5 دروس لخمس سنوات عمل في مجال تصميم وتطوير البرامج والتطبيقات

حبيت ان اقدم لكم خمسة دروس لخمس سنوات عمل في مجال تصميم وتطوير التطبيقات وهي كالتالي :

• حدث نفسك بإستمرار

يعتبر مجال البرمجة من أكثر المجلات التي لا يكل فيها المطورين عن تطوير أساليب جديدة يوميا  من ما يضع على عاتقك أن تكون دائما على مستوي هذا التحديث المستمر حتى لاتفقد ميزاتك فى عملك إذا حدث تطوير للأدوات مثلا. أجعل نفسك دائما على طريق التطوير حتي لا يفوتك وتجد صعوبة فى ملاحقة لاحقا.

• حسن من لغتك الإنجليزية

تأكد انك لن تكون مبرمج ناجح إلا إذا طورت لغتك جيدا. لأن معظم الكتب القوية فى مجال البرمجيات و اغلب الأبحاث و المواقع مكتوبة باللغة الإنجليزية. إياك أن تعتمد على المراجع العربية فقط فى دراستك - بإمكانك أن تفعل العكس أن تعتمد على الإنجليزية فقط - لانة للأسف المراجع العربية معظمها ضعيفة المحتوي و غير موضوعية بشكل كبير. مع أنك من الممكن أن تبدأ بها حتى تطور لغتك لكن نصيحتي لا تعتمد عليها كثيرا فحينما ستنتقل إلى المراجع و الكتب و الدروس الإنجليزية ستلاحظ الفرق بسهولة واضحه

• لا تتسرع بالنتائج

تاكد أن الله دائما يقف بجوار المجتهدين. فإذ إجتهدت أترك الباقي على الله سبحانه وتعالى. وتاكد أن الله لا يضيع أجر من أحسن عملا.و عن تجربة شخصيه حينما يستعصى علي بعض المهام أثناء العمل أتركها و سبحان الله حينا أعود أجد الفكرة الضائعة التي تسهل علي حل هذه المشكلة.

• دون ملاحظاتك

كل خطوه تمر بها للأمام عليك أن تدون عنها ملاحظاتك بشكل مستمر حتي تستطيع أن تقيم ادائك بإستمرار و أن تكون أنت الحكم على مسيرتك فى تعلم البرمجة . وحاول أن تعطى لنفسك درجات تقدريه عن إتمامك امور معينة. و ثق تماما أن مع صعوبة المهمة أو درجاتك إن كانت منخفضه فأنت على الطريق السليم. حاول تطوير أدائك بإستمرار حتي تبدأ بأن تشعر بالرضي عن نفسك و هذه المرحلة من المراحل النهائية من مراحل تعلم البرمجة.

• كن طموحاً

لاتقف عند حد معين أستمر في العلو فكلما صعدت فى سماء البرمجة .أرفع سفق طموحك أكثر و أكثر حتى تظل دائما من المميزين فى هذا المجال.

31 يوم مع ويندوز 8

31 Days of Windows 8

31 يوم مع ويندوز 8

كيف تكون مبرمج ؟ How to be a Programmer

كيف تكون مبرمج ؟ 
How to be a Programmer?

تعلم MVC خطوة خطوة خلال سبعة ايام

تعلم MVC خطوة خطوة خلال سبعة ايام

نمط وحدة تحكم عرض (MVC) هو مبدأ تصميم معماري يفصل بين مكونات تطبيق ويب. يمنحك هذا الفصل المزيد من التحكم في أجزاء فردية من التطبيق، الذي يمكّنك من تطويرها بسهولة، وتعديلها، واختبارها.

ASP.NET MVC هو جزء من إطار عمل ASP.NET. تطوير تطبيق ASP.NET MVC هو بديل لتطوير صفحات نماذج ويب ASP.NET؛ وهي لا تحل محل طراز "نماذج ويب".

إذا كنت قد قمت بتثبيت ‏‫Visual Studio 2010، سيكون 2 MVC ASP.NET مثبتاً بشكل مسبق على الكمبيوتر الخاص بك. يمكنك الحصول على الإصدار الأحدث من إطار عمل ASP.NET 2 MVC من تنزيل MVC ASP.NET على MVC ASP.NET صفحة التنزيل .

