*nix-like OSs are gaining much popularity even in .NET world since Microsoft decided to move on with their products into this direction (you can read more on Hanselman’s blog). Nevertheless it’s still more convenient to develop .NET apps on Windows (especially if it’s your target platform).
So, here it is - my second technical blog. The first one died along with my frustration on SharePoint 2010 I had to work with some time ago… The resignation burned out and so my willingness to describe my miserable experiences with this hopeless (at least from dev perspective) technology. It was not the best reason for sharing anything with the world.
Once again about the SharePoint 2010 taxonomy service.
As I wrote in my previous posts, loading data into MMD service automatically can be quite a challenge. First, you must remember about illegal characters in terms labels. Second, you must trace duplicates across sibling nodes in taxonomy trees. And this could not be the end of your problems especially if you plan to load some more data at one time.
If you have ever had to load large number of data into SharePoint MMD service or build taxonomies automatically you have likely encountered the following problem:
Recently, when I was working on mechanism of automatic synchronization of tree structures provided by web service to SharePoint taxonomies, I came across an error like this:
Writing a component for parsing XML files with XMLSerializer I had to provide DTD validation (DTD file was already created long time ago so there was no sense for creating XSD schema). The component must have been able to work in console application and web app (as a SharePoint timer job) so there was no chance to guarantee the same paths for DTD file (which was always specified in doctype directive in processed files). In such situation I’ve decided to deliver the DTD file as embedded resource in component assembly.
For the years I have developed .Net projects I’ve found many useful solutions on CodePlex repository. Some of them are only drafts of ideas but there are also many products that are ready to use on production environments. SharePoint 2010 Batch Edit which worked with recently is one of this from the second category.
Looking for some solution for batch items update I’ve run into the following problem: when I clicked a checkbox in top right corner of the list (actually a document library) “All Items” view, the browser displayed an error: You cannot select more than 100 items at once.
There are many popular tools for web performance profiling/debugging these days. From my personal tool set I could mention Firebug, IE Developers Toolbar (integrated with IE from version > 8) or Fiddler. The common problem with those tools is that they are installed and run locally on developers machine. Sometimes, for example when behaviour of the web app depends on loading all elements in the specific order or time, it is important to determine if those factors vary in different geographical locations. The download speed for China and Germany could be very different. If you face with this kind of problems I could recommend you a great distributed web performance profiler - WebPageTest.
Have you ever had a problem with a user complaining on and on that when he clicks some button in your application his computer hangs but it works fine on any other machine where you have tested it? The web service is consuming all the available memory in completely indeterministic way? Or maybe your web application is magically crashing on production machine when it works in the same usage scenario on development and test environment? If not, you are probably in about 1% of the most luckiest developers in the world (or you are not the developer).