Gold Coast : Visual Studio 2008

Using code analysis again…

marcsc — Thu, 14 May 2009 03:42:23 GMT

This week marks my 5 year anniversary at Microsoft. Five years ago, I stopped being a “real developer” and became an evangelist. Ok, I started with a short stint as a SQL / BizTalk Technology Specialist (what other companies call “pre-sales engineer”), but I’ve pretty much been focused on developers the whole time. I used FxCop back in my days of “real development.” As an evangelist, I spend lots of time writing demo code and samples. Today, I had a rude awakening that I’ve gotten a little sloppy. I’ve used “it’s demo code” as an excuse so many times. In many ways, I think it is a fair excuse. However, I think I have leaned on that crutch a little too long.

We are going through and cleaning up the OGDI codebase preparing it for CodePlex. Part of our internal review is to use code analysis to help us identify refactoring opportunities. Yea, Yea, Yea. I know. We should have been using it all along.

As part of preparing for our code review, I wanted to find out what else is available in the way of analysis tools that are free. I also wanted to review the capabilities in Visual Studio 2008. Here’s what I came across:

Writing Quality Code (various subsections on code analysis)

Code Analysis Team Blog

Code Analysis tools on MSDN Code Gallery

StyleCop Blog (Source Code Style and Consistency Tool)

StyleCop on MSDN Code Gallery

CAT.NET

I also watched this PDC session:

Improving Code Quality with Code Analysis

I’d definitely recommend checking out these resources and using the tools. I hope to learn a lot from using these tools. I also plan on forcing myself to use them as I build out demos, samples, and work on projects in the future.

Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3

marcsc — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:26:27 GMT

I’m not much of a SharePoint dev. I’ve taken a SharePoint development class, but that’s it. I keep telling myself that I am going to dig in to SharePoint more.

I know that many of the folks that attend the Developer Dinners are doing a fair amount of SharePoint development. I just came across the announcement for a the CTP of the latest extensions to Visual Studio 2008 for SharePoint. Based on my limited SharePoint dev experience, the new features in the extensions look like they will useful. Details at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/01/12/announcing-community-technology-preview-of-visual-studio-2008-extensions-for-sharepoint-v1-3.aspx.

DevDinnerOnDemand: Overview of the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

marcsc — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:31:44 GMT

With the .NET Framework 3.5 (the version native to Visual Studio 2008) coming up on its first anniversary, Microsoft is poised to release the first update to the framework in the form of Service Pack (SP1). This Service Pack is unlike your standard Service Pack, in that it will introduce new features/capabilities to the .NET Framework. Some of these features where originally planned to be in the initial release of the framework and others are features/capabilities added to enhance or further secure the core .NET Framework. The August Developer Dinner is going to focus on some of the new features as well as a few of the new enhancements, to give you an introduction of the improved capabilities of the Microsoft Developer Platform.

What you will learn:

This evenings presentation will be a running stream of demonstration focusing on new features and functionality coming in the new Service Pack for several of the key areas of .NET Development today, including Web Development (ASP.NET), Database Development (ADO.NET), Web Services/SOA (Windows Communication Foundation) and User Experience (Windows Presentation Foundation).

You will see demonstrations that will include:

Making data access easier with the ADO.NET Entity Framework.
Exposing your data access layer using ADO.NET Data Services
Building “Data Entry” Web-based applications faster than ever using ASP.NET Dynamic Data.
Making AJAX Applications faster with script combining and easier with built in support for handling browser history (i.e. back/forward buttons).
How to achieve up to 40% faster startup performance for your WPF applications and further improve the startup experience using a splash screen.
Reducing the time it takes to deploy your WPF applications using the New .NET Framework Client Profile.
Build services faster using enhancements in WCF.

View Recording:

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/keydet/US-Public-Sector-Developer-Dinner-for-Partners-NET-Framework-35-SP1/

The follow up post for this developer dinner is http://blogs.msdn.com/devkeydet/archive/2008/08/21/follow-up-developer-dinner-on-net-framework-3-5-sp1.aspx.

