David Boschmans Weblog : Visual Studio 2005

Forrester Research says Team Foundation Server is a strong SCM performer and ready for prime time

David Boschmans — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:58:24 GMT

Forrester Research did a product-based evaluation of 11 leading SCCM solutions across 123 criteria: "The Forrester Wave™: Software Change And Configuration Management, Q2 2007".

Software change and configuration management (SCCM) solutions permit IT organizations to manage the changes that they make to software during development and maintenance. Forrester's product-based evaluation of 11 leading SCCM solutions across 123 criteria revealed that IBM is the front-runner in SCCM but that Subversion is the sole Leader in standalone software configuration management (SCM). Serena Dimensions comes close to IBM on current SCCM capabilities but has a less compelling product road map. Borland Software and MKS have well-rounded offerings, but neither stands out in the crowd; in contrast, Telelogic and CA both have strong appeal to narrower audiences. Microsoft's solution has matured considerably since our last evaluation and is well positioned to capture additional market share. Perforce and AccuRev are both Contenders in SCCM but Strong Performers in terms of standalone SCM; both are better in conjunction with separate change management solutions.

Microsoft has recieved permission from Forrester Research to distribute the report. The pdf file is available for download from the Microsoft site.

Forrester concludes that Microsoft Team Foundation Server is ready for prime time. Microsoft is listed among the strong performers.

"Where IBM is still the front-runner in Software change and configuration management (SCCM), Microsoft’s solution has matured considerably and is well positioned to capture additional market share", says Forrester in this report. If you're interested to read more on this, you can find a short version here and you can purchase the full version here.

Technorati tags: Microsoft Team Foundation Server, Visual Studio Team System, Forrester Research, Software change and configuration management

Take parts of the MSDN Library offline with PackageThis!

David Boschmans — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:23:57 GMT

Today highlighted on the MSDN homepage: PackageThis!

Created by the MSDN development team, PackageThis! allows you to choose documentation sets from the MSDN Library to save as HXS or CHM format files. Simply select nodes in the MSDN Library Tree View to package as your own local mini-library, or to build into your own library. Multiple languages are supported.

PackageThis is a GUI tool written in C# for creating help files (.chm and .hxs) from the content obtained from the MSDN Library via the MSDN Content Service. You select the content you want from the table of contents, build a help file, and use the content offline. You are making personalized ebooks of MSDN content. Both help file formats also give full text search and keyword search.
The code illustrates how to use the MSDN Content Service to retrieve documentation from MSDN. It also shows how to build .hxs files and .chm files programmatically.

Above the GUI of PackageThis! with the Windows Live branch below the Web Development section selected. From the Menu | File you can select "Export to Hxs/Chm file" to generate the Hxs or Chm file.

Note that the tool is still in an initial beta release, so it's worth checking out the issue tracker section.

Technorati tags: PackageThis!, MSDN Library, Visual Studio 2005

Family.Show: a new WPF reference sample

David Boschmans — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:57:10 GMT

Tim Sneath posted the first end-to-end reference sample on his blog. The Family.Show application - developed by Vertigo Software - is a genealogy explorer that allows you to create or import a family tree and explore, annotate or save it to XPS.

A couple of weeks ago I had installed a early internal build of the Family.Show application and at that time I was already very much impressed about the usability and the combination of features and design of this application. By now, it only became better!

Tim highlights some of the features in his blog post. Have a look here.

The good news is that the source code of this application is released with the quality level of a reference application. The goal here is to show best practices for the construction of an application and to try and include as much reusable code as possible that others can use both to understand the framework and to "borrow" for a real application.

Beside the source code there's also a what we learned session on the Vertigo site where the development team shares some lessons learned:

Check out our brief list of WPF and Expression Blend tips
Read detailed notes

Wondering how this all works?
Watch a five minute video of Family.Show in action, recorded by Scott Stanfield. If you will be at Mix07 in Vegas the next couple of days you might want to check out Scott Stanfield's session on the project:

"Family.Show": I See Dead People, with Windows Presentation Foundation

When: Tuesday, May 1 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM, Delfino 4005
Speaker: Scott Stanfield - Vertigo
Audiences: Designer, Developer
For a hobby that revolves around dead people, genealogy is remarkably popular: it's the fastest-growing scene in North America. And a perfect study for Vertigo's next Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) reference application for Microsoft. Our designers employed every trick in the WPF book (styles, resources, templates, data binding, animation, transforms) to present an innovative visualization of the classic family tree, freeing our developers to concentrate on behind-the-scenes features like XPS, printing, PInvoke wrapper for Windows Vista common dialogs, and Click-Once for WPF. See all of this with hands-on demos and our top-10 list of stuff to know about WPF and Microsoft Expression Blend. And, unlike the real-world case studies, you get the source code.

