SL3 + RIA custom authentication

I have been playing with Custom Authentication lately and while trying out, I ran into bunch of problem. So I thought I will point out few of things you need to watch out. When you create a SL3 + RIA services, it automatically gives you Windows Authentication. When you need to change to custom authentication, couple of things you need to change and for that I would recommend Brad Abrams (ex-Microsoft) blog

If you are new to this area I would strongly recommend you to look at the authentication quick starts in the following URL, they are very simple and easy to follow.

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/RiaServices

while you are at it, I would recommend visiting this Silverlight forum question to have an understanding of authentication as well.

Few things to watch out are

1. Make sure you have <authentication mode="Forms" /> in your web.config at the WCF service side.

2. The USER return from GetAuthenticatedUser has a catch, if you do not assign the name to the returning user, then by default IsAuthenticated flag will be false.

3. Make sure you have authentication setup to form authentication in silver light app.xaml.

<local:WebContext.Authentication>
                <appsvc:FormsAuthentication></appsvc:FormsAuthentication>
</local:WebContext.Authentication>

4. If you have a page where you are authenticating and then data binding, do not do data binding till you complete the validation. In other words, make sure you add the root visual element on login completed method delegate.

If you run into any other problems let me know or if you have any comments or suggestion also send me a mail.

PHP vs ASP.NET - A Feature List

Introduction

I do not want to call this as a comparison but a list of equivalent features. You can find a lot of links if you search on the internet regarding 'which is good and which is bad'. Here, I would like to give the same weightage to both technologies as both have its advantages and disadvantages.

Background

Well, I made this list when I was thinking about the right technology for one of my latest requirements. I wanted to make something for a presentation as a part of my Architecture Design job.

 

Here Goes the List...

The choice of technology is completely dependent on the requirements. The factors that influence the decision of choice are based on the following:

• Complexity of Business logic
• Density of contents
• Expected number of Hits (if it is a website)
• Budget
• Size of project, etc.

There are multiple options available for many features. The major ones are listed which are our recommendations.

 

	ASP.NET	PHP	Comments
Latest Stable Version	4	5.3.3	As of 19 Aug 2010
License	MS EULA	PHP License v3.01
Price	ASP.NET - .NET Framework is free. So ASP.NET also free	PHP – Free	PHP can be installed on any OS and Web server. But ASP.NET is recommended for IIS only (even though ports to few web servers available)
Web Server – IIS – Not Free. OS cost applicable	Web Server – Free
OS – Windows Server – Not Free	OS – Linux is free, Windows is costly
Third Party Hosting Price	Cost involved	Cost Involved	Both are not costly but if you compare, PHP is found to be a little bit cheaper
Development Cost	Developer cost Involved Visual Studio Express Editions are free Rapid-Application-Development Model. So development takes less time	Developer Cost Involved Free/Open Source IDEs available Much coding involved	Both are same but ASP.NET is more on Rapid-Application-Development and PHP is more on Coding
Cross Platform	Yes	Yes	Whatever server side language you use, browsers render only as HTML. But development is not cross-platform even though ASP.NET got ports for Linux available
Code Portability	Partial	Yes	For PHP, a code written on Linux/Apache will work on Windows or any OS/Web Server. But .NET, even though we have ports available, you will require some tweaks to make it run.
Cloud Feasibility	Possible	Possible	Additionally, for ASP.NET -SQL Azure is also available for database hosting.
Mode of source	Closed Source	Open Source	Application developers have no benefits for either it is closed or open UPDATE: Microsoft also opened .NET framework code for reference. Note that it is just for reference. You cannot do anything except reading. A real open source must be able to download, make amendments, re-compile. You cannot make your own .NET versions.
Promoted by	Microsoft	PHP Community
Customer Support by Owner	Yes	No
Security Fixes	Auto Update – part of OS	Need to update separately when available	Both parties release fixes for bugs and security issues instantly
Developer Help	Community	Community	Both technologies got fans worldwide. They will provide help and guidance through forums, mail lists, news groups, etc.
Languages	C#	PHP
VB.NET
Jscript, etc.
Database	Any Database Good fit: Microsoft SQL Server	Any Database Good fit: MySQL	Supports most of the databases
Frameworks / OOPs	There is an inbuilt framework (called web forms framework) available which will force developers to use OOPs	You can write both procedural and OOPs based code
MVC	Microsoft ASP.NET MVC	Symfony
Development IDE	Recommended: Microsoft Visual Studio	Recommended: Zend Studio	Even Notepad can be used for coding. PHP is more easy for that, but if you can afford Visual Studio, then ASP.NET.
Any IDE	Any IDE
ORM	ADO.NET Entity Framework	Doctrine
NHibernate
Templating	NVelocity	Smarty
Extensibility	ASP.NET uses Microsoft.NET framework. So you can make use of any functionality available on .NET framework	PECL – PHP Extension Community Library
HTTPHandlers
HTTPModules
ISASP Extensions, etc.
Easy to learn	Yes	Yes	Personally I found PHP to be easier for a beginner to learn programming
Recommended for Huge systems?	Yes	No	As per my analysis, PHP is recommended for small-to-medium projects and ASP.NET and JSP for medium-to-big applications UPDATE: If you think about Facebook, please understand that:
1. it uses a re-written PHP and a
2. transformer+compiler called HipHop which transforms PHP code to highly optimized C++ code and then compiles with gcc. We are talking here about the PHP we get for application developers from PHP.NET (as it is).
Content Management Systems	DotNetNuke	Typo3	Wide variety of options
SharePoint	Joomla
N2CMS …	Magento …
Advancement	Growing very fast	Growing with limited speed	Micorosft’s team is keen to develop and integrate new features. But since PHP is promoted by community, it takes time to reach that level
Backward Compatibility	Old code will work on new framework versions without change	Old code might need tweaks to make it work on latest versions
Security	IIS must be improved from the past and now a days it is one of the secure web servers	Major web servers are secure	ASP.NET, PHP, Oss and its servers are mostly secure. Now developers need to make sure their coding is secure.
Performance	Faster	Faster for small programs and slower for medium-to-big programs	Very basic old argument – ASP.NET is compiled and PHP is interpreted (line by line compilation and execution)
Deployment	Multiple methods available E.g.: Publish, XCopy, MSI	You need to copy/paste code to server somehow (e.g.: FTP)
Some useful features	WCF (Windows Communication Foundation), Web Service, .NET Remoting etc.	Web Service
ASP.NET AJAX	Third party Ajax libraries
Built-in Caching features	Third party Caching libraries

I do not claim all I stated above are true, but all that I believe to be true. Also this list is in no way complete. It is time consuming to build a full list, so I included the major points only.

Correct me if any point is wrong or if I missed any important points.