Version 2 of Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF), a framework for extending .NET applications, is currently in Preview mode, and the final release will be part of .NET Framework 4.5. Expected enhancements in Version 2 include improvements to the RegistrationBuilder API, attribute-less registration, and better control over object lifetime.
For most types of applications dependency injection frameworks don’t make whole lot of sense. It is usually more than sufficient to manually wire up all of the dependencies during startup. But for ASP.NET MVC there are also session and request scoped dependencies. With so many competing lifecycles a DI framework quickly moves from needless distraction to an essential organizational tool.
As the name implies, Managed Extensibility Framework is a framework for extending .NET applications. In a recent Channel 9 interview Oleg Lvovitch and Kevin Ransom talked about the history of MEF and what’s planed for version 2.
In honor of MEF reaching its feature complete milestone, we take a look at the confused story of extensibility in the .NET Framework. MEF or Managed Extensibility Framework is the fourth extensibility framework to be released by Microsoft. Though like all the previous times, Microsoft is claiming that it is the first.
Eric Nelson, a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft and Technical Editor of MSDN UK Flash, has compiled a list of 23 .NET open source projects mostly based on recommendations sent by UK developers. Other great projects did not make it into the list, while Microsoft’s contribution include: ASP.NET MVC, DLR, IronRuby, IronPython, MEF.
Microsoft's Managed Extensibility Framework is an open source (MS-PL) .NET application composition framework available on CodePlex. MEF provides aspects of a plug-in model and an inversion of control container. Code Preview 4 includes performance and diagnostic improvements.
