Rockford Lhotka

CSLA .NET Roadmap

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:25:20 GMT

From time to time people ask about the future of CSLA .NET. The following is my current best estimate in terms of plans:

	Release (est)	CSLA version	Description
UsingCSLA 4 video series	Q2 2012	4.3	Video series covering the core concepts and usage of CSLA 4, including business object implementation, business rules, authorization rules, the data portal, data access and authentication.
CSLA 4 for Silverlight 5	Q2 2012	4.3	Add support for Silverlight 5 when it is available.
CSLA 4 for .NET 4.5	Q4 2012	4.5	Add support for .NET 4.5 when it is available.
CSLA 4 for WinRT	Q4 2012	4.5	Add support for WinRT and Metro style apps when it is available.

Please note that nothing here is a guarantee or promise of future releases. The content and version numbers may change based on many factors. What you see here reflects my current thinking only.

Version 4.3.0 change log

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:00:00 GMT

This document is the change log for CSLA 4 version 4.3.0.

CSLA 4 version 4.3 includes support for:

· Microsoft .NET 4

· Silverlight 4

· Windows Phone 7 (WP7.5 “Mango”)

· Mono www.xamarin.com

· Mono for Android www.xamarin.com

Note: The source code for this release includes early WinRT code. This code does build, but doesn’t provide complete functionality. The WinRT port is a work in progress, and is targeted for a version 4.5 release sometime in late 2012.

Alpha 4.3.0-120126:

There are a number of bug fixes and several feature changes – see the list of issues below.

The big change is the addition of a new serialization optimization for MobileFormatter. This applies to Silverlight and Windows Phone applications, and can result in a substantial reduction in the amount of data sent over the network between client and web/application server. See the detailed discussion after the change log.

Changes:

Issue	Description
1005	Bug in BusinessBase.BeginSave(bool forceUpdate)
1004	UndoableHandler should ignore readonly properties in Undo operations
1003	RuleContext should implement ExecuteRule method for inner rules
1002	Prevent INotifyDataErrorInfo from compiling in iOS
1000	Update UnitTests to run correct when computer has non-English culture.
999	IDataPortalResult shold provide access to UserState
998	DataPortal should check same permission for DataPortal_XYZ and ObjectFactory
995	Add constructor overload to AuthorizationContext for Unit Tests
994	Make programming consistent for AuthorizationRule.CacheResult and BusinessRule.IsAsync
993	RuleResult should set Seveity = RuleSeverity.Success when result is Success (no error/warn/info set in Execute)
984	Create CslaFormatter that is more efficient than MobileFormatter
982	Add better exception message to RuleContext.AddOutValue
962	Load DataAnnotations from class and from metadata type
959	Add support for WinRT
952	Investigate issue with InitializePerTypeRules and inheritance
932	Fix timing issue in DLB SaveItem method
914	Fix issue with PropertyInfo list sorting differently based on culture
912	Update ProjectTracker for ebook series
906	Enhance CommonRules to optionally get description text from a resource file
902	Add more shortcut options for SmartDate text parsing
890	Add IManageProperties to CommandBase

Changes to Csla designed to improve data portal performance in Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 applications

Background

If you were to look at the Csla for Silverlight code after its initial release, specifically at the serialization code, you would notice the following work flow. All Csla objects are serialized into a list of SerializationInfo objects that are designed to preserve objects structure and data through the process of exchanging the data between client and server. Those list were serialized using DataContractSerializer and XmlWriter / XmlReader combinations. This workflow was later improved by employing XmlBinaryReader and XmlBinaryWriter that could be created using XmlDictionaryReader and XmlDictionaryWriter classes. This resulted in performance boost over the wire because binary serialization was more efficient than Xml Serialization. Regardless, you can only do so much if you are using DataContractSerialization. Recently, a blog was posted, improving performance further by modifying SerializationInfo and MobileFormatter objects. This approach still uses DataContractSerializer, but eliminates some of the duplicate namespaces in resulting xml.

