What are the alternative to a full Microsoft environment when you want to develop/deploy/host .Net applications.

1. .Net without spending a buck!
05/2013

2. Agenda
What costs a small company infrastructure?
What MS products are for free?
What is the alternative?
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3. What costs a small company infrastructure?
• You need:
– Web servers
– DB servers
– Development environment including IDE licenses
– …
• Or you might want to host servers in the Cloud…
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4. What costs a small company infrastructure?
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• SQL Server 2008 R2
• Visual Studio 2012
– Pro 700€ / Premium 2500€ / Ultimate 6000€
• TFS
• … and in the Cloud
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5. What MS products are for free?
• Visual Studio Express
– Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web
– Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8
– Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop
• No Multi-unit testing framework and refactoring
support
• No static code analysis, profiling, …
• Different IDE's for different use!
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6. What MS products are for free?
• Team Foundation Server Service: In the Cloud!
– No AD support
– Could be slow when dealing with too much files
– Not allowed to modify process/work item templates
– Limited reports and no custom reports
• Team Foundation Server Express
– Limited Agile Project Management features and tools
– No reporting/Sharepoint integration
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7. What MS products are for free?
• SQL Server Express
– No SQL Profiler
– No SQL Server Agent
– No FullText search
– No SSIS / SSAS and only local SSRS
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8. What MS products are for free?
Microsoft Express products are for free but…
you still need valid Windows licenses!
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9. What is the alternative?
• Other OS
• Other Frameworks
• Other Web Servers
• Other DB
• Other IDE
But the most important still coding in C#! :-)
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10. What is the alternative?
• Other OS
– Open SUSE (Novell)
– CentOS
– Debian
– Ubuntu,
– Create your own Mac (~30€) 10

11. What is the alternative?
• Other Frameworks
Mono!
 Cross platform, open source .Net development
framework.
 Started in 2001 just a few months after .Net framework
first release, by Miguel de Icaza.
 Mono 1.0 was released in 2004, latest stable version is
2.10.8, latest Beta version is 3.0.10
 Compatibility page
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12. What is the alternative?
Microsoft had the good idea to release
their CLI as an open standard!
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13. What is the alternative?
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Base Class Library
.NET Compatibility Class Libraries
Mono specific class libraries(*)
Mono's Common Language
Runtime: transforms into native
code
Supports many processors / OS
(*) Including Gtk+, Zip files, LDAP, OpenGL, Cairo, POSIX, etc

14. What is the alternative?
• New frameworks based on Mono
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Simple.Web

15. What is the alternative?
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16. What is the alternative?
– To start with ServiceStack, go to Visual Studio and create
an new ASP .Net Web Application project
– Deploy ServiceStack Nuget package as follows (Package
Manager Console)
– Everything you’ll need to get started will be deployed
to your project, just press F5 and enjoy!  16

17. What is the alternative?
– To start with Nancy, go to Visual Studio and create an new ASP .Net
Web Application project (see previous slide)
– Deploy Nancy Nuget package as follows (Package Manager Console)
– Add a new Nancy module C# class
– Copy Paste this code in it
public class HelloModule : NancyModule
{
public HelloModule()
{
Get["/greet/{name}"] = x => { return string.Concat("Hello ", x.name); };
}
}
– Press F5 and type http://localhost:xxxx/greet/Toto
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18. What is the alternative?
• To go further…
– ServiceStack
– NancyFx
– FubuMVC
– Simple.Web & here
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19. What is the alternative?
• Other WebServers
– XSP: eXtensible Server Page
– Apache mod_mono
– Nginx
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20. What is the alternative?
• Other DB
– MySQL
– PostgreSQL
– SQLite
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21. What is the alternative?
• Other IDE
– SharpDevelop
– MonoDevelop / Xamarin Studio
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22. What is the alternative?
• DEMO!
• For those who were not at the presentation, the
following slides describe the demo.
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23. What is the alternative? - DEMO
• Open Visual Studio
• Open File -> New -> Project
• Target .Net Framework 3.5 and choose ASP.Net MVC 2 Web Application
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24. What is the alternative? - DEMO
• Run it by pressing F5, just to see if everything is going ok…
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25. What is the alternative? - DEMO
• Back in Visual Studio
• Right click on your project
• Select Open Folder in Windows Explorer
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26. What is the alternative? - DEMO
• Copy the folder that contains the .sln
file of your project
• Paste it on the machine where
Xamarin is installed (on a MAC
OS Virtual Machine during this demo)
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27. What is the alternative? - DEMO
• Open the sln file -> Xamarin should be launched
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28. What is the alternative? - DEMO
• Execute it, it works!! 
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29. Questions ?
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