five Things wrong with Sharepoint: http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=391848
AND FINALLY: http://vtimashkov.wordpress.com/sharepoint-disadvantages/ - good technical list of SPS bugs & stupidity.
AND FINAL FINAL FINAL (comment from here): Heh :-)
Let me just say this, as primarily a BI guy who has become responsible for essentially a sharepoint frontend of reporting services. I have spent the better part of a week trying to migrate our current production environment to a different dev server with a fresh sharepoint install. I have run into more errors then I can count, and tried multiple sharepoint tools to try to accomplish this. I have posted multiple times to the Sharepoint MSDN message boards with not even a single response other than myself practically begging for some advice. For probably the first time in my life in IT I am looking at a situation where I have no clue how to successfully do what seems like a pretty typical task, and I see no hope in sight. Hence my frustration and typing in Sharepoint sucks into google just for fun, and I stumble upon this.
!!!! sharepoint-not-the-social-answer !!!!!! http://www.jimgoings.com/2008/03/sharepoint-not-the-social-answer/
When we migrated from SharePoint 2003 to 2007 ……..
…… You know what we had in the end? A freakin’ glorified file server. ……
…………
One of the comments:
I know one guy (and I know people in 20+ contries that work with IT), that can handle all the needed aspects of running and developing Sharepoint. The list of knowledge you must have to develop and maintain this application, without stepping on a “land mine” is huge! This means you will have to have more IT personnel to end up with something that in the end, will not resolve anything. Cost goes up, frustration goes up, and resolutions does not exist.

Instead of Sharepoint, build custom applications for the processes you can not cover with “out of the shelf” software, and instead put up a couple wiki pages, and a good search engine along with a good document handling system. Yes, you will end up with more than one application, but at least you will not end up with cahos.
http://enterknowl.blogspot.com/2008/10/sharepoint-summit.html

--------------------------

And Opposing voice:

http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2009/09/29/sharepoint-fud-spreading-far-wide-and-fast.aspx

C# ref vs out

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:44:30 GMT

Ref tells the compiler that the object is initialized before entering the function, while out tells the compiler that the object will be intialized inside the function.

So while ref is two-ways, out is out-only.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/388464/c-whats-the-difference-between-the-ref-and-out-keywords/388467#388467
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/388464/c-whats-the-difference-between-the-ref-and-out-keywords

CQS patterns & articles

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:30:54 GMT

Some resources about CQS – Command Query Separation pattern

& Domain Driven Design learning website: http://dddstepbystep.com/

Script to drop all tables, foreign key, … , in MS SQL database

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:11:33 GMT

Found on : http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/29145230/easiest-way-to-drop-all-t.aspx by ‘Damien’
It works :-)

I’m using it in our project with NHibernate, to recreate database schema.
There are some situation when NHibernate with Hbm2ddl.Auto = "create" won’t delete all old tables from db, and won’t create new schema.

declare boris cursor for
select
'alter table [' + USER_NAME(so.uid) + '].[' + OBJECT_NAME(sfk.fkeyid)
+ '] drop constraint [' + OBJECT_NAME(sfk.constid) + ']'
from
sysforeignkeys sfk
inner join
sysobjects so
on
sfk.fkeyid = so.id
where
OBJECTPROPERTY(so.ID,N'IsMSShipped') = 0 and
OBJECTPROPERTY(so.ID,N'IsTable') = 1

declare @sql varchar(8000)

open boris

fetch next from boris into @sql
while @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
begin
exec(@sql)

fetch next from boris into @sql
end

close boris
deallocate boris

declare boris cursor for
select
'drop table [' + USER_NAME(uid) + '].[' + OBJECT_NAME(ID) + ']'
from
sysobjects
where
OBJECTPROPERTY(ID,N'IsMSShipped') = 0 and
OBJECTPROPERTY(ID,N'IsTable') = 1

open boris

fetch next from boris into @sql
while @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
begin
exec(@sql)

fetch next from boris into @sql
end

close boris
deallocate boris

Enterprise Application Architecture Patterns

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:45:58 GMT

Today I looked a little bit into Architecture Patterns. I’ll post it for my future reference.

