Unity 1.0 is released
So if all you are looking for is a simple IoC library, this might be for you.
Microsoft has released Unity up on CodePlex.
http://www.codeplex.com/unity/
Regardless of you feelings about the libarary (it has been hotly debated by the Alt.Net crowd already), there is one item worth pointing out: it was released to CodePlex and they are releasing with source code. There was also an extensive beta period with an almost agile like development cycle. That is a good thing.
That is not all, with the Asp.Net MVP framework going the same way, I do see this as a sign that Microsoft’s .Net developer division is opening up in ways that I’ve only dreamed about.
As for my actual thoughts on Unity — I don’t know, I’ve got a code review to finish with it first.
You all do review the open source products your using — right? Right?
Right!
I’m currently reading the NHibernate source code as we speak.
I have actually been investigating Unity for a few weeks now. Using it in a POC (proof of concept) application at work. I have also been evaluating it against Castle Windsor and Spring.Net. Before I get started I first need to mention, I am not going to get into an IoC debate on which Ioc is the best container because I personally believe picking an IoC container is a personal choice depending on the style and feature differences you are looking for.
With that said, Castle Windsor is the open source IoC that suited my needs the best (possibly not yours) and as I started working with Unity I was pleased to see that they patterned it more like Castel Windsor (I have no idea if that was intentional or not). One of the main reasons Unity sparked my interest is because I plan on integrating Enterprise Library 4 into the core infrastructure of my teams application framework. Unity coming from the P&P team is going to have a lot more integration/cohesion with EntLib then other IoCs.
So far I am pleased with what Unity has to offer. With EntLib 3 Microsoft introduced PIAB (Policy Injection Application Block) to give you some DI (Dependency Injection) capabilities. I was deeply disappointed in how PIAB made you implement DI. However, Unity begin a true Ioc is how Microsoft should of done PIAB in the first place. I believe Unity will be a success for the P&P team especially for the million or so EntLib users they have.
From what I’ve seen of Castle Windsor, StructureMap, and Spring.Net (I currently use Spring.Net), you really can’t go wrong with any of those.
Unity it nice, but it doesn’t have the full feature set that the other group does. But if all you want is a simple IoC then Unity is fine.
The one thing that we have done as well is wrap our IoC library (Spring.Net) in our own library. So now, in theory, we can switch to a different library without too much trouble.