Research and Suggested solution

More research was done, trying to further improve performance, but DataContractSerializer was a bottleneck when all said and done. One of the Csla users, Timothy Baldbridge (I hope I got the name right), suggested a different approach, using custom serialization specially designed for SerializationInfo objects. This is the approach that was recently pursued, post 4.2 release. MobileFormatter, which was responsible for both converting Csla objects into a list of SerializationInfo objects and actual serialization into a byte array and/or stream was broken down. It is now not responsible for serialization any longer. Instead, it delegates that process into a pair of new interfaces ICslaReader and ICslaWriter classes. For backwards compatibility, four existing classes were written that mimic the original behavior of using XmlReader/XmlWriter or XmlBinaryReader/XmlBinaryWriter in conjunction with DataContractSerializer. With this infrastructure in place, two ne classes were created, CslaBinaryReader and CslaBinaryWriter. Those classes were specifically designed to serialize SerializationInfo object lists into a stream in the most efficient manner. Not only all data types were handled individually, but also duplicate internal strings, such as property names were eliminated and replace with integers, using dictionary of string/int. Because we have to know about all the types we could serialize, we had to create an enumeration of known Csla property types. Here is the enumeration. Please review your code to make sure new solution will handle your property types without issues.



namespace Csla.Serialization.Mobile

{

          /// <summary>

          /// This enumeration contains the list of known types

          /// that <see cref="CslaBinaryReader"/> and <see cref="CslaBinaryWriter"/>know about

          /// </summary>

          public enum CslaKnownTypes : byte

          {

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Boolean

                    /// </summary>

                    Boolean = 1,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Character/char

                    /// </summary>

                    Char = 2,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Signed byte

                    /// </summary>

                    SByte = 3,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Byte

                    /// </summary>

                    Byte = 4,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Short /Int 16

                    /// </summary>

                    Int16 = 5,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Unsigned short / Int 16

                    /// </summary>

                    UInt16 = 6,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Integer / Int32

                    /// </summary>

                    Int32 = 7,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Unsigned Integer / Int32

                    /// </summary>

                    UInt32 = 8,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Long / Int64

                    /// </summary>

                    Int64 = 9,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Unsigned Long / Int64

                    /// </summary>

                    UInt64 = 10,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Single / single precision floating point

                    /// </summary>

                    Single = 11,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Double / double precision floating point

                    /// </summary>

                    Double = 12,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Decimal

                    /// </summary>

                    Decimal = 13,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Date / time 

                    /// </summary>

                    DateTime = 14,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// String

                    /// </summary>

                    String = 15,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// TimeSpan - time span

                    /// </summary>

                    TimeSpan = 16,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Date/time plus time zone / DateTimeOffset

                    /// </summary>

                    DateTimeOffset = 17,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Globally unique identifier / Guid

                    /// </summary>

                    Guid = 18,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Array of bytes. can be used to represent images data

                    /// </summary>

                    ByteArray = 19,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Array of characters, not the same as string

                    /// </summary>

                    CharArray = 20,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// List of integer / List(of Int)

                    /// Used internally for serialization of list based objects

                    /// such as BusinessListBase

                    /// </summary>

                    ListOfInt = 21,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Represents null value

                    /// </summary>

                    Null = 22,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Represents string that is supported by internal dictionary

                    /// that is used to replace strings with integers to save space

                    /// in the serialization process.  This entry contains both string and 

                    /// integer value of that string.  This data is used to re-build the 

                    /// dictionary on the receiving end

                    /// </summary>

                    StringWithDictionaryKey = 23,

                    /// <summary>

                    /// Key that corresponds to internally used string.  On the receiving end this

                    /// value will be replaces with the actual string

                    /// </summary>

                    StringDictionaryKey = 24

          }

}

In order to provide a way to configure Silverlight and Phone XAML application to use new classes, new configuration settings were added.