http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/
Data Access Object:
http://java.sun.com/blueprints/corej2eepatterns/Patterns/DataAccessObject.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_access_object
Data Transfer Object:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_transfer_object
http://java.sun.com/blueprints/corej2eepatterns/Patterns/TransferObject.html
http://www.mattwoodward.com/blog/index.cfm?event=showEntry&entryId=08492A7A-E4A1-1E42-FF9FB2C22097A947
Onion Architecture:
http://jeffreypalermo.com/blog/the-onion-architecture-part-1/
http://jeffreypalermo.com/blog/the-onion-architecture-part-2/
http://jeffreypalermo.com/blog/the-onion-architecture-part-3/
Ayende: Concept & Features
http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2009/03/06/application-structure-concepts-amp-features.aspx
Hexagonal architecture
http://alistair.cockburn.us/Hexagonal+architecture

URL Escape Codes

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:41:25 GMT

http://www.december.com/html/spec/esccodes.html

NHibernate vs Entity Framework

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:07:43 GMT

We are setting up architecture in new project and it’s not easy to decide which DAL / ORM technology use in it.
NHibernate or Entity Framework ?
I’m determined to use NHibernate, but 2 of team members are familiar with EF and don’t now NH at all.

I was looking for post about NH vs EF, there are many (most of them are 1 year old) but only a few are recent , those recent ones are here:

UPDATE (05-01-2010):

First, we decided to use Entity Framework. After 2 weeks, we swiched back to NHibernate.
I’ll explain it in further posts, but main reason was buggy EF Designer in Visual Studio. It was hard & time consuming to build model.

Especially updating model from database was painful and buggy process.

Some few additional links:

ADO.NET Entity Framework: Update Wizard will not add tables
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/543971/ado-net-entity-framework-update-wizard-will-not-add-tables
What is the best practice when the database schema changes in entity framework?
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1900461/what-is-the-best-practice-when-the-database-schema-changes-in-entity-framework

My advice is: If you are creating enterprise application, don’t touch EF. Use NHibernate.
I’ve tested it.

Tagged Content FAQ

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:56:38 GMT

I’ve created FAQ page for DNN Tagged Content solution.
Dear customer, feel free to ask questions if you have doubts or you don’t know how to achieve Tagged Content functionality you can see on my website.

ListUnique-generic List with unique values in .Net C# part 2

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:41:12 GMT

Few months ago I’ve published first version of my ListUnique.
ListUnique is .Net C# generic list which keeps insertion order, you can iterate through it and it has only unique values, with IListUnique interface.

Below is next version, with unit tests.
What’s new :

new methods AddUniqueOnly & AddRangeUniqueOnly – those methods will add only unique values, won’t throw exception if value is already in list.
Just add unique values and omit existing ones.

This post is also online test of SyntaxHighlighter.
I’ve integrated it with DotNetNuke Blog module.
Within few days I’ll release this module (called BlogPlus) – it contains fixes & modifications & new features for core Blog module, SyntaxHighlighter is one of new features.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;


namespace TM.Common.Collections
{
	/// 
	/// List that allows only unique values
	/// 
	/// Must implement IComparable T 
	public class ListUnique : List, IListUnique where T : IComparable
	{
		
		public new void Add(T item)
		{	
			if( Exists(itemList => itemList.CompareTo(item) == 0) )
			{
				throw new ArgumentException("Cannot add not unique value to collection");
			}
			
			base.Add(item);
		}
		
		/// 
		/// Adds element only if is unique
		/// 
		/// 
		/// Return added or not
		public bool AddUniqueOnly(T item)
		{
			if( Exists(itemList => itemList.CompareTo(item) == 0) )
				return false;
			
			base.Add(item);
			return true;
		}

		/// 
		/// Adds elements of the specified collection to the end of the list
		/// 
		/// 
		public new void AddRange(IEnumerable coll)
		{
			foreach (T item in coll)
			{
				Add(item);
			}
		}

