I was waiting for this moment, when basic underlying code could be complete and I could start toying around with Diavolo and its services. I'm telling this because you design things and write code but it's not up until you start working with your code that you can understand if what you did really has a value. And how much value it actually has. After finishing localization subsystem, basic portal code was near the end. I think I have about 90% code done for this first version and next step will be to add a few minor features and fix bugs I will be able to find. Then I'll try to make some stress tests and I will consider Diavolo v4.3 ready. Which basically means I will be able to start adding more features...

Since my short-term goal for Diavolo was to use it to build my company's website (yes, that's VaiSulWeb !), I simply started doing that, asking our gfx-guys to create a good looking design while I avoided to set too many constraints. Basically, we need a portal-style website but I didn't ask them to feel too constrained by that. Result was a quite pleasant graphic design which I then attempted to enhance by jQuery and other stuff. Of course, one can have a better impression when you start working on real data, trying to solve real problems and check how good and stable your code can be and that's why I started implementing my company website to get my hands dirty and dig into real stuff.

My feelings were extremely positive, so far. First of all, I was able to implement graphic design without too many problems and that was positive. Now, our design isn't a very advanced one and is based on a simpe 3-column layout, with header and footer as well. However, I had very few problems to implement parts which were a bit more complex than usual. I'm also amazed how well MS AJAX Extensions and jQuery run together. In our code we are able to use both and mix and match them to solve different problems, usually based on how simple is to solve them when using one of those technologies. Sometimes it's better to use jQuery, sometimes you prefer to go with MS AJAX Extensions and its control toolkit. I'm also amazed how well jQuery and Update Panels can coexist, and integration is so deep we were able to use Update Panels just to provide server-side processing of code (basically, panels wraps buttons only) and then use on-the-fly-generated jQuery scripts to update page controls and provide feedback to end users. That was really amazing, in a way, as I didn't expect it could be so easy. So now you push a button and you have very little overhead since Update Panel doesn't need to sync all of your controls: when done, jQuery will take care of that. Perfect and, mostly important, quite fast ! This is like having the best of both worlds as you don't expose any business-logic processing nor any hook (service/endpoint/whatever) that then you need to secure but you can still use tons of goodies designed for jQuery. And, of course, that will improve your indexing score as well. In many cases, postback-logic is still there but users won't even notice that and will just experience quite fast processing and no page submitting.

One of such proof of concept was integration of this very beautiful slide down menu, whose integration was very straightforward and proved how flexible Diavolo theming engine actually is. I was able to remove default menu (standard ASP.NET one) from homepage theme and add that new jQuery-based menu and I'm still able to use that for homepage only, as a way to impress users. Other pages will use standard menu and all I need to do is to remove this Javascript code and enable standard ASP.NET menu again. On some pages, I could even use the same code in a completely different layout and/or theme. Very flexible ! I'd really like to use that menu on all pages but, given its way of functioning, it can provide a limited subset of choices and our website will be BIG for sure.

Modules development
Once basic implementation was complete, one of major proofs for the platform was module development so my first goal was to try to implement some modules to check how easy and cool it might be . First attempt was about a module to display plain HTML contents with a multi-language version of that closely followed. I have to say that it was quite easy to develop such modules, expecially when dealing with stored data. In most cases, I was able to focus on features rather than technical problems to store my data or to retrieve it. Then I switched to development of external modules, i.e. modules which weren't part of core Diavolo code and I have to say that it worked like a charm. First attempts to install such modules were already successful with no major problems at all. I was very happy to note that modules development looked very straightforward and easy. 

Data layer
My first concern obiouvsly was about data layer and how easy interacting with data (and RavenDB !) could be. A few details are still fluid, a few things still leave me uncertain but I had no major problems interacting with data. Most data-related functions are trivial and didn't require many lines of code. My major goal was to be able to work with plain .NET objects to give maximum flexibility to my code and I have to say that I seem to have met my goal. Accessing, modifying and deleting data is basically very easy, expecially when dealing with properties of my base objects (DataObject in Diavolo). I'm still trying to understand if more specialized classes should be used or a generic one is enough to deal with most complex scenarios but overall I'm pleased that it was quite easy to deal with my objects. I can direcly access my data via Raven Sessions but I'm usually creating helper classes to deal with specific object types. Basically, in the end I should have a few helper classes which I could make available to other modules, if needed.

Portal responsiveness was very good and now I enabled portal to start Raven HTTP server, if configured to do so, enabling external access even when embedded configuration is being used. As of today, I'm quite pleased by end result and code flexibility.