Technorati tags: WPF reference application, Windows Vista, WPF, MIX07

Branching Guidance for Team Foundation Server

David Boschmans — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:35:10 GMT

About a year ago at our Dev & IT-Pro Days 2006 Steven Wilssens delivered a session on advanced version control and branching strategies with Team Foundation Server.

Despite Steven was announced as a speaker this year, he just notified me that - due to an overload of work for Mix07 - he won't be able to make it to this years' Dev & IT-Pro Days 2007. With the event only a couple of days away this is very short notice. But we'll do what's possible to have another excellent speaker covering the topic.

Back to the original subject of this post: Team Foundation Server. Yesterday Jeff Beehler announced the availability (finally I would say!) of Branching Guidance for Team Foundation Server. A couple of highlights from Jeff's post:

"While the product documentation will tell you how each of our tools works, it doesn't provide insight into the best practice usage of each. The guidance that we recently released attempts to fill that gap in the area of version control and how to best work with branches."

"What you'll read in this guidance isn't some theoretical description of how things should work in a perfect world but instead has been pressure tested and proved to be effective through actual TFS projects. In fact, you'll find examples pulled directly from our own teams experiences as well."

Go get the branching info on Microsoft Team Foundation Server Branching Guidance from http://www.codeplex.com. This also means that the TFS Product Team is ready to take your feedback and incorporate it directly into the guidance.

Here's the high level overview:

Introduction
Parallel Development
Branching Defined
Creating Isolation in Team Foundation Server
General Branching Structure Guidance
Branching Strategies
Broad Areas of Branching Isolation
Creating Your Branching Strategy
Defining Your Code Promotion Model
Feature Crews: How Microsoft Does It
End-to-End Implementation Scenario
Appendix

Download the .pdf from the site or get started here.

Technorati tags: Branching, Team Foundation Server, code promotion, software configuration management

Guidance Automation Extensions/Toolkit Feb 2007 CTP to support Windows Vista

David Boschmans — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 01:04:13 GMT

Earlier this week version 1.2 or the February 2007 Community Technology Preview of the Guidance Automation Extensions (GAX) and the Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) was released to the web.

The Guidance Automation Extensions (GAX) enable you to run guidance packages, such as the Guidance Automation Toolkit or those included in Software Factories. You can use the Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) to author or customize guidance packages.
The Guidance Automation Toolkit is an extension to Visual Studio 2005 which allows architects to author rich, integrated user experiences for reusable assets including frameworks, components, and patterns.

Tom Hollander has a post outlining all fixes and improvements of this release but also detailing some known issues. The good thing is that the Extensions now install on Windows Vista with UAC enabled!

At the Developer & IT-Pro Days 2007 Jelle Druyts will be delivering a talk on GAX and GAT: "DEV301 - A Deep Dive Into The Guidance Automation Toolkit". He will be covering following topics:

Visual Studio Extensibility
Guidance Automation Toolkit
GAT Best Practices
GAT & Software Factories

The good news for the attendees is that Jelle just updated his slide-deck to reflect the changes of the February 2007 CTP releases. So expect an updated talk on GAT and GAX, right after the keynote!

Technorati tags: Developer & IT-Pro Days 2007, Guidance Automation Extensions, Guidance Automation Toolkit

Service Locator 2.0 for Enterprise Library

David Boschmans — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 23:51:38 GMT

I came across this post from Mark Seemann "Service Locator 2 Released". This post caught my attention as it was a while ago that I thought of it. The "service locator" mainly reminds me to the period I was still working as a consultant. Being a technical architect at that time I was deep into the J2EE patterns like the service locator.

Martin Fowler has an excellent read on Inversion of Control Containers and the Dependency Injection pattern, and how it contrast with the Service Locator alternative.

But back to the Service Locator 2. What is it and why would you use it?

Service Locator is an application block which integrates with Enterprise Library. It's a general-purpose, provider-driven abstract factory, which can be used to create instances of component servers, following the Service Locator design pattern. It supports configurable as well as run-time dependency injection.

If you're using any of the application blocks and the Enterprise Library than this is something for you. The 2.0 release of the Service Locator for Enterprise Library is a complete rewrite, targeting Microsoft patterns & practices Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0 - January 2006. The platform is .NET 2.0. The project files targets Visual Studio 2005.