If you would like to use new CslaBinaryReader/Writer classes, you have to add the following to your web.config:

… and to your App.Xaml.cs:

private void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e)

{

    Csla.Serialization.Mobile.CslaReaderWriterFactory.SetCslaReaderType(

        typeof(Csla.Serialization.Mobile.CslaBinaryReader));

    Csla.Serialization.Mobile.CslaReaderWriterFactory.SetCslaWriterType(

        typeof(Csla.Serialization.Mobile.CslaBinaryWriter));

}

Of course, if you prefer the old behavior, there is a way to support that as well. If you use XmlBinaryReader/Writer, here are the settings in web.config:

<appSettings>

    <add key="CslaWriter" value="Csla.Serialization.Mobile.CslaXmlBinaryWriter, Csla"/>

    <add key="CslaReader" value="Csla.Serialization.Mobile.CslaXmlBinaryReader, Csla"/>

</appSettings>

… and App.Xaml.cs:

                                                    CslaReaderWriterFactory.SetCslaReaderType(typeofCslaXmlBinaryReader));

                                                    CslaReaderWriterFactory.SetCslaWriterType(typeof(CslaXmlBinaryWriter));

If you prefer the original approach with XmlReader/Writer, here are the settings for that in web.config:

<add key="CslaWriter" value="Csla.Serialization.Mobile.CslaXmlWriter, Csla"/>

<add key="CslaReader" value="Csla.Serialization.Mobile.CslaXmlReader, Csla"/>

… and App.Xaml.cs:

CslaReaderWriterFactory.SetCslaReaderType(typeof(CslaXmlReader));

CslaReaderWriterFactory.SetCslaWriterType(typeof(CslaXmlWriter));

Because Csla now exposes new interfaces, you are now free to write your own pair of ICslaReader/ICslaWriter classes and totally customize how your data flows across the wire.

CSLA .NET License

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:00:00 GMT

LICENSE AND WARRANTY
Version 4.0.2

You can use this Software for any noncommercial purpose, including
distributing derivative works. You can use this Software for any commercial
purpose other than you may not use it, in whole or in part, to create a
commercial framework product.

In short, you can use CSLA .NET and modify it to create other commercial or
business software, you just can't take the framework itself, modify it and
sell it as a product.

In return, the owner simply requires that you agree:

This Software License Agreement ("Agreement") is effective
upon your use of CSLA .NET ("Software").

1. Ownership.
The CSLA .NET framework is Copyright 2012 by Marimer, LLC,
Eden Prairie, MN, USA.

2. Copyright Notice.
You must not remove any copyright notices from the Software source code.

3. License.
The owner hereby grants a perpetual, non-exclusive, limited license to use
the Software as set forth in this Agreement.

4. Source Code Distribution.
If you distribute the Software in source code form you must do so only under
this License (i.e. you must include a complete copy of this License with
your distribution).

5. Binary or Object Distribution.
You may distribute the Software in binary or object form with no requirement
to display copyright notices to the end user. The binary or object form must
retain the copyright notices included in the Software source code.

6. Restrictions.
You may not sell the Software. If you create a software development framework
based on the Software as a derivative work, you may not sell that derivative
work. This does not restrict the use of the Software for creation of other
types of non-commercial or commercial applications or derivative works.

7. Disclaimer of Warranty.
The Software comes "as is", with no warranties. None whatsoever. This means
no express, implied, statutory or other warranty, including without
limitation, warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular
purpose, noninfringement, or the presence or absence of errors, whether or
not discoverable. You, and your distributees, use this Software at your own
risk. Also, you must pass this disclaimer on whenever you distribute
the Software.

8. Liability.
Neither Marimer, LLC nor any contributor to the Software will be liable
for any type of direct damages or for any of those types of damages known
as indirect, special, consequential, incidental, punitive or exemplary
related to the Software or this License, to the maximum extent the law
permits, no matter what legal theory it’s based on. Also, you must pass
this limitation of liability on whenever you distribute the Software.

9. Patents.
If you sue anyone over patents that you think may apply to the Software
for a person's use of the Software, your license to the Software ends
automatically.

The patent rights, if any, licensed hereunder only apply to the Software,
not to any derivative works you make.

