Month: June 2006

The problem The ability offered by .NET to set a thread-level culture then automatically format and select localizable resources using that culture’s settings is wonderful stuff. Unfortunately, it’s an approach that plays out quite a bit better in a client-side application than in a server-based application. The reason for this lies in the nature of the work one performs in a server-based application: some formatting and/or rendering is intended for consumption by client applications, but some (e.g.: log entries) is intended for consumption on the server. Things tend to muddle along just fine as long as both the client and … Continue reading What’s wrong with ASP.NET? Cultures

There’s a new version of the Bordecal.ImportsSorter add-in available for download. This new version allows shortcut keys to be permanently assigned to the configuration and/or sorting menu items via VStudio options. The hashes for the new MSI file are: MD5: f89f3c1bfa2a40adbb67315de8fef148 SHA1: c54803ba3392ca68ca29fd4dc9b4b359606f46c7

The problem Back when ASP.NET was first introduced, I had pretty high hopes that the new controls would offer support for automatic HTML encoding. Unfortunately, there was very little of this, and most of it was more than a bit lukewarm (more on this later). In some ways, things have improved a bit in v. 2.0, but they’re considerably worse in others. Before you read any further, you might want to ask yourself which ASP.NET controls perform HTML encoding for you and under what circumstances this is done. If the answer doesn’t leap to mind, you’ve perhaps got a first … Continue reading What’s wrong with ASP.NET? HTML encoding

ASP.NET introduced a fancy new user input validation framework that, at least at first glance, appears to be a great advance over the complete lack of built-in validation support in ASP.OLD. Declarative validation is certainly wonderful stuff, and getting client-side validation with no additional effort (at least if your clients are using supported browsers) isn’t too shabby either. Overall, using the built-in validation controls certainly seems like a good idea, particularly for those folks who wouldn’t be performing any validation otherwise because of the amount of work involved. But what about those of us who had been performing validation all … Continue reading What’s wrong with ASP.NET? Validation

For quite some time now, I’ve been harbouring an increasing bit of frustration with ASP.NET. Overall, I like the platform, and I think that it’s a great advance over ASP.OLD. Unfortunately, there are a few areas in which I can’t help but feel that the design team missed the boat by just a wee bit too much, and compensating for these lacunae can mean a ridiculous amount of work for the individual developer. There are three main areas that have been grating on my nerves of late: User input validation HTML encoding Culture usage I’d love to see the ASP.NET … Continue reading What’s wrong with ASP.NET?

There’s a new version of the Bordecal.ImportsSorter add-in available for download. The only change is a fix for a bug that raised its ugly head when the shortcut menu was polled by another add-in. The hashes for the new MSI file are: MD5: b91a7abde826173a0d7c9f5e05126b35 SHA1: 1b54e49189a921a07eecca82749860b6f9e41d7a