لإستعراض الدروس انقر على الروابط  التالية

1. اليوم الاول
2. اليوم الثاني 
3. اليوم الثالث
4. بقية الدروس سوف تنشر قريبا

SQL Azure to Developers: Part 1

Objective

In this part we will focus on an overview of SQL Azure along with a first look at SQL Azure Management Portal. Essentially we will cover

• What is Cloud Database
• What is SQL Azure
• Create and Manage Database in SQL Azure
• Firewall in SQL Azure

What is Cloud Database?

For a developer a better perspective on database is always better and it helps to write different layers of application in effective and efficient way. Database in cloud is new buzz and very much appreciative technology. There are two words in CLOUD DATABASE. We are very much aware of term DATABASE whereas CLOUD may be newer or ambiguous to us.

In very broader terms, Cloud can be termed as next generation of Internet. On a normal scenario you find on which server your database is residing. You have very minute level administrative control on database server and you have a physical sense of database server. Whereas imagine if you are not aware of where your database is residing. You access and perform all operation on database via Internet. Scalability, Manageability and all other administration task on database are performed by some third party. You only pay for the amount of data residing on the database provided by third party. You work with a use and pay model. In that case you can say database is in cloud.

There are many cloud service providers like Microsoft, Amazon etc. to name a few. All vendors do have their own cloud servicing model and pricing. Microsoft cloud platform is known as Windows Azure. Essentially Windows Azure is a cloud operating system offered by Microsoft. As part of Windows Azure, there are five services offered by Microsoft

1. Windows Azure
2. SQL Azure
3. Office 365
4. App Fabric and Caching services
5. Marketplace

In this three-part article, we are going to focus on SQL Azure. We will focus on essential aspects needed to know by .NET developers. To be very precise on SQL Azure, we can say "SQL Server in cloud is known as SQL Azure". When you have chosen to create a relational database in Microsoft data center then you can say your database is in cloud or in SQL Azure.

In this article, we will cover

• What is SQL Azure?
• A first look on SQL Azure Management portal
• SQL Azure Database edition
• Firewall settings for SQL Azure

What is SQL Azure?

SQL Azure is a cloud based service from Microsoft. It allows you to create your Database in one of the Microsoft Data center. In a very generic statement we can say SQL Azure allows creating Database on the cloud. It provides highly available database. It is based on SQL Server. It supports built in Fault tolerance and no physical administration is required. It supports TSQL and SSMS.

Advantage of using SQL Azure

• In built Fault tolerance support
• No Physical Administration required
• Very high availability
• Multitenant
• Pay as you go pricing
• Support of TSQL
• Highly scalable

We have done enough of theoretical discussion, now let us login to SQL Azure portal and create a database in the cloud.

Create and Manage Database in SQL Azure

To create Database in SQL Azure, You need to follow below steps

Step1

Login SQL Azure portal with your live credential

https://sql.azure.com/

Step 2

Click on SQL Azure tab and select Project

Step3

Click on the project. In this case project name is debugmode. After clicking on project, you will get listed the entire database created in your SQL Azure account.

Here in this account there are two database already created. They are master and student database. Master database is default database created by SQL Azure.

Step 4

Click on Create Database

Step 5

Give a name to the Database. Select the edition as Web or Business and specify the max size of database.

Step 6

After that click on Create you can see on Databases tab that Demo1 database has been created.

Different types of SQL Azure Database editions

At time of creating Database you might have seen, there were two Database editions.

Web Edition Relational Database includes:

• Up to 5 GB of T-SQL based relational database*
• Self-managed DB, auto high availability and fault tolerance
• Support existing tools like Visual Studio, SSMS, SSIS, BCP
• Best suited for Web application, Departmental custom apps

Business Edition DB includes:

• Up to 50 GB of T-SQL based relational database*
• Self-managed DB, auto high availability and fault tolerance
• Additional features in the future like auto-partition, CLR, fanouts etc
• Support existing tools like Visual Studio, SSMS, SSIS, BCP
• Best suited for Saas ISV apps, custom Web application, Departmental apps

While creating Database in SQL Azure you can choose among two options.

