Living in the Tech Avalanche Generation

Recently I was working on a application that required the separation of the User Interface from the background processing module whereby the User Interface would only receive progress messages from the background process, thus making the communication paradigm well suited to something akin to anonymous pipes, where the service would need to be running on top of some ’self hosted’ infrastructure / plumbing.

The service (term I will use lightly in this case) would be crafted with top shelf, running as a windows service with the expectation of being in operation for long periods where the User Interface would be shutdown. In summary, both applications had no need to be running concurrently and shared their domain data from a light weight data store. On the occasion that both processes were running, the service send “work in progress” messages to the UI so that users can monitor project activity.

Now, when it came to implementation details I had a plethora of choices, some of which included .NET Pipes, WCF or even using something like a self hosted NancyFx endpoint but in the end I opted for Service Stack and I have to say it couldn’t have been simpler or more enjoyable. Sure this was one very simple problem and the solution needed to be just as simple but I have a strong suspicion that Service Stack can ante up to much bigger problems and seems very nicely suited to synchronous reads (web services) from a data store over http. Of course I could have even gone down the NServiceBus path however in this case it would have been overkill. Well done to the guys at ServiceStack your framework stayed right out of my way as I developed this application, it was an experience low on “friction”, unencumbered by annoying item templates or ceremony.

Yes I know WCF is getting better at this but still not enough to encourage me to use it .

DISCLAIMER: This is not a political announcement nor statement of political persuasion…it is nothing more than a partial allegorical musing or quip.

What if the UN (or some significant body) passed a international law that provided for a phased outlawing of all browsers that did not fully support HTML5 by the year 2014 ? If only it could be so. How long will we have to wait for the touted write once render everywhere revolution?

Did Russia change from one ‘ism’ to another overnight?…what happens when Hubbert Peak hits the bottom of its bell curve?…where will all the petroleum dependent cars go?

Imagine if Microsoft owned HTML5 all to themselves, putting us on a steady diet of Visual Studio tooling, driving developers into the loving arms of their new proprietary HTML5 revolution? Can the nature of capitalism be trusted to foster this levelling of the playing field?…must all the innovators, entrepreneurs and corporations now limit themselves to running in a semi competitive race. So much for the auteurs of the information super highway.

I am happy to announce that Lextrico will be running Udi Dahan’s 3 Day Enterprise Development with NServiceBus course in Melbourne between the 7th and 9th of November 2011. The course will be delivered by Mark Harris and myself and will run at Karstens Training facility in Queen St Melbourne. Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea are all catered for and included in the registration cost which is now open here.

Look forward to seeing you there!