Tag: html5
Intro to WebAssembly Using Blazor
Posted by bsstahl on 2018-09-26 and Filed Under: event
I will be speaking tonight, 9/26/2018 at the Northwest Valley .NET User Group and tomorrow, 9/27/2018 at the Southeast Valley .NET User Group. I will be speaking on the subject of WebAssembly. The talk will go into what WebAssembly programs look and act like, and how they run, then explore how we as .NET developers can write WebAssembly programs with Microsoft’s experimental platform, Blazor.
Want to run your .NET Standard code directly in the browser on the client-side without the need for transpilers or browser plug-ins? Well, now you can with WebAssembly and Blazor.
WebAssembly (WASM) is the W3C specification that will be used to provide the next generation of development tools for the web and beyond. Blazor is Microsoft's experiment that allows ASP.Net developers to create web pages that do much of the scripting work in C# using WASM.
Come join us as we explore the basics of WebAssembly and how WASM can be used to run existing C# code client side in the browser. You will walk away with an understanding of what WebAssembly and Blazor can do for you and how to immediately get started running your own .NET code in the browser.
The slide deck for these presentations can be found here IntroToWasmAndBlazor-201809.pdf.
Are you Ready for the Next Episode?
Posted by bsstahl on 2015-06-29 and Filed Under: development
In the last episode of “Refactoring my App Development Mojo”, I explained how I had discovered my passion for building Windows Store applications by using a hybrid solution of HTML5 with very minimal JavaScript, bound to a view-model written in C# running as a Windows Runtime Component, communicating with services written in C# using WCF. The goal was to do as much of the coding as possible in the technologies I was very comfortable with, C# and HTML, and minimize the use of those technologies which I had never gotten comfortable with, namely JavaScript and XAML.
While this was an interesting and somewhat novel approach, it turned out to have a few fairly significant drawbacks:
- Using this hybrid approach meant there were two runtimes that had to be initialized and operating during execution, a costly drain on system resources, especially for mobile devices.
- Applications built using this methodology would run well on Windows 8 and 8.1 machines, as well as Windows Phone devices, but not on the web, or on Android or iDevices.
- The more complex the applications became, the more I hand to rely on JavaScript anyway, even despite putting as much logic as possible into the C# layers.
On top of these drawbacks, I now feel like it is time for me to get over my fear of moving to JavaScript. Yes, it is weakly typed (at least for now). Yes, its implementation of many object-oriented concepts leave a lot to be desired (at least for now), yes, it can sometimes make you question your own logical thinking, or even your sanity, with how it handles certain edge-cases. All that being said however, JavaScript, in some form, is the clear winner when it comes to web applications. There is no question that, if you are building standard front-ends for you applications, you need JavaScript.
So, it seems that it is time for me to move to a more standard front-end development stack. I need one that is cross-platform, ideally providing a good deployment story for web, PC, tablet & phone, and supporting all major platforms including Android, iDevices & Windows phones and tablets. It also needs to be standards-based, and work using popular frameworks so that my apps can be kept up-to-date with the latest technology.
I believe I have found this front-end platform in Apache Cordova. Cordova takes HTML5/JavaScript/CSS3 apps that can already work on the web, and builds them into hybrid apps that can run on virtually any platform including iPhones and iPads, Android phones and tablets, and Windows PCs, phones and tablets. Cordova has built-in support in Visual Studio 2015, which I have been playing with for a little while and seems to have real promise. There is also the popular Ionic Framework for building Cordova apps which I plan to learn more about over the next few weeks.
I’ll keep you informed of my progress and let you know if this does indeed turn out to be the best way for me to build apps. Stay tuned.
Windows 8 Store Development for Enterprise Devs
Posted by bsstahl on 2013-02-28 and Filed Under: development
or, How I found my Passion for Windows 8 Store App Development
Update: My first Windows Store app was published on March 27, 2013.
I don't have any apps in the Windows 8 Store yet. For that matter, I don't have any apps in the Windows Phone store, or the Apple or Android stores either. I have many ideas for apps, and a number of them in the works for both Windows 8 and Windows Phone, but I have nothing real to show for it yet. Nothing to show for several years of attending sessions at conferences, user groups, and code camps on building these apps; for many hours of hacking on front-end interfaces and business logic. Don’t get me wrong, I've wanted to build these apps, but I didn't have that burning desire that I usually get when I am solving problems with software. You know that desire, the one that compels you to sit in front of a computer for hours at a time until you've completed a solution. I didn't have it.
This recently changed for me -- let me explain.
I have spent most of the last 20 years building enterprise web applications that do most of the work on the server side. My user interfaces have been built in HTML, with some JavaScript for validation and Ajax for dynamic post-backs, but all business rules were housed entirely on the server in either C#, VB or something similar. Even before .NET, in the classic ASP days, my logic executed on the server with VBScript calling components created in Visual Basic. Before that, it was Pascal programs spitting out pure HTML to the console which was then redirected to the browser stream by the web server. As a result, I am very comfortable with using HTML for layout, and multi-purpose languages like C# and VB.Net for the business logic and data access.
In the app world however, this combination of technologies has seemed out-of-reach. In Windows Phone development, I could use C#, but needed to use XAML for layout and style, a technology that I have not yet been able to get comfortable with. For Windows 8 store apps there are more options, including HTML5/JavaScript apps, but I have never been comfortable writing code in JavaScript. The advent of TypeScript has brought us even closer to a solution in my comfort zone where I can get almost a C# style experience with HTML5 as my layout mechanism, but I am still missing key features like LINQ and generics.
