My thoughts, shares ... with .Net and Microsoft - Application Code Blocks Introduction

Thursday, September 02, 2004

I hope this will be the start of a useful serie about Application Code Blocks. It will be my first time experience with these code blocks, and I hope a good starter guide for other developers.

So what are application code blocks?

These are C# (and VB.Net) classes, which can be downloaded from the Microsoft website and used in any .Net application. Even ASP.Net applications. These powerful tools will make your applications more efficient and maintainable. Those application blocks contain classes, methods and interfaces, which can be used. A big advantage is that those application blocks are very well documented at the Microsoft site.
A big benefit of using the application code blocks is faster and more modular development of your .Net application. You don't have to worry about exceptions, ... because it's all in the application code block, so you can focus on your business layer. Other advantages are:

Buffer between you and the .Net framework
Application Code blocks are distributed as VS.Net projects
Make changes and/or additions that suits your needs

As a conclusion we can say that the application code blocks are great tools and they will add efficiency to our projects, because it will be easier to write our programs and to maintain them.

My application code blocks pilot?

OK, I put the Application Blocks in a pilot project for myself. I will use a few of those Blocks in the first place. In total I have create 3 phases in whom I will describe a few of those blocks :

Phase 1: Till October 1st 2004
Phase 2: Till December 31st 2004
Phase 3: Beginning of 2005

Code blocks that are available at this moment and which I'm going to look at:

Aggregation Application Block
Asynchronous Invocation Application Block
Authorization and Profile Application Block (Phase 1)
Caching Application Block
Configuration Management Application Block (Phase 3)
Data Access Application Block (Phase 1 and 2)
Exception Management Application Block (Phase 2)
Enterprise Notification Reference Architecture for Exchange 2000 Server
Logging Application Block (Phase 3)
Microsoft Content Integration Pack for Content Management Server 2001 and SharePoint Portal Server 2001
Smart Client Offline Application Block
Updater Application Block
User Interface Process Application Block (Phase 3)

More info can be found at the patterns & practices: Code MSDN page

Also, check the Coming Soon Section (Patterns & practices: Coming Soon):

Enterprise Library
Enterprise Development Reference Architecture - VS 2005 “Whidbey” version

Also Available : Beta release of the Testing .Net Application Blocks Guide. Very interresting for reading when you have integrated or customized an Application Block in your own application.

Stay tuned for the part in this series, where I will examine the code blocks as we are going to use them.