The Ajax interface has proved an interesting animal. Many people trace asynchronous JavaScript use back to Microsoft’s early Outlook Web clients, but it was not promoted by Microsoft much until open-source AJAX [for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML] as used by Google became popular about three years ago. Then, Microsoft embraced it wholeheartedly, creating its own ASP.NET Ajax version of AJAX, and saving some trouble for its developer legions. Yet, third parties still have a role to play in moving ASP.NET Ajax forward, as SearchWinDevelopment.com’s Vendor roundtable series can attest.

ASP.NET Ajax Roundtable Part 1 - Browser Compatibility

ASP.NET Ajax Roundtable Part 2 - Resurgence in JavaScript

ASP.NET Ajax Roundtable Part 3 - Open Source

Richard Campbell and Kent Alstad of Strangeloop recently presented strategies to improve scaling in the ASP.NET environment. They look at some performance forumlae, and look at the challenging issues in measuring each performance element.

“The ASP.NET techniques that work effectively for 10,000 simultaneous users aren’t as effective with 100,000 users, and the rules change again with 1 million users,” they write in an MSDN article.

Among the many tips they impart: Always test your caching code for these complex scenarios.

The way you use Master pages has changed in Visual Studio 2008.  Remember, how in Visual Studio 2005 when you add a new Web Form in ASP.NET applications - you get to choose a master page to apply to the Web form.  If you choose to use a Master page - then the page that is added, when you check the HTML code for that page - it is stripped of all the standard HTML tags - only the Page directive and the <asp:Content> tags are available.  This is a Content page.

In Visual Studio there are two types of Web Forms available - Web Form and the Web Content Form. 

The Web Form is a standard Web Form - without the Master page, with its HTML code like a standard HTML page.  Whereas, the Web Content Form is the one to which you can attach a Master page.

The Web Form page also has a MasterPageFile property.  But, if you create a Web Form and then set the MasterPageFile property to link to your Master page you will get a run time error.

Content controls have to be top-level controls in a content page or a nested master page that references a master page.

This is because content pages must not have another other HTML tags or controls. 

If you want to use Master Pages use Web Content Form, otherwise use the Web Form.

Another nice feature in Visual Studio 2008 - is that in that in the top right corner of the Design window of the Web content page is a link to the Master page that this page is linked to.  Also, the “Split” view is cool.. you can now see the source and the design view tiled in the design area.

SearchWinDevelopment.com recently caught up with Rob Howard, who graced these pages in the Pre Silverlight Days. Howard rode the first blog wave at Microsoft, and has continued on the social networking trail as head of Telligent, provider of Community Server, a blogging application running on the ASP.NET platform.

Recently, Telligent has launched Graffiti, which takes a big conceptual step up the stream from blogging. Graffiti is a Content Management System [CMS], which is what people find they need when they bash about in the blogpond long enough.

Trouble with CMS is: There is a wide spectrum with not too many nodes along the way. You have the big vendors [Vignette, Interwoven] with rich products and pricey price tags on one spectra end .. and on the other end there is WordPress and Blogger with low cost and low features. Telligent sees opportunity.

Graffiti is a light weight CMS platform, Howard told us. It is a good fit in a more disparate environment, he indicated. He said many companies are beginning to field more than a single CMS type. They are supporting what he calls ‘niche focused publishing platforms.’

As with past Telligent efforts, Graffiti runs on ASP.NET. But this time, it also runs on Linux and Mac OS, and Mono. It supports various DBs, including MySQL.

Telligent has more in store. Besides upcoming new revs of Community Server, there is the Harvest Reporting suite due from the company. Said Howard, it rolls up 130 pre-built reports that let blogmeisters slice and dice their community data. Blogging may be a commodity item, yes. But the software the grows up around the blogging phenomenon  may be industries onto themselves. With its stabs at CMS and reporting, Telligent may point the way toward a trend.

Microsoft’s Lang.NET Symposium 2008 got up and running yesterday. C# father Anders Hejlsberg talked about C# 3.0 features, IronPython guru Hugunin discussed the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) and IronPython, and Pratap Lakshman from the JScript team talked about the new managed implementation of JScript, codenamed Managed JScript.

Hejlsberg, as reported by blogger extraordinaire Ted Neward, told the assembled language heads that the conventional divisions of language types (into categories) covering the functional, the object-oriented, and so on will break down in the years ahead.

IronPython high priest Jim Hugunin did a demo that mixed Microsoft Robotics Studio code with IronPython running on the DLR. Hugunin’s creation, IronPython, was recently updated as IronPython RC 1.1.1 on CodePlex.  Hugunin created Jython, a Java version of Python.

IronPython 1.0 was debuted in September 2006. The latest release candidate is described as a minor update focused on bug fixing. Hugunin’s team has fielded IronPython 2.0 Alpha 1, as well. This is the first release of IronPython built on the DLR, and targeting version 2.5 of Python.

For his part, Pratap Lakshman provided an overview of the managed Jscript implementation originally discussed at MIX07.  JavaScript on top of the DLR became a reality as part of Silverlight 2.0 (then known as Silverlight 1.1).

Surprise guests at the symposium were Java specialists John Rose and Charles Nutter, who discussed Java’s increasing support of new languages on the JVM.

Planned Day 2 discussions at Lang.NET 2008 include Eric Meijer on Volta, Paul Vick on Visual Basic and Karl Prosser ‘’Powershell Plus. ‘’