Today, Microsoft announced the availability of the Volta Technology Preview. Volta is a toolset that allows to developers to split their application easily into different client and server parts. This decision is usually taken very early in the design process, but Volta allows this decision to be postponed to the last possible moment. Volta integrates very well in Visual Studio and with the .NET Framework, supporting AJAX, JSON and more. It basically extends the .NET platform to Software+Services (SaaS) applications, by using existing and familiar libraries, languages, tools, and techniques.
Volta allows you to develop a complete web application in 1 layer and allows you to make decisions about moving logic to other layers late in the development process, letting the compiler manage creating boilerplate code such as communication between the layers. Due to the deep integration in Visual Studio, developers can easily debug the original application, without worrying about the details. Because the amount of information a developer has to learn is minimized and because Volta automatically generates the code needed for splitting up an application, developers can spend more time in other things, in for example testing. Specifying what should run on a client and what should run on a server is as easy as marking functions with attributes.
Volta support the creation of web Applications and web Controls, where an Application consists of multiple pages, a Control consists of a collection of controls (for example two textboxes and a button). Both Applications and Controls are available via a template in Visual Studio.
In order to use Volta for web application development, you'll need:
- .NET Framework 3.5
- Visual Studio 2008
- A web browser
When using this software, please remember that it is experimental and that it may take many years to realize the full vision. However, you're encouraged to download it and give it a try!
Thanks to Mary Jo Foley for informing us.
Posted
Dec 05 2007, 08:34 PM
by
ChrisW