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The Glass is Too Big

J Wynia - Web Consultant, Writer and Geek

ASP.NET MVC PluginsDecember 5 2008

One of the last things I posted here was how I was toying with flexible content and template solutions in ASP.NET MVC. For that project, we're going forward with the solution that emerged from that experimentation and I'm excited to see how it turns out. 

Along the way, an interesting question about how to create what are essentially plugins for the MVC framework. Basically, if what you're building is an MVC app that will be deployed in dozens, hundreds or thousands of independent implementations, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that you need most of the pieces of the application to be modular so they can added/removed/overridden at least to a minimal level.

I've come up with what I think is a workable solution, which is pretty much just gathering up some of the other ideas already out there into a quick-n-dirty working prototype. The basic idea is this:

Put an encapsulated set of model classes (or none if you depend on central model classes), controller classes and a set of views into its own DLL. The views (using the default WebForms view engine, they're aspx files) go in as resources.

Pull that DLL into your MVC application and the MVC stack inside your "plugin" will work just like if those bits had been a "natural" part of the base MVC ap

ORDER BY BiggestProblem DESCOctober 21 2008

I caught a little snippet on NPR this weekend that fits in well with what I've been hearing a lot of on the radio, TV, newspapers and the like. They were interviewing someone who was making drastic changes to their life and spending due to a loss of one of the family incomes.

I had a lot of reactions that made me wonder how they afforded their previous lifestyle if the loss of a part-time job led to things like moving into the cellar to avoid heating the rest of the house. Lots of these stories on TV and radio and in magazines make me wonder how many of these are stories that happen every day, bad economy or not, but we now have crowds of journalists digging to find them because it makes for a good story now.

Digressions aside, one of their cost-cutting measures stuck out at me: dramatically altering what they wear to get down to only one load of laundry a week. What I heard sounded like there was a lot of effort for this and hit me funny because we got a new washer and dryer a couple of weeks ago and an image of those yellow EnergyGuide cards from both popped into my head.

The washing machine's card estimated that our ANNUAL energy cost for both electricity and gas (for our hot water) was . . . $11. That's right. Less than a buck a month to wash all of our clothes.

I'm not going to pretend that I understand their situation, but, if we needed to find an extra $1000 or even $2000 a month to scrape by in tough times, it's pretty clear that OUR la

Ideas for Content Management in ASP.NET MVCOctober 6 2008

I've been working on quite a few projects where I'm either already directly developing within the ASP.NET MVC Framework or where the framework is prominently featured in my design/architecture documents.

Because the framework is so new, there are still a few kinks and the patterns for how to do some common things haven't yet sorted themselves out. One of those areas is how to handle content in web applications.

All of these projects are web applications that *do* stuff. Most of these apps are filled with pages to edit things, retrieve data, manage queues, etc. In other words, the custom business logic that's unique to my clients' and my businesses. However, every single one also needs a batch of "pages" that *are* just basic content, with a few variables (like who's logged in) sprinkled through them.

The pattern that appears to be recommended by the ASP.NET team (via what is in the project template for the "home" and "about us" pages) basically requires a new view and a new action in a controller for each page, which, for those playing along at home, also requires rebuilding the app and redeploying.

Experience has taught me that solutions like that inevitably lead to pain. Once deployed, people always want to add pages, change them and o

Standardized ASP.NET MVC Controller Actions with Visual Studio Item TemplatesSeptember 8 2008

First, I think that this may be the longest title for any post on this site. I ditched 2-3 other variations for the only one that accurately describes this post.

Anyway, over the last couple of months, I've been working on getting better with screencasting tools. I learned a lot doing the last one and took that into the tinkering I've done with another one over the past week or so.

It stretched out over that timeframe because of a bunch of other stuff going on as well as some time spent on one-time tasks, like creating a Keynote theme to use for future screencasts that's a bit better thought out than the one I used on the last screencast. This look is something I'm much happier with and gives me a basis for more consistent look and feel going forward.

There's none of my shining face because I lent my webcam to a friend. I do see the value in adding that to the recording, but am not sure the best way to do it.

Anyway, on to the topic I actually covered in this video.

In ASP.NET MVC, the Controllers often end up with an Action method for all of the really common bits of functionality: Create, Insert, Update, Delete, etc. Stephen Walther put together a list of suggested standardized naming and usage for these Actions and I've been using them in the couple of ASP.NET MVC pr

Handling Pro Bono and Discounted ProjectsSeptember 2 2008

photo credit: kevindooley

A few weeks ago, I was reading this article on 30 Ways to Create an Incredible Client Experience and I thought about something I started doing a while back. It actually seems counter-intuitive at first, but turns out to actually improve the experience on projects where you're charging less than your full rate.

From time to time, I do a project or a portion of a project for free. Some are for friends or family, some for charity and sometimes I have some hours that I don't bill for because I screwed up.

When I first started out, I would do that free or discounted work and it would never be mentioned again. Then on more than one of these projects, things were just sort of sour.

On one, someone was upset that t