.NET Unplugged

It is time to learn some new technologies.

For this task I am going to write FAQ applicaton called OpenFaq.

OpenFaq – The future of FAQ

Whenever we buy any new product there is usually some questions or issues that come up, that may not be covered in manual or by asking the uncle who (supposedly) knows everything. How do I …? Why am I getting this f#$x error? etc…

In some cases you may go to product’s website and try to find an answer there. In about 5 minutes (depending on how quickly you reach the boiling point) you give up and just do a google search.

Why are so many sites so bad in helping you find what you need?

The problem(s) this application will try to solve is:
On many sites FAQ is created early on and not frequently updated. It quickly becomes forgotten.
The questions are grouped according to how website administrator feels like they should be grouped. Not based on frequency of asking.
User interaction is limited to reading an answer

The Solution
Make FAQ dynamic, so admin can edit questions and answers without doing rollout
Get users involved with asking, answering, voting and comments (similar to stack overflow)
Use voting and other statistics to determine which questions are frequent/popular and which are not

Some Business Requirements

Some preliminary requirements for this application are:
* User can login
* User can post question
* User can answer question
* User can comment on question and answer
* User can vote on question and answer
* User can use keyword search to quickly find questions, answers

Maybe a touch of Technology

In this series I will try out some new technologies from MS and use some of the latest methodologies in application development.

For a while now I have been reading about many new technologies and approaches for software development. Here is the list that I plan to use for OpenFaq.

Approaches

• BDD – behavior driven development
• TDD – test driven development

Principles

• YAGNI – you are not going to need it
• KISS – keep it simple stupid
• DRY – don’t repeat yourself

Technology

For this project I am going to use Microsoft stack.

• ORM – EF 4 Code First
• Web Framework – MVC 3
• Template Engine – Razor
• Package/Dependecy Manager – NuGet
• BDD – SpecFlow
• UI Testing/Acceptance test – WatiN
• Unit testing – MS Test
• Version Control – Mercurial
• Project Site – Codeplex.com