CLI and .NET

After a long delay, today got the chance to present the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) presentation to my colleagues.

A very short, 20 minutes presentation. The shortest presentation of mine till now.

The Microsoft Powerpoint Slides can be downloaded from here(zip-290KB)

Related sites of interest would be:
ECMA -- www.ecma-international.org
ISO -- www.iso.ch
ROTOR -- www.sscli.net
MONO -- www.go-mono.com
DotGNU -- www.gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/
.NET -- www.microsoft.com/net

2003 has been the most eventfull year for me (Stepped into .NET). Hoping to get more surprises and changes in the coming year.

Using CVS for SourceControl

"An alternative to VSS" was the requirement. Decided to plunge into CVS. SA had the CVS server installed on a Linux machine. My task was to find and explore the various CVS clients for Windows.

First, tried WinCVS. Then went on to look for CVS plugins for VS.NET. Found Jalindi Igloo. Igloo was a major failure inspite of a detailed article on the CodeProject.

Then looked into the TortoiseCVS. Inspiring integration with the windows shell. The ease of use was spell bounding. The help accompanying installation gave a detailed look into the two different methodologies for SourceControl namely, Lock-Modify-Unlock and Copy-Modify-Merge. TortoiseCVS uses C-M-M model.

A VS.NET plugin for TortoiseCVS was under development. I tried it but failed to Check out a module.

Then looked into the SubVersion alternative for CVS. Even this follows C-M-M model. But, the VS.NET plugin developed for SubVersion, ankhsvn looks good by seing the Screen Shots. Got to install svn soon and try it. The free book on subversion is excellent.

Then went on to read the Microsoft's “Team Development Guide” from Patterns&Practices. This guide is indispensible for VSS and VS.NET users.

Another Microsoft Article from MSDN was very good. This is related to SourceControl and build control for Web Projects.

For now, using WinCVS and TortoiseCVS together.

Waiting for something to happen.........

Attended MSDN Yatra! Bangalore

Yesterday, attended the MSDN Yatra's 'ASP.NET Application Security' session by MVP Srinivas Sampath.

Was a very well balanced session.

Started with the Theory of Planning an ASP.NET application for good security.

The different stages at which the security can be provided was explained with a neat diagram.

Usage of SSL was the highlight of the presentation.

Also usage of Stored Procedures instead of writing SQL in code was emphasized upon.

There were around 4 good demos.

One was how to configure IIS to enable SSL security.

The best was the Login Demo. It demonstrated a good template for authentication. Usage of Salt(Random Number), FormsAuthentication methods to store passwords safely in database.

It was followed by Authorization demo; identifying of User Roles etc.

I am going to implement these in my Application.

That's it for now.