1. I was wondering if someone could expand on exactly what your plans are around SL & WPF? I am not pushing the schedule issue because I know how that works and besides, by the time I can be up to speed on your product, June should be here! I am interested in how you plan to tie them into your products and how this will affect the way StrataFrame is used.
What we will be looking at here would be much akin to what you can already see in the standard WinForms side of the framework. Streamlining the creation and design of forms, and the creation of custom controls / designers as appropriate to fully utilize the benefits of WPF. Since we haven't undergone primary development here, I can't speak to the specifics of what exactly that will entail. Instead, looking at our development and design philosophies, and how they have directed our current and past development would be the best bet to seeing our direction here. StrataFrame, as a product, is designed to maximize the benefits of .NET development, fill and smooth the gaps we see in that process, and minimize any deficits we (as application developers ourselves) see there as well. That outlook is what brought the DDT, role based security, BO Mapper, and so on into the picture. It also extends to our streamlining of maintenance forms in WinForms, and our growing collection of WinForms controls. That same experience and mentality will be directed towards WPF as we move our own application development in that direction and, in turn, StrataFrame will grow to incorporate similar features and functionality in regards to WPF development. The web side of the framework will be changing quite a bit in the next iteration of StrataFrame, and, as the environment stands now, Silverlight is poised to be very central to that development. We are currently breaking ground on some in-house Silverlight development and, as is the case with the WinForms / WPF side of the framework, our own experiences and battles there will go a long way to maturing and defining the look and feel of that portion of the framework. In regards to time frames, you are correct in that both of these are central to our plans for SF 2.0. WPF and SL development and focus are both definately in StrataFrame's future, though they are not the very next things on the agenda. If I had to put a time frame based on our current plans and schedules, I would say end of 2010, beginning of 2011 to start seeing the fruits of that movement. 2. I also have been wondering about the role of Enterprise Server. It seems to me (with my limited knowledge) that using ES with Silverlight would be the way to go. Would this be considered a Best Practise?
Yep, ES and Silverlight are a great fit. Much like standard web development, using ES in conjunction with SL has many benefits in regards to connection pooling, added security and compression, more flexibility on where the SQL backend is located, etc. ES is very helpful in simplifying and solidifying the data connection for existing ASP.NET websites (we use it for all of ours) and, in the same way, it will be just as useful in keeping that data connection just as simple and solid as web apps move into Silverlight. Thanks again for your interest! Sorry I couldn't be more specific, but hopefully that sheds at least some light on the matter.  |