New Team System Stuff - 2004-09-03
Are you using the latest release of Visual Studio Team System? Tell me what you think.
Here's an important tip for this release - if you have Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 installed, uninstall it before installing Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 Refresh. Also, keep an eye on the new Ask Burton page.
The .NET Security Blog has links to information on the release of .NET 1.0 SP3 & .NET 1.1 SP1:
.NET 1.0 SP 3 and .NET 1.1 SP 1 Released
Today we pushed .NET 1.0 SP3 and .NET 1.1 SP1 onto Windows Update as a Critical Update. You can also download the service packs from the MSDN download center.
A short time ago, I linked to a post from Ian White that speculated on whether Visual Studio Team System would provide a symbol server:
New Team System Stuff - 2004-08-25
Ian White has an extensive post on symbol servers, which comes in handy when profiling applications in Team System
It doesn't appear that this will make into this version of Team System, but we may publish an article on how to do so.
Posts like this one from Jon Box make my day.
Clarke Ching is curious to know if Visual Studio Team System embraces agile heart & soul:
Microsoft have embraced agile! Or, at least, they've built scrum-like management and control into their Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System.
Here's a ton of stuff for those interested in Software Factories and SOA...
Harry Pierson has a few posts on his blog about Software Factories that both good reads:
I presented Software Factories for the first time today and I think I did a pretty good job. We had some architects were in town from a new managed SI partner and they wanted to discuss modeling. They are (were?) an IBM partner, so they're a big WebSphere shop. They're also XDE users, so I laid out the Software Factories concept as well as the modeling tools that are coming in VS2005. They seemed pretty impressed. Of course, they're having what I expect is a typical experience with UML tools - they use XDE for documentation and communication only (i.e. UmlAsSketch). They don't even try to generate code from the models anymore.
I keep waiting for my hardcopy of Software Factories, and Keith wrote that it should hit the shelves on Sept. 15th. This means that it will be available in time for OOPSLA 04. I've blogged this before, but it's worth repeating that there is going to be quite a MS presence at OOPSLA this year.
Zooming In From High Levels of Abstraction
Denny Figuerres left the following comment on my last post:
[O]ne of my "wish" items would be a kind of editor that would be a merge of flow-chart and text editor so that I could view my function as text or as a kind of zooming diagram with more details as I drilldown. like when you use a map program, first you see an area and major routes, rivers, lakes etc... and as you zoom-in you see a smaller area with more detail. at some point you are down to a single line of code that is an expression of some kind.
I think this is a great idea, and is completely in line with Software Factories. Denny, what you're talking about is working at higher levels of abstractions.
And you can't mention Software Factories without mentioning Keith Short:
We are delivering a tutorial on Software Factories at the OOPSLA 04 conference, along with some other fun events with other presenters. Drop by and see us if you’re interested. Of course, the week before last, we were once again up against a last-minute deadline to get the material for this tutorial into the conference committee. Jack is also doing a keynote at the concurrent GPCE conference, and running a half-day tutorial with Krzysztof Czarnecki.
Speaking of architecture-related topics, here are some good SOA-related articles on MSDN's .NET Architecture Center:
.NET Architecture Center: Secrets of Great Architects (Architects JOURNAL)
All great architects have mastered the ability to conceptualize a solution at distinct levels of abstraction. By organizing the solution into discrete levels, architects are able to focus on a single aspect of the solution while ignoring all remaining complexities. Presents techniques for applying levels of abstraction to IT solutions, and compares this to other engineering disciplines.
.NET Architecture Center: Data on the Outside vs. Data on the Inside
Pat Helland explores Service Oriented Architecture, and the differences between data inside and data outside the service boundary. Additionally, he examines the strengths and weaknesses of objects, SQL, and XML as different representations of data, and compares and contrasts these models.
And if you're in the Washington, DC area, be sure to get this on your calendar:
Understanding Service-Oriented Architecture: Wednesday, September 15th, Washington, DC
Are you having difficulty wading through tons of whitepapers on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), a myriad of WS-nn specifications and how they fit together, various Microsoft implementation frameworks including ASMX, WSE 2.0, and Indigo? Are you confused about the differences between web services and SOA? If your answer to is "yes", you may want to attend a free seminar on Service-Oriented Architecture conducted jointly by Microsoft Corporation and Applied Information Sciences.
Jared Parsons, a developer on the Team Architect team ("Whitehorse"), is now blogging:
Hello, I am Jared Parsons. I work on the Whitehorse team in Visual Studio. I'm involved with the application connection diagram code gen/sync, and the deployment report.