10. Termination.
Your rights under this License end automatically if you breach it in any way.

Marimer, LLC reserves the right to release the Software under different
license terms or to stop distributing the Software at any time. Such an
election will not serve to withdraw this Agreement, and this Agreement will
continue in full force and effect unless terminated as stated above.

11. Governing Law.
This Agreement shall be construed and enforced in accordance with the laws
of the state of Minnesota, USA.

12. No Assignment.
Neither this Agreement nor any interest in this Agreement may be assigned
by Licensee without the prior express written approval of Developer.

13. Final Agreement.
This Agreement terminates and supersedes all prior understandings or
agreements on the subject matter hereof. This Agreement may be modified
only by a further writing that is duly executed by both parties.

14. Severability.
If any term of this Agreement is held by a court of competent jurisdiction
to be invalid or unenforceable, then this Agreement, including all of the
remaining terms, will remain in full force and effect as if such invalid
or unenforceable term had never been included.

15. Headings.
Headings used in this Agreement are provided for convenience only and shall
not be used to construe meaning or intent.

Summary of book editions and videos

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:00:00 GMT

With several editions of the VB and C# books out there now, here's a summary of what's in each one.

CSLA .NET downloads

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Using CSLA 4 ebook series:

CSLA .NET video training:

Current versions:

CSLA Version	Framework Version
4.3.0 Alpha 1	.NET 4 SL 5 WP7.5 mono MonoTouch MonoDroid	Installer		Source	Samples	Change log
4.2.2	.NET 4 SL 4 WP7.5 mono MonoTouch MonoDroid	Installer		Source	Samples	Change log	NuGet
3.8.4	.NET 3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log	Silverlight
3.0.5	.NET 2.0/3.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
1.53	.NET 1.x	VB	C#			Info

Alternate versions:

CSLA .NET N2 (version 3.7.1 for .NET 2.0)
CSLA .NET VB (version 3.6+ in VB)

Older versions:

CSLA Version	Framework Version
4.1.0	.NET 4.0 SL 4 WP7	Installer		Source	Samples	Change log	NuGet
4.0.1	.NET 4.0 SL 4	Installer		Source	Samples	Change log
4.0.0	.NET 4.0 SL 4	Installer		Source	Samples	Change log
3.8.3	.NET 3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log
3.8.2	.NET 3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log	Help file
3.8.1	.NET 3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log
3.8.0	3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log
3.7.1	3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log
3.7.0	3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log
3.6.3	3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log
3.6.2	3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log
3.6.1	3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log
3.6.0	3.5 SP1	Framework		Test	Samples	Change log
3.5.3	3.5	VB	C#	Test		Change log
3.5.2	3.5	VB	C#	Test		Change log
3.5.1	3.5	VB	C#	Test		Change log
3.5.0	3.5	VB	C#	Test		Change log	Help file
3.0.5	2.0/3.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
3.0.4	2.0/3.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
3.0.3	2.0/3.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
3.0.2	2.0/3.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
3.0.1	2.0/3.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
3.0.0	2.0/3.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
2.1.4	2.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
2.1.3	2.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
2.1.2	2.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
2.1.1	2.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
2.1	2.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
2.0.3	2.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
2.0.2	2.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
2.0.1	2.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
2.0	2.0	VB	C#	Test		Change log
1.53	1.x	VB	C#			Info

Other information and related downloads:

Code from my VB6 Business Objects books

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 06:00:00 GMT

Rockford Lhotka's Tech Ed 2004 demos are available for download from this article.

Version 4.2.2 change log

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:00:00 GMT

This document is the change log for CSLA 4 version 4.2.2.

CSLA 4 version 4.2 includes support for:

· Microsoft .NET 4

· Silverlight 4

· Windows Phone 7 (WP7.5 “Mango”)

· Mono www.xamarin.com

· Mono for Android www.xamarin.com

· Mono for iOS www.xamarin.com

Note: Binaries for Android are included. Binaries for mono or iOS are not included. You must build the appropriate solutions to generate binaries for these platforms.

