P&P Summit Day Four: Web Client Service Factory

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Next up was Michael Puleio talking about the Web Client Software Factory. This, of course, is the web version of the Smart Client Software Factory. Michael is the dev lead on this factory.

This factory tries to provide guidance for web development, including all of the choices around this including the technologies like AJAX, JavaScript, etc., etc. You can check out this factory on CodePlex.

The factory will be focusing on the transactional type sites (e-commerce, etc.) and not just plain content or collaboration sites. It will contain guidance on things like how to have a composable design, navigation, etc.

They are currently working on the reference implementation for the factory.

Michael used a build of the factory that was only 35 minutes old. Pretty bold (especially since his first demo wouldn’t run). They are currently dropping a zip file with what they have to date.

One of their goals was to have a completely composable design much like the CAB.

Michael then went through a demo.

A couple of things about the demo/factory:

  • They use ObjectBuilder.
  • You can load modules on the fly and they have their own state.
  • The have a ProfileCatalog.xml file which keeps track of the modules that are loaded much like the CAB has it’s own configuration file. They are still kicking around ways of dealing with this that may remove the need for the config file or make it easier to deal with.
  • They are using a MVPC pattern, or a twist on Model View Presenter that has a controller as well. The docs for what this is are included in their current drops I think. The idea behind this is presenters are usually fairly tightly coupled to a view. A controller may be used for an entire use case that the presenters call into.
  • They are using WF for page navigation, but it is a provider model so you can replace this implementation if you want to.
  • They are looking at how web parts will be utilized.
  • For their reference implementation they will use the Web Service factory to generate their data access layer and such.

What do they have to do still?

  • Complete the sample application.
  • Extract the patterns from the sample app.
  • Start on the guidance applications.
  • First release in early December.