The highlights of this release include:

Run-time injection. Service Locator 2 supports both static, configuration-based dependency injection, and dynamic, run-time injection. Static injection is the simple, specialized case where you only need to map from an abstract to a concrete type, but don't need to inject a particular instance of a concrete type. In some cases, e.g. when using dynamic mock objects, it is necessary to be able to inject instances that are first created at run-time. Service Locator 2 supports both cases.
Ease of use. It is easy to get started with using Service Locator 2: Just make a project reference to Service Locator 2, and start creating dependency instances using the ServiceFactory class.
Optional configuration. Depending on scenarios, configuration of Service Locator 2 is optional. Service Locator 2 uses a pipeline of strategies to create service instances. If a strategy can create the requested service without use of application configuration, no configuration is necessary. This makes it easy to get started. Configuration can be added later as necessary, which will always be the case if it is necessary to map from an abstract to a concrete type.
Integration. Service Locator 2 integrates with Enterprise Library, plugging in to the Enterprise Libary configuration application, and using Object Builder for its implementation.

Download the bits here from CodePlex and participate in this open source project.

Technorati tags: Service Locator pattern, Inversion of Control, Dependency Injection, Enterprise Library, CodePlex

Dynamically start and kill a workflow with Windows Workflow Foundation

David Boschmans — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 00:20:49 GMT

Serge Luca - who recently decided to make a move from Guidance to u2u - wrote an article on starting and killing a workflow with the Windows Workflow Foundation. This was published earlier today on www.msdn.be.

Here's the summary of the article:

The Windows Workflow Foundation is a programming model, a run-time engine, and a set of tools for building workflow functionality into .NET applications. Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is a core component of the .NET Framework 3.0 and can be used on Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003SP1.
In this article, we will focus on how to dynamically and asynchrounously start and stop a workflow from within another workflow. We will also take a look how to pass parameters to a workflow, create custom activities and finally we will have a quick look into the WorkflowRuntime Services.
The code samples have been tested with the RTM version of the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0.

Happy reading!

Technorati tags: Serge Luca, starting and killing a workflow, workflow foundation

Visual Studio "Orcas" March 2007 CTP is available for download

David Boschmans — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:42:54 GMT

... from the Microsoft Download Center.

Microsoft Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" is the next generation development tool for Windows Vista, the 2007 Office System, and the Web.

Visual Studio code name “Orcas” delivers on Microsoft’s vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality rich user experiences. This new version enables any size organization to rapidly create more secure, manageable, and more reliable applications that take advantage of Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System. By building these new types of applications, organizations will find it easier than ever before to capture and analyze information so that they can make effective business decisions.

The highlights of this CTP include:

The LINQ Project: this CTP represents a major milestone in the LINQ project.
VB 9.0 Language Support
C# 3.0 Language Support
LINQ to ADO.NET
LINQ To SQL Designer
LINQ over XML (XLinq)
System.Xml Bridge Classes added
LINQ to Objects API
ADO.NET vNext
Web
Client App-Level Services
C# Workflow Rules
XML
MSBuild
UAC Manifests in the Managed Build Process
IDE
CLR
Office
Team Architect
Team Developer
Team Test
Team Foundation Server
Visual C++

More details can be found here.

Downloads:

Microsoft Pre-release Software Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" - March 2007 Community Technology Preview (CTP)
- The downloads are rather big and consist of the Orcas base image (1,12 Gb but common for all Orcas CTPs) and 8 files of the differencing images (March CTP specific).
Microsoft Pre-release Software Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" - March Community Technology Preview (CTP) (Team Foundation Server - Self-extracting Install)
- This CTP is available as a Virtual PC image or as a self-extracting install
  - VSMar2007CTP_TFS_2PartsTotal.part1.exe (700 MB)
  - VSMar2007CTP_TFS_2PartsTotal.part2.rar (159.6 MB)
Microsoft Pre-release Software Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" - March Community Technology Preview (CTP) (Self-extracting Install)
- This CTP is available as a Virtual PC image or as a self-extracting install (7 files)

Technorati tags: Visual Studio Orcas, March CTP

SmartPart for SharePoint: now with AJAX support

David Boschmans — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 17:45:49 GMT

During last TechEd in Barcelona, Jan and Patrick delivered a session "Building Web Parts the Smart Way", where they showed the power of the SmartPart. As we launched ASP.NET AJAX during the conference - which resulted in an AJAX pre-conference and 7 AJAX related sessions - there was quite some interest from SharePoint developers in how to get ASP.NET AJAX to work with SharePoint. A lot of people have been looking into this. See Jan's AJAX-related blog posts for more resources. But this was something that wasn't covered during TechEd: Developers.