If we choose Web Edition then Maximum size we can choose is 5 GB.

If we choose Business Edition then Maximum size we can choose is 50 GB.

SQL Azure portal is having very effective Silverlight based user interactive UI and many more operations can be performed through the UI. There is new database manager and it allows us to perform operations at table and row level.

Now we can perform many more operations through Database option of new Windows azure portal.

• Create a database
• Create/ delete a table
• Create/edit/delete rows of table.
• Create/edit stored procedure
• Create/edit views
• Create / execute queries etc. . .

You can manage a database using Data Base Manager.

Accept given term and conditions and click Ok.

After Ok, you will get popup asking password to connect to database. Provide password and click on Connect.

After a successful connection, you will get a cube providing all the information about the database you connected.

You can perform all the database operations from the top ribbon. You have option to create new query, new table, new view, and new stored procedure

If we want to create new table, click on New Table option from ribbon. We are creating a table with name Blogger. We are giving there columns ID, Name and Technology. From drop down we can select data type for the columns.

Then click on the save button at the top.

You can navigate between the Data Base and Table tabs. You can also create and delete a column. Once you click on save button, you can see table listed at left panel.

At the top you can see that you have the option to navigate either the design or the data view of the table. Click on Data tab to navigate to Data view.

Click on Row to add a Row to the table.

After adding two rows, you can see table as below. You can also add and delete rows from top button.

Now, to execute the query, select Data Base tab at the top and execute query as below.

When you click the Execute button at the top, you will get output as below.

Firewall in SQL Azure

In this way, you can perform almost all the basic operations from new SQL Azure Data Base Manager.

SQL Azure provides security via Firewall. By default Database created on SQL Azure is blocked by firewall for the security reason. Any try to external access or access from any other Azure application is blocked by firewall.

Figure 23: Image taken from MSDN

Connection Strings

You can copy Connection string from SQL Azure portal as well.

Connecting from Local system

When we want to connect SQL Azure portal from network system or local system then we need to configure firewall at local system. We need to create an exception for port 1433 at local firewall

Connecting from Internet

The entire request to connect to SQL Azure from Internet is blocked by SQL Azure firewall. When a request comes from Internet

• SQL Azure checks the IP address of system making the request
• If IP address is in between the range of IP address set as firewall rule of SQL Azure portal then connection get established.

Firewall rules can be Added, Updated and Deleted in two ways

• Using SQL Azure Portal
• Using SQL Azure API

Manipulating Firewall rules using SQL Azure Portal

After login to Windows Azure portal, click on Database option and select Database server from left tab. You can see firewall rules listed there.

A new rule can be added by clicking the Add button.

To connect from other Windows Azure applications for the same subscription check the check box as shown below.

An existing firewall rule can be edited and delted also by selecting the Edit and Delete options respectievly.

Summary

In this part we discussed various elementary concepts of cloud database and SQL Azure. In the next parts we will go deep to understand other essential concepts needed to know as a developer.

Design and Deploy Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 Application in Windows Azure – Part 1

Introduction

In this article we are going to see how to design a Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 Application and deploy the application to the windows azure to access the application online in cloud.

Overview

Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 is a light weight programming model through which we can build application without writing single line of programming code. Microsoft introduces Light Switch as "Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 is a development tool that helps you build business applications quickly. LightSwitch provides a simplified development environment that enables you to concentrate on the business logic instead of the application infrastructure."
We can download Light Switch 2011 as a free trial for 90 days using the link Microsoft Light Switch 2011 Trial. Also many starter kits are available provided by Microsoft and we can download them using the link Microsoft Light Switch 2011 Starter Kits
In this article we are going to see the below steps one by one in details

• Creating a light switch application from scratch
• Publishing Model of Light Switch 2011 Application
• Publishing the Light Switch Application to Cloud

Let us see the step by step process on how to start creating a Light Switch Application using Visual Studio 2010 and then see on how to publish it to the cloud with the in built features in the tool and finally access the application online

Steps

Go to programs and select Microsoft Visual Studio Light Switch 2011, we can see the Visual Studio IDE opened as shown in the screen below.