Improve WPF application deployment with the Client Profile Designer

marcsc — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:25:34 GMT

Sorry for repurposing content, but this one is easy to miss so I think it is worth it

“The Client Profile Configuration Designer is the designer for the .NET Framework Client Profile. It will allow developers to customize the end-user deployment experience. The customizations allowed using the Client Profile Configuration Designer are:

Customization of the user interface
- Customize the size, position, framing, background colors, fonts, etc. of the installation window
- Choose to display the license agreements required by the products being installed
- Choose whether or not to acknowledge the end of the installation process or immediately launch an application
- Choosing the products to deploy with your application
Choosing the products to deploy with your application
- Choose what prerequisites are required by the application and install them
Choosing how to deploy your application
- Application deployment can be done over the web or from Media for an “offline” deployment experience”

The Client Profile Designer was released as part of the WPF Futures release of the WPF Toolkit:

http://windowsclient.net/wpf/wpf35/wpf-35sp1-client-profile-config-overview.aspx

http://windowsclient.net/wpf/wpf35/wpf-35sp1-client-profile-config-part1.aspx

http://windowsclient.net/wpf/wpf35/wpf-35sp1-client-profile-config-part2.aspx

http://windowsclient.net/wpf/wpf35/wpf-35sp1-client-profile-config-part3.aspx

http://windowsclient.net/wpf/wpf35/wpf-35sp1-client-profile-config-part4.aspx

Helpful walkthroughs, labs, and Expression Blend support for the WPF Toolkit

marcsc — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:44:27 GMT

I’ve already blog’d about the WPF Toolkit & the WPF Ribbon Preview. One of the things that may not be obvious, is how to get started with the new controls. Buried inside the October 2008 Release page is a set of links for control walkthroughs, a nice Hands-in-Lab, and a helpful blog post explaining how to turn on Visual State Manager support for WPF in Expression Blend. They are real easy to overlook. I didn’t notice them the first time. They are below the download links, after the release notes. Yes, I am one of those guys that usually skips over the release notes and documentation and just starts tinkering. I’ll never learn my lesson:). I’ve provide direct links to those resources in case you missed them too!

DataGrid Feature Walkthrough

DatePicker & Calendar Feature Walkthrough

Visual State Manager Overview.

Ribbon Feature Walkthrough

Hands-on-Lab: "What's coming in WPF: DataGrid, Ribbon, & VSM"

Visual State Manager in Expression Blend

Free Coding Assistance Add-in for Visual Studio Developers

marcsc — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:19:41 GMT

Here’s a little tidbit I picked up after watching the Microsoft Visual C# IDE: Tips and Tricks session at PDC. DevExpress hass released CodeRush Xpress for Visual Studio. From their site:

“CodeRush Xpress is freely available to all Visual Studio 2008 developers and offers a comprehensive suite of tools that enable you and your team to simplify and shape complex code - making it easier to read and less costly to maintain.”

“Supported Features

CodeRush Xpress includes the following features.

Duplicate Line
Highlight All References
Increase or Reduce Selection
Smart Clipboard Operations
Generate from Using (TDD)
Quick Navigation Window
Quick File Navigation

In addition, you receive the following refactorings.

…

Add Block Delimiters, Combine Conditionals, Compress to Lambda Expression, Compress to Ternary Expression, Convert to Auto-implemented Property, Convert to Initializer, Create Backing Store, Decompose Initializer, Decompose Parameter, Expand Lambda Expression, Expand Ternary Expression, Extract Method, Flatten Conditional Inline, Delegate Inline Temp, Introduce Local Make Explicit Make Implicit, Move Type to File, Name Anonymous Method, Name Anonymous Type, Reverse Conditional, Split Conditional, Use String.Format, Use StringBuilder”

NOTE: I reformatted the list of refactorings to take up less real estate.

I have been using this add-in for a few days now and I’m already loving the productivity enhancements I am reaping. Go to http://www.devexpress.com/Products/Visual_Studio_Add-in/CodeRushX/ now and download it! You can’t beat FREE!

