Well, having spent a few weeks banging my head against a brick wall trying to learn Dynamic Data, I'm giving up. It looks like a great idea, but is fundamentally flawed in at least two respects...
1) The documentation and code samples are pitiful. As has been discussed several times before in this forum, it's almost impossible to learn the technology when the few resources that exist are woefully out of date, and hopelessly inadequate. Sure, you can
get a basic DD site up and running quickly, but once you want to start cusotmising - which is essental if you're going to use this for real - you run into problems that just aren't covered anywhere.
I know someone is going to point me to the DD pages on MSDN, but to be blunt, they're no use for learnign anything more than the very basics. MSDN is a great reference resource, but that's only good when you know what you're looking for. It's no use for
learning from the ground up. The videos on the www.asp.net site give you a start, but as soon as you want to do anything yourself, you run into problems that just aren't covered in the videos. Some things, like custom filters, just aren't mentioned at all,
so how you're supposed to find out how to write your own is beyond me.
The only resource for help is this forum, but as there only seem to be two people here who actually know anything about DD, they just don't have the time to answer all the questions. I would like to thank Steve Naughton and David Ebb publically for all the
help they've given, but unless Microsoft is going to start paying them to support DD, they aren't going to be able to devote enough time to make this work for those of us who are trying to learn.
If Microsoft want people to use DD, then they need to invest some time and money in providing resources for people to learn it. I am trying to earn a living, and just don't have the time to waste hours searching for a solution to something that is basic
and should have been covered in training material. I don't mind investing time to learn, but only when it's productive and useful. I object to wasting hours struggling against a lack of input by Microsoft.
2) The other basic problem with DD is that it addresses the developer's concern at the cost of the user. Creating a basic CRUD web site is very fast and easy, but the user experience is slow. All that relfection and examining database schemas makes the site
too slow to be acceptable. It was a great idea, but it didn't work.
What would be good is if Microsoft coudl come up with something in between. A tool that would examine the database and generate the web pages for us. I'm talking here about pages tailored to each table, not generic templates like we have now. That woudl
give the developers the benefit of not having to write ednless CRUD pages, but would give a faster user experience.
I get the impression that no-one at Microsoft reads this forum, otherwise they woudl have seen the regular comments about the lack of documentation and either replied or (even better), done something about it. However, I wanted to post my feelings just in
case the message does get back.
I would be grateful if anyone reading this forum who either works for Micorsoft, or has connections there could pass on the message. I'm only speaking for myself, but I know I'm not alone in my frustration.
If you're really bored, you could read about my experiments with .NET and some of Microsoft's newer technologies at http://dotnetwhatnot.pixata.co.uk/
Thanks for the link. Looks like a nice tool. Shame it needs a CTP to run. I have .NET 4.0 and VS2010, so I'm sure I have newer versions of anything Blinq needs, but it insists it wants the May CTP. Not sure I want to risk installing something so old and
out of date.
Thanks also for any attempts you can make to get MS to notice this thread.
If you're really bored, you could read about my experiments with .NET and some of Microsoft's newer technologies at http://dotnetwhatnot.pixata.co.uk/
well Blinq itself was discontinued in favor Dynamic Data so perhaps you could use it on a vpc, run it and put the generated material as a project in VS2010. Not ideal I know but it could be a start.
Grz, Kris.
Read my blog | Twitter Interested in Azure, ASP.NET (MVC), jQuery, WCF, EF, MS SQL, ...
Keep the forums clean: report to the moderation team!
How can a Forums’ moderator with 142,171 point All-Star dare to suggest that you should go to the times of BLINQ (with all due respect to Polita) which is like Toyota calling all its unusable productions of malfunctioning cars?
Let’s be serious: If I were to use a Code Generator Product I rather use anything else than Dynamic Data or Blinq, call it : Code on Time, ASP.Net Maker, Iron Speed Designer or anything like that on the market …. c’mon … !!!!!
Why does it has to be so hard for the Official Microsoft Dynamic Data Developers Team accept and come to the conclusion that they deliver a product to the world which seems to be terrific but that they weren't professional enough as to complete the most
basic precepts of the life cycle development circle and dare to come with this product to us with such incredible flaws?
Codeplex is a real shame! MSDN gets you to nowhere!
Our unanswered FAQs lead us to conclude that we should give up as you had already done with Mr. Yossu.
I don’t give up because I had wasted to much time with this and I have already created too much code as to abandon it now … shame on me!
