Since the introduction of "Declarative binding" in ASP.NET, many of you have been asking me what's Declarative programming?, what's AOP? etc. so I thought let me blog a bit about it here of what I know..

There are many approaches to programming, two of them are imperative programming and declarative programming

Imperative Programming is a programming language in which programs consists of series of commands to execute in a particular order. this commands describes computation as statements that change a program state. Procedural programming languages are good examples of Imperative Programming.

Declarative programming focuses on "what" is to be computed, rather than "how" the computation is to take place. it is in contrast to Imperative Programming. Classic example of Declarative programming is HTML, XAML, XSLT which describe what page should contain rather then how to actually display them.

SQL is another example of declarative programming since SQL statements like select focus on what data to extract rather then how to extract.

Imperative programs explicitly specify an algorithm to achieve a goal, while declarative programs explicitly specify the goal and leave the implementation of the algorithm to the support software.

Attribute Programming(AOP): Like declarative programming, Attributes separate application's core logic (or business logic) from application-specific or domain-specific semantics. By hiding the implementation details of those semantics from program code, attributes increase the level of programming abstraction and reduce programming complexity, resulting in simpler and more readable programs. The program elements associated with attributes are transformed to more detailed programs by a supporting tool (e.g. preprocessor).

This is the new thing hitting market now a days. SDD Drives. The technology is expected to replace HDD in near future. SDD stand for "Solid State Drives". These are essentially similar to FLASH drives or USB Sticks.  To read from HDD the disk should spin at 5400 or 7200 RPM, but in SDD there is no Spinning, instead its made up of Array of Flash Memories designed in such a way that it can retain its memory even after computer Shutdown.

They are current available in 32GB and 64GB storage capacity which obvious does not suite needs for large storages, Its best suitable for entry level computers where usage is for limited purpose like browsing internet and working with MSOffice.

As the technology will advance, the current disadvantages like High Price, Robustness, Speed and Storage capacity will improve.

More Information: http://www.samsung.com/eu/Products/Semiconductor/products/ssd.asp

Ha Ha this one is interesting. I was playing with HTML view of VS2008 and happen to encounter an HTML tag <bdo>, what a funny tag name, with curiosity I typed <bdo dir="rtl"> This is a funny HTML tag </bdo> to find out what it does, and guess what this was the output

HTML <bdo> element overrides the default text direction.  I don't know what does BDO stands for and what is the purpose of such a tag, but it was quite interesting to share. may be if someone knows it full form or its exact purpose, please share with me too. :)

ALSO

We spend some time in giving style to our HTML content , I found a couple of other tags which already has some style in-built which we can use.

From ASP.NET 2.0 the compiler outputs multiple assemblies in bin folder rather then single assembly as in 1.0 and 1.1. By default, the compiler works in "batch mode," in which the output of multiple source files is compiled into single assemblies according to the type of file, file dependencies, and other criteria. The result is a target site containing a set of assemblies with the executable code for the original source files.

Where multiple assemblies has its own advantage it has its side effects too. The problem is that assembly naming is random and each time you compile your website it will generate assemblies with different names. So if you make changes in one source file, its difficulty to know which assembly file to copy on live server.  We do have an option of asking compiler to generate -fixednames, but you still need to manage set of assemblies.

To address these issues ASP.NET 3.5 includes a new merge tool (aspnet_merge.exe). This tool lets you combine and manage assemblies created by aspnet_compiler.exe. 

The following command merges all Web application assemblies into a single assembly and names the resulting assembly MyApp.dll:
aspnet_merge -o MyApp.dll C:\MyTarget      Where MyTarget is your Publish directory.

Usage:
aspnet_merge [-?] applicationPath [-keyfile filename [-delaysign]]
             [-o assemblyname | -w assemblyname | -prefix prefix]
             [-copyattrs [assemblyfile]] [-debug] [-nologo]
             [-errorstack] [-r] [-xmldocs] [-a] [-log logfile]
             [-allowattrs filename]

-?                  Display this help text.
applicationPath     The physical path of the precompiled application.
-keyfile            The physical path to the strongly name keyfile.
-delaysign          Delay sign the merged assemblies.
-o                  Merge the entire application into a single assembly with
                    the given name. This option cannot be combined with the
                    -prefix or -w options.
-w                  Merge the application Web files into a single assembly with
                    the given name. This option cannot be combined with the -o
                    or -prefix options.
-prefix             Prefix the merged assembly names with a specified string.
                    This option cannot be combined with the -o or -w options.
-copyattrs          Copy the assembly level attributes from the input assembly.
                    If input assembly is not specified, the main App_Code
                    assembly will be used instead.
-debug              Preserve debug information in the merged assembly. The
                    default is to remove debug information.
-nologo             Suppress the copyright message.
-errorstack         Show additional information that can help debug certain
                    conditions.
-r                  Remove the .compiled files for main code assembly. This
                    option should not be used if your application contains any
                    explicit type references to the main code assembly.
-xmldocs            Merge the xml documentation files associated with the input
                    assemblies.
-a                  Force merge the assemblies.
-log                Log messages to the specified file.
-allowattrs         Use the specified text file which contains attributes to
                    exclude when checking consistency of attributes in merged
                    assemblies. Each line of the file can either be a fully
                    qualified name of an attribute, or a namespace. If a
                    namespace is specified, all attributes found in the
                    namespace will be excluded.