Have you ever wanted to dynamically choose from many potential implementations of some code? Would you like to have the power of metadata filtering and lazy instantiation of the selected implementation? Here is how to do just that using Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) and also a neat trick to handle your implementation/metadata pairs that I recently put to good use. Code samples and optimizations follow so don’t worry; I won’t remain all theoretical in this post. (MEF is part of .NET Framework 4.0 but is available also on CodePlex for other releases – MEF Community Site.) Up front I...

In order to make Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) a part of your Windows Azure project in Visual Studio 2010 while having a Test Project to test your code there is a nasty reference issue you have to resolve. I posted all the steps to resolving this issue in my recent post MEF + Azure + Visual Studio 2010 = Tricky but doable. but I forgot one step! Here is the final piece of the puzzle. The remaining problem Following the steps in my previous post (link above) you are good to go with your project in all respects...

Putting Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) in your Windows Azure Application while trying to test your code using Visual Studio 2010 does not work OOTB. It is quite easy to modify – in this case MEF – to enable this scenario. The same issue might result from using other libraries as well. Now that Visual Studio 2010 is out you really do not want to remain on the old version. Sometimes there can be issues working with applications that need to support previous versions of .NET Framework – previous to .NET 4.0 that is. Here is one such issue and...

Last week I spent at Tech-Ed Europe. Here is my round up and follow up on audience questions etc. Note: Why do I always loose that note – the one that says NEVER start an epic blog post… ;~) well… here it is… an epic post. Sort of. At least in length and diversity of subject matter. It was very very eventful and quite exhausting to be a first time as a speaker at Tech Ed. Consequently (naturally/obviously?) I overreached a little. But – oh – did I have fun! It was friggin’ awesome and I want more!...

Here is how to enable a rich extensibility model for Windows Azure projects and how to run create jobs on Windows Azure Storage only once in your Windows Azure Projects. This sample and related AzureContrib release leverages Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) – an upcoming .NET Framework component in .NET Framework 4.0. We have made a small project at Dotway where I work on making the basic Windows Azure project template a bit more rich and intelligent. This has lead to three releases in the AzureContrib project, each one building on the last to make the functionality one more step...

The Common Service Locator project has a bunch of adapters. One of them is the one for Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF). I’ve updated the adapter to run on MEF Preview 6 and uploaded the result to the Codeplex site for the CSL. Common Service Locator MEF adapter Note: I’ve been nagging on Glenn Block to update the adaptor project that hooks up MEF to the Common Service Locator. Not so much nagging on him to do it, the man has enough to do, but rather nagging on him to add med as a developer on the CSL project...

And naturally LOTS of more sessions from Microsoft TechDays in Sweden. There are some sessions that are in English as well since there were quite a few international speakers. I really have to recommend Christian Weyers session WCF Tips and tricks and… My MEF talk (in Swedish). Here is the full list: http://www.microsoft.com/sverige/techdays09/sv/sessionplanner.html Cheers, M. Technorati Tags: Services,.NET,Extensibility,Microsoft,talksThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

During my tow week vacation the MEF team shipped a Preview 6. The team has posted all the facts and changes in this preview release so I won’t reiterate in detail but rather link to their posts on the subject. However; before I do that here are a few comments from me on the release: First comment: Congratulations! The release is looking good as usual! Second comment: I know for a fact that MEF has bounced about a bit within the Microsoft organization. It has to support this. It has to integrate with that. It should be...

I will show in this post how to extend the basic Windows Azure Project Template and make the solution a bit more intelligent. I will do this using a new and upcoming .NET Framework 4 technology; Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF). MEF Preview 5 is targeting .NET Framework 3.5 and is even developed under MSPL license and so fits like a glove into Windows Azure. Intro My overall goal is to create a Windows Azure project template that: enables testability abstracts away storage is extensible and easy...