It is certainly true that (might be because of luck as many good inventions in history) they might have been predicted that Dynamic Data would be a tool for developers only, as to facilitate CRUD while creating their own applications, but in real
life it seems that MetaData, Templating and all the other stuff is something really good and that maybe it is a good idea for programmers to put this applications in real time production.
Dynamic Data seems to be something casually discovered, just like discovering (while creating some kind of laser reactor or something like that) microwaves were discovered because it melted the chocolate bars of one of the scientists working on it.
It seems that Microsoft hasn’t paid (a beautiful term to be used in both senses) enough attention to Dynamic Data as a true technology to work dedicatedly on.
It is embarrassing and a real shame that after more than two years they still have posted videos showing the way in which this product should be used by that time (framework 3.5) with so ruthless recklessly to all of us who have spent hundreds of hours trying
to find the answers which should already had been delivered to our community.
I feel sorry for Mister Steve Naughton which seems to be the only person in the world trying this technology to survive. He should be as well be hired as a Microsoft partner, consultant or employee or leader of this development team.
Microsoft could as well hire him to write a book about all of this.
Mr. Scott Hunter says that I am “rude” while writing like this. Tell him how DO I FEEL after more than one year not having find an answer on how to implement properly “Cascading” in a very serious professional way.
Microsoft had denied to all of us adequate training material and proper documentation
They had also denied us the right to know the real disclosure of the back engine of Dynamic Data.
They had denied us to know the way in which Dynamic Data works behind the scenes.
They have denied us real life examples … serious ones … not just the basic stuff … not just the first 5 minutes training: create a dynamic web site, add a model, modify Global.asax and run it!
How can a Forums’ moderator with 142,171 point
All-Star dare to suggest that you should go to the times of BLINQ (with all due respect to Polita) which is like Toyota calling all its unusable productions of malfunctioning cars?
I only mentioned Blinq as being the successor of DD and that it got discontinued. As the OP was stating that he was interested in it but that he got to some roadblocks I only suggested that he might want to try it out on a vpc instead of putting all past
and ugly alpha/beta things on his current working environment. Better be safe than sorry.
Besides, if you happen to know a great alternative for Blinq I'd be happy to hear about it and learn something new on the way about this. At the moment I usually use custom written T4 templates at my clients to generate some small parts of code coming from
databases.
klca
They had denied us to know the way in which Dynamic Data works behind the scenes.
ASP.NET webforms also has been closed source for years. It's thanks to tools like Reflector that I tried figuring things out, or since VS2008, when Microsoft made it possible to debug in the framework code as well gave me quite some insight of the inner
workings and helped me out solving several problems too in the last years.
The rest of your reply and possible answers, well I leave those up to the people behind ASP.NET Dynamic Data as I can't speak in their name and don't know what's going on internally at Microsoft with the technology itself.
Grz, Kris.
Read my blog | Twitter Interested in Azure, ASP.NET (MVC), jQuery, WCF, EF, MS SQL, ...
Keep the forums clean: report to the moderation team!
well Blinq itself was discontinued in favor Dynamic Data so perhaps you could use it on a vpc, run it and put the generated material as a project in VS2010. Not ideal I know but it could be a start.
Grz, Kris.
Well, after spending about an hour and a half configuring a vpc to run Blinq, the cde it generated didn't work! I got errors in the CSSAdaprers.browser file, and then more in a file called InternalXmlHelper.vb that doesn't seem to exist in the project. I've
tried tinkering about with the code, but whatever I do to fix one error just generates more.
Oh well, it was a nice idea. Thanks for suggesting it anyway.
I still think this approach is far and away the best balance between cutting development time and keeping users happy. I woudl still be interested to hear from someone at Microsoft why they dumped something that looks very promising in favour of something
fundamentally flawed (even if DD were documented properly)
Thanks again Kris
If you're really bored, you could read about my experiments with .NET and some of Microsoft's newer technologies at http://dotnetwhatnot.pixata.co.uk/
I am not suggesting/asking by any means that MS might open its source code to us. It is simply just not that!
I am saying that MS should EXPLAIN the way in which DD works which is quite different from asking them to reveal something proprietary.
If we understood the way in which DD works it will be extremely beneficial for us (developers) in customizing applications because you will have the tools you need and all necessary intersections (break points) in which you could insert your own code as
a part of the intrinsic nature/engine/behavior of DD.