MUST HAVE: XAML Power Toys

marcsc — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:20:09 GMT

Depending on how many blogs you read, you’ll be seeing a barrage of “Silverlight 2 released” posts today. If you haven’t seen it already, make sure you check Scott Guthrie’s post about the release at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/10/14/silverlight-2-released.aspx.

Karl Shifflet just updated his XAML Power Toys to support the Silverlight 2 release. If you are doing any WPF or Silverlight development, then I HIGHLY RECOMMEND downloading the power toys. They greatly enhance the developer experience inside of Visual Studio. Here’s the first paragraph from Karl’s page:

“XAML Power Toys is a Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Multi-AppDomain Add-In that empowers WPF & Silverlight developers while working in the XAML editor. Its Line of Business form generation tools, Grid tools, DataGrid and ListView generation really shorten the XAML page layout time.”

RELEASED: Virtual Earth JavaScript Intellisense Helper for 6.2

marcsc — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:39:33 GMT

Thanks to the quick effort from Chris Pietschmann, I am happy to announce that we have an updated version of the Virtual Earth JavaScript Intellisense Helper that is in sync with the update Virtual Earth Map Control 6.2. You can learn more about what’s new in 6.2 at http://blogs.msdn.com/virtualearth/archive/2008/09/24/announcing-the-virtual-earth-web-service-and-virtual-earth-map-control-6-2.aspx.

UPDATE: I wanted to also mention a special thanks to Nicolas Boonaert. Chris wrote the updates, Nicolas performed QA/testing, and I packaged up the release.

If you aren’t familiar with the intellisense helper, here’s our description from CodePlex:

“The purpose of this project is to fully enable JavaScript Intellisense for the Virtual Earth Map Control inside of Visual Studio 2008.

Creating Microsoft Virtual Earth mashups and applications just got a whole lot easier. This JavaScript library enables Intellisense for the Microsoft Virtual Earth 6.2 (current release) AJAX control in Visual Studio 2008.”

You can download the helper at http://www.codeplex.com/VEJS/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=17699.

VS2008 SP1 WCF Tools: More details

marcsc — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:32:04 GMT

The WCF Tools team has a new post up, with screenshots, showing the enhancements they've made for Visual Studio 2008 SP1:

http://blogs.msdn.com/wcftoolsteamblog/archive/2008/08/22/vs2008-sp1-is-released-wcf-tools-new-features-with-snapshots.aspx

Technorati Tags: visual studio,windows communication foundation,wcf

FOLLOW UP: Developer Dinner on .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

marcsc — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:20:50 GMT

Thanks to everyone who attended! You can download the deck and links to the code here:

Normally, I make my actual demo code available for download. However, this time around, my demo code was based on the .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit. I blogged about it here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/devkeydet/archive/2008/08/18/free-training-on-net-framework-3-5-sp1-and-asp-net-mvc.aspx

The kit has everything I showed in my demos and more! I also promised to link to a bunch of good content out there on the various topics.

General

MSDN -> Data Platform Development

“How Do I?” Videos — Data Platform Development

ADO.NET Entity Framework

MSDN Library -> ADO.NET Entity Framework

ADO.NET Team Blog

Entity Framework Design Blog

Sample provider for Oracle

Third Party Provider Support for the Entity Framework RTM

Updated Entity Framework Samples for RTM

ADO.NET Data Services

MSDN Library -> ADO.NET Data Services Framework

MSDN -> ADO.NET Data Services

ADO.NET Data Services Team Blog

http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/UK/ Has a bunch of GREAT screencasts from Mike Taulty.

ASP.NET Dynamic Data

MSDN Library -> ASP.NET Dynamic Data

http://www.asp.net/DynamicData/

David Ebbo's blog (Dynamic Data and other ASP.NET topics)

WPF

http://windowsclient.net/wpf/default.aspx

What's New in .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (for WPF)

WPF DataGrid CTP Preview (Video)

cheat-sheet to some of the WPF 3.5 SP1 features..

