http://blogs.msdn.com/agile/archive/tags/microsoft/default.aspxTags: microsoften-USCommunityServer 2.1 SP1 (Build: 61025.2)http://blogs.msdn.com/agile/archive/2007/07/02/intro.aspxTue, 03 Jul 2007 00:24:00 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:3664240gmelnik1http://blogs.msdn.com/agile/comments/3664240.aspxhttp://blogs.msdn.com/agile/commentrss.aspx?PostID=3664240<P>Hello, and welcome to my blog. I've posted an entry on TDD earlier today&nbsp;and completely forgot to introduce myself. Let me do it properly now....</P> <P>I am Grigori Melnik, a Senior Technical Product Planner with&nbsp;Microsoft <A class="" title=p&amp;p href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/practices/" mce_href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/practices/">patterns &amp; practices</A>. My current portfolio includes:</P> <UL type=square> <LI><A class="" title="Enterprise Library" href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480453.aspx" mce_href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480453.aspx">Enterprise Library</A>, a collection of application blocks designed to assist programmers with common enterprise development challenges (like data access, caching, validation, logging, security, policy injection&nbsp;etc.)</LI> <LI><A class="" href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/aa718948.aspx" mce_href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/aa718948.aspx">Guidance Automation Extensions</A> (GAX),&nbsp;a runtime for guidance packages, such as those included in <A class="" href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/practices/bb190387.aspx" mce_href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/practices/bb190387.aspx">Software Factories</A>,&nbsp;for automating key development scenarios from within the Visual Studio), </LI> <LI>and <A class="" href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/aa718950.aspx" mce_href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/aa718950.aspx">The Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT)</A>, an authoring&nbsp;extension to Visual Studio&nbsp;for guidance packages.</LI></UL> <P>I've taken over these from <A class="" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/tomholl/" mce_href="http://blogs.msdn.com/tomholl/">Tom Hollander</A>,&nbsp;the father of EntLib, who's done a fantastic job at&nbsp;taking EntLib to its current&nbsp;high levels&nbsp;of popularity (over 600,000 downloads in 2 years and a solid base of customers standardising their development on EntLib).&nbsp;Though Tom has embarked on a new adventure back home in Sydney, he is still very much connected and involved with EntLib and EntLib Contrib communities. I am glad I can lean on his sholder&nbsp;- thanks, Tom! </P> <P>In addition, I&nbsp;am involved&nbsp;with researching and revamping&nbsp;Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) and its agile instance. One of the tasks is to reconcile&nbsp;the rich body of&nbsp; engineering practices guidance&nbsp;with the MSF&nbsp;process guidance (not a trivial task which probably deserves a separate blog entry). </P> <P>I'd like to mention and thank&nbsp;colleagues of mine&nbsp;who&nbsp;made my "inauguration" to p&amp;p&nbsp;smooth and&nbsp;painless (so far :): Shaun Hayes, Rick Maguire, Wojtek Kozaczynski, Per Von Nielsen, J.D. Meier, Bill Loeffler, Don Smith, Glenn Block, Andrew Delin, Steve Elston, Mo Al-Sabt, Peter Provost, Ajoy Krishnamoorthy, Chris Tavares, Dmitri Ossipov,&nbsp;Victor Aprea, Bob Brumfield, Kim LaBreck. </P> <P>They, along with many others,&nbsp;form a great fountain of knowledge and I am honoured to be a&nbsp;part of this talented and capable team!</P> <P mce_keep="true"><IMG title="Microsoft patterns &amp; practices" style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 87px" height=87 alt="Microsoft patterns &amp; practices" src="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998572.PATTPRAC(en-us,MSDN.10).gif" width=320 border=0 mce_src="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998572.PATTPRAC(en-us,MSDN.10).gif"></P><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=3664240" width="1" height="1">p&amp;pmicrosoftintroGAXEntLibGAT