Model is one of those overloaded words in software. Just saying the word model can produce a wide range of expectations depending on the context of the conversation. There are software process models, business process models, maturity models, domain models, security models, life cycle models – the list goes on an on. Nerds love abstractions, so it’s not surprising that we have so many models to choose from. Let’s talk about a specific model – the model in model-view-controller. What is it? How do you build one? These are the types of questions a developer will ask when working...

The ASP.NET Connection show in Orlando was a fantastic event. Thanks to everyone who came to a session. Here are the slides and demos for everyone who asked for them. What ASP.NET Developers Should Know About JavaScript Download. In the last half of this session we re-factored a dashboard type application with an eye towards using properly abstracted JavaScript code. The dashboard page was loosely based on the code from my Extreme ASP.NET column in the March MSDN Magazine: Charting with ASP.NET and LINQ. Part of the refactoring process was removing all signs of JavaScript from the .aspx...

JavaScript has made some improvements in its “state of the art” over the last several years, despite your best attempts to ignore the language. Yes, you. The language hasn’t changed, but the tools, practices, runtimes, and general body of knowledge have all grown and matured. Yes, it’s still a dynamic language, and we all know that you think dynamic languages are more dangerous than a loaded gun, but you can’t ignore the language any longer. JavaScript is everywhere. Why, just the other day I turned on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”, and what did I see? ...

A friend recently had to replace some electrical outlets in her house because they stopped functioning. There was so much corrosion built up between the aluminum wiring and the outlet contacts that the outlets quit working (which is much better than the alternative - catching on fire). Did you say aluminum wiring? During the classic rock era of the 1960s and 70s, aluminum wiring became a popular replacement for copper wiring in the USA. Due to a copper shortage, aluminum was cheaper than copper and allowed electrical contractors to lower construction costs. I was quite shocked to hear...

When my jQuery code doesn’t work, it usually means I’ve done something terribly wrong with my selectors. Thus, my first rule of debugging code that uses jQuery: Make sure the selector is actually selecting what you want selected. I can liberally apply rule number one before fiddling with event handlers and method calls that come later, because it’s easy to do and saves me time. Step 1: Navigate to the page with a problem and open FireBug.*  Step 2: Type your opening selector in the command bar of the console. Step 3: Verify the object length...

Spark is a view engine for the ASP.NET MVC and Castle Monorail frameworks. I’ve been wanting to try this creation by Louis DeJardin for some time, but ScottW pushed me over the edge with “If you are using ASP.Net MVC, you owe yourself to spend some time with Spark”. The Spark documentation makes it easy to get started, and the source code and examples are even more valuable. There are quiet a few tutorials for Spark floating around, but I wanted to call out what appears to be a well hidden secret in the samples: the client rendering of...

Phil and Scott  (and the other Scott) announced the open source Nerddinner.com project and their free ASP.NET MVC eBook today. Actually, the free eBook is a single chapter of 185 pages, which is at least 50 pages longer than any chapter in Tolstoy’s War and Peace (and over half the size of my entire workflow book). Amazing. In any case, I was looking through the code this evening and a thought struck me. You can divide the nascent world of ASP.NET MVC developers into two camps: The people who use strings don’t love to use strings –...