It was because some of us suggested that the Actions performed by the URL shouldn't be "sealed" in just four options (Insert, Edit, List and Details) is now of the type public static class PageAction from which you can inherit and create your own custom
routings.
In the same way we are asking MS to deliver (call it classes, libraries, dlls, .... whatever) that could help you to do things like "cascading"
THE PROBLEM IS THE NON-LINEAR BEHAVIOR OF DD so you lost everything in the middle of the road.
So then MS DD should provide a way to "keep/inherit/modify state" of some screens (call them pages) as to have access to all the round/cycle of modifications you may have done on all of the controls contained in a class in the metadata file of the model.
But the thing is that while DD stays like it is right now then everything is recreated every time a page/control/filter is used.
Also, there is no easy way of understanding how all of this works and you have to create a lot of unnecessary code and variables that just overload your system/performance.
For example, how can you have access to all the information gathered from a previous entry you just made in the Insert page?
No problem. Sorry that it didn't work out as expected.
I did manage to get into contact with the people at Microsoft behind the documentation of things and received the message that they'll put a documentation person on it asap. I know this doesn't ease your direct pain at the moment but Microsoft's certainly
going to do something about it.
Grz, Kris.
Read my blog | Twitter Interested in Azure, ASP.NET (MVC), jQuery, WCF, EF, MS SQL, ...
Keep the forums clean: report to the moderation team!
MrYossu
Member
134 Points
143 Posts
Why I won't be using Dynamic Data any more - please read this Microsoft!
Sep 19, 2010 04:50 PM|LINK
Well, having spent a few weeks banging my head against a brick wall trying to learn Dynamic Data, I'm giving up. It looks like a great idea, but is fundamentally flawed in at least two respects...
1) The documentation and code samples are pitiful. As has been discussed several times before in this forum, it's almost impossible to learn the technology when the few resources that exist are woefully out of date, and hopelessly inadequate. Sure, you can get a basic DD site up and running quickly, but once you want to start cusotmising - which is essental if you're going to use this for real - you run into problems that just aren't covered anywhere.
I know someone is going to point me to the DD pages on MSDN, but to be blunt, they're no use for learnign anything more than the very basics. MSDN is a great reference resource, but that's only good when you know what you're looking for. It's no use for learning from the ground up. The videos on the www.asp.net site give you a start, but as soon as you want to do anything yourself, you run into problems that just aren't covered in the videos. Some things, like custom filters, just aren't mentioned at all, so how you're supposed to find out how to write your own is beyond me.
The only resource for help is this forum, but as there only seem to be two people here who actually know anything about DD, they just don't have the time to answer all the questions. I would like to thank Steve Naughton and David Ebb publically for all the help they've given, but unless Microsoft is going to start paying them to support DD, they aren't going to be able to devote enough time to make this work for those of us who are trying to learn.
If Microsoft want people to use DD, then they need to invest some time and money in providing resources for people to learn it. I am trying to earn a living, and just don't have the time to waste hours searching for a solution to something that is basic and should have been covered in training material. I don't mind investing time to learn, but only when it's productive and useful. I object to wasting hours struggling against a lack of input by Microsoft.
2) The other basic problem with DD is that it addresses the developer's concern at the cost of the user. Creating a basic CRUD web site is very fast and easy, but the user experience is slow. All that relfection and examining database schemas makes the site too slow to be acceptable. It was a great idea, but it didn't work.
What would be good is if Microsoft coudl come up with something in between. A tool that would examine the database and generate the web pages for us. I'm talking here about pages tailored to each table, not generic templates like we have now. That woudl give the developers the benefit of not having to write ednless CRUD pages, but would give a faster user experience.
I get the impression that no-one at Microsoft reads this forum, otherwise they woudl have seen the regular comments about the lack of documentation and either replied or (even better), done something about it. However, I wanted to post my feelings just in case the message does get back.
I would be grateful if anyone reading this forum who either works for Micorsoft, or has connections there could pass on the message. I'm only speaking for myself, but I know I'm not alone in my frustration.
XIII
All-Star
182684 Points
23454 Posts
ASPInsiders
Moderator
MVP
Re: Why I won't be using Dynamic Data any more - please read this Microsoft!
Sep 19, 2010 05:03 PM|LINK
Hi,
There used to be a tool that could do this for you: Blinq. However the ASP.NET team decided to ditch it in favor of Dynamic Data.
