Professional Enterprise .NET

Chapter 2. The Enterprise Code

Before jumping head first into the land of Enterprise, you should take some time to understand how your code and development process will change. Making the shift to enterprise development requires more than just a cursory knowledge of academic patterns. Along with a new set of development tools and design patterns, enterprise development requires a change in methodologies. In this chapter we will:

• Explore new enterprise code patterns

• Discuss some of the changes you will make when writing new code

• Explore some of the tools you'll be using when writing enterprise code

• Review some of the facets of automation inherent to the enterprise environment

A New Way to Look At Code

Most people who begin learning enterprise development find that the best place to begin is the code. Readers should be familiar with a third generation object-oriented (OO) language to fully grasp some of the concepts discussed here. Considering that this book focuses exclusively on developing for the Microsoft platform, it is assumed that you have a moderate-to-advanced exposure to C#, Microsoft's preferred OO language for the ET.NET platform. If you are familiar with object-oriented programming but in need of a primer or refresher on C#, the tutorial found in Appendix A can serve as a good starting point. You'll want to be sure that you're acquainted with the language before digging deeper into the design patterns.

Over the course of the next few hundred pages, you'll become familiar with ...