Technology

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In contrast to Windows Application Development, Web Applications are usually a combination of different (and unfortunately some times incompatible) concepts and technologies that (magically) work together. This page is intended to introduce some key technologies, concepts, tools and utilities that have been utilized in development of www.professionalcsharp.com, as well as links to pages that you can find more information on these topics.

Technologies

• Ajax : Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) has been widely used in several pages to allow the content of the page to be updated or changed without the entire page being reloaded thus making it more responsive and user friendly.
  
  
• Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 : This web site was built with version 2.0 of Microsoft .Net Framework.
  
  
• Ajax Control Toolkit : The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit is a shared source project built on top of the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX framework. It is a joint effort between Microsoft and the ASP.NET AJAX community that provides a powerful infrastructure to write reusable, customizable and extensible ASP.NET AJAX extenders and controls, as well as a rich array of controls that can be used out of the box to create an interactive Web experience.
  
  

Techniques

• URL Rewriting : In order to make URLs of the site more user friendly, URL Rewriting was used to make the URLs simpler to remember and easier to type. For example you can change the language of any page by simply changing the language identifier part of it's URL from lets say /en/ to /fa/ directly in the address bar. For more information on URL Rewriting take a look at the following great articles:
  
  • URL Rewriting in ASP.NET (MSDN)
  • Tip/Trick: Url Rewriting with ASP.NET (by ScottGu)
  • A Complete URL Rewriting Solution for ASP.NET 2.0 (by Gaidar Magdanurov)
  
  
• Globalization & Localization : A primary goal of ProfessionalCSharp's architecture and design was to produce a Multilingual web site to provide both dynamic and static content in different languages without the need to create separate pages for different languages. Different techniques have been used to support this architectural goal both in database and presentation layers. The following article will help you get an insight into this topic:
  • Globalization and localization demystified in ASP.NET 2.0(by Vivek Thakur)
    
    
• Caching: Different levels of caching including Output Caching, Partial Caching and Application Caching were used to improve the performance of the site by eliminating unneeded processing and at the same time making sure that content is always up to date as much as possible. Take a look at the following great articles to learn more on this topic:
  • ASP.NET Caching Features on aspalliance
  • ASP.NET Caching Basics (by Peter A. Bromberg).
  • ASP.NET 2.0 Caching Features (by Thiru Thangarathinam).
    
  
  
• Ajax Page Methods: Some pages including links and downloads use Ajax Page Methods to modify parts of the page by calling server methods asynchronously with the smallest amount of data being retrieved from the server. This guarantees a very responsive Ajax UI. For example in links page, whenever you click on a link, a server method is called to increment the visit count and retrieve the new value, then a JavaScript method is called to update the visit count on the page. For a simple tutorial, look at the article Using Page Methods in ASP.NET  by Timothy Khouri.
  
  

Tools & Utilities

• YetAnotherForum.Net: The forum section of the site takes advantage of YetAnotherForum.NET (YAF), a open source discussion forum (bulletin board) system for web sites running ASP.NET. It was first added to the web site as a standalone page, then it was modified to best suit new requirements and integrate into the look and feel of the site, but very soon it was changed to a great extent to take advantage of .Net 2.0 features and providers. The localization mechanism was modified to take advantage of .Net resource files, theme management was replaced with Asp.Net themes and skins, code was refactored and so on.
  
  
• Google Analytics Google Analytics (abbreviated GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. Its main highlight is that a webmaster can optimize AdWords advertisement and marketing campaigns through the use of GA's analysis of where the visitors came from, how long they stayed on the website and their geographical position. We use this information in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
  
  
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008: Although the web site was not upgraded to Asp.Net 3.5 (because the hosting provider do not support it yet), but the whole site is designed within Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, taking advantage of it's great features like JavaScript debugging, better Ajax and CSS support, etc. We aim to upgrade the site to Asp.Net 3.5 and take advantage of all the features that VS 2008 offers.
  
  
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000: Was used as the database back-end of the site. The database was designed with best practices in mind. The schema supports multi-language content without storing duplicate and redundant data. TSQL and stored procedures are widely used for handling some data-intensive operations and all the CRUD operations are handled at the database.
  
  
• C# Programming Language: Was used for development of the code behind logic of the pages.
  
  
• JavaScript: Was used for client side development and server side interaction in Ajax Page Methods.
  
  
• Microsoft Enterprise Library :The Microsoft Enterprise Library is a set of tools and programming libraries for the Microsoft .NET Framework. It provides an API to facilitate best practices in core areas of programming including data access, security, logging, exception handling and others. Enterprise Library was customized and used in different layers of the web site.
  You can visit the official page of Enterprise Library on CodePlex for more information and download the latest releases.
  
  
• Adobe Photoshop: Was used for tweaking arts and graphics of the site and fine tuning their colors, pixels and most importantly their sizes.
  
  

Concepts

• Web 2.0: Web 2.0 is the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. The more I read about Web 2.0, the more interested I become in it's features and the wide range of possibilities that it opens to the wide world of web development.
  
  
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): According to Wikipedia, Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. For improving this traffic on www.professionalcsharp.com, lots of hours have been spent to make both the structure and contents of the site search engine friendly. This includes using Url Rewriting, using meta tags, using site-maps, using Google Webmaster Tools, and a wide range of SEO tools from seochat.com
  
  
• OOP: It's obvious that todays complex, hi-tech and modular applications can not be developed without using the power of Object Oriented Programming. OOP concepts and methodologies have been widely used in design and development of this web site as any other modern web application on the web.
  
  
• N-Tire architecture: The web site takes advantage of an N-Tire architecture which produces a flexible and scalable design. This model has a presentation layer and three separate layers - a business logic layer and a data access logic layer and a database layer. Take a look at the following articles for an insight into this topic:
  • Building Layered Web Applications with Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 (by Imar Spaanjaars).
  • What is n-Tier Architecture? (by devart_jamesyang).