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WebExpress 2.0.0‑alpha – View, State and Service, Part II: From Pro‑Control State to ViewStated Contexts

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An update to the earlier post about the View, State, and Service architecture. When the View, State, and Service architecture was introduced, it replaced scattered state, direct DOM manipulation, and implicit service calls with a clear unidirectional data flow. Each control gained an explicit state object, a typed service descriptor, and a predictable path from initialization through user interaction to re‑rendering. The model worked well and was written entirely in C#. The previous post showed how a list evolved from a handful of scattered properties into a single, well‑structured definition. As the architecture rolled out across control families, a deeper boundary became visible. The state was clean but still belonged per control. Each control seeded its own state island, resolved its own service, and loaded itself on mount. Two controls on the same screen showing the same data fetched it independently. There was no natural way for one control to trigger a re‑render in another when ...
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WebExpress – AI‑Driven Development of the Framework

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It is no longer a secret that most of the code entering WebExpress today is no longer typed by hand. I propose it, generate it, and ideally also review it with the help of an AI. This has fundamentally changed how I develop the framework and forces me to ask whether I could maintain the pace the project now demands without this support. I am not trying to create hype or issue warnings. I want to describe honestly what AI gives me and what it costs me. When I look back two or three years, much of WebExpress was built in fragments. I implemented the critical paths carefully, yet many areas remained unfinished. Tests existed but were often postponed. Comments were present but rarely convincing. With AI assistance, this changed abruptly. Even non‑critical modules now receive the attention they previously lacked. Edge cases, validation, and clean error handling are no longer deferred. Test coverage has increased significantly, and instead of a single happy‑path scenario, I now cover difficu...
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Location: Cottbus, Deutschland
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WebExpress 2.0.0‑alpha – Introducing the New View–State–Service Architecture

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With the new View‑State‑Service architecture, WebExpress enters a phase in which client‑side behavior becomes clearer, more predictable, and better structured than ever before. The motivation behind this step is straightforward. The previous mechanisms, scattered state, direct DOM manipulations, and implicit service calls, have worked well over the years but reach their limits once more complex interactions, multiple dependent components, or reusable patterns emerge. The new architecture establishes a clear foundation that remains consistent for both simple controls and sophisticated applications, while being authored entirely in C#. At its core, the model separates the three responsibilities that repeatedly occur in modern web applications. The state holds all data and UI flags of a control and serves as the single source of truth. The view is a pure function of that state and generates the DOM without its own side effects. The service encapsulates all network access and returns norm...
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Location: 03 Cottbus, Deutschland
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WebExpress – A Moment to Recharge

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Sometimes even the most dedicated project needs a moment to breathe. WebExpress has reached exactly that point. The past weeks have been intense, productive and filled with both small and significant progress. At the same time it has become clear that a short break is beneficial, a moment for vacation, for renewed energy and for fresh ideas that will help move the project forward. During this period the active development will pause. No commits, no new features, no conceptual decisions. Instead there will be room for distance, inspiration and the chance to look beyond the familiar horizon. One thing is just as clear. WebExpress will continue. And it will continue with full momentum. After the break exciting and conceptually challenging tasks are waiting. These include the further development of central modules, new architectural considerations and the design of features that will make WebExpress even more flexible and powerful in the long run. Anyone who would like to contribute, sh...
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Location: Cottbus, Deutschland
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WebExpress 2.0.0‑alpha – A new beginning for the WebExpress versioning scheme

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Versioning is far more than a technical formality, because it provides orientation, makes developments traceable, and shows how a project moves within the tension between stability and progress. For WebExpress, this goal has not always been easy to achieve in recent months, as the project has been undergoing an intensive phase of restructuring. Although WebExpress was officially at version 1.8.0, that number hardly reflected the actual state of the system. Many core components were rethought, replaced, or fundamentally redesigned, and the architecture evolved faster than a traditional scheme could capture. To restore clarity, the versioning was reset. The current version 0.0.11‑alpha marks this new beginning and makes it clear that WebExpress remains in an active, experimental development phase. New features are emerging, existing ideas are being refined, and the foundation is gradually gaining stability. At the same time, this version number signals that the current scheme is only a t...
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Location: Cottbus, Deutschland
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WebExpress 0.0.11‑alpha – A New Release Milestone

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With version 0.0.11‑alpha, WebExpress reaches another important milestone in its development. The new release not only delivers visible improvements to the user interface and usability but also introduces profound architectural enhancements that sustainably strengthen the framework’s foundation. This release marks the beginning of a new development phase in which WebExpress consistently focuses on greater dynamism, flexibility, and user orientation. A central advancement is the introduction of user‑based permissions and sessions. This makes access to content and functions more precisely controllable, giving WebExpress for the first time a clear separation between user roles, individual sessions, and context‑dependent rights. This foundation enables more complex authentication and authorization scenarios in the future without requiring additional infrastructure. WebExpress also evolves visually. The new dark mode with intuitive toggle controls allows seamless switching between ligh...
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Location: Cottbus, Deutschland
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WebExpress 0.0.11‑alpha – Why WebExpress Moves from Static Values to Render-Time Delegates

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Web applications are inherently multi‑user systems that must respond to different contexts simultaneously, which made the need for a more flexible, render‑time evaluated property model increasingly clear. The transition from value‑based to delegate‑based properties in WebExpress represents a fundamental architectural advancement that changes how controls obtain their values. Until now, properties were assigned fixed values during control initialization, which worked well as long as those values were static. However, as soon as values needed to be derived from context at render time, such as from the current request or other dynamic runtime conditions, the previous model reached its limits. In these situations, developers had to derive custom control classes and override the render function to compute the required values during the rendering process. This approach introduced additional complexity and reduced reusability. With version 00.11‑alpha, WebExpress introduces a new property m...
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Location: Cottbus, Deutschland
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