Dave Rexel
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| Posted: 06/19/2002, 4:38 PM |
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Ouch! Threw together a Time-based Expense app in MS Web-Matrix, took a few
hours but now working well from DB or XML. I had to code a lot but I could
direct my development quite freely while mixing in Calender, Financial and
other prebuilt-components.
If our team- focus was purely asp.net MS Web-Matrix over CCS, MS Web-Matrix
would be a clear choice because it's free and native to the technology. But
as we're program, hardware and script agnostics in our team so I will
personally continue my investigation and advocacy of CCS.
The immediate apparent advantage of MS Web-Matrix over CCS is the immense
amount of prebuilt controls, this puts most IDEs and technologies in the
shade with the exception of the MM MX family. Both MS and MM camps try to
bind you exclusively to RADs and server technologies that are quite
expensive to deploy on high traffic sites. The present focus of CCS-team on
ASP while developing could be a dangerous weakness, the obvious counter-move
here would be a focus-shift to PHP as primary code-testing tool and
development of a multitude of pre-built components in CCS(adding actions and
Toolbox widgets is easy). By moving the focus to PHP I in no way advocate
any exclusion from CCS of any of the technologies that it presently
supports. Output of CCS pages/projects to XML would be an interesting and
easy development for CCS-team.
The majority of the NG and forum questions do show that that there is a lack
of components in CCS addressing simple day to day needs of the average
developer. I have thrown together a few CCS-Actions that do some of my daily
coding work apart from filling in the Properties, but I'm yet to master
coding my prebuilt Actions to show a connection dropdown that recognises my
current connections from the CCS IDE.
Simply, I need the RAD-IDE to do most of my work for me, I could probably
write plug-ins for most of my needs, CCS has the plug-in structure to do it,
but there isn't even an SDK of any form out yet.
I would like to suggest that a major cleanup of the dreary and confusing YS
online-information maze is also neccessary, what with this NG and the forum
offering two parallel but disjointed user-groups and the limited and often
outdated info on the main and support sites does not refect the true quality
of YS products. The link panel in the CCS-IDE does offer some sort of
ordered information collection but it only appears if CCS has no open
project, many people will miss this or not figure out how to get it to show.
http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/tour/section7/projtemplates.aspx
Wake up YS! There's no time to spare, the heat is on! and I would not like
your product to fail.
I am firmly convinced that if CCS does not soon offer a lot of prebuilt
components/widgets, say Charting, Calenders, RSS, Maths, Finance, connection
to flat-files and XML to name a few, YS will soon be facing a migration of
customers to primarily MS IDEs, first to Web-Matrix and then inevitably to
VS.NET.
Greetings,
Dave
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Sanddy
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| Posted: 06/20/2002, 12:04 AM |
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Hi,
Some interesting points raised by Dave, but *personally* I do *not* see Web
Matrix as a BIG challenge to CCS ...
I am talking about this since I have worked with Web Matrix for some time
now ... an earlier version was leaked through www.neowin.net :)
Here are some potential annoying issues about Web Matrix (WM) that I
felt....
1) No Project Management ?? WM treats each page seperately ... so if you are
working on a BIG project, and everytime you re-start the IDE .. you are
supposed to re-load all the pages ???
That's a definate waste of my time loading 100+ pages everytime ...
2) I agree there are a large number of templates, but have you explored each
template and the code it generates ?
I have ... The ASP.NET templates, are ok and spit out a few lines of fixed
code but thats about it ...
I agree the mobile forms are cool .. something to look out for ...
But for other things like XML files, Classes, Web Services etc. WM acts just
like any other text editor with line numbers and indenting .... isn't this
given currently by many of our existing Text Editors ??
3) I see WM very similar to VS.NET .. not CCS. The main idea behind WM and
VS.NET is that you are supposed to build code from scratch, the IDE does
provides you featurers to make that coding experience much easier....
What I like behind CCS is that it generates code saving me *time* ... again
I agree CCS can be limited as far as its usage of funky *custom* controls
are considered... but 80% of my efforts are directed towards building a
stable database layer, grids, records which CCS speeds up!
