Where are the software factory Hands-On-Labs? and the VB.NET Guidance packages?
Why is taking us so long to release the Hands-On-Labs? What about the VB.NET version of the Guidance Packages?
I think this deserves a few lines of explanation, so here it goes:
The original hands-on-labs that we built for the SCSF and first used during the workshop back in March and then during TechEd, utilized a customized Guidance Package. This package was mainly based on the first CTP release of SCSF (March 2006) and was very simple (mainly built to support the Reference Implementation 1).
Also, these labs were really focused on the developer (someone using the factory to create an application), but not much on someone customizing the factory for his own environment (the dev lead or architect).
So, since we released the Factory on June 30th we are working on:
1. Changing the developer labs to use the standard guidance packages (easier to setup, etc)
2. Adding “customization” labs to show how to customize the packages to optimize the experience of the developers even more.
We are almost dev complete now and will post the beta labs as soon as we are done with those few details. Then on MSDN as soon as Test signs-off.
The VB.NET Guidance Packages will come after the labs, and we haven’t really started yet.
Finally, the main reason we have slowed a little bit is that we believed it would be better to spend about 50% of our developers’ time in monitoring the workspace and make sure the toughest questions are addressed.
For example, based on your feedback we have just published a new recipe, the Service Agent, which got cut in the release.