.NET has a lot of IoC containers.  This is undoubtedly a good thing: diversification is a sign of strength in the ecosystem.  MEF is showing how specialization can be used to solve specific issues.  I'm going to try to set out one vision of how IoC containers should evolve.  This is not my opinion of how they all should evolve, it's simply my vision of what I would like from one of the many containers. I've argued for some time that containers are all about configuration.  If you don't believe that, then you should consider why Yadic isn't your...

I was recently reading a fairly detailed comparison by Andrey Shchekin of the various injection containers out there in the .NET space.  I found it interesting that the last feature he regarded as important was the ability to tell the container to mock a particular object.  Now, when I wrote an article about evaluating IoC containers, it didn't even occur to me to include this.  Now, Andrey includes many points that I haven't covered, like the fact that Castle hasn't had a stable release in well over a year, but on this point I think it's best left out....

I thought I'd write a bit about how I understand the philosophy of IoC containers.  I realize I'm actually building up to something that I started talking about a while ago.  I'm probably not saying anything that Martin Fowler didn't say before, but I have my own slant on it.  To start off with, I'd like to just review what we actually mean by various terms: Inversion of Control (IoC) is a general name for the pattern where an object isn't responsible for managing the lifecycle of the services it uses.  The simplest way to implement this (in .NET)...