Last Thursday Jan took the time to build on the groundwork of Eric Schoonover and ASP.NET AJAX-enable the SmartPart. Read the how-to guide in his blog post and have a look at the screencast in which demonstrates the use of ASP.NET AJAX together with the SmartPart, from within SharePoint.

This often used technique will enhance the user experience of web parts running in SharePoint environments but it will also ease the life of web developers when enabling existing applications with ASP.NET AJAX.

Jan promised to do a full web cast on the "SmartPart with AJAX support" for the MSDN Belux web site. Watch our blogs for more news on the availability of the web cast.

Technorati tags: SmartPart for SharePoint - ASP.NET AJAX Support, ASP.NET AJAX

Evidence on Visual Studio Team System ROI

David Boschmans — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:22:04 GMT

If you're looking for some evidence on the ROI of deploying Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server than these 2 case studies on VSTS are some great evidence from and for customers, showing the high return customers can get by deploying VSTS.

These 2 studies include an ROI analysis- one which shows an ROI of 203% & a payback period of only 6 months for a global manufacturer and the other study which shows an ROI of 512% and a payback period of only 3 months.

Both case studies are now available on www.microsoft.com/casestudies:

Global Manufacturer
A global manufacturer deployed Microsoft Visual Studio Team System to improve the consistency and efficiency of internal software development,enabling it to support adoption of the widely recognized Capability Maturity Model for software development. This enabled the company to increase developer, project manager, and tester productivity while improving software quality.
- Key benefit areas:
  - Improved project manager productivity
  - Improved developer productivity
  - Improved tester productivity
  - Improved methodology adoption
Social Networking Web Site
A social networking Web site used Microsoft Visual Studio Team System to improve the productivity of its developers and project managers as well as to reduce software costs.
- Key benefit areas:
  - Improved developer productivity
  - Improved manager productivity
  - Reduced software costs

Other - more technical - case studies can be found here.

Technorati tags: Visual Studio Team System, Team Foundation Server, productivity, methodology adoption

Installing Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals RTM

David Boschmans — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 11:46:45 GMT

Gert Drapers reports that Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals - codenamed Datadude - has gone RTM and is now available on MSDN Subscriber Downloads.

Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals delivers a market shifting database development product that provides a foundation for managed database evolution through the use of an offline, visual studio project-centered source code control system together with a suite of tools designed to streamline database changes and help understand the impact of proposed changes. Schemas, DML and metadata can be versioned, unit tests can be created and executed to ensure quality, and comparisons can be made with test and production systems prior to deployment. Integration with Team Foundation Server helps increase the productivity of the database professionals by enabling them to become an integral part of the application team.

With Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals users can:

Take control of database change by leveraging an offline, version-controlled representation of the database which is the one true version of the database schema
Improve software quality by automating database testing using integrated unit testing and data generation features
Be more productive when making changes to the database using powerful T-SQL and refactoring tools
Deploy incremental updates using powerful comparison, build and deploy functionality for the database
Improve collaboration and communication between all team members through integration with Team Foundation Server

Following 2 downloads are available to install:

Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals - Trial Edition (English)
This image is a 19 MB download which can be installed on top of an existing Visual Studio Team Suite installation. Despite the installer is a trial it will detect that you have a full license instead of a trial license and do the right thing.
Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals - DVD (English)
This image is a 3.8 GB download and is the full product download.

If you plan to do a new install of VSTS you will need to install Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals separately as there won't be a new SKU that includes VSTE for DB Pro's!

More technical resources can be found on the Database Professional Team Center at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/aa718764.aspx.

Technorati tags: Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals, Datadude

MSDN Virtual Lab for ISV innovation

David Boschmans — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:36:00 GMT

As part of the ISV training series, you can take advantage of MSDN Virtual Labs. This series of hands-on labs are hosted by Microsoft—so there's no need to format hard drives or dedicate computers, and nothing to install. With 35, no-cost lab modules to choose from, you're sure to find the training you need. Each module includes a downloadable instruction manual and a 90-minute block of time in which to complete the module.

Check out Microsoft SQL Server 2005, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Windows Vista, Visual Studio 2005, and Visual Basic/.Net any time you want, without the hassle of setting up your own testing environment.

All links to get access to these labs at http://www.isvvirtuallabs.com/.

Technorati tags: The 2007 Microsoft Office system, Windows Vista, SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, Visual Basic/.Net

Software Development Lifecycle-in-a-Box training kit

David Boschmans — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 15:05:35 GMT

I picked this up from the Public Sector DPE Team blog: Microsoft will release in the next few weeks the second version of the Software Development Lifecycle-in-a-Box training kit.

