David Grey's Blog

Missing WebAdmin.axd in ASP .NET 2 Beta 2

Well, after spending quite a bit of time trying to figure out why I can't access WebAdmin.axd from IIS for ASP .NET 2 projects (and having completely repaved my laptop in the process) I've finally found something that looks like an answer here. According to this posting it would appear that WebAdmin.axd was removed from beta 2, although on my installation it still works fine under Cassini just not with IIS.

So, there's the answer. At least my laptop runs a bit faster  now that I've gotten rid of some of the crud ;-)

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David

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I Need Analysis!: Benefits of getting it right from the start

I've spent much of the past two weeks doing some requirements analysis and creating a specification document for a project that CodeFounders is working on (hence the lack of recent blog postings). Having just read Karl Wieger's Software Requirements book again, I decided on this project to adopt a couple of things he suggests and there were a couple of immediately apparent benefits.

1. Gilb's hierarchical labelling of funtional requirements: This is a neat idea which consists of using a hierarchical naming convention (a bit like C#/Java namespaces) to label functional requirements (e.g. Meal.Order, Meal.Deliver, etc) instead of some numerically based labelling scheme. One thing that's become immediately apparent using this approach is that it's really easy to spot behaviours which will get encapsulated in components and/or classes and it gives an easy natural lead-in to the design. I wouldn't say that you start the design whilst drawing up the functional spec, but it certainly opens your mind to the design possibilites you can explore when you start on the design. For a small software shop like CodeFounders, where the analysts are also the designers and developers, this provides a nice lead through in to later stages of the lifecycle and provides some continuity and a sense of maintained momentum.
2. Wieger's template for a Vision and Scope document: I decided to have a go at using Weiger's project Vision and Scope template for our current project with an external customer. This project has the potential to be turned in to a product with applicability to other customers in the same market sector. In the first draft I forced myself to try to write the Business Objectives of the Vision and Scope document from my customer's perspective and I realized that what I had written was the elevator pitch - the key marketing points we'd want to get across to other customers that we might try to sell the product too. By considering these issues from the existing customer's perspective at the outset we've already started on some of the marketing information we'll need later in the product lifecycle. And in a completely unobtrusive and transparent way. Brilliant!!

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David

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My Developer's Reading List

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David

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Problems setting up ASP .NET 2.0 Beta 2

I found some info on the MSDN Product Feedback site suggesting that you should remove all entries except 2.0.0.0 from the following registry keys:

Microsoft comments: If a previous version was not uninstalled correctly, please regedit eliminate all versions except 2.0.0.0 in the following locations:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{7D23CCC6-A390-406E-AB67-2F8B7558F6F6}\InprocServer32\
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{FD5CD8B1-6FE0-44F3-BBFB-65E3655B096E} \InprocServer32\
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{FEDB2179-2335-48F0-AA28-5CDA35A2B36D}\InprocServer32\

I gave it a go and found that a previous version had left some values under one of these keys. I removed the extraneous values and my ASP .NET tab magically reappeared in IIS Manager. I still haven't fixed the Web Site Administation tool issue yet but I'll let you know the solution when I do.

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David

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Things they don't tell you as a child - part 1

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