		/// 
		/// Adds only unique elements of the specified collection to the end of the list
		/// 
		/// 
		public void AddRangeUnique(IEnumerable coll)
		{
			foreach (T item in coll)
			{
				try
				{
					Add(item);
				}
				catch (ArgumentException)
				{  }
			}
		}

		public List ToList()
		{
			return this;
		}

		public ListUnique(IEnumerable collection)
		{
			foreach (T t in collection)
			{
				Add(t);
			}
		}

		public ListUnique(int capacity): base(capacity)
		{
		}

		public ListUnique()
		{
		}
	}

	/// 
	/// IList that allows only unique values
	/// 
	/// Must implement IComparable T 
	public interface IListUnique : IList where T : IComparable
	{
		List ToList();

		bool AddUniqueOnly(T item);

		/// 
		/// Adds elements of the specified collection to the end of the list, throws exception on unique violation
		/// 
		/// 
		void AddRange(IEnumerable coll);

		/// 
		/// Adds only unique elements of the specified collection to the end of the list
		/// 
		/// 
		void AddRangeUnique(IEnumerable coll);
	}
}

And Unit tests:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using NUnit.Framework;

namespace TM.Common.Collections.Tests
{
	[TestFixture]
	public class ListUnique_Test
	{
		[Test]
		public void CreateNew()
		{
			IListUnique listUnique = new ListUnique();
		}
		
		[Test]
		public void AddUniqueValues()
		{
			IListUnique listUnique = new ListUnique();
			
			listUnique.Add("a");
			listUnique.Add("b");
			listUnique.Add("c");
			listUnique.Add("d");
			
			Assert.AreEqual(4,listUnique.Count);
			Assert.AreEqual("a",listUnique[0]);
			Assert.AreEqual("d", listUnique[3]);
		}
		
		[Test]
		public void AddUniqueOnly_Basic()
		{
			IListUnique listUnique = new ListUnique();
			
			listUnique.AddUniqueOnly(1);
			listUnique.AddUniqueOnly(2);
			listUnique.AddUniqueOnly(3);
			listUnique.AddUniqueOnly(4);

			bool addStatus;
			
			addStatus=listUnique.AddUniqueOnly(3);
			Assert.IsFalse(addStatus);
			
			Assert.AreEqual(4,listUnique.Count);
		}
		
		[Test]
		public void AddRangeUnique()
		{
			List list = new List();
			list.Add("a");
			list.Add("b");
			list.Add("c");
			list.Add("d");
			
			IListUnique listUnique = new ListUnique();

			listUnique.AddRange(list);

			Assert.AreEqual(4, listUnique.Count);
			Assert.AreEqual("a", listUnique[0]);
			Assert.AreEqual("d", listUnique[3]);
		}

		[Test]
		[ExpectedException(typeof(ArgumentException))]
		public void AddRangeNotUnique_ExceptionExpected()
		{
			List list;
			
			list = new List();
			list.Add("a");
			list.Add("b");
			list.Add("c");
			list.Add("d");

			IListUnique listUnique = new ListUnique();

			listUnique.AddRange(list);

			list = new List();
			list.Add("e");
			list.Add("f");
			list.Add("a");	// <- not unique
			list.Add("h");

			listUnique.AddRange(list); // <- exception expected
		}

		[Test]
		public void AddRangeUnique_NotUnique()
		{
			List list;

			list = new List();
			list.Add("a");
			list.Add("b");
			list.Add("c");
			list.Add("d");