Later I can spend a of the time adding more controls ..
Rather than spend most time in WM writing code from scratch.... :)
4) I will also like to point out an intresting finding in CCS generated
code... Microsoft recently released a "Data Access Application Block" which
outlines the best pratices for the database layer for maximum performance
..... supprisingly the code generated by CCS is very similar *functionly* ...
[
http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?URL=/do...s/sample.asp?ur
l=/msdn-files/027/001/942/msdncompositedoc.xml ]
5) Another major annoying *feature* of WM is that question of "Who messed up
my HTML??"...
Microsoft has a long history of this .. but have still not improved! WM uses
the same component VS.NET uses for HTML design editing i.e. IE6 editing
controls.
If you ever worked with VS.NET long enough you would know... its design
editor is a pain.. custom HTML dissapears, formatting is changed every
minute... and tons of weird HTML problems... even shuting down it
Auto-Format option does not work ...
And don't take my word for it.. you can scan any VS.NET newsgroups, or work
with it long enough... ppl have lost days of work since the editor scrwed up
thier HTML .... and no replies from MS...
In fact developers accross organisations are internally *discouraging* the
use of the editor... and switching to notepad or DW. It means more work...
Now for WM the main functionality is the Design Editor... if it keeps
screwing your code.. will you use it ?? Not me!
6) Also remember WM wizards only support SQL Server as the database .. if
you want to use any other.. then you are left to manual coding... I am not
sure if all of us will always be using MS SQL Server...
From the above factors.. I see WM a definate replacement to costly VS.NET...
for *ASP.NET* developers ..... but I don't find it comparing to CCS
levels...
Dave, I share you opnion about the lack of *controls* in CCS.... and the
mystic / cryptic actions ... :)
I too would like YesSoftware to relase support for more controls like the
FileUpload, Calender etc ...
Plus of course tons of tutorials .... :)
My 2 cents ...
CCS fan,
Sanddy
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Robert Davis
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| Posted: 06/20/2002, 11:04 AM |
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This is a repost of earlier response to lower down thread...
Good work, Dave. Really, that's the way software should work. Equally
cool, however, is that I downloaded the CCS beta and without looking at the
help or working any tutorials, I generated a web portal app connected to a
database without coding a line of it. Sure, it was C# and I want it in
VB.Net, but hopefully CodeCharge will add that in at the earliest possible
time. I think both of our experiences illustrate the primary difference
between Web Matrix and CCS; one's an IDE (and a GOOD one) for ASP.Net and
the other's a powerful template based code generator, integrated into an IDE
that, if you've got the template you need, you won't need much hand coding
to get where you're going.
Part of the reason, I personally believe, that Web Matrix was developed and
delivered (FREE) when it was is that Sun is just about to launch their Sun
ONE initiative to woo developers who haven't yet comitted .Net to their
toolkits by giving them hundreds and hundreds of megs of java developer
tools (CD or DVD) for around $19.95 or $49.95 for a year of quarterly
updates. Mind you, the java developer tools are, as I understand it, only a
limited subset of the features of their production level big brothers and
sisters.
It's my guess that you'll hear Sun/Scott McNealy carry on nearly endlessly
about "open standards" (aka "moving targets") and "cross-platform" (unless
your apps need to be truly secure) and "tried and tested" (meaning gigabytes
of code that hasn't been updated since they last got it working and burned
an image to disk).
I think the option of FREE 1.2 meg download of Web Matrix and FREE 21.x meg
download of the .Net Framework, by comparison, is going to be very, very,
VERY hard to compete with!
What would be AWESOME, in my view, would be for CCS to evolve into a
commercial add-in to VS.Net Enterprise Architect that would generate
complete projects within a solution that you'd just do some customization,
and VIOLA, your time-to-market is GREATLY reduced!
Regards,
radbase@cox-internet.com
__________________________________________________________________________
Let me do you a dotFavor! >>> http://radbase.ehostingbiz.com/webcenter
The VERY BEST dotNet hosting available anywhere!!!