The purpose of the 3‐Day SDLC‐in‐a‐Box training program is to provide Microsoft partners, consultants and customers with a complete overview and illustration of the Visual Studio Team System tools platform using a real‐world sample application and following the Basic Maturity Level of Microsoft’s Application Platform Optimization Initiative (APOI) model.
The goal of the SDLC‐in‐a‐Box Training Kit is to provide partners and consultants with a set of customizable training tools that can then be delivered to customers as Custom or SDLC training engagements. The training engagement will benefit the customer immediately by assisting in their understanding of VSTS and TFS and will also provide value to the delivering partner by generating leads for follow up services engagements.
The goal of the training program itself is to enable a customer to see how VSTS and Team Foundation Server can help in providing a more formalized SDLC or Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) process, while leveraging the current level of expertise, existing methodology and shorter project lifecycles. The training program and adoption of VSTS will ultimately aid in improving the customer’s productivity, quality and management of applications, without the burden of a large, enterprise‐scale TFS implementation.
The training is designed to span 3 days, but can be tailored to 1 or 2 according to the level of education already received by the customer, and their existing knowledge of VSTS and TFS.

What is the SDLC-in-a-Box?

A catalyst for other people’s training programs: we want this to help ramp you up quickly on how to use, train, consult and help others implement SDLC using Visual Studio Team System
An inspiration to take the SDLC Deep Dive: we hope that seeing SDLC implemented so simply through the eyes of VSTS, you’ll feel that you can do it too, using Visual Studio Team System as the SDLC tools platform of choice
A training kit for the savvy enthusiast: if you want to walk it through and teach yourself, it’s all yours!
A demonstration of third party integration: we work with tons of partners and just picked a couple to demonstrate

What the SDLC-in-a-Box is NOT?

End User training on how to use Visual Studio Team System or Team Foundation Server
Bug-Free: this is a work in progress and you’re getting it as we deliver it ourselves
An endorsement of any Partner Product: we’ll work with any and all partners to provide a customized version of SDLC-in-a-Box using their products
Supported by Microsoft: it’s simple; a couple of guys just want to pass along some examples and best practices and hope you learn and pass along your VSTS knowledge to others..you’re on your own

There will be included a ton of partner product integration, additional presentations and guides, and more information on Team Foundation Server.

Check out the web site at http://www.sdlcinabox.com.

Technorati tags: Visual Studio Team System, Team Foundation Server, SDLC-in-a-box

Project Glidepath gets WPF packages

David Boschmans — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 13:08:18 GMT

Project Glidepath has been updated. I just noticed through Michael Lehman's Project Glidepath blog that now Windows Presentation Foundation packages have been added. Download it here.

Project Glidepath is a Microsoft evangelism initiative. It provides you the step-by-step instructions for everything from how to get started with Windows Presentation Foundation to how to write and publish a press release. Project Glidepath delivers the workflow-based guidance, sample code, content and custom tools you need to create successful applications for Windows Vista including .Net 3.0 right inside Visual Studio 2005.

To install Project Glidepath run the msi's enclosed in the .zip package:

GuidanceAutomationExtensions.msi
This installs the runtime libraries for the Guidance Automation Toolkit which Project Glidepath uses to gain Visual Studio Extensibility.
ProjectGlidepathRepositoryManagerSetup.msi
This installs the Project Glidepath Repository Manager which is responsible for downloading, managing and delivering software factories.
ProjectGlidepathMicroISVFactorySetup.msi
This installs both the MicroISV Factory and connects your Project Glidepath Repository to the master Project Glidepath MicroISV repository so that you can download additional factories and packages.

Please open your Project Glidepath-based solution, right click on _ProjectGlidepath, select Update... then click on Synchronize Repository via RSS and these two new packages will be downloaded into your local repository.

Any questions can be posted on the Project Glidepath Forum at http://projectglidepath.net/blog/forums/default.aspx.

Technorati tags: ISV, Project Glidepath, Windows Presentation Foundation

Visual Studio Team System MSDN Chat

David Boschmans — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 22:45:46 GMT

Join the members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Team Editions for Architects, Developers, Database Pros, and Testers. In addition, discuss what's new in the latest Community Technology Preview (CTP).

Join the chat on Wednesday, November 8^th, 2006 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time.

Add to Calendar

Additional Time Zones

Technorati tags: Visual Studio Team System, Team Foundation Server, Team Editions for Architects, Developers, Database Pros, Testers