Architecture advice needed for upgrading a classic .ASP web app - Design and Architecture Discussion Boards

The business layer defines the rules of the business. So for an accounting application you would expect to see accountancy rules being defined such as VAT rules, stock control rules etc. So yes, you would expect to see logic (rules) being defined in the business layer.

One of the goals of n-tier design is that these rules should be completely encapsulated so that they can reused by other applications e.g. your company web site may use these business rules as well as your desktop application. For this reason it is common to find business rules implemented as services such WCF services in an SOA architecture.

Hi
Not sure if I am in the correct group.

In the 1970-80s the 4 bit TMS1000 was used in lots of games, Speak and Spell, and consumer products, microwaves etc, including a model railroad controller called the Hornby Zero One.

Would like to upgrade slightly the code for the controller by adding some more locomotive addresses. Has 16, need to go to say 64.

Apparently there is a way to download the existing code thru a test port, does anyone know of this ?
What I would like to have done is to download the code, make amendment for the number of addresses and then upload onto a modern 8-bit chip.

Is this reasonably simple !! Is there someone out there who has done this?

Thanks

Charles Harris

Trouble with your choo choo, Charlie? Big Grin | :-D

The Hardware & Devices forum might be a slightly better choice. http://www.codeproject.com/Forums/186301/Hardware-Devices.aspx[^]
There are likely more engineers over there too.

Off-hand, it doesn't sound easy, and it might help if you could provide links to what information you have found so far.
E.g. "Apparently there is a way to download the existing code thru a test port" where did you find that information?

You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.

what is ASTA VoIP for SIP? and why it is used?

modified 29-Jul-14 8:26am.

Voice over IP[^], for SIP[^] clients. ASTA is merely a brand-name - apparently they wrote an implementation.

Member 10978201 wrote:
and why it is used?

Follow the links and find out Smile | :)

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]

can it support to Dot net 4.0 framework

There's various implementations, and yes, some will be compatible with .NET. Whether ASTA's implementation works with .NET 4 is something that you should ask them. From the Google result it appears that there is a COM-version.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]

Hi All,

I have a 10 year old classic .asp app which is a multi tennant SaaS. Running on IIS 7.0 with MS SQL Server back end.

When I started this site / app in 2003 it was somewhat ahead of its time for the industry it was serving and had limited success partially because of some reluctance for companies to run their business entirely on the web. However, I was able to grab a decsnt amount of customers (who still use and love it) but ultimately this business fell to a "part-time" effort for me while I took a full time job in IT management. Over the years I have maintained the original customer base but have not put any effort into building new business.

It's time for 2.0...lol as 10 years is a long time for 1.x on a classic .ASP platform
My current customers just will not go away, and I sense that I could grab a bunch more if I modernized this app. I am looking to modernize the UI, increase performance and allow for easy integration with third party APIs for QuickBooks, etc. as well as possibly extend to mobile apps for iPhone / Android.

The site is a transactional inventory data app where the main tables get between 75-100K records per month with a few hundred users. It currently contains about 125 .asp pages. It is multi-tennant and all customer-specific variability is managed via database configuration and some conditional coding based on session variables set by config data in the DB. The functionality is mostly basic data entry, html grids and querying / reporting and exporting data sets to excel. We use Crystal Reports XI for some reporting,charting etc. I do have a need for more robust label printing (currently using Crystal Reports) have worked with 'Nice Label' on other projects but would be looking for options here.

I have started looking at MVC vs. .Net forms but would consider anything which will be supportable for the next 5 years. I have done some .Net but skills are stale however I do know .asp / vb and java script and SQL well and have been maintaining this app myself for the few years. Would like to be able to learn and be able to do some design/coding/maintenance myself once the framework is in place. so any platfroms which might lend themselves to my cirrent environment would be great.

I like the looks that can be accomplished with HTML5. I recently subscribed to quickbooks online and love the look and functionality of that site which is based on HTML5, Javascript, DoJo. See link to the slide deck link at bottom which describes what technology Intuit deployed.

