digitalMoto.net

This week has spent learning how to manage application domains within .Net. Everything I have found online seems to make the exercise more and more complicated. The gist of the problem is this…

I am writing an application that dynamically uses plug-ins. There is a list of plug-ins that you have rights to use (regardless of what is already downloaded). This list is supplied by a web service, which knows which plug-ins which users have rights to and the entire collection of available plug-ins along with their dependencies.

So… Click on an item in the plug-in list and one of two things should happen.

1. The plug-in already exists locally and it is loaded directly.
2. The plug-in doesn’t exist locally, so it needs to be downloaded. Request a download from the web service. Save in the incoming data stream, unzip the package into a directory. Now, launch the plug-in.

Simple. Not really.

1. For the web service, I need to be able to scan all of the available plug-ins, then release them. Unload() is the actual method call. But you are not allowed to unload an individual assembly from the global application context. This forces me to load each and every assembly into a unique application domain. And now I have to manage them. Fuck me.
2. I have to scan the local plug-in repository, which present the same problems as my first point. Why do I need to scan the local plug-ins? Plug-ins can be updated. If a newer version of the plug-in exists, I need to delete the stale local version so the new one can be downloaded if it is selected.

Caffeine can only carry me so far in this process. Dickinson has carried me a bit farther, but I have still had a week when I think it would have been easier to eviscerate myself than to understand and successfully program this stuff. Right now, I hate everything to do with Application Domains. Once I figure it out, it will be passé and boring …which is the way of the warrior.

New Music:
I went on a big buying spree in the last couple of months.

Tantric: Tantric

Tantric: After We Go

Finger Eleven: Them VS. You VS. Me

Stone Sour: Stone Sour

Stone Sour: Come What(ever) May

The Cult: Born Into This

Dokken: The Definitive Rock Collection

Buckcherry: 15

Shiny Toy Guns: We Are Pilots

Ramones: Greatest Hits

Black Sabbath: The Mob Rules

Bruce Dickinson: The Best Of Bruce Dickinson

Staind: The Singles 1996-2006

This week, I bought a couple more things…

Bruce Diskinson: Tattooed Millionare

Bruce Dickinson: Anthology (DVD)

PS: 2nd Avenue Records is my friend. (link)