It’s that time of the year to reflect, analyze and compile our lives into a series of Top 10 lists.  As with every other Top 10 list, the items on this list and their order are highly subjective.  For example, some companies may not care about future versions of .NET — version 2.0 works just fine, thank you.  Other companies may need to develop a web application, so Silverlight 2.0 is their top story of the year.  So please comment below with your Top 10 List.

Following are the Top 10 stories in 2008 about software development with the Microsoft .NET Framework.

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The .NET development team at Microsoft has created a new .NET logo (shown above).  Their goal was to create a logo “that was in sync with the key values that we want .NET to stand for: consistency, robustness and great user experiences.  The result is a design we refer to as the ‘wave.’  The design is strong, simple and distinctive.  The suggestion of the letter ‘N’ in the design will become instantly recognizable over time as shorthand for the .NET brand name.”

Mono is an open source implementation of the .NET framework for Linux, Windows, MacOS and other operating systems.  Mono v2.0 was just released and represents a major milestone in the Mono project.

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Microsoft announced the next version of its developer platform, which will be named Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0.  Microsoft said VS10 will focus on five key areas (in marketing-speak): riding the next-generation platform wave, inspiring developer delight, powering breakthrough departmental applications, enabling emerging trends such as cloud computing, and democratizing application life-cycle management (ALM).

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Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5.  This update patches numerous bugs, improves performance, and even adds a few new features. 

As a .NET commercial software developer, I am most excited that SP1 provides a .NET Framework installation optimized for client applications.  The optimized download is less than 28 MB, compared to the original 200 MB download that all but ensured consumers would not download .NET 3.5 and hence forced us to remain on .NET 2.0 (see FAT .NET).

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Most computer software is delivered in a compressed form for sale and distribution.  This “setup program” is typically an executable that unpacks the software and installs it correctly on the computer, taking into account variations between computers and customized user settings. 

The software that produces these setup programs is called an “installer.”  Installers are typically one of the most expensive tools a developer will buy, though of course there are free and open source installers available.

Following is a list of installers available today for .NET software and any online reviews.  Price is for one developer license unless otherwise noted.  A plus sign indicates the price is for the standard version, and advanced versions are available.  Please comment if any installers are missing, or if you would like to report any new reviews, updates, errors or broken links, as I will keep this list updated.

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Obfuscation is the process of scrambling and encrypting software so that it cannot be easily reverse-engineered.  The goal is to stop all casual hackers and as many serious hackers as possible from trying inspect and crack the code.

As I described in my article "Obfuscation? Gesundheit!," programs written for .NET can be reverse-engineered quite easily.  Anyone with a decompiler such as the free .NET Reflector can look at .NET applications and libraries and literally see the entire original source code, including names, logic and flow.  Hackers can inspect .NET software to find and exploit its security flaws, steal unique ideas and license keys, or pirate the application.  To plug this massive security hole, .NET software should be obfuscated.

Following is a list of .NET obfuscators available today and any online reviews.  Price is for one developer license unless otherwise noted.  A plus sign indicates the price is for the standard version, and advanced versions are available.  Please comment if any obfuscators are missing, or if you would like to report any new reviews, updates, errors or broken links, as I will keep this list updated.

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Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework v3.5. These upgrades enable .NET software developers to rapidly create more secure, manageable, and reliable applications and take advantage of new features found in Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007.

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Microsoft has announced that it will release the source code for the .NET Framework with .NET version 3.5 later this year. Microsoft will release the code under its Reference License. This is essentially “read-only mode,” meaning that you can view the source code for reference and debugging, but you cannot modify or distribute the code. This is Microsoft’s most restrictive shared-code license and should not be confused with “open source” code such as Linux and the projects on SourceForge.Net. Read the rest of this entry »

The .NET string class is quite comprehensive, yet some common string functions are missing or not entirely obvious. This article provides quick tips on using .NET strings.

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