The Philosophy
Hello, I'm Tim. This is my playground. Welcome!
If you have any questions or need help or advice, you're welcome to contact me.
For general comments/feedback/questions, feel free to post a comment on my general feedback page.
The content of this web site could be anything that I find interesting. I'll sometimes present information in a provocative way for the purpose of stimulating reaction and debate (and because I find it entertaining). I encourage anybody out there to contact me or post a comment on any topic. I'll always aim to correct any mistakes on the web site. If any fact presented on this web site is incorrect, please say so, and if possible cite a credible source for your information.
This is and will always be experimental web space. Do whatever you like here. No rules. No limits. If I really don't like something I can always eliminate it.
Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for this web site or anything related to it. It's all an experiment.
Enjoy! ;)
The Technology
Currently playing with: ASP.NET MVC
This web site was created using the free web development framework, ASP.NET MVC 1.0. This is a free, open source rapid development framework for building web applications. Every aspect of the web site was created and deployed using the wizards and templates that come with the framework.
The Model is generated automatically from the database by the ADO.NET Entity Framework, including the data access layer and all business objects. This maintains alla spects of the data access layer and business entities with one mouse click, and handles all data to business object conversions behind the scenes through high-performance unmanaged libraries. With EF and MVC everything is completely customisable, if necessary, simply by writing a few extra lines of extra code.
The database tier is SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with Advanced Services SP3, a free database solution from Microsoft which integrates perfectly with Visual Studio 2008. This has all of the features of the full SQL Server Enterprise 2005 (limitations being 4GB .
If you have Visual Studio 2008 (a free trial download is available), you're ready to start building ASP.NET MVC web sites. Everything that you might need is listed below and costs nothing to download, install and use.
- Download: ASP.NET MVC 1.0 (direct link to installer)
- Download: Enterprise Library 4.1 (for the Entity Framework)
- Download: .NET Framework 3.5 (if you don't already have .NET version 3.5)
- Download: Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (if you don't already have SP1)
- Download: .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (if you don't already have the SP)
For a web host I reccomend Web Hosting Search where this web site is hosted. They know how to optimise web servers for ASP.NET or MVC, so you can just deploy your web site and see it working perfectly online one second later.
I reccomend this very quick video walkthrough to create your first ASP.NET MVC web site.
For advice on quality assurance and automated testing, I reccomend Nathan Bain.