Enter Windows Runtime Components. I say “enter”, as if they were new -- they're not, I just apparently allowed myself to forget about them. RT Components can be written in C# (and other languages), but can be called from JavaScript or any Windows 8 Store code, just as if they were written in that same language. RT components can also call into any .NET code that can be executed in a Windows Store App. As a result, I have the power of C# and the .NET Framework at my disposal while writing a JavaScript app. All I have to do is wrap my .NET Windows Store compatible libraries in an RT component, and use JavaScript to bind it to my HTML layout. Since I have been using Portable Libraries for most of my business logic for some time now, and those libraries that aren't yet portable, are generally easily translated, most of my .NET business logic is already available for me to wrap in an RT Component.
With the primary business functionality done in C#, it becomes a relatively trivial exercise in JavaScript to bind my RT model to the HTML components in my UI. This experience is completely comfortable to me, and in using this process, I have found the passion I was missing for building these apps. I will have several apps in the Windows 8 store in the next few weeks with more to follow after that. I will also be writing about my methods in building these apps, from the perspective of an enterprise developer. Hopefully, this will allow others to find the passion for creating these apps as I have. In the meantime, here are a few tips you can start using now to ease the transition into building apps:
- Use portable libraries wherever possible, especially for business logic.
- Use dependency injection to make non-portable dependencies available to portable libraries. This will allow your business logic access to platform-specific functionality (such as network access) without sacrificing portability.
- Do as much of the work as possible in the underlying .NET libraries and keep the RT Component as thin a translation layer as possible. I will be exploring techniques for this in the near future. Possibilities here include making this layer either a View-Model or a Repository implementation.
- The only logic in the JavaScript code should be that which is required to bind the RT Component to your controls. If you are doing more than setting event handlers and other control properties in your JavaScript, you might want to think about moving that functionality into a lower layer. This has the added benefit of making that logic potentially reusable across applications.
I’m interested to hear if there are other enterprise developers with similar stories, whose comfort zones of HTML and C# or VB have kept them from building apps as they’d like. Please contact me @bsstahl@cognitiveinheritance.com.
Microsoft Developers and HTML5
Posted by bsstahl on 2011-07-29 and Filed Under: development
Warning: Speculation Alert!
While attending the Pittsburgh GiveCamp, I had something of an epiphany about Microsoft’s HTML5 strategy. Looking back at it now it seems so obvious, but at the time it felt like a revelation, so I want to share that experience with you. You should be warned however that this is not based on any actual knowledge. I am not a Microsoft insider and I have no information that any other developer who uses Microsoft technologies doesn’t have access to. These thoughts are purely speculative, but they make sense to me so I felt the need to share them and I look forward to your comments.
I believe that Microsoft will make HTML5/CSS3/ECMAScript a 1st-class language within the .NET stack.
Right now, just about everything that can be done in HTML5, can be done in Silverlight and WPF. Because Microsoft has already spent the time and effort building those technologies into the .NET Framework, there is already the capability in the Microsoft Intermediate Language (IL), which all .NET code compiles down to, to support the actions that might be needed in an HTML5 application. Certainly, the standard HTML UI elements have an equivalent in the XAML-based world of WPF and Silverlight. In addition, there is already style support similar to CSS, and we know there is strong programmability support. So, when you get down to it, all of the framework pieces are in place to compile an HTML5 application into IL. Once compiled, most likely into an .exe file, this HTML5 application could be executed in exactly the same way as any Windows desktop application. I believe Microsoft will be announcing this capability as one of its key features of .NET 5 at their Build conference in September to take advantage of the marketing synergy between the .NET 5 and HTML5 brands.
Can you imagine a workflow where you use File –> New Project in Visual Studio to create an HTML5 project, build HTML5 pages along with your script, style and other resources, and then can publish the project as either a standard HTML website, or as a .NET executable file to be run on Windows 8, or even earlier versions of Windows if they have the .NET framework 5.0 installed? I can imagine it easily, and I like what I see when I do. This may be why Microsoft is billing the Build conference as for more than just Professional Developers. That is, web designers and hobbyists will now also have the ability to create Windows desktop applications simply by utilizing the web skills they already possess.
As for the future of WPF and Silverlight, I speculate that, if Microsoft takes the path that I have described, it practically ensures the survival of the XAML technologies. The HTML5 spec will be constantly evolving and Microsoft will need to continue to add features to the framework to support those new capabilities. Once in the framework, Silverlight and WPF can add those same or similar features for almost nothing, simply by adding the language support in XAML or C#/VB.Net. Microsoft will also have two platforms available in Silverlight and WPF to use to test features that are not yet in the HTML5 spec.
It is likely that there will be some consolidation in the future between the two XAML-based technologies, but that was anticipated long before there was any talk of HTML5 as a viable alternative and is not a result of any policy change due to the existence of HTML5. However, HTML5 is looking, for better or worse, like it will become a major player in cross-platform software development. I suspect that many developers who might otherwise have picked-up Silverlight will choose to learn HTML5 instead. In the long-term, if that becomes a significant trend, then eventually WPF and Silverlight will be phased-out. However, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. In facet, as I mentioned, I feel the synergy with HTML5 found in these technologies makes them stronger in the short and medium term and they will continue to be players in their various spaces for many years.
Barry S. Stahl (he/him/his) - Barry is a .NET Software Engineer who has been creating business solutions for enterprise customers since the mid 1980s. Barry is also an Election Integrity Activist, baseball and hockey fan, husband of one genius and father of another, and a 40 year resident of Phoenix Arizona USA. When Barry is not traveling around the world to speak at Conferences, Code Camps and User Groups or to participate in GiveCamp events, he spends his days as a Solution Architect for Carvana in Tempe AZ and his nights thinking about the next AZGiveCamp event where software creators come together to build websites and apps for some great non-profit organizations.