What components of the .Net framework should a professional developer typically avoid?

Question

.Net is a huge framework with some functionality that appears to target beginners or becomes problematic if much customization is involved. So what functionality available in the .Net framework do you feel professional developers should avoid and why?

For example, .Net has a wizard for common user management functions. Is using this functionality considered appropriate for professional use or a beginner only?

One component/feature/class, etc per answer please so votes are specific to a single item.

Thanks in advance for your input!

Answer 1

Typed DataSets
ASP.NET *View Controls
ASP.NET *DataSource Controls

Answer 2

Thread.Abort

Here is an excellent article by Ian Griffiths about Why Thread.Abort is Evil and some better alternatives.

Answer 3

I think generally most controls/features that do a lot of work "behind the scenes" can cause a lot of trouble. No problem using a GridView if that layout is exactly what you want - but it very rarely is, and a Repeater is probably a better choice. UpdatePanels can save you lots of work if you want an ajaxy feel to your site, but compared with a jQuery AJAX call they - sorry to say so - suck. The user wizard you mention can be really useful during development, but if membership functionality is required in the project it should be built as an integrated part of it.

So in summary: Proffessional programmers should do the job themselves and write code that specifically satisfies their clients needs, and only take in ready made parts of the .Net Framework when that is in fact exactly what they need.

Answer 4

MS Ajax

jquery, and other js frameworks like prototype etc., are a more lightweight and flexible alternative. The MS Ajax controls may seem great initially, until you really need a custom behaviour out of the scope of the controls.

Microsoft themselves have recognised this to some extent in that jquery will be bundled with upcoming versions of visual studio, with intellisense support.

Answer 5

Linq To XML

XmlDocument/Xpath is easier to use, if you want strong typing to parse your document use xsd.exe or Xsd2Code.

EDIT

which one do you prefer ?

IEnumerable<XElement> partNos =
    from item in purchaseOrder.Descendants("Item")
    where (int) item.Element("Quantity") *
        (decimal) item.Element("USPrice") > 100
    orderby (string)item.Element("PartNumber")
    select item;

or, with XmlDocument and XPath

var nodes = myDocument.SelectNodes("//Item[USPrice * Quantity > 100]");

Answer 6

.Net is a huge framework with some functionality that appears to target beginners or becomes problematic if much customization is involved.

It's the "appears to target beginners" that's the real problem.

Typed data sets are a great example. VS provides a nice simple UI to functionality that should be used only by rank beginners building extremely simple demo applications and experienced professionals who understand every nuance of the ADO.NET object model and what typed data sets are actually doing. Nobody in between those two poles should touch it, because there's a good way to learn every nuance of the ADO.NET object model and typed data sets aren't it.

Or take LINQ. It's seductively easy to write LINQ code without having a good understanding of IEnumerable<T>. But it's not so easy to write maintainable LINQ code without that knowledge.

Answer 7

You can think of .NET like an onion with many layers. For example the .NET compact framework is a subset of full .NET. Further there are "extra" layers on top on .NET in the form of "Extensions" which are optional installs for new features which have not yet been made part of .NET proper. An example of this would be when Microsoft released ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions which has now been rolled into .NET 3.51.

Another way to think of .NET is as a set of "libraries" you can use. For example there are a set or routines to support RegEx. If you want or need regular expressions, then you use these functions, if not you can simply ignore them. SImilary functions for things like trigonometry or security.

So I guess it really boils down to what do you need for your application? If you are doing scientific programming you may well want the trig functions. A graphical app will require functions that a console application would not. Web apps probably do not need to use the clipboard functions etc.

I really don't think there are any bad APIs in .NET, just programmers who use them in inappropriate ways.

Answer 8

Remoting is generally a good one to avoid, at least if you're targeting 3.0 or above and can therefore easily host messaging endpoints in-process.

Answer 9

There is lots to avoid in the WinForms library.

Avoid DataBinding to most standard WinForms controls. There are many bugs in that area which will lead to lots of head scratching. Or at least that has been my experience. NumericUpDown is a good example of this buggy mess.

Also avoid the standard WinForms controls when dealing with large datasets. They do a lot of data copying and can't deal well with large datasets.

Avoid ListView in "Virtual" mode as it is full of bugs.

In general I just recommend staying away from WinForms. If you have the option go for WPF or at least buy a good, well supported (and hopefully less buggy) 3rd party forms library.