I know I'm not someone from Microsoft but I'll see if I can get in touch with someone to reply to this post.
Grz, Kris.
Interested in Azure, ASP.NET (MVC), jQuery, WCF, EF, MS SQL, ...
Keep the forums clean: report to the moderation team!
MrYossu
Member
134 Points
143 Posts
Re: Why I won't be using Dynamic Data any more - please read this Microsoft!
Sep 19, 2010 05:47 PM|LINK
Hi Kris,
Thanks for the link. Looks like a nice tool. Shame it needs a CTP to run. I have .NET 4.0 and VS2010, so I'm sure I have newer versions of anything Blinq needs, but it insists it wants the May CTP. Not sure I want to risk installing something so old and out of date.
Thanks also for any attempts you can make to get MS to notice this thread.
XIII
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182684 Points
23454 Posts
ASPInsiders
Moderator
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Re: Why I won't be using Dynamic Data any more - please read this Microsoft!
Sep 19, 2010 05:54 PM|LINK
Hi,
well Blinq itself was discontinued in favor Dynamic Data so perhaps you could use it on a vpc, run it and put the generated material as a project in VS2010. Not ideal I know but it could be a start.
Grz, Kris.
Interested in Azure, ASP.NET (MVC), jQuery, WCF, EF, MS SQL, ...
Keep the forums clean: report to the moderation team!
klca
Member
507 Points
410 Posts
Bye Mr. Yossu ... should you leave????
Sep 20, 2010 03:15 AM|LINK
How can a Forums’ moderator with 142,171 point All-Star dare to suggest that you should go to the times of BLINQ (with all due respect to Polita) which is like Toyota calling all its unusable productions of malfunctioning cars?
Let’s be serious: If I were to use a Code Generator Product I rather use anything else than Dynamic Data or Blinq, call it : Code on Time, ASP.Net Maker, Iron Speed Designer or anything like that on the market …. c’mon … !!!!!
Why does it has to be so hard for the Official Microsoft Dynamic Data Developers Team accept and come to the conclusion that they deliver a product to the world which seems to be terrific but that they weren't professional enough as to complete the most basic precepts of the life cycle development circle and dare to come with this product to us with such incredible flaws?
Codeplex is a real shame! MSDN gets you to nowhere!
Our unanswered FAQs lead us to conclude that we should give up as you had already done with Mr. Yossu.
I don’t give up because I had wasted to much time with this and I have already created too much code as to abandon it now … shame on me!
It is certainly true that (might be because of luck as many good inventions in history) they might have been predicted that Dynamic Data would be a tool for developers only, as to facilitate CRUD while creating their own applications, but in real life it seems that MetaData, Templating and all the other stuff is something really good and that maybe it is a good idea for programmers to put this applications in real time production.
Dynamic Data seems to be something casually discovered, just like discovering (while creating some kind of laser reactor or something like that) microwaves were discovered because it melted the chocolate bars of one of the scientists working on it.
It seems that Microsoft hasn’t paid (a beautiful term to be used in both senses) enough attention to Dynamic Data as a true technology to work dedicatedly on.
It is embarrassing and a real shame that after more than two years they still have posted videos showing the way in which this product should be used by that time (framework 3.5) with so ruthless recklessly to all of us who have spent hundreds of hours trying to find the answers which should already had been delivered to our community.
I feel sorry for Mister Steve Naughton which seems to be the only person in the world trying this technology to survive. He should be as well be hired as a Microsoft partner, consultant or employee or leader of this development team.
Microsoft could as well hire him to write a book about all of this.
Mr. Scott Hunter says that I am “rude” while writing like this. Tell him how DO I FEEL after more than one year not having find an answer on how to implement properly “Cascading” in a very serious professional way.
Microsoft had denied to all of us adequate training material and proper documentation
They had also denied us the right to know the real disclosure of the back engine of Dynamic Data.
They had denied us to know the way in which Dynamic Data works behind the scenes.
They have denied us real life examples … serious ones … not just the basic stuff … not just the first 5 minutes training: create a dynamic web site, add a model, modify Global.asax and run it!
Anyway Mr. Yossu …. Good luck !
Carlos Porras (El Salvador)
XIII
All-Star
182684 Points
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Re: Bye Mr. Yossu ... should you leave????
Sep 20, 2010 04:55 AM|LINK
Hi,
I only mentioned Blinq as being the successor of DD and that it got discontinued. As the OP was stating that he was interested in it but that he got to some roadblocks I only suggested that he might want to try it out on a vpc instead of putting all past and ugly alpha/beta things on his current working environment. Better be safe than sorry.