Now go to File --> New Project and we can see a pop up window as shown in the screen below with the options. Just follow the below steps to configure the project

1. Select Light Switch template in the left menu
2. elect Light Switch Application in C# (We can select VB.net or C#.Net based on the requirement)
3. Enter a User friendly Name (VSLightSwitchAzure) as shown in the screen below
4. Enter a valid path to save the project.
5. Click on OK button to proceed further.

We can now see a nice interface of the Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 IDE as shown in the screen below. The IDE looks the same with the different explorers available (Solution Explorer, Properties etc).

Now we can see in the solution explorer we have the application created for Light Switch, and it has 2 different folders as

1. Data Sources - To keep hold of the data sources used in the application.
2. Screens - To keep track of the different screens used in the application.

In the Designer view we can see option to add a table directly or to attach it from an external source. Since in our sample we are going to see the basic idea on creating the VS Light Switch 2011 Application we will select Create New Table option as highlighted in the screen below.

Once we selected the Create New Table we will see a designer view with the option to add the structure to the data source which we are going to use. Follow the below steps in order to create a fully structured design as shown in the screen below

1. ExpenseTracker - The name of the table which we are going to use as a data source
2. List of table columns which we are going to use as fields in our form
3. List of data types which can be selected for each field based on our requirement.
4. Check box to select if the field is required or not i.e. the field is viewable in front screen or not.
5. We can see the new data source is added with name ExpenseTrackers under ApplicationData
6. List of properties specific to the data source, we can use this to customize our view.
7. This option is optional since this provides option to write any custom code required which in our example is not required to do.

Once we are done with the above steps we can see the screen ready with the list of data fields as per our requirement. Now we need to add a front screen to display our data. To do that now right click on the Screens folder in our solution explorer and select Add Screens option as shown in the screen below.

We can see a screen with the list of templates available to design our front screen as shown in the screen below. We can select a template as per our requirement, in our example we are going to select List and Details screen as shown in the screen below

1. Select List and Details Screen or any of the other template as per the requirement
2. Sample view of the screen template which can be considered before selecting a particular one.
3. Details of the template on to which the data will be display in the respective format.
4. Provide a userfriendly name for the screen (Expensetrack) as shown in the screen below.
5. Select the data source which we created in our earlier step(Datasource - ExpenseTrackers)
6. Select the check box to include the existing data to the details screen
7. Click on OK button to add the screen to the list and proceed further.

Clicking on OK button will add the ExpenseTrack screen and open a designer view with the list of the data field which we created in our data source. Since we have given the option to add the data fields we will see the ExpenseTrack screen spitted as shown in the screen below. We can select a particular field and change the layout as per our requirement; also we can use the Properties window to change the Name, Display name, and Description of the data fields as shown in the screen below.

To change some properties of a particular field, just click on the field and we can see the properties of the field in the property window as shown in the screen below. In the property window we can see the option Appearance where we can limit the field not to be viewable to the end user by unselecting the Is Visible check box.

1. Select the respective field which we need to customize
2. We can see the Appearance section in the property window where we can customize the visibility of the field as mentioned above
3. We can customize the string to be displayed with the Vertical or Horizontal Alignment as shown.

Once we are done with the customization and selecting the appropriate properties, now Press F5 function key or the play button from the tool box to start building and executing the application as shown in the screen below.

Once the Execution is completed we can see the application is opened as a windows application form as shown in the screen below. We can see the List and the View separately shown in separate frames since we selected the List and View template while designing the screen.

We can add data to the form by clicking on the + Symbol at the top as highlighted in the screen below. We will get a popup which shows the list of the data fields which we added to the data source. We can also see if we have selected any field Is Visibility is false then that particular field will not be available to the user.
Since we selected some field's data type as Money we can see the default validation is also added and it shows the default value of $0.00 added to the field value.

In the final output we can see different sections as highlighted in the screen below.

1. The list of data added to the data source from the front end view(User Inputs)
2. Clicking on an item in the list will show the details here as highlighted.
3. Options available to add, edit, delete or export the list to excel sheet. In this export to excel will play a major role since we used to write some major code normally to export the grid contents
4. Name of the screen (User-friendly name) which we provided as screen name initially.
5. Options to save or refresh the page. We can refresh it after adding a data to show in the list view.
6. This is an important option, clicking on this will open the screen in designer view for any alteration or modification on the front end screen.