			IListUnique listUnique = new ListUnique();

			listUnique.AddRange(list);

			list = new List();
			list.Add("e");
			list.Add("f");
			list.Add("a");	// <- not unique
			list.Add("h");

			listUnique.AddRangeUnique(list);
			
			Assert.AreEqual( 7 ,listUnique.Count);
			Assert.AreEqual("a", listUnique[0]);
			Assert.AreEqual("d", listUnique[3]);
			Assert.AreEqual("h", listUnique[6]);
		}
		
		[Test]
		public void CreateFromUniqueList()
		{
			List list=new List();
			list.Add("a");
			list.Add("b");
			list.Add("c");
			list.Add("d");

			IListUnique listUnique = new ListUnique(list);

			Assert.AreEqual(4, listUnique.Count);
			Assert.AreEqual("a", listUnique[0]);
			Assert.AreEqual("d", listUnique[3]);
		}
		
		[Test]
		[ExpectedException(typeof(ArgumentException))]
		public void AddNonUnique()
		{
			IListUnique listUnique = new ListUnique();

			listUnique.Add("a");
			listUnique.Add("b");
			listUnique.Add("b");
			listUnique.Add("d");

			Assert.AreEqual(3, listUnique.Count);
			Assert.AreEqual("a", listUnique[0]);
			Assert.AreEqual("d", listUnique[2]);
		}

		[Test]
		[ExpectedException(typeof(ArgumentException))]
		public void CreateFromNotUniqueList()
		{
			List list = new List();
			list.Add("a");
			list.Add("b");
			list.Add("b");
			list.Add("d");

			IListUnique listUnique = new ListUnique(list);

			Assert.AreEqual(3, listUnique.Count);
			Assert.AreEqual("a", listUnique[0]);
			Assert.AreEqual("d", listUnique[2]);
		}
	}
}

31 Days of Refactoring

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:28:03 GMT

31 Days of Refactoring is a serie of refactoring tips and producing good quality code by Sean Chambers from Los Techies.
It’s also available as ebook.

Below is index of those refactoring tips (copy from original index):

Guard class

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:34:03 GMT

MockHttpContext (previous post) uses Guard class (not included) in 2 lines.
I used Guard class (http://ajdotnet.wordpress.com/guard-class/) by AJ.

MockHttpContext is not worth to use Guard class (you can easily change those 2 lines of codes), but it’s interesting topic – Guard class.

Some links & resources that I found about Guard classes idea:

Mock HttpContext

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:25:38 GMT

I needed to ‘TDD’ class which uses HttpContext.

Easiest solution that I found working is to use MockHttpContext class by Michael Primeaux - http://www.distributethis.com/ .

The concept is when you create

MockHttpContext context = new MockHttpContext(@"C:\Intepub\wwwroot\", "/MyVirtualDirectoryName")

in ex. unit test TestFixtureSetUp than
HttpContext.Current is not null in unit tests. Nice, it works.

I have bad feeling that it’s not ideal solution, the best is to inject mocked HttpContext to tested class, I think.
But above solution works for now.

Tagged Content 1.4.3 is released

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:48:51 GMT

Tagged Content v.1.4.3 is released.

These is bug fix release.
Changes from version 1.4.2 are:

RelatetedTaggedCnt module - obsolette button 'Add Content' for admin/editor removed.
RelatetedTaggedCnt module -added setting checkbox: open related links in same or new window

See release notes for complete version history.
Clients who purchased earlier version are free to upgrade – please go to Update page.

Only RelatedTaggedCnt module needs to be updated (installed) into your portal.

Tagged Content could be purchased on on SnowCovered, free version 1.4.3 is available for download.
Please visit project page for all details.

Script indexes primary keys and foreign keys

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:27:19 GMT

Some articles about generation MS SQL scripts for MS SQL indexes, primary keys and foreign keys:
www.sqlservercentral.com requires registration, but it’s free and worth it.

High scalable websites

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:18:31 GMT

Interesting posts about building high scalable websites using .Net: