Home > Microsoft Announces Extensibility Framework for .NET

News

Microsoft Announces Extensibility Framework for .NET

4/29/2008

Last week, Microsoft's .NET Framework program manager Krzysztof Cwalina announced that his team is working on a new framework for .NET--Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)--designed to improve compatibility with third-party extensions.

"In the absence of a built-in extensibility framework (like MEF), our developers who want to enable such extensions often are forced to create custom mechanisms, thus duplication," Cwalina wrote in his blog post announcing the project. "We hope that MEF will both stop such duplication and encourage/enable more extensibility in the Framework and applications built on top of it."

According to Cwalina, MEF currently consists of three technologies that work together: a Dependency Injection (DI) framework, a naming and activation service, and a "duck typing" structural type system. The team is working with the Unity framework as well as the DI community to develop MEF, Cwalina wrote.

Cwalina said that a ship date for the project is not yet known.

Cwalina's team is seeking input from developers on what they'd like to see in MEF. For more information on the project, including selected code samples, click here.


Becky Nagel is executive editor, Web Initiatives for the 1105 Redmond Media Group and the editor of Redmondmag.com.

Cite this Site

Becky Nagel, "Microsoft Announces Extensibility Framework for .NET," Campus Technology, 4/29/2008, http://www.campustechnology.com/article.aspx?aid=61463

copy text (above) for proper citation



Recommended Reading
  • Gates Highlights R&D at CES08, Unveils Microsoft Touch Wall

    Microsoft's Chairman Bill Gates spent a lot of time Wednesday talking about "empowering the workers" at the Microsoft's 12th annual CEO Summit 2008 in Redmond, WA, where he gave a keynote speech. However, Gates wasn't talking about political revolutions or even pay raises for office workers before the CEO crowd. Instead, he was referring to new software technologies that can better enable collaboration, social networking and decision-making on the job.

  • Vista Vulnerability Study Puts Microsoft on Defensive

    Microsoft and some independent security researchers had the blogosphere buzzing Wednesday over a series of denunciations after one company claimed that the Vista operating system was more vulnerable to malware and other exploits than previous operating systems.

  • New Blackboard Sync Application Leverages Facebook

    Blackboard Inc. today announced Blackboard Sync, an application that allows students to receive course updates and communicate with classmates while logged on to Facebook.

  • Standards: The Sooner the Better

    Technology solutions work best when they well together. That is why the nonprofit group IMS Global Learning Consortium is developing learning tools interoperability standards for the education technology community...

  • U.K. Education Group Escalates Microsoft Complaints

    A consultancy to the U.K. government has forwarded complaints about Microsoft's licensing and interoperability practices to the European Commission (EC), according to an announcement issued by the Becta consulting group Monday.

  • University Students and Researchers Enjoy JavaOne

    The JavaOne conference, held May 6-9 in San Francisco, brought together developers from industry, education, and other markets, filling the Moscone Convention Center with a wide array of sessions and exhibits for the open source Java developer community.