"There are lots of discussions about using database[s] in Windows Store apps in MSDN forum[s]," reads a brand-new blog post by Microsoft's Robin Yang on MSDN.
Yes, developers are apparently still struggling with data access in the new Windows 8 ecosystem.
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Posted by David Ramel on 01/11/20130 comments
A recent report from research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) provides further proof that data is king when it comes to software development. The Application Development & Deployment (AD&D) market is expected to grow at a higher rate in 2013 after slow sales in late 2012, and some of the hottest segments of that market revolve around data-related development, IDC reported.
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Posted by David Ramel on 01/02/20130 comments
Dino Esposito isn't asking for much from Santa this year. Nothing new or bleeding-edge. In fact, he kind of wants to step back in time, in search of simplified SQL querying:
I'd love to have back a framework that was in beta testing and probably even in production around SQL Server a decade ago: making queries in plain English, like "give me all customers based in WA." The code was amazingly able to make most of them--or at least get close, anyway. I'm working on a simplified version of it--so it would really great to have it from Santa!"
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Posted by David Ramel on 12/20/20121 comments
I've been fooling around with REST services, getting JSON data back from free online sources and displaying it in Web or Windows Store apps via a ListView or FlipView, and so on.
After experimenting with the Windows Azure Mobile Services, which simplifies the back-end data-access process and lets you easily set up your own services, I was trying out other APIs and just had to pass on my latest discovery: beer.
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Posted by David Ramel on 12/13/20120 comments
Amazon Web Services Inc. yesterday announced AWS Marketplace support for Windows apps and big data solutions. AWS, of course, is the equivalent of Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud service, and the AWS Marketplace is akin to the Windows Store. More
Posted by David Ramel on 12/05/20120 comments
A recent study of hacker forums shows SQL injection is gaining favor as an attack vector. The company Imperva conducted a study of hacker forum discussions and concluded "SQL injection is now tied with DDoS as the most discussed topic."
Last year, the company said, DDoS was the most discussed attack vector, at 22 percent of discussion volume, while SQL injection followed at 19 percent. This year, both came in at 19 percent, indicating a relative rise in the popularity of SQL injection. More
Posted by David Ramel on 11/16/20120 comments
It's no accident that staid, proprietary software giant Microsoft has opened itself up and embraced open source (and even competing) technologies, a trend perfectly exemplified by the adoption of "big data" and its flagship Apache Hadoop platform.
It comes down to people like Dave Campbell, with the interesting title of "technical fellow" at Microsoft. It results in products like HDInsight, described last week by Campbell as Hadoop on the cloud (Windows Azure), laptop and server.
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Posted by David Ramel on 11/07/20121 comments
Less than three months after Entity Framework 5 was released, Microsoft this week announced the availability of EF6 Alpha 1, targeting a release to manufacturing date around mid-2013 for the database object relational mapping tool.
New features in the upcoming update include task-based asynchronous programming patterns, custom conventions for Code First development, multi-tenant migrations and many more.
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Posted by David Ramel on 11/01/20123 comments
Microsoft recently updated its All-In-One Script Framework, which features SQL Server (and other) scripts designed to address common problems reported by users in forums, support incidents and online communities.
Though primarily targeted at IT pros, the scripts are helpful for developers, too, as pointed out recently by Jialiang Ge, who works at a sister project called the All-In-One Code Framework. "Considering that many developers are writing T-SQL scripts too, we hope that the scripts could be useful to you," he wrote in a MSDN blog post. More
Posted by David Ramel on 10/24/20120 comments
Microsoft yesterday announced enhancements to its cloud-based backend for mobile apps, including new data storage options.
Windows Azure Mobile Services (WAMS), a preview announced in late August, provides data storage and other services to developers without the time, talent or inclination to wire up the server-side code themselves. More
Posted by David Ramel on 10/17/20121 comments
Further evidence that NoSQL database technology has triumphed over its relational counterpart in Web development was illustrated earlier this week in the unveiling of a new site aiming to provide a one-stop resource for Web developers using open technologies.
The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Platform Docs features IndexedDB as the database technology of choice for client-side storage of substantial amounts of structured data.
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Posted by David Ramel on 10/10/20122 comments
So everything's going mobile. We'll all hook into the cloud. Now it's touch-happy Windows 8 and an emphasis on Windows Store apps built with JavaScript and HTML5. It's inevitable, and I get that. But what's a hobbyist programmer like myself going to do, after spending a lot of time trying to learn the Microsoft .NET Framework and finally getting to the point where I can create interesting desktop applications?
Start over.
I don't like JavaScript. Never have. I don't get it--all those functions within functions and spaghetti code I can't figure out. C#/.NET seems a lot more organized and understandable.
But that's just me. More important, what about you, the professional developer making a living in the Microsoft ecosystem?
Well, the company is trying to smooth the transition. Take, for example, the new Windows Azure Mobile Services (WAMS) preview, which I've been playing around with. To recap, this is a Microsoft effort to simplify back-end development for your mobile cloud apps, targeting developers who want to focus on the client side of things and not worry about the nitty-gritty details of interacting with a database and such.
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Posted by David Ramel on 10/03/20120 comments