can anyone define a stack for a ASP.NET Web forms application?

Question

what is the stack for a asp.net Web forms application?and why?

example for ASP.NET MVC there is an example:

http://codeclimber.net.nz/archive/2009/10/15/my-asp.net-mvc-stack-and-why-i-chosen-it.aspx

thanks

Answer 1

To be perfectly honest, this depends a lot on the specific project you plan to build with WebForms. Since I'm newer to MVC, I do just about all of my .NET development with WebForms. So here's the "stack" (framework + tools + components) that I use when building an application:

Framework

Obviously, ASP.NET WebForms. I make sure to keep all of my different layers (presentation layer - aspx webform, business logic - aspx.vb/aspx.cs codebehind, data access layer - additional classes) separate while I'm building.

Tools

• Visual Studio 2010 - I dare you to find a better tool for developing a .NET-based web application.
• SQL Management Studio Express - Fantastic tool for managing your database setup
• TortoiseSVN - Subversion tool that integrates directly into Windows' contextual file menus. It's great for quickly committing/reverting projects!
• BugTracker.NET - Great bug tracking tool that integrates with TortoiseSVN.

Libraries

• jQuery - I use this for everything
• jQuery UI - Great for adding "squishy" user interface elements and building out more interactive web forms
• Flexigrid - I use this for building datagrid elements on my sites. Since it's built with jQuery, it interfaces nicely and handles AJAX data loads remarkably well.
• YUI - Another JavaScript library that's great for animations and transitions.

Testing

• Visual Studio Debugger - fantastic for stepping through server-side code to make sure things are working
• Firebug - Firefox extension - Absolutely essential for debugging client-side scripts and for identifying HTML/CSS errors
• IETester - Useful for anyone supporting commercial clients (who might still be using IE6)

For deployment, I use a set of custom tools that create unique filenames for frequently changed files that will need to bypass a user's cache when they're changed - i.e. whenever a CSS or JS file is updated or I change an image, I'll append a unique string to the end of the filename so the browser re-fetches the file.

Answer 2

The stack we have where I work:

• Visual Studio 2008 / SQL Server Management Studio Express 2005
• Resharper - for helping with coding standards and practices
• Subversion - for source control (Formerly had SourceSafe which I had used for years but Subversion is much much better IMO)
• Cruise Control .Net - for continuous integration
• nUnit/nAnt - for unit tests and automated builds
• IIS 5.1 - The downside of still being on XP is that we have these old tools at times.
• IIS Admin .Net 1.1 - For helping have multiple sites on one machine.
• WatiN - for web-based tests when needed.

In terms of coding add-ons:

• jQuery
• Sitecore (This is our CMS and is huge in some ways)

Browsers, just to note the big ones here:

1. IE
2. Firefox
3. Chrome
4. Safari

Answer 3

Tools:

Dev environment -

Visual Studio 2010 Professional - quite an obvious choice given that the latest tool is a big improvement over 2008 edition, especially in terms of performance. There are a few quirks still (waiting for SP1!) but it is mostly a pleasant and productive experience.

SQL Management Studio Express - for DB management

Source control and Project Management - Team Foundation Server 2010 - really going all out with MS here, leveraging our Bizspark membership, TFS 2010 has cool new features including branching/merging, shelfing (vs checking in) and much better transactional integrity than VSS. Also the project management tools are pretty good - there are various templates you can choose depending on whether you want to go Agile, or traditional.

Mantis - for bug tracking, but we are phasing this out and trying to move to TFS. Figuring out how to migrate existing data though.

Libraries:

Asp.net Ajax - pretty cool for what we need, simple ajax effects are quite easy to achieve.

Testing:

MS Test - in built in Visual studio, much better than previous releases - Unit testing support is far better.

Debugging:

Visual Studio Debugger IE Developer tools