As I'm sure some of you know by now (because it's starting to get played a lot in the blog world), Microsoft finally released the Enterprise Library. If you recall, the Enterprise Library was created out of necessity to reel in all the Application Blocks, since the codebase and documentation for each widely varied with little consistency. So Microsoft got Avanade to redo the whole thing and incorporate some of Avanade's ACA.NET framework pieces into the mix as well. And if I'm not mistaken, it's being released about a month early. As of last week I got word that the Enterprise Library wasn't going to be released until the end of February. So that's cool (certainly rare anyway).
This should be good news for .NET developers. About a year and a half ago (back at NW), a group of us did a bunch of work with the first versions of the Application Blocks, and although we liked them, there were some issues, bugs, etc. The idea was great, but it felt like the PAG team at Microsoft was just putting the blocks together as fast as they could to get them into the hands of developers. And to an extent it worked, but I know lots of people who started using the blocks but then abandoned them because of various issues or problems. So hopefully putting all the blocks now under a single umbrella will get people to take another look at them and use them where it makes sense.
That being said, I haven't delved into the Enterprise Library yet (got too much other stuff on my plate at the moment), but when I do, I'll be sure to let you know my thoughts.
Print | posted on Friday, January 28, 2005 8:35 PM