If you can beat the features/price/performance and support, I'd sure like to
KNOW ABOUT IT!!!
__________________________________________________________________________
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Dave Rexel
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| Posted: 06/20/2002, 2:47 PM |
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Robert and Sanddy,
Thank you for well written and informative posts.
Lest anyone get the wrong idea I do like CC and CCS enough to have bought
and upgraded as far as I can go in the present YS product-line.
However I work with teams in different projects and have yet to get a
positive response from the various code-gurus apart from most liking the
coding style.
The bottom line is that CCS gets you half the way there and then leaves you
hanging even if you are literate in the particular script-dialect.
I have hand-coded apps(refined over 11 years in different DB/script
technologies) that throw up what the CCS AppBuilder finishes up with, the
difference is that the code is lean and mean and outputs in one
variation(first written 1997) a series of printed pages exposing every nook
and cranny of a clients proposed DB in a quite pleasing and easily changed
design using simple sylesheet. These printouts are photocopied and then
everyone annotates their own copy while we all brainstorm on how to realise
the clients proposed business needs in our web-app. Its after this stage
that development begins if we're in from scratch. And this is what the CCS
Power AppBuilder finishes up with, my starting point!
Well, I took CCS 1.0.6.0 release to such a session and got busted for
wasting the teams time.
Cut-scene : After a persuasive intro from me, ran the Studio tour site and
then new projects from scratch using Portal solution in ASP then PHP...
Now we're all seeing CCS on several split screens from my laptop and trying
to get further than some of my working CCS Actions and creating and viewing
projects like crazy.
Unfortunately the hierachy and methods of addressing the CCS variables
tucked away in the XML/XLT remained opaque even to awesome code-mentats
present on session.
Believe me, we picked it apart, projected the IDE, common files, help and
PDFs from 3 different PCs to walls and dealt out my CCS laptops keyboard and
mouse via common blackbox so every one participating was able to take a shot
but we still hit a brick wall, brick wall, bric...
Then I got a bit of a torching from my colleagues for taking from late
afternoon to early morning trying to convince them that CCS could cut dev
time and increase profits and had pay the sessions food and drink bills,
ouch!
SOME ISSUES from above coders CCS gathering :
The CCS-IDE knows about all the objects in the project, connections, themes,
pages etc, OK?
Now we're writing Actions :
So how to bring in a intelligent list-combo dropdown for let's say the
Connections objects that have been already defined in the project?
So how to dito for the currently selected form?
Why has project importing gone, current workaround is having to hand copy
files to simulate imports.
Where is the programming reference on how the XML/XLT variables fit into the
whole CCS structure?
Or even what they are called...
The list is long and the most irritating feature is the fact that the
CCS-IDE allows dragging of the component-tag-badges to anywhere in
design-mode with the page then being fubar!!
Why haven't CCS-developers added constraints on such page-destroying IDE
anomlies?? Constraints please, CCS-team, pretty please?
Before I dare to disturb my gurus again I need the SDK and lots of reference
material on plug-in development from YS.
This I need right now, I sorely needed it at release, the program is not
complete without it.
Looking at the average coding literacy of the user-groups precludes asking
such complicated questions and the CCS dev-team seems too undermanned to be
able to release such detailed material anytime soon.
Most people (like me) are still getting their heads around the object-model
after having used the non-OOP CC all this time.
Sure most users are satisfied generating portals and forums and not having
to code much but I submit that such functionality is elemental, relatively
easy to hand-code and definitely not reflective of an app that claims to
save time and cost for developers. It's a real world out there and one
that's most often not covered by the few CCS solutions in current release.
What professional developers should be able to do is code and tweak in-house
CCS Wizards, Builders, Solutions, Actions and then use and re-use them on
different projects, our team has adopted a similar strategy with UD plug-in
infrastructure with reasonable success to date.
Sorry for the rant, I do prefer to rave.
Greetings
Dave
"Dave Rexel" <therex_spamenot@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:aer4m4$5kc$1@news.codecharge.com...
> Ouch! Threw together a Time-based Expense app in MS Web-Matrix, took a few
> hours but now working well from DB or XML. I had to code a lot but I could
> direct my development quite freely while mixing in Calender, Financial and
> other prebuilt-components.
>
> If our team- focus was purely asp.net MS Web-Matrix over CCS, MS
Web-Matrix
> would be a clear choice because it's free and native to the technology.
But
> as we're program, hardware and script agnostics in our team so I will
> personally continue my investigation and advocacy of CCS.
>
> The immediate apparent advantage of MS Web-Matrix over CCS is the immense
> amount of prebuilt controls, this puts most IDEs and technologies in the
> shade with the exception of the MM MX family. Both MS and MM camps try to
> bind you exclusively to RADs and server technologies that are quite
> expensive to deploy on high traffic sites. The present focus of CCS-team
on
> ASP while developing could be a dangerous weakness, the obvious
counter-move
> here would be a focus-shift to PHP as primary code-testing tool and
> development of a multitude of pre-built components in CCS(adding actions
and
> Toolbox widgets is easy). By moving the focus to PHP I in no way advocate
> any exclusion from CCS of any of the technologies that it presently
> supports. Output of CCS pages/projects to XML would be an interesting and
> easy development for CCS-team.
>
> The majority of the NG and forum questions do show that that there is a
lack
> of components in CCS addressing simple day to day needs of the average
> developer. I have thrown together a few CCS-Actions that do some of my
daily
> coding work apart from filling in the Properties, but I'm yet to master
> coding my prebuilt Actions to show a connection dropdown that recognises
my
> current connections from the CCS IDE.
>
> Simply, I need the RAD-IDE to do most of my work for me, I could probably
> write plug-ins for most of my needs, CCS has the plug-in structure to do
it,
> but there isn't even an SDK of any form out yet.
>
> I would like to suggest that a major cleanup of the dreary and confusing
YS
> online-information maze is also neccessary, what with this NG and the
forum
> offering two parallel but disjointed user-groups and the limited and often
> outdated info on the main and support sites does not refect the true
quality
> of YS products. The link panel in the CCS-IDE does offer some sort of
> ordered information collection but it only appears if CCS has no open
> project, many people will miss this or not figure out how to get it to
show.
>
> http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/tour/section7/projtemplates.aspx
>
> Wake up YS! There's no time to spare, the heat is on! and I would not like
> your product to fail.
>
> I am firmly convinced that if CCS does not soon offer a lot of prebuilt
> components/widgets, say Charting, Calenders, RSS, Maths, Finance,
connection
> to flat-files and XML to name a few, YS will soon be facing a migration
of
> customers to primarily MS IDEs, first to Web-Matrix and then inevitably to
> VS.NET.
>
> Greetings,
> Dave
>
>
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robert
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| Posted: 06/20/2002, 3:18 PM |
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Yep,
followed this discussion with interest. And although i like the product,
we are all impatient! and ofcourse, it's a real world where professionals
build more then only a portal.
In my opinion i see on the newsgroups and also on gotocode (YES do a
remake of the ys website and split of forums)
so many HOWTO questions, so .... tutorials and help must be improved.
and an sdk so we can build addins and going to a community will please me
with add-inns, making a bigger toolbox to work with.
what was the banner ? no-code writing.
I don't mind writing code, doing that already 24 years..... but please no
rewriting evrytime a new project is started.
eagerly awaiting the work in the pipeline of the YS-crew. so still
positive and don't regret i bought the product! 
greetings,
bob
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Dave Rexel
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| Posted: 06/20/2002, 4:10 PM |
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Hi Bob,
######MYQUOTE############################################
Simply, I need the RAD-IDE to do most of my work for me, I could probably
write plug-ins for most of my needs, CCS has the plug-in structure to do it,
but there isn't even an SDK of any form out yet.
############################################################
Plug-ins means no more code re-writing, just choosing the right plug-ins for
the task at hand and re-generating.
In the absence of the SDK, I am outlining my planned CCS plug-ins and
building catalogs for most scenarios.
Why is there so little interest when work on this front will give all
CCS-users a quantum leap forward.
Greetings,
Dave
"robert" <whocares@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns923435706779bobno380spamhotmailc@66.180.229.147...
> Yep,
>
> followed this discussion with interest. And although i like the product,
> we are all impatient! and ofcourse, it's a real world where professionals
> build more then only a portal.
>
> In my opinion i see on the newsgroups and also on gotocode (YES do a
> remake of the ys website and split of forums)
>
> so many HOWTO questions, so .... tutorials and help must be improved.
> and an sdk so we can build addins and going to a community will please me
> with add-inns, making a bigger toolbox to work with.
>
> what was the banner ? no-code writing.
>
> I don't mind writing code, doing that already 24 years..... but please no
> rewriting evrytime a new project is started.
>
> eagerly awaiting the work in the pipeline of the YS-crew. so still
> positive and don't regret i bought the product!
>
> greetings,
>
> bob
>
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Sanddy
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| Posted: 06/21/2002, 1:58 AM |
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The point of getting the SDK out ...
I agree .. you are banging your head against the wall, Ouch!
But I guess Yes needs more *time* to sort things out... because as you
pointed out very few developers are realy showing intrest in this...hence
they might be prioritizing the demands of *general* users first ...
But as far as the tool CCS is concerned, it definately has the potential to
cure a lot of headaches at the end of the day ...
CCS Fan,
Sanddy
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Dave Rexel
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| Posted: 06/21/2002, 10:37 AM |
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Well I have invested much of my private time in my lonely investigation of
CCS-plugins and have built a small but useful collection that should save
dev-costs/time if my team gives me another opportunity to show them the
benefits of CCS. I have the same gut-feeling about this product as I had
with Flash many years ago.
Even the usual quick response of CCS-support is not apparent in questions
concerning plug-in development, I have posted a simple question regarding
getting a list of tables on the support web and have yet to get a response.
(Patience, Dave, Patience)
With several projects looming on the horizon I will have to make do with UD
(waiting for OK to purchase MX Studio) for now and wait a few months for CCS
enhancements.
Patience is not one of my virtues and I have an extremely hard head so I
might just solve my plug-in needs without the help I would have been offered
in any other community of similar focus/status.
Also a CCS fan,
Dave
"Sanddy" <e_sanddy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:aeuprk$k0c$1@news.codecharge.com...
> The point of getting the SDK out ...
> I agree .. you are banging your head against the wall, Ouch!
>
> But I guess Yes needs more *time* to sort things out... because as you
> pointed out very few developers are realy showing intrest in this...hence
> they might be prioritizing the demands of *general* users first ...
>
> But as far as the tool CCS is concerned, it definately has the potential
to
> cure a lot of headaches at the end of the day ...
>
> CCS Fan,
> Sanddy
>
>
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Dave Rexel
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| Posted: 06/21/2002, 10:34 PM |
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Well, after an AllDay~Nighter with WebMatrix I thankfully return to the
solid site-generating CCS, I want to write less code, not more. CCS help me
do that.
Since early this morning I have found the CCS XLT codes and built a few
Action plug-ins that are intelligent( all fields have ComboBoxes showing the
correct lists of values needed for Action logic).
Some SQL aggregate and Expression math plug-ins are tested and stable, now I
need to find out how to put CustomListType in Action ComboBoxes.
Then related functions can be grouped together making multifunctional
plug-ins.
Now my goal is to try to devise a collection of useful plug-ins so the user
will seldom, if ever, have to add manual code: all values are entered via
the Properties Panel as with above plug-ins.
CCS is fun!
Dave
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Sanddy
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| Posted: 06/22/2002, 2:41 AM |
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kool ..
Do keep us updated on your futher progress in this field :)
Seems extremly intresting ..
CCS Fan,
Sanddy
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robert
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| Posted: 06/22/2002, 3:39 AM |
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:))) dave,
you are leaping in front of me! I am still hearing ksss ksss ksss, and
that's NOT to the cat, still shuffling data and RMA'ing hd's.
so little work done 
sounds very interesting!
a sdk would receive a warm welcome.
impatiently waiting )
greetings,
bob
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