Basics of Microsoft Building Blocks

Small piece of information which I want to share, regarding Microsoft Application Building blocks.

Like every developer and architect out there, you want your solutions to be efficient, robust, elegant, and cost effective. But as you well know, attaining these goals isn't always easy. Microsoft has begun the process of making your life easier by publishing information on patterns and practices, some of which you’ll find enlightening and useful.

I address each of the blocks to help you get a feel for how it can be used.

1. Data Access Application Block - Implements a data access helper component, SqlHelper, which helps execute statements against SQL Server 7.0 and higher by exposing a set of static methods and reduces the amount of data access code you have to write
2. Exception Management Application Block - Provides a simple and flexible mechanism for publishing exception information through an ExceptionManager class. Also supports filtering and creating your own exception publishers to publish data to sources other than files and event logs using text and XML.
3. Aggregation Application Block - A component that to collect information from various sources for the application. The application then makes requests to the aggregate component and it returns a single XML document of the collected data.
4. Asynchronous Invocation Application Block - A component that dispatches requests on background threads and then notifies the application when complete.
5. Caching Application Block - Allows applications to make requests of a CacheManager object that either returns the data. Allows items to be expired from cache and cached data to be stored in a variety of format including SQL Server, File etc.
6. Configuration Management Application Block - A component that abstracts the location of configuration information used in an application and adds features including encryption, caching.
7. Updater Application Block - A component that can be used to download new versions of applications to client machines.Provides optional support for custom downloading and verification components in client machines.
8. User Interface Process Application Block - A component that allow you to separate the logic and state of a user process from the UI needed to collect data and navigate.

I am going to start exploring on each of these application blocks in detail in my upcoming blogs. Because I have to explore on these blocks day by day... :-)