Ocean

Current Visual Studio 2008 Version:  2.0      Last Updated: 1-31-2010
Current Visual Studio 2010 Version:  {coming soon}

Introduction

Modern programming languages have long provided developers the capability to create code libraries that can be reused across multiple applications.  Heck, even Microsoft’s BC7 had the capability to create run-time loadable libraries.

Most developers and software shops create their own code libraries and consume that code in their applications.  The code reuse makes them more productive, reduces test costs and unifies across developers, how their applications are coded.

Code libraries that provide foundational components, services and functionality become known as frameworks.

The Visual Studio 2008 Ocean v2 framework provides the following:

• Feature rich business object base class
• Rule based business entity validation
• Rule based business entity data case correction for formatting 
• SQL Server data stack
  • simplifies data layer code
  • provides business entity loader 
  • built in concurrency checks
  • connection string manager
  • connection management
  • three companion stored procedures
• WPF
  • Aero functions for creating glass
  • Behaviors for routing keys to ICommands
  • Collection of commonly used converters
  • AJAX Style Loading ComboBox, CheckListBox, Validation Summary (Form Notification) custom controls
  • DataConext Spy (thank you Josh Smith)
• MVVM
  • View Manager Services – provides non-linear application navigation, full featured MDI replacement
  • View Model UI Services – provides application modal services like, dialogs (messages, file open, file save) and logging capabilities
  • RelayCommand  (thank you Josh Smith)
  • Messenger (thank you Josh Smith)
  • Bases classes for ViewModels and Views
  • UIValidationError – provides a way to capture data entry type exceptions in the UI and communicate them to the ViewModel; see this blog post.
• Password generation services
• BLL(Of T) – can replace boiler maker business logic layers.  See BBQ Shack for implementation.
• DAL(Of T) – can replace boiler maker data access layers.  See BBQ Shack for implementation.

When Visual Studio 2010 RTM is released, I’ll publish a release of Ocean v3 and at least one sample line of business application demonstrating its feature set.  The sample application will be written in both VB.NET and C#.  That release will also have the SQL Server Compact 2008 data stack and will use it.

Background

In March of 2008 I published my work on declarative business object validation rules and case correction rules in this Code Project article.  My motivation was to provide a business object coding technique that would facilitate application code generation and that generated code would be easy to read and understand.

That same API also need to be flexible enough so that developers would not be locked into a single coding pattern.  That goal was accomplished by allowing rules to be added using attributes or code.

In September of 2008 I went on a cruise to Alaska and wrote Ocean v1.  I wrote about the cruise and Ocean in this blog post.  A few days after the cruise I started working for Microsoft on the Cider Team.  (WPF & Silverlight Designer Team)

In September of 2009 I went on another cruise to Alaska and wrote Ocean v2.  I used the BBQ Shack application as my proving ground for Ocean by demonstrating that Ocean’s code is a cross platform allowing business objects to be shared between WPF, Silverlight and .NET 2.0 assemblies.  I wrote this cross platform capability up in this blog post.  Ocean v2 supports Visual Studio 2008 and Silverlight 3.

In November of 2009 I went on a cruise to Hawaii and wrote Ocean for Visual Studio 2010 and started working on Crank.  Crank is a metadata driven code generation application that can generate code for any framework and not just Ocean.  Crank uses the new super cool T4 templates I wrote about in this blog post.  Crank is written in C#, yes, I know Dark Side, etc.  Crank was my 3rd C# application.  Programming for a week on a ship without Internet access brought me back to the old days of coding.

As of January 2010 Ocean is written in VB.NET.  I don’t have any plans to convert it to C#.  I would need a real compelling reason to allocate the time to do this.

Changes from Ocean v1 and v2

Between Ocean v1 and v2, Microsoft started shipping .NET framework code that included a Validation namespace.  In order to prevent developers from dealing with namespace collisions or using aliased namespaces, I changed the Ocean.OceanFramework.Validation namespace to Ocean.OceanFramework.OceanValidation.

I corrected two spelling errors in Ocean’s public API’s.

A few changes were made to the BusinessEntityBase class to better support multi-threaded applications.

Expected Changes from Ocean v2 to v3

In Ocean v2 WPF & Silverlight share code by using the file linking feature of Visual Studio 2008.

In Ocean v3 with Visual Studio 2010, WPF & Silverlight can share a single Silverlight assembly.  This code sharing feature is available in Visual Studio 2010 with Silverlight 3 and above.  When I initially release Ocean v3, it will only have WPF code.  Once Silverlight 4 RTM’s, I’ll ship Ocean v3.1.  This change will not have any public API changes.  To use the new assembly, simply replace the reference.

In the mean time, if you need the functionality of the Ocean v3, OceanFramework in Silverlight, simply create a new Silverlight class library, and import all the code from the Ocean v3, OceanFramework WPF version and recompile.  This blog post covers assembly sharing.

I have not yet made a final decision about the View Manager Services for Silverlight.  I know that I can use this functionality in Silverlight, I’m just not sure I want to pull the few WPF specific features out.  For now, Ocean v2 ships with the View Manager Services in the Ocean.OceanFrameworkWPF assembly.  I may move this code to the Ocean.OceanFramework assembly when Silverlight 4 RTM’s.  If I don’t move it, I’ll ship it as part of the Ocean.OceanFrameworkSiverlight assembly.

Feature Examples

The BBQ Shack application is the best demonstration of the Ocean framework.  It demonstrates WPF & Silverlight code sharing and uses almost all features in the framework library.

• BBQ Shack (this is part of the below downloads)

I also wrote a small Ocean Feature Demo application that is a shell MVVM application that shows how to use the View Manager Services and View Model UI Services.  This very simple application doesn’t do anything except demonstrate one technique for application navigation and solving the MDI question that almost all developers new to WPF ask about.

• Ocean Feature Demo (this is part of the below downloads)

Documentation

Over time I’ll add more documentation for Ocean.  This is one of the reasons I’ve held off not publishing this, but I realized it would simply be better to publish this now along with the two above examples.

I know many have been waiting and I apologize for not publishing sooner.

System Requirements

• Visual Studio 2008 with SP1  (I have not tried BBQ Shack on Visual Studio 2010)
• Silverlight 3 Developer Version (not Silverlight 3 Beta, not Silverlight 4 Beta)
• Note:  If you cannot create a Silverlight application in Visual Studio, you do not have the Silverlight Developer version installed.
• SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 Express

Downloads

Sky Drive BBQ Shack Source Code, Database and Ocean v2  (opens page where three zip files are located.)

If you just want Ocean v2, you can simply select the Ocean zip file on the above down page.

If you want the BBQ Shack, you must download all three of the zip files.  The BBQShack and Ocean zip files should be unziped in the same folder, like your \Projects folder.  After unzipping the folders will look like this:

…\Projects\BBQShack

…\Projects\Ocean

Doing this will ensure that the Ocean projects can be found by the BBQ Shack solution.

After unzipping the above download zip files, you will have these folders in your projects folder.