WPF Control Toolkit (DataGrid CTP)

WCF

New WCF Features in 3.5 SP1

WCF Tools in VS2008 SP1: Introducing the new features and enhancements

Technorati Tags: .net framework,ado.net,linq,asp.net,ajax,visual studio,wcf,wpf

Free training on .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and ASP.NET MVC

marcsc — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:23:45 GMT

Looking for free introductory training on the .NET 3.5 SP1 & ASP.NET MVC? Head over to Jonathan Carter's blog to get all the details on the .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit RTM. What will you find? Information and links to download a kit that has presentations, demos, and labs covering what's new in ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET Routing, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, ADO.NET Data Services, ADO.NET Entity Framework, WCF, and Visual Studio 2008 SP1. If you've seen any of my 3.5 SP1 or my older "ASP.NET Futures" presentations, then you are already familiar with some of the content in the kit. I used an early release of the kit as the foundation for some of my demos. The kit has come a long way since I used it. I skimmed through everything last week. There is lots of good content in here!

Technorati Tags: asp.net,ajax,mvc,ado.net,wcf,visual studio

Looking for updated documentation on Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta?

marcsc — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:44:20 GMT

http://vs2008sp1docs.msdn.microsoft.com

I've found the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services Framework, and ASP.NET Dynamic Data sections very helpful lately.

Technorati Tags: .net framework,visual studio

Installing SQL Server 2008 RC0 & Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta on the same machine

marcsc — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:36:58 GMT

I've been having some issues getting my VPC updated to SQL Server 2008 RC0 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta so I can record a couple screencasts on using Virtual Earth with SQL Server 2008. I swear I read through the readme docs:). However, I could not get Visual Studio 2008 SP1 to install. I'm in the process of building a new VPC. I probably should have done this in the first place since my original VPC had so much beta software installed (including the SQL Server 2008 Feb CTP). Before I tried to install either, I decided review the readme again and do some basic Internet searching before I started. Turns out I should have searched around the first time. There is a known issue related to the order in which you install the two. I found the following entry in the forums:

http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3523799&SiteID=1

which states:

"SQL Server Compact installation fails when the products are installed in the following order:
1. Install SQL Server 2008 RC0
2. Then install Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta

The workaround for the issue is as given below:
1. Install SQL Server 2008 RC0
2. Go to the Add/Remove Programs
3. Uninstall SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Query Tools Beta and SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Beta
4. Install Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta
5. Install SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Query Tools Beta (SSCESqlWbTools.msi) from the folder - Servers\Setup on the SQL Server 2008 RC0 installation media (CD/DVD/Layout)
6. Go to the Add/remove programs and verify that the following are installed:

a. SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Query Tools Beta;

b. SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Beta;

c. SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Design Tools Beta

The reason for the failure is that SQL Server 2008 RC0 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta install the same version of SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Beta MSI's. If SQL Server Compact is already installed on the machine SQL Server 2008 or Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Setup has to skip the installation. There was a bug in the Visual Studio Setup and it has been fixed. The fix will be available in the released version of Visual Studio 2008 SP1"

Hopefully this saves some headaches for anyone who is trying to install both on the same machine.

Technorati Tags: .net framework,sql server,visual studio

FOLLOW UP: Public Sector Developer Conference (Nashville, TN)

marcsc — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:39:52 GMT

Thanks to everyone who attended. Sorry about the overflow into the hallways. There was much less dropoff between registration and attendance than we normally see. Some of the content isn't published yet. Once it is, we'll make sure to update this post with the appropriate links.

Building Rich Internet Applications Using Microsoft Silverlight 2

Building WPF Applications in Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend - deck, code

Data Access with Language Integrated Query

Overview of the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 & ASP.NET MVC - deck, code

We also mentioned some downloadable tools that folks were interested in using. Here are the ones I remember:

Visual LINQ (to SQL) Query Builder

LINQPad

If I forgot one, please let me know by posting a comment and I will update the post. Thanks!

-Marc

FOLLOW UP: Public Sector Developer Conference (Downers Grove, IL)

marcsc — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:52:03 GMT

Thanks to everyone who attended! Here are the links to the decