.NET 2005 Master pages

Any dis-advantages?

[collymellon]

Hi,

Using the new .NET 2005 (ace btw), getting to grips with Master pages which I absolutley love - one main page with your layout - other pages just holding the content, these then come together on the users browser upon page load.

Just curiuos if anybody else has used this great development tool yet and found any dis-advantages?

[Robin_reala]

Isn't that just want standard includes do?

[drhowarddrfine]

Yes but MS can't sell it to you if they call it that.

[encyclo]

I know that the earlier .NET generated code blocks tended to be a mixture of oudated (font tags etc.) and invalid markup which tended to be frustrating for developers wanting to write clean code. Has Microsoft improved this in .NET 2005 as they promised? I believe they were going to ensure that everything could be validated as XHTML 1.0 Transitional which would be a great step forward.

Other than that aspect, like many other content management solutions, a good templating system can be an essential tool for rapid and effective site development.

[drhowarddrfine]

.net 2.0 claims to do valid xhtml but what is confusing is all versions of IE do not recognize served xhtml. Go figure.

[collymellon]

.NET 2005 does indeed ensure your pages comply to XHTML 1.0, with automatic validation as you type your code (auto fills in closing tags etc..), it also validates accessibility (up to level 2 only) at the touch of a button whilst coding. You can tell as soon as you start develeping Microsoft want to ensure the site complys to standard before you go live.

Master pages don't mess up your code one bit, they actually help keep your project clean. In my case I have a default layout for everypage of the site (70+ in total), only two divs of this layout need to be editable - this is where you use placeholders. Then for every child page produced from the master page you get no code (all your layout code is held in the master page) just the placeholders to place your content in - then master and child combine togther on the users browser.

As I can see from comments - not to many people seem to agree that .NET2005 is worthy for compliant development; is this because you haven't used it?

[collymellon]

In fact every reply I recieve on this forum slate Microsoft and their products - at the slightest mention about using .net \ ms products I get sarcastic answers like "they cant sell it you if they tell you that". I don't purchase MS products just to use 1 feature but to make sure complex projects get done on time and excellence as standard. I also don't get sucked into Microsofts selling ways - it may be hard to believe that people use ms products because they are the biggest company within the IT industry and no matter how much people try to stop this it won't work one bit.

I suppose that was a *rant* but please excuse me as I may be the only person to know that at least 80% of the british public use IE \ ms products and we \ I have to develop for them ensuring they work well - this isn't ms trying to sell something else, this is business.

[drhowarddrfine]

I tried working with .net2003 for quite a while when it came out. When a friend retired, he gave me his copy of it. My complaints are that I spent as much time trying to figure out how to make it work as I did coding with it. I also spent too much time trying to make it work the way I wanted it to. I am convinced it may work better in large IT organizations with a lot of programmers and you need to track and protect what is being done. I don't see much need of it for smaller companies.

Although vs.net2005 may be better, and it looks better, I just don't see a need for it. Especially considering the cost. Is it, too, around $1000?

excellence as standard.

It doesn't provide standard code output and it doesn't work in all browsers. It produces MS specific code that won't always work in all browsers. If you want to use some new technology, VS used to fight with you about incorporating it. I program in assembly sometimes and it was a royal pita to incorporate assembly code until I learned a method.

[drhowarddrfine]

Another comment about MS products. I quit using Windows over a year ago and now use FreeBSD. (I do use Windows for two software packages that only run on Win). I quit programming for Windows altogether. The problem I have is this constantly moving target that Win is. For example, you had ASP but now there is ASP.NET which doesn't work the same way exactly, but you can code it in C# but there is also Cw for some things and, just yesterday, I read about Cing, I think? Then there's managed and unmanaged code, MS slants on xml/html/css, Vista which won't work the same as XP but has a cool file structure called WinFS....oops, now it won't, and you can use xaml which isn't xml but there is msxml and ....

From all this you can just tell MS has transformed to a company that works best with large corporations that can hire a lot of programmers who can specialize in certain areas and make it all work. They used to say you can't get fired for buying IBM. Now I guess it's Microsoft but I honestly think they may have gotten too big for their britches and struggle to keep it together. I've said this a couple of places. I think we are at the beginning of the downfall of MS.