Besides, if you happen to know a great alternative for Blinq I'd be happy to hear about it and learn something new on the way about this. At the moment I usually use custom written T4 templates at my clients to generate some small parts of code coming from databases.
ASP.NET webforms also has been closed source for years. It's thanks to tools like Reflector that I tried figuring things out, or since VS2008, when Microsoft made it possible to debug in the framework code as well gave me quite some insight of the inner workings and helped me out solving several problems too in the last years.
The rest of your reply and possible answers, well I leave those up to the people behind ASP.NET Dynamic Data as I can't speak in their name and don't know what's going on internally at Microsoft with the technology itself.
Grz, Kris.
Interested in Azure, ASP.NET (MVC), jQuery, WCF, EF, MS SQL, ...
Keep the forums clean: report to the moderation team!
MrYossu
Member
134 Points
143 Posts
Re: Why I won't be using Dynamic Data any more - please read this Microsoft!
Sep 20, 2010 02:54 PM|LINK
Well, after spending about an hour and a half configuring a vpc to run Blinq, the cde it generated didn't work! I got errors in the CSSAdaprers.browser file, and then more in a file called InternalXmlHelper.vb that doesn't seem to exist in the project. I've tried tinkering about with the code, but whatever I do to fix one error just generates more.
Oh well, it was a nice idea. Thanks for suggesting it anyway.
I still think this approach is far and away the best balance between cutting development time and keeping users happy. I woudl still be interested to hear from someone at Microsoft why they dumped something that looks very promising in favour of something fundamentally flawed (even if DD were documented properly)
Thanks again Kris
klca
Member
507 Points
410 Posts
Source code .... no way ... but rather understanding!
Sep 20, 2010 03:46 PM|LINK
Hola,
I am not suggesting/asking by any means that MS might open its source code to us. It is simply just not that!
I am saying that MS should EXPLAIN the way in which DD works which is quite different from asking them to reveal something proprietary.
If we understood the way in which DD works it will be extremely beneficial for us (developers) in customizing applications because you will have the tools you need and all necessary intersections (break points) in which you could insert your own code as a part of the intrinsic nature/engine/behavior of DD.
It was because some of us suggested that the Actions performed by the URL shouldn't be "sealed" in just four options (Insert, Edit, List and Details) is now of the type public static class PageAction from which you can inherit and create your own custom routings.
In the same way we are asking MS to deliver (call it classes, libraries, dlls, .... whatever) that could help you to do things like "cascading"
THE PROBLEM IS THE NON-LINEAR BEHAVIOR OF DD so you lost everything in the middle of the road.
So then MS DD should provide a way to "keep/inherit/modify state" of some screens (call them pages) as to have access to all the round/cycle of modifications you may have done on all of the controls contained in a class in the metadata file of the model.
But the thing is that while DD stays like it is right now then everything is recreated every time a page/control/filter is used.
Also, there is no easy way of understanding how all of this works and you have to create a lot of unnecessary code and variables that just overload your system/performance.
For example, how can you have access to all the information gathered from a previous entry you just made in the Insert page?
MS knows so they should tell us ... don't they?
Carlos Porras (El Salvador)
XIII
All-Star
182684 Points
23454 Posts
ASPInsiders
Moderator
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Re: Why I won't be using Dynamic Data any more - please read this Microsoft!
Sep 21, 2010 07:11 AM|LINK
Hi,
No problem. Sorry that it didn't work out as expected.
I did manage to get into contact with the people at Microsoft behind the documentation of things and received the message that they'll put a documentation person on it asap. I know this doesn't ease your direct pain at the moment but Microsoft's certainly going to do something about it.
Grz, Kris.
Interested in Azure, ASP.NET (MVC), jQuery, WCF, EF, MS SQL, ...
Keep the forums clean: report to the moderation team!
sjnaughton
All-Star
27308 Points
5458 Posts
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Re: Why I won't be using Dynamic Data any more - please read this Microsoft!
Sep 21, 2010 11:46 AM|LINK
Hi MyYossu, in answer to
1) You must remember that this is just templates on standard ASP.Net Web Forms not some new technology, and so there is tone of documentation on that.
2) I have used DD in many CRUD site and it's not being reported as slow sorry [:)]
Dynamic Data
Always seeking an elegant solution.