Now click on the Design Screen Customize (Option 6) will open a Customization mode as shown in the screen below. Using this view we can customize our data fields as per our requirement.

Now we are going to do a small customization of making the Account Balance Visibility to false, to do that select the Account Balance field from the left side menu and go to the properties window and un check the Is Visible check box as highlighted in the screen below.

Now we are done with some customization, to check if it's working fine Press F5 to build and execute the application. We can see the output as shown in the screen below with Account Balance field is not visible to the end user.

Now we are ready with our application, but to deploy our application online to the cloud we need to have our application as a web application. To convert our application as a web application we need to follow some steps.
To convert the application to a web application Right click on the Project Name (VSLightSwitchAzure) and go to properties as shown in the screen below.

We can see a list of properties available for the project like General Properties, Extensions, Screen Navigation, Access Control and Application Type. Since we need to change the type of application from Windows Application to Web Application navigate to the Application Type tab and we can see a list of options as shown in the screen below

We can see that by default the application is pointing to Desktop client, to make the application available online as a web application. Also we have option to host the application on to an IIS server or directly host it to the Windows Azure environment. To test our application we will first try to host it in local IIS Server, so select the option Host Application Services on an Internet Information Services IIS Server. A separate server is required as sown in the screen below.

After making the selection as per the above screen, Press F5 to build and execute the application. Once the build is succeeded we can see our application is opened in a browser as shown in the screen below.

Summary

To conclude in this article we have seen on how start using Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 application with a basic screen design. In our next article we will see how to deploy the Light Switch application to the cloud using the inbuilt tools with Visual Studio IDE.

Design and Deploy Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 Application in Windows Azure - Part 2

Introduction

In this article we are going to see how to deploy Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 Application to the Windows Azure Cloud Environment to access the application online in cloud.

Overview

In our earlier article we have seen how to design a Light Switch 2011 application using the Visual Studio IDE. In this article we are going to deploy the application to the Windows Azure Management Portal using the inbuilt publish tools available with the Visual Studio IDE.
Now let us open the Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 Application (VSLightSwitchAzure) and right click on the project name in the solution explorer to select the properties option. We can see the property window as shown in the screen below. As highlighted in the screen we need to select the option to run the application as a web client and select the server as Host Application Services using Windows Azure. Once the above options are selected we can click on the Publish button to proceed further to publish our application to the Windows Azure Cloud Environment.

Now, we need to do some simple steps (Creating Hosting Service) in the Windows Azure Management Portal. To create the hosted service follow the below steps
Login to Windows Azure Management Studio with Windows Live credentials using the below link (Note - We need to have a valid subscription to login to the account)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/
After successful login with the windows live credentials, we can now see the Management Portal with all the administration features as shown in the screen below.

Now click on the Hosted Services, Storage Account and CDN menu at the left bottom and we can see the list of hosted service already created. We can create a new Hosted Service by clicking on the New Hosted Service ribbon button at the top left corner as shown in the screen below.

Now click on the New Hosted Service will pop up a configuration window as shown in the screen below. Enter valid details and note that we should select Do Not Deploy check box in the Deployment Options list as shown in the screen below.

Once we are done with the configuration and the Service host is created we can see it is listed as shown in the screen below.

Now go back to Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 application properties and click on Publish to get started with the Publish Wizard of Windows Azure.

1. Right Click on Light Switch Application (VSLightSwitchAzure) and Select Properties
2. Select Application Type tab and then click on Publish
3. List of configurations will be available starting with Client Configuration
4. Select Web Check box since we are going to deploy the web application to Windows Azure Cloud Environment
5. Click on Next to proceed further and move on to next configuration.

Clicking on Next will move on to next configuration of the wizard which is Application Server Configuration. Here we need to select the type of the server which we are ready to host our application. Since we are going to host our application online to Azure we need to select Windows Azure check box as highlighted in the screen below. This option will provide the configuration steps required for hosting the application. Click on Next to proceed further.

Clicking on Next will move on to the next configuration tab which is Connect to Windows Azure. This configuration provides the authenticated bridge for publishing to windows azure, Copy the windows azure subscription id from the azure portal and paste it to the wizard as shown in the screen below. Next we need to select a certificate (Self signed) or we can create a new certificate using the inbuilt option as shown in the screen below.

