Category: Visual Studio

What Languages do I Use

I was recently asked what I use to develop software and websites. I mostly use DotNet Technologies as it is often interchangeable between websites, web applications and desktop applications. I can often use the same data access classes and business logic between multiple platforms. I find that DotNet allows me to easier structure objects visually and logically.  I prefer to develop using C-Sharp, but I get requests to use VB.NET and J-Sharp on a regular basis.

When I went to college, I had learned C, Pascal, COBOL and some Mainframe language that I cannot remember.  Upon graduating I taught myself VisualBasic 3, RPG.  My first programming job was Visual COBOL.  I had created a company in the Caribbean Islands programming public utility and insurance software in RPG.   I can honestly say since I sold my shares of the company, I cannot foresee myself developing in RPG again.

Why don’t I use PHP?  Well I do use PHP, but for specific purposes and upon request by a customer. A specific purpose is when I create a WordPress site or other content driven sites. I will not often create a website or web application from scratch using PHP as Microsoft made ASP.NET easy for rapid development.

Do I use JAVA? Yes; I do believe there are cases where JAVA is still relevant. JAVA is still a good tight platform for developing small single purpose applications.  I have used JAVA 3 times in the past 2 years for applications that I believe fit the bill well.

Now, I am curious;  What do you use and why?

Click Once Deployment – Improperly Formatted

Error Message:
Cannot continue. The application is improperly formatted. Contact the application publisher for assistance.

Application validation did not succeed. Unable to continue.
Unable to retrieve application files. Files corrupt in deployment.

Solution:
For every project in your solution,

  1. Close your solution
  2. Open every project file in notepad ( csproj for c# projects )
  3. Look for the ToolsVersion attribute
  4. Make sure all projects are using the same ToolsVersion
  5. Save
  6. Load your solution and deploy.
Note: The Target Framework Framework is not the same as Tools Version

I had searched for hours for a solution, so I hope this helps someone else.




Publishing Using VisualStudio

I have often had the glorious opportunity to watch someone try to deploy a project by picking compiled libraries that they had thought had changed.  Every time they deployed by using this method, their live project would not run.  When they run their project on the development machine, it runs no problem.  This confuses the developer to no end resulting in a multitude of profanities.

This is a bit painful to watch.   I really do not understand why developers do not deploy by using installation packages or deployment methods provided by their development environment.

Today, I had offered to deploy the project for them and used the VisualStudio deployment utility.  This was a web-based project so it was very easy.  The deployment wizard walks you through the process starting at where you would like to deploy to.  The deployment results in only deploying the files necessary to run the program or website.  I had learned this principal while working for a London company; ICINITI.

ICINITI would use a packaging tool to deploy products to customer machines including websites.  Their projects would often automate part of the process including site setup, run batch files and deploy other required files.  Deployment to customer’s computer systems would go pretty quick.  Sometimes it was so smooth the customer was able to conduct the deployments themselves.

Today’s deployment took about 5 minutes or less.   I had later demonstrated how and what I had done.   I believe this will be used a little more often as a deployment technique.