The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
- James Baldwin

Words can’t express how sad I’ve been since I heard he was in a coma and then hearing about his untimely passing. God works in mysterious ways, I can’t blame him for choosing Michael Jackson seeing as he wasn’t really appreciated here on earth.

I’ve loved and grown to respect Michael Jackson over the years. I might not have adored him as much as in my youth but I always kept an eye on his life ( triumphs and tribulations ). He became like the family member you see but don’t really speak to but always have in your heart. Today, I feel like I wish I’d spent more time with him, his music and the many ways he inspired me. I miss that feeling and thus, I miss him deeply.

I remember him fondly, his music, his story, everything he went through, how sad I felt for what people said about him. I can’t deny that this has affected me deeply, I just can’t help but feel the whole world has lost something special.

We love you forever Michael, we will celebrate you forever as we know you put your whole soul into your music. You are still with us. Rest In Peace.

Twitter is Smart 

• Migrator.Net

I’d never heard of this and it’s a nice way to help migrate DB changes.. loving it and I intend to look into it even though I’m using Fluent nHib at the moment. via @rockarts

• Starting With Migrator.Net
• Migrator.Net

• 16 sites every .NET developer should read daily

Useful,

• Free ASP.NET 4.0 beta hosting available
• jquerylist.com

.. And Funny

• How To Write Unmaintainable Code
• http://www.metacafe.com/watch/266087/the_end_of_the_world/ via @HuntJason

I’ll try to start tracking where I get these links so you know who to follow on Twitter…

A few glitches here and there until I was wondering where SQL Management Studio was hiding.. installed it seperately a few times before I figured something was wrong.

I was able to google and find this post.. the problem is choice, too many links and downloads form Microsoft and they refuse to link them in a cohesive way. They have their main site but will not on the actual download page ( assuming you surf in directly to the download page that there are other options.. jeez )

 Anyway, I blame my tired eyes because I should have noticed it during the install seeing as I just installed it on my old laptop a few months ago. Here is the solution and a great blog post.. with the fix if you find yourself in the same vicious circle (installing over and over and nothing is working )

Fix: Can’t install microsoft sql server 2008 management studio express

I have been twittering a lot lately and I have to say a few things about MVC vs WebForms discussions on Twitter today.

MVC to me will not stay a niche solution only meant for the ultra-hip, uber-fly web developers. I think it will eventually be well received and widely accepted. It might be a pain in the neck if your first experience developing for the web was with WebForms but it shouldn’t be avoided, they’re just growing pains.

To put it bluntly, I’ll say.. learn MVC. Learn it and when you eventually love it yourself, bring it forward as a solution over WebForms but not because anyone told you to do it.

We all know MVC is the shiny new toy in the MS box - undoubtedly the best way to stunt on your peers right now, but when it comes down to it, don’t fret. I think it’s okay to “switch lanes” and pay the bills with WebForms at work. The whole point is not to be a one trick pony and if you’re not in the position to deliver a solution with MVC where you know it is the superior choice then just let it go.

Pick a lane pick a lane. That’s all I ever heard.
But I’m just trying to swerve.
Without hitting the curb.
-Drake, Stunt Hard

The discussion will probably last a long while and nobody will back down, and that probably isn’t serving the community at large. This is why I say, don’t follow blindly, play with it yourself and then still be CAPABLE of switching lanes when you need to!

A few hours into Fluent nHibernate. I decided to log some of these errors. As time permits I’ll update this one post. Eventually once I’m running smoothly I may do a post on Fluent nHibernate and my findings. This is assuming I stick with it, but so far, so good.

I will also add that the docs for Fluent nHibernate have been very good so far which is why I’m able to ge so far in such a short time. Shout out to Fluent nHibernate team… they need a shorter name though…

(more…)

As this blog has evolved, and will inevitably continue to do so, I feel I can take some time out from technical posts to vent a little about the frustrations I’ve had in the past few weeks surrounding the Tools of the trade.

While I’m tempted to list in agonizing detail, each error and issue I’ve faced, for brevity’s sake I won’t. What I will do is say simply state the general area’s most damning to your happy use of any tools.

Documentation

Too much or too little are a bad thing. Wading through an avalanche of documentation, demo’s, sample projects, video’s can be daunting, tiresome and confusing but I’d rather have too much than too little. With too much, you can cherry-pick and track ( see resources ) with too little, you end up posting questions, reading vague forum/group/blog posts trying to figure out what’s going on. Don’t do this to yourself.
Lesson learned:
If all they have are a sparsely populated Wiki, avoid this tool!! All the blog posts in the world can’t make up for lack of documentation or a “How To’s”, “FAQ”, “Demo”, “Sample”

(more…)

Problem:

Parser Error Message: Could not load type ‘System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<…>’.

You’ve checked your references, the view, the controller… what’s the deal?

Solution:

Missing in your “Views/web.config” “pages” element:

 <pages
          validateRequest="false"
          pageParserFilterType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewTypeParserFilter, System.Web.Mvc, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
          pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage, System.Web.Mvc, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
          userControlBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl, System.Web.Mvc, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
         <controls>
            <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" namespace="System.Web.Mvc" tagPrefix="mvc" />
         </controls>
      </pages>

Related Solution:

If you created the project using an RC or Beta, you may need to recreate it using the final version 1.0 as a few things changed and may contribute to this or other issues. I had to do this since I started the project before I installed 1.0

Links:

Alkampfer
Ben Hall

Update :-\
After referencing the MVC Futures DLL, this solution stopped working for me, I have now had to resort to copying the “Views” web.config into every subfolder under Views. Not sure if it’s related. How Annoying!

Good luck.

It’s hard to go anywhere right now and not see MVC center stage, bathed in bright flashing neon lights. The .NET community seems to be adopting this faster than many expected. There was a lot of speculation that MVC would end up being the country cousin of the more popular ASP.NET WebForms. That it could only hope for a small percentage of marketshare when it came to a MS solution for the web. Well fast forward a year and a half all the buzz has catapulted MVC from certified-underground to “Cool Kid”cult status. If there is a machine behind MVC you’d have to agree that it was the community. MVC, We Made You.

If like me you heard the buzz and downloaded the beta at any of the varying stages, you’ll appreciate the mainstream love headed MVC’s way. A sure sign of that love are the number of blog posts, tweets and, remixes ( MvcContrib/CodePlex) Many of the books aren’t out yet but here is a short list with links. I’ll do a quick review of one in particular which is the “MEAP” ASP.NET MVC in Action by Jeffrey Palermo, Ben Scheirman, and Jimmy Bogard.

Cover and Chapters(Click to enlarge)

The items in red were missing from the Early-release version I read. If you order the book I expect the chapters might change slightly and those missing will happily be complete. Items in green are a must read. Items in white are specific to the issue and you can go back to these chapters when you need that knowledge.

Overall

I liked this book a lot. I read it over the span of a few hours and I didn’t skip much aside from the chapters in white above. The first 100 pages are PERFECT. They cover everything you’ll need to get busy coding. I like that. Some books expect us to read books cover to cover and ration the goodies. We like easy books that give it up right away. This is probably the only time I’ll ever get to say anything like that.

Get the book if you are familiar with some of the approaches the authors like, or if you want to get an advanced alt.net style approach to implementing mvc.No wizards here.

They embrace a lot of different concepts along the way.If you get the MAEP version, expect to see some omissions, errors. The book doesn’t come with recipes which I would have liked to see.

Code Swag Rating

4 daps out of 5

Keep reading for more… (more…)