Once we create a certificate we can see the certificate name and the details selected as shown in the screen below.

1. Newly created certificate F5DebugLightSwitch
2. Copy Path is used to copy the path of the certificate

After selecting the above options click on Next button.

Once we create the certificate we need to upload the certificate to the Windows Azure Management Portal under Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN tab as shown in the screen below. To add our certificate which we created click on the Add Certificate option, once the certificate is added we can see the certificate listed as shown in the screen below.

Once we are done with the authentication section clicking on next will proceed to next configuration which is Azure Service Configuration. This configuration is used to define what are the services required to run the application and also the storages if any that are used by the application. Since in our example we don't have any storage accounts defined we can see the Storage section empty as highlighted in the screen below. In the service section select the service F5DebugLigthSwitch and the environment as production to populate the production environment settings. Once the above settings are done click on Next to proceed further.

We will create a new Storage Account to save our data for the application (VSLightSwitchAzure). To create a storage account go back to Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Storage account tab and select New Storage Account which will open a window as shown in the screen below. Enter the valid credentials (Url Name, Region) and click on OK to proceed further.

NoteTo get better performance we can always keep a specific Affinity Group mapped for all the services.

Once the Storage Account go back to the Publish Wizard and click on Refresh button, we can see our new storage account created as shown in the screen below. Click on Next to proceed further.

Once we click on Next button will move on to the next configuration section which is Security Settings. In this we need to select a Certificate (Or create a new .pfx certificate) which is self-signed. To create a certificate we can use the inbuilt option as shown in the screen below. Clicking on Create a certificate will open a popup to enter certain details about the certificate like Name of the certificate, Password validation and the path to save the certificate as shown in the screen below. Once the options are given and the certificate is created click on Next button to proceed further.

Clicking on Next button will proceed to the next configuration section which is Specify a Certificate. This configuration is exactly required to sign the .XAP file which is used for the deployment. To do that we no need to create a new certificate instead we can browse for the certificate which we created in the Connect to Windows Azure configuration section. So click on the Browse for a certificate button as highlighted in the screen below and select the certificate which we created and we can see the details of the certificate. Once we are done with the above changes click on Next to proceed further.

Clicking on next will provide the summary of the changes which we made to the Publish Wizard as shown in the screen below. Click on Publish to start publishing the application online to the Windows Azure Cloud Environment. We can see from the summary there is an Application Version control available by default starts with 1.0.0.0 and for each publish we can make the version increase for our reference.

Clicking on Publish will start publishing the application (VSLightSwitchAzure) to the cloud and we can see the status as well in the IDE as shown in the screen below.

Once the Build is succeeded we can see the status of the build at the bottom of the Visual Studio IDE as shown in the screen below.

Now we need to switch back to the Window Azure Management Portal and we can see the project getting initialized for publishing and we can see the status of each component as shown in the screen below. This process is a regular one which normally for all the application it takes place even when we do a manual upload of service configuration files to the Azure Portal.

Once the application is published successfully and the application is ready we can see the status of each component (Role, Instance etc.) shows the status message as Ready. At the right side menu we can see the DNS Name which indicates the URL of the application which is http://F5debugLightSwitch.CloudApp.net and at the bottom we can see the Input credentials and the status of the application as well as highlighted in the screen below.

Clicking on the DNS name will open our application online in a separate browser as shown in the screen below. Since our application had a Self Signed Certificate which is untrusted we get a message saying that the application connection is untrusted do we want to proceed further with the connection. Click on I Understand the Risks to proceed further as highlighted in the screen below.

Now we can see our application is available online in the Azure Cloud Environment as shown in the screen below.

No start entering the Expenses details as shown in the screen below. We can also see that the Account Balances section is not available to the online users since we made the visibility is false. Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 provides more comfortability to customize our requirement for developing efficient application.

Summary

In this article we have seen how to create an application using Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 and deploy the application to the Windows Azure Cloud to access the application online. In our next article we will see how to access the files of the deployed Light Switch Application in the cloud environment by enabling the Remote desktop connectivity for the application and accessing it remotely.