Microsoft IoC and Dependency Injection

kellyb — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Microsoft's developer division has been making a lot interesting moves lately. They're starting to finally listen to the strong thoughts and opinions coming out of the Java converts in the .NET community and realizing they know what they're talking about. As usual, they're not really innovating, but they're taking existing ideas and building some great tooling around those ideas and delivering them to the masses.

In the March release of MSDN Magazine they published Loosen Up which is a general overview of the benefits of IoC and DI. Just last week Microsoft Pattern's and Practices group released Unity - their entry into the IoC and DI space. Inversion of Control Containers and the Dependency Injection pattern are not new ideas and with Castle Windsor, Spring.NET and StructureMap there are many seasoned IoC offerings out there already.

I've been a big fan for StructureMap for it's simplicity. From my initial experience with Unity, it has that same thinness and simplicity. Now that it's from Microsoft, hopefully the Morts will start to pay attention to some of these important design concepts.

David Hayden has a pretty great overview of Unity in screencast form here. Download it and play it in Windows Media Player at double the speed (a handy trick I picked up from Scott Hanselman)

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kellyb — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT

I haven't blogged in a long, long time. I'm not sure what got me off the horse exactly, but it's time to get back on.

Recently a past coworker from my Avanade days joined our team at CSG. It's great to have him aboard, but it was a blast from the past for me being around him in a workplace setting. I brought back a lot of memories of the consulting days. Comparing and constrasting current myself with my 18-months-ago self was a little shocking. I'm definitely much less of a Microsoft koolaide drinker and I'm certainly much less interested in the bleeding edge. I'm getting to the point in my career where I'm seeing the cyclical trends in technology and I'm catching myself choosing to sit out a wave or two here and there.

My focus for the last year has been building software in an Agile fashion. Said a different way, I'm 100% engrossed in how to build software that's easy to change. I've spent my entire career with my feet firmly planted in the Microsoft camp and I definitely am committed to my platform of choice, but I'm frequently disappointed with in the fundamental skills on our community. We're starting to see that most of the important thinking in the Microsoft space is being done by Java converts. I'm currently reading Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# by Robert Martin. It is a wonderful introduction to the art of building software that's easy to change. Sadly, much of the Microsoft .NET development community, as Martin points out in the foreword, is lacking in many of the core Object Oriented design fundamentals. Apparently he specifically wrote this C# specific revision to his classic Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices book just to get the attention of the Microsoft camp.

Check it out - great stuff here for all ages

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Microsoft IoC and Dependency Injection

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