.NET Framework, LINQ, and Other News
Wednesday, 19th March 2008 -
Having looked at C# back when it was first released to the public I didn't make much of it, and continued using C and C++. Now the 3.5 .NET framework is out I have been convinced to take another look at C# and ASP.NET by my friend Martin. I have updated from just using Visual C++ 6.0 to Visual Studio 2008 which was provided by my University's MSDNAA.
I have begun working on a web service in C#, and ASP.NET that will provide an instant messenger like protocol. .NET 3.5 makes it very easy for a developer to create a web service. The web service is wrapped around SOAP protocol. My instant messaging protocol uses simple methods to currently login and out of the service, and get your friends list. This is constantly being worked on and will see a beta service being rolled out within the next few months. The web service is also making use of the new technology called LINQ. LINQ stands for Language Integrated Query which allows native data querying in code using a syntax similar to SQL. My web service uses LINQ to SQL quite heavily to interact with the SQL server. I will create a project page for my instant messaging web service soon with more specific details.
An interesting Microsoft research project I have been following is F#, which is a language that is similar to OCaml. F# is a .NET framework targetted language that uses a functional programming paradigm, as well as imperative object-oriented programming disciplines. It is still only a research project but it is coming along quite fast, if you're a fan of OCaml, or other functional programming languages, you may wish to take a look at F#.
Another interesting preview project I was told about is the Microsoft ASP.NET MVC preview. As many people know I have a MVC project for PHP called CarbonPHP. MVC is a design pattern (model-view-controller) whereby the business logic and presentation are split up. Microsoft has released a preview of the upcoming MVC framework for ASP.NET. More information about the ASP.NET MVC can be found here http://asp.net/mvc/.