4.2.2 (December 12, 2011):

This release fixes the version numbers of the assemblies included in the installer. There are no functional changes from 4.2.1.

Beta 4.2.0-111031:

Issue	Description
988	Call OnSetProperties instead of SetProperties
987	Add non-generic ReadProperty/LoadProperty to ObjectFactory
986	Change cslafacta snippet to use modern data portal calls
933	Add xml doc files to nuget deployment

Beta 4.2.0-111031:

Changes:

Issue	Description
983	Updated sample project themes
981	Update Samples\Dependencies to use version 4.2 assemblies
980	Add missing overload to Csla.Threading.BackgroundWorker
979	Android Sample does not compile
977	Fix issue with serializing MobileDictionary and BinaryFormatter/MobileFormatter
976	Enhance PropertyInfo so it works in a template scenario
975	Do not cache result from HasPermission when _supressRuleChecking is true
970	Update WP projects to support the 7.1 SDK (WP7.5)
873	Allow the use of MobileFormatter in .NET

Beta 4.2.0-111004:

Changes:

Issue	Description
972	Investigate possible concurrency issue with TryGetValue in field manager GetConsolidatedList
971	Fix issue with child data portal and null/array parameters
968	IAuthorizeDataPortal isn't invoked at the start of Silverlight data portal calls
961	Correct misspelling of file/class name LazySingelton
960	Explore ways to optimize RegisterProperty
958	Consider changing RuleURI
957	Update CSLA 4.2 to support the latest Xamarin Mono for Android updates
956	Update CSLA 4.2 to support the latest Xamarin MonoTouch updates
954	BusinessRules._isBusy should be marked [NonSerializable]
953	RunRules async complets should raise OnPropertyChanged
949	Fix bug in BusinessRules.CanRunRule
947	Add DefineACslaMethodWithAuthorization snippet
946	Add RegisterMethod overloads that accepts Expression<Action<T>> methodLambdaExpression
944	ApplicationContext should allow switching between WebApplicationContext and ApplicationContext
942	Rule.InputProperties should be considered as Dependencies
941	BusinessRules.GetAllBrokenRules should include objects with only warnings or information.
940	ViewModelBase.CanDelete should test for Authz rules on instance
936	Add AddRule extension method to simplify use of lambda rules
930	Make AddOutValue work better in chained rules
929	CslaModelBinder should create list model if necessary
928	Add Save method to ViewModelBase in Csla.Web.Mvc
927	Csla.Web.Mvc.Controller should add error for all exceptions
926	PropertyStatus misses in syncing BO and UI and updating UI
925	Csla.Web.Mvc should reference ASP.NET MVC 3
924	Add MaxNameTableCharCount override to WCF proxy creation
923	Fix MembershipIdentity so it can load roles
921	NuGet build scripts should not include Subversion (.svn) files in build output
920	Add SimpleApp sample for Android
919	Update NuGet package definitions to support NuGet 1.2
916	Fix null reference issue with SortedBindingList
905	Can't attach broken rules to non-primary properties in a rule
903	Mark SL (and WP7?) CSLA projects as CLS compliant
900	Fix issue with DLB and WPF datagrid when saving an item
896	Factory data portal has incorrect hard-coded name for Execute factory method
894	Review ViewModelBase methods to ensure the right ones are virtual
864	Fix name of identity object in serialization stream
791	Allow nested use of BypassPropertyChecks

Alpha 4.2.0-110326:

Changes:

Issue	Description
911	Fix output build path for Csla.Ios project
910	Create Simple App for Csla.Ios
909	Change MonoTouch project to link in MonoDroid ObservableCollection types
908	Update version numbers to 4.2
907	Get CslaIdentity working in MonoTouch
904	PropertyInfo.DefaultValue is not returned in non-generic GetProperty when field hasn't been assigned a value
892	Add support for MonoTouch
886	Add Csla.Threading.BackgroundWorker to Csla.Wp
885	Update NuGet files and scripts to align with release of NuGet 1.1 and CSLA 4.1 RTM
884	Add support for MonoDroid
882	Run rules for affected properties when an async rule completes