So last week I passed the Microsoft test 70-519 and thought I would share a sample of the test questions with you. It’s quite daunting the range of skills the test pulls from. I have been a software developer for over twelve years and this test seems to have found a way to span almost my entire arsenal of skills. Or at least my Microsoft skills. Here are some of the skills measured:

- ASP.NET (both Web Forms and MVC)
- C#
- Ajax
- jQuery
- Windows Communications Foundation (WCF)
- ADO.NET
- ASP.NET Web Services
- LINQ and Entity Framework
- IIS
- Unit Testing, debugging and deployment
- Application state, session state, and request state (for example, ViewState, ControlState, Cache object, cookies, and client-side persistence)
- Globalization – designing to support local, regional, language, or cultural preferences

There’s probably more that I’m forgetting. Bottom line is wow, it’s a good thing that I have played with [most] of this stuff at one time or another because you aren’t just going to get lucky when it comes to passing this test.

Some questions include:

You need to recommend appropriate technologies for designing Web forms for entry and retrieval of news items.
Which technologies should you recommend? (Each correct answer presents a complete solution. Choose two.)

A. ASMX and SOAP
B. WCF Data Services and jQuery
C. ASP.NET MVC 2 and Microsoft AJAX
D. Entity Framework and Microsoft Silverlight

Answer: B and C

You are designing an ASP.NET MVC 2 Web application. You have the following requirements:
“Type safety must be validated at compile time.”
“Code must not require explicit run-time type casting.”
You need to pass data between the controllers and the views within the Web application. Which approach should you recommend?

A. Use the View Data Dictionary class
B. Use the Temp Data Dictionary class
C. Use strongly typed view model classes
D. Use dynamic object view model classes

Answer: C

You are designing a deployment process for a new ASP.NET Web application.
The company requires the application to be compiled to a single DLL for deployment.
You need to design a deployment process that meets the requirement.
Which approach should you recommend?

A. Use MSDeploy
B. Use the Web Deployment tool
C. Use a Web Deployment project
D. Use the ASP.NET Compilation tool

Answer: C

You are designing an ASP.NET MVC 2 application.
You need to centralize the logic for handling and logging unhandled exceptions.
Which approach should you recommend?

A. Use try and catch on every method
B. Override the One Exception method of each controller
C. Decorate all controllers with a custom Handle Error attribute
D. Decorate all controllers with the default Handle Error attribute

Answer: C

You need to design a solution for incorporating NTFS permissions in the Web application.
Which two approaches should you recommend? (Each correct answer presents part of the solution. Choose two.)

A. Grant the Network Service account only Read permission to the root directory
B. Grant Read permission and Write permission to the root directory
C. Grant the Network Service account Full Control permission to the Upload folder
D. Grant the Network Service account Read permission and Write permission to the Upload folder

Answer: A and D

You need to design a solution for capturing an exception. Which approach should you recommend?

A. Use a Page_Error method
B. Use a HandleError attribute
C. Use a CustomErrors element
D. Use an Application_Error method

Answer: B

Good luck to all, you’re gonna need it…

In this article we will be looking at a different type of architecture. One in which we utilize jQuery’s ability to easily transfer data (via Ajax and JSON) from the client to the server. We then use ASP.NET and LINQ to SQL to query the database and return a collection of data which gets (automatically) serialized to JSON and sent to the client. The benefits of combining these technologies include: more responsive applications, more processing on the client, less processing on the server and reduced network traffic. Everything runs faster and uses fewer resources.

Still not convinced? Here are some additional benefits of this architecture:

Benefits of the Architecture

1. Unlike an ASP.NET UpdatePanel we only pass what we need; we only receive what we need. We don’t pass ViewStates, in fact we don’t even have a ViewState. We also don’t pass entire HTML chunks and receive HTML chunks we don’t use. For more on this; read: Why ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanels are dangerous.
2. By using jQuery to call the web service directly, we’ve eliminated over 100 KB of JavaScript and three extra HTTP requests that’s included when you use ASP.NET Ajax.
3. Less dependencies – because all our code is simply xHTML we could switch to a PHP or a Java backend and none of our code for the UI would have to change. That’s right, there are no server-controls; that means no GridViews, no Repeaters, no ListViews, nothing that uses runat server will be found on the page. Not even a ScriptManager.
4. Usability – We can create RIA interfaces AND maintain usability, giving us the best of both worlds.
5. Cross-Browser friendly – We use nothing but xHTML code and jQuery which works across browsers.
6. The entire presentation for the UI is done via CSS. Change the CSS and the entire UI can look different.
7. We maintain a ‘Separation of Concerns‘ – this means we have 3 distinct and wholly separate code bases. A content or HTML level. A presentation or CSS level and a behavior or JavaScript level. We don’t have code mixed together in a web-page jambalaya.
8. Switching architectures from Web Forms to MVC is a breeze.

