finally got off my “but” and got to getting into .NET web services. got to give props again to jae choi, this time for introducing me to InformIT Safari a little bit ago. I’ve had a subscription for a few months now and it’s worth it–saves me some on some books that i’d like to use as reference but didn’t want to drop loot to buy, or weren’t on my “A” list to buy, but are still Good To Have. Don’t get me wrong, they have A-list titles as well (and i’ll find myself buying them eventually anyway) but for a Tightly Aggregated Implementation Resource you really can’t beat something like it. :) but i digress…

I’ve read through the entire “meat” of C# in a Nutshell, and am “in the middle” of Professional .NET, which are both easy reads if you’re familiar with Java. And if you are familiar with Java and aren’t a “Microsoft Guy” admit it you can’t hate on the features of the C# language, that are absent in Java–i couldn’t, even if you do “realize” that many of them are an answer to Java’s weaknesses in expressing certain idioms. And even that needs to be realized by the Java camp, and addressed (which some things are, in the next Java Rev). but i digress again, and get to the point of this post. :)

I’ve had SharpDevelop installed on my machines for quite a while now, though not really doing anything with it. The Main Thing i wanted to use this software for was developing Windows Forms (not to be confused with web forms) and Web Services. I expected creating Windows Forms to be relatively easy, but i didn’t realize that creating a web service would be either. This ease isn’t a sharpdevelop thing, but a .NET and IIS thing. The book i used to refer to this was one of my Safari reads, C# for Java developers, chapter 19. All i did was write a simple service by creating a method, tagging it with

[Webmethod]

before the method i’m exporting, and compile. Stick the dll in the bin directory of the virtual directory i created in IIS (i’m skipping steps, yes :), write a quick asmx file with a certain syntax, then boom. browse to the page and my service is available, even with a simple little “testing” page!

I didn’t know what to expect, and i guess that’s why i’m pleasantly surprised. Reall and Truly, the rest of creating web services lies in your own creativity, and not spending time on implementation details, which leads me to another observation, which isn’t anything new, just something i’ve finally realized that others have said a billion times before. :) And if you haven’t yet, when you do, you’ll be on some old “aha” too.

With most software developement i encounter these days, the difficult part is never the implementation, it’s the design, and modelling of the problem (space), and dealing with people issues (personalities and junk). These days it’s relatively easy to implement software, and even implement it pretty well, once you just do it time and time again, and listen, see and follow others’ good habits. There was a time that this was very difficult for me–implementation of software, and i see it as a friend of mine is “struggling” to pick it up (don’t worry it gets much much easier). Don’t get me wrong, many, many, “implementation details” are difficult for me to grasp, and i gasp for air when delving into them (take Threaded programming, for example–i understand it, but it’s always hard for my brain to “keep up” or “keep track right” when implementing–i’m sure this will get better the more i have chances to implement), but it was just funny to witness ‘cos i was trying to help him understand something that i would have had trouble picking up back then as well…but it (the ‘problem’ he was looking at) was just So Dang Easy for me to Get without any brain stretching whatsoever.

So if i were to give anyone starting in software development advice–be patient, and tenacious. You will pick up on what it is you’re trying to do in time. If you have it “in you” to program in the first place, you will. And if you don’t, then maybe you’re just in the wrong vocation anyway, and should be reading what colour is your parachute or some stuff like that. ;)

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