Recently I started a challenge on LinkedIn: let's write blog posts about custom model binders, view results, and other extensible stuff in Asp.Net MVC; let's do it one post a day for a week and see what happens. Presumably, it should benefit everybody, especially Asp.Net MVC newcomers.

Well, I'm two days late already, and I don't feel like doing a big post today, so today's a really simple...Read more..

Today I'm fighting with two very annoying bugs in Ivonna.

The first one is, when you debug your tests, sometimes you get the AppDomainUnloaded exception ("Attempted to access an unloaded AppDomain"). That one has been annoying me for some time, so I decided to fix it. I have opened the thread list, found the thread that contained a call to AppDomain.Unload, switched to it, and checked the HttpRuntime instance. The _shutDownMessage field told me: "Change Notification for critical di...Read more..

Yesterday I spent the whole day improving the project template for Ivonna, so I thought I might make this world a better place by sharing the details (and some code, too). The main idea is that, in order to make the template smarter than just being able to do some search/replace for you, you should go down the path of Visual Studio extensibility (and return alive). Other than that, you have to put your code in an assembly and throw it into the GAC,  then reference it in the vstemp...Read more..

I've received some shocking news from one of our brave spies in Ivonna Labs.

Yes I know it's a lame joke. But I'll pretend my backspace key is broken, and leave it here.

Anyway, now that you're entertained a little, I'm providing some boring info. The MVC bits in the new Ivonna version will come as a separate assembly.

Actually, three of them. The reason is sim...Read more..

I've just pushed the 2.1.8 release ready for download.

What a great day!

I hope you're having a good day too, and I don't want you to get any nasty surprises for this release. So, with (fake) regret I must tell you that this release has, as predicted, a couple of breaking changes:

• WebRequest and WebResponse cla...Read more..

Ivonna was conceived during the dark times, when the WebForms framework ruled the Asp.Net development. Sure there was MonoRail, but only a few alpha geeks actually used it. For 99% developers, Asp.Net was equal to WebForms.

Ivonna also suffered from me not seeing a clear distinction between the framework and the runtime. As a result, its core classes have been tightly coupled to WebForms specific ones, and compatibility with all other f...Read more..

As “Agile” turns 10, Typemock presents a webinar called 10 Secret Unit Testing Tips to Become Agile. They tortured -- yes, tortured! -- their top developers to spill out the secrets of their agile success and they are going to reveal the best ones in the webinar. 

It will be at 10:00 AM EDT on Thursday, August 25. Here is the URL with more information:  Read more..

When people are talking about automated testing, unit tests get all the buzz. Alpha geeks do them all the time, Uncle Bob Martin blogs about them, Oprah invites them to her show, Mr.President.. well, you got the idea. When somebody mentions integration tests, it's like, "you should write integration tests like a good boy/girl, or you'll be punished". Those of you who are just starting automated testing probably think, "ok these integration tests must be real pain in the ass, l'm really sca...Read more..

Recently I've been adding some bits to Ivonna that are supposed to make her more MVC-friendly. I fell asleep with a happy smile om my face after the following test passed:

var session = new TestSession();
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Writing a test before you write the first line of production code is a revolutionary concept. No, really. Blew my mind when I first heard about it. Running a test when you sure know it won't pass feels like programming Mad Hatter style. When you start doing it, you feel like a rebel, defying all dogmas and dusty stereotypes.

But when you finally fall asleep, a grinning deity comes to your bed and whispers these bitter words in your ear:

You're not doing TDD

This i...Read more..