Hopefully you are salivating at these benefits enough to decide to get your feet wet and follow along.

In this article will be leveraging these technologies to build a grid (or what looks like a table). Later on, in future articles, I will then show you how to implement sorting, paging and filtering on the grid. I have divided this article up into four sections: 1. Sever-side code (ASP.NET). 2. HTML 3. jQuery and lastly CSS.

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I love ASP.NET, but one thing I find extremely frustrating is dealing with the automatically generated ID properties that it places on page elements.

For example, let's say you have a div with an id of "contentTop" like below:

Because you have made the control a server-side control by adding the runat="server" attribute it will now be rendered with a different ID when it hits the browser (view the source code and you will see). It will get rendered as something like this:

This is because ASP.NET generates its own IDs to ensure that every element on the page has a unique ID. Developers that work with JavaScript and CSS will immediately see the problem. This causes difficulty when using JavaScript and CSS which rely on those IDs to reference elements, as they can't easily predict what the generated ID will be. When it comes to CSS specificity the ID selector is extremely useful. In addition, anyone that uses JavaScript knows that getElementById (or one of the JavaScript library ways) is the most popular way to target an element. So why the hell does ASP.NET do this to us? Honestly, I can't really tell why, other than the fact that they must not trust us enough to be able to uniquely ID our elements ourselves.

But I don't want to just complain here, I would like to provide some solutions too.

Solution

The solution will be found in the ClientID property of the server-side control. The ClientID property represents the ID that ASP.NET will use for the element on the client.

Using the ScriptManager we place the ClientID in a hidden form field. This can all be done in the code-behind file by using the following code:

Be sure to have included the ScriptManager to your page, like so:

Now we can use JavaScript to retrieve the value from our hidden form fields.

That's it, if you know of another way, please let us know.
Happy coding.

1. Automatic Properties

Automatic properties provide you with a shorthand for defining a new property. No more do we have to create the private property and then use Getters and Setters to access and set that property. Here's the old code:

Now here's the code using automatic properties:

Oh my! How nice is that? The C# compiler creates the Getters and Setters and the private fields for you automagically!

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Almost every object you create needs to be initialized in some way. In C# 3.0 you now have a new shorthand method for doing so called an object initializer.

Here's some typical code to initialize an object:

Stud mark = new Stud();
mark.Name = "Mark";
mark.Hotness = 10;


Here's the new C# 3.0 object initializer way:

mark = new Stud() { Name = "Mark", Hotness = 10 };


This does exactly the same thing as the three lines of code above, but in one line! And the IDE (Visual Studio 2008) even helps out with IntelliSence showing you the fields available. Pretty cool eh? If you're running Visual Studio 2005, then this won't work.

This past week, I have been undergoing a week of rigorous training learning the key differences between .NET 2.0/3.0 and .NET 1.1. For the past two years our company has been working with the 1.1 framework, and is now migrating towards the 2.0/3.0 framework. This week the instructor said something I knew, but was glad to be reminded about. It wasn't even a .NET oriented question, it was an object oriented question that does not apply to one specific language, but to all OOP (object oriented programming) models in general.

What is the difference between a struct and a class? When should you use a struct versus a class? How do you know?

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If you hang out on enough web development forums, mailing lists, or chatrooms, you'll eventually get asked this question:

What language should I use to program my next project?

As someone who has been on a few of said forums, mailing lists, and chatrooms for a while now, I hate seeing this question. Yes, it comes around a lot, but repetitiveness isn't what bugs me about it. What bothers me is that there's usually very little background information attached to that question, which makes it as open-ended as asking what mode of transportation you should take to get to the store. I can tell you anything from a skateboard to a jet and either vehicle can get you to the store, but to give you the best answer I need to know how far you have to travel, what you plan on buying, and how much money you have, among other things. The same holds true for the programming language question, so let's look at some factors that can help you choose which language to use on your next project.

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