5. MEF vs standard IoC Container

Nicely writen article about "Mef vs IoC" here.

DI is based on three dimensions, Object Composition, Lifetime Management, and Interception. MEF has potential, but as a DI container, it lacks:

• Code as Configuration
• Auto Registration
• XML configuration
• Custom Lifetimes
• Interception (another example Interception using Dependency Injection Container)

For Lifestyle it lacks:

• Per graph
• Web Request Context
• Thread Context
• Session Context
• Pooled
• Scoped
• Custom Reference

Its a option to use MEF as a Extension for standard IoC container more.

.NET IoC/DI options:

• Containers comparsion (another Unity, StructurMap, Autofac, Castle Windsor, Ninject facilitates and Spring.NET comparsion)
• OSGi.net

5. MEF Visualizer

Helps to see what is going on inside the MEF Composition Container. Download

Container = new CompositionContainer(
               new AggregateCatalog(
                    new AssemblyCatalog( Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly() ) ,
                    new AssemblyCatalog( Assembly.LoadFrom( @"MEFVisualizer.Exe" ) )
                    ) );

Container.Compose( batch );

var meftoDgml = new MEFToDGML( Container){ IsNamespaceGrouping = true };   // The Visualizer

meftoDgml.WriteToDGMLFile();   // Write to DGML file

6. Why to use MEF

10 reasons why to use MEF

7. Good explanations

Audio

• Audio: MEF with Glenn Block IoC, DI vs MEF

Code

• Code: Barbarian Meets MEF
• Code: Glenn Block - Building Composable Apps in .NET 4 with the Managed Extensibility Framework Complete explanations of MEF capabilities
• Code: Complete MEF Programming Guide

Video

• Video: MEF Oleg Lvovitch and Kevin Ransom Introduction, MEF 2.0
• Video: MEF Jan Steberl CZ Introduction MEF - CZ

Presentation

• Presentation: Lecture by Nuno Cancelo
• Presentation: Lecture by Mohamed Meligy

Interestiong links

• Spring.NET & Attribute Driven Configuration
• MEF Runtime Plugin Swapping

TODO

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/NET-45-Oleg-Lvovitch-and-Kevin-Ransom-Managed-Extensibility-Framework-MEF-20 http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/376033/From-Zero-to-Proficient-with-MEF http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/37579/Managed-Extensibility-Framework-Part https://emcpadden.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/managed-extensibility-framework-and-others/