I need help and direction on overall architecture selection. Wondering if someone can point me to some resuources where I can answer some basic questions and get a general assessment of what types of platforms would work well.

Also willing to pay for consulting time to work this out. Sorry for the novel.

Thanks!
MHAM99

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18Ho1IF8CsZzO1B9N2AJth615nsE2KK-TGDFCXCYB7ks/edit?pli=1#slide=id.ge7337632_2_153[^]

Hi mham,

yes running an application on old technologies will not only degrade the application performance also your application cannot compete with new technologies. As long as your clients are happy, you will be happy, but once they ask you with latest technology. Yes, you need to do that.

You are on the right track for developing with right tools like MVC. Or else you can do one more thing like have two different layers like client and server and write a web service separately where you will have all db related logic.

Its like a Client Server architecture. So if you develop a separate service. later you can use the same service in your android, iOS or windows or some other service. So it becomes like a "Write once and Use else where".

If you have a large data sets which will degrade the application performance, there are many alternative ways that you can do in order to increase the performance of application with less effort. One good thing is Paging or Data virtualization. Using AJAX based controls, queries and now a days there are lot of java script frameworks available and can choose any one of them to implement the best for your needs.

Well, I don't know MVC so I can't help on it, but if you asked me on how to do with classic ASP.Net with Sql Server and WCF service then I can help you.

Regards,
Ganesh

modified 14-Aug-14 7:43am.

Are there any schools of thought on whether it is better to code a new design from the top down, or the bottom up?

Top down means writing the highest level code first, then filling in the details later. Bottom up means to implement the low level code first, then tie it all together later.

Which are you more likely to choose?

The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.

My instant reaction to this is from the bottom up, starting from the data structure, build that first and work up from there. Then I thought what about one contract that started with a one page invoice and grew down.

When I was consulting I would look for both ends at the start of a project, what have you got and what do you want. Then I would start at the database, DAL and lastly the UI and reports so I am a bottom up person.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH

Richard Andrew x64 wrote:

Which are you more likely to choose?

I never made a choice, and end up doing both. That's under different management-schools, different companies, different schedules.

It always starts the same; there's a problem, and it's usually something I can't solve in a single hit. So, the problem gets divided into smaller problems. Divide and conquer. It's what I did at my first job (Waterfall, Delphi) and am doing now (Agile, C#).

Planning a sprint, the problems are named. Sometimes one needs specific bottom-up functionality (often when interfacing) and we start with that - building a prototype, preferably in a test-project. Other times you need to implement an abstract idea, and you come back to fill the gaps later.

Both, constantly.

Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
whether it is better to code a new design from the top down, or the bottom up?

It is better to talk and nail the problems. If one of the gaps in the app is logging, then have someone bottom-up a logger, AND someone top-down in the app in the places where the logger needs be injected, and building a factory.

Top down requires "magic dust"; you fill in the non-working gaps with that dust, and as long as you can remember the magic required, things works fine. Problem is when there's suddenly a gap you cannot fill (often with a deadline creeping nearer).

Bottom up makes stuff easy to test; you write a bit, test it. Write a bit more, test some more. Change a dot, test it to pieces.

As soon as you're coming in the vicinity of a deadline, you want to make sure that all the prototyped blocks fill the gaps nicely.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]

When design in my hand I always start with the large picture.
I brake that picture into peaces around work processes from the point of user, than break down those processes to simple steps.
After that I map the steps to some that developer can understand.
After that I build the data structures.
From all that info I crate the layer map.
That's the point where I start to write actual code - bottom up...

I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)

I like to bounce back and forth between the two. This helps me reduce the amount of impedance mismatches you run into when you finally start trying to mate everything together. Also it gives the added benefit of increasing the number of opportunities to refactor which leads to less code rot. This approach does require devs with full stack expertise.

There is no single, straight-forward answer to this question, as it depends entirely on the application you are building. Is it a large, enterprise application? Are the requirements / designs clearly defined? Are you using a new development technology?

For larger applications you may want to ensure you have the right architecture in place, before going into the more detailed elements. For a smaller application, using Agile / TDD you may want to get something up and running quickly and then refine it over time through unit tests and re-factoring.

There is no silver bullet here. Use your experience to see which approach feels the most sensible.

what are the good design pattern for a device that implementing image processing ??

..it doesn't work that way. Patterns aren't sorted by "device" or "application" - they're applicable in almost ANY of them.

Regardless whether you're writing an email-client on a Pi, a game in XNA, or a desktop - you probably have multiple kinds of singletons in there. You'll find the basic patterns in most applications.

You did not state what platform the image-processing is going to do. I'd recommend abusing the graphics card for that, obviously. I guess I'd first be looking for a managed version of DirectX.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]

Hello, can you please describe a data access model for a modern, greenfield enterprise app?

Back in 2000, a Bll and Dal were created for each domain entity. Business logic was in the Bll and data access logic was in the Dal. App code would instantiate a Bll and call one of its methods which would in turn instantiate and call a method on a related Dal.

This is a proven and effective model and is still a solid fundamental model for basic applications. However, over the last 5 years, there has been increasing emphasis on design patterns like the provider pattern, inversion of control and a general emphasis on testability.

So based on all the trends that have emerged, or become more recognized or expected over the last 5 years, can you please describe the data access model that you would propose for a modern, greenfield enterprise app?

Pretend you're a principal consultant at a consulting firm and you want to demonstrate the value and sophistication that your firm can bring to the table. Please make a data access layer proposal that would help support this goal.

So, I take it from this that you're a principal consultant at a consulting firm, and that you want us to do your job for you. It's your job to write this proposal, not ours - after all, it's not as though you're going to pay us for something that's quite a substantial bit of work.

What is clear from your description is that you don't understand how these patterns fit together - and if you don't, how are you going to be able to justify the different parts of your design when you're challenged by the client.

I see that you was able to climb really hi in the last 3 years - until 3 years before all your questions were mediocre at the best...
If you got a principal consultant job by telling stories, you are in grate danger. Even someone should answer your question (no to likely, as it an article long answer), you will not understand and will not be able to present it, specially if questions will rise!
So if you do not know your job it's better move along before some dirt will stick to your name...

I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)

Member 3919049 wrote:
Pretend you're a principal consultant at a consulting firm and you want to demonstrate the value and sophistication that your firm can bring to the table.

In my experience of such people they charge a lot and produce very little. Judging from your question you are well suited to the role.

Member 3919049 wrote:
Pretend you're a principal consultant at a consulting firm and you want to demonstrate the value and sophistication that your firm can bring to the table. Please make a data access layer proposal that would help support this goal.

No Problem. We sell workshops that result in a concept for this. You can buy one if you like. I bet there are some other consultants ready to be payed here, too. Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

SharePoint Consultant and Developer at acocon
Author of Primary ROleplaying SysTem

I'm the ninth in a row of seven!

Well my take is that this looks like a homework assignment.

Are there any alternatives to MS Access around yet?

From what I can find things like SQLLite, Firebird, SQL CE etc are fine for local usage, and the others like SQLExpress, MariaDB all require servers (or at least software installed to host them).

I can't find one that has Access's standalone ability, as our current situation is access databases on LAN/WAN shares. So if there is something that can replace that?

The clients are likely to be C# WPF.

cjb110 wrote:
From what I can find things like SQLLite, Firebird, SQL CE etc are fine for local usage,

That's the category that Access falls in.

cjb110 wrote:
I can't find one that has Access's standalone ability

If you want a database-file without a server, you'll be looking at either access, or a single-file database like SQLite. If your data is accessed by multiple people from several workstations, then you DO want a server.

There's a button in your Access-IDE that upgrades the entire database to Sql Server. Install Sql Server Express (it's free) on a PC that the users have access to.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]