IIS Express, SQL CE 4 and Razor MVC view

Dear scottgu,

Didn’t we just have a VS and Silverlight launch in April, and a Tech-Ed in June?  Is there the need to drop more good stuff on us even though we’re still digesting the events of the last couple of months?  Really?  Anyhow, thanks for the cool stuff, and I hope my wife doesn’t mind my laptop on the beach in a couple weeks.  Since you like feedback, here are my thoughts.  Do you mind taking a couple weeks off, now?

IIS Express

Very nice!  It’s been a little difficult to use a local IIS or Cassini to truly test ASP.NET apps, since they’re so different than what’s on Server 2008.  We won’t be able to replicate the setup and configuration, but I hope the features are as complete in the Express as in the server version, and I hope we can tap into the HTTP Request pipeline to test plug-in components.  Maybe soon this will be the default VS web server, and Cassini can be retired.  This seems to be a follow-up to SSRS 2008 no longer requiring IIS to be installed, and using http.sys instead.

(ref. http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/06/28/introducing-iis-express.aspx)

SQL CE 4

This is the database I wish SQL Server Express was.  As a matter of fact, I think SQL Express can die off now.  If I wanted to install database services, I would install a database.  If I don’t want to have to install a database, I need something embeddable.  Since SQL Express was released, I have come to really like SQLite.  I think SQL CE is going to change the way a lot of blogs/websites/photo galleries are developed and hosted.  And as much as I like Vista DB, I think you just ruined their holiday weekend.  The fact that we can start with a small embeddable DB and hop up to SQL Server or SQL Azure should make a lot of ISVs very happy with new lower price points for starter versions and the ability to upsize when their clients need to.

(ref. http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/06/30/new-embedded-database-support-with-asp-net.aspx)

Razor, the new ‘V’ in ‘MVC’

It’s obvious MVC has a passionate following, and the MS is committed to the technology.  I haven’t had a chance to work with MVC very much, but the syntax of Razor looks great—a little SQL-ish, a little JQuery-ish, but not a mess at all.  A lot of people don’t like the <%=   %> syntax because it harkens back to the classic ASP days, so the declarative syntax might make them happier.

(ref. http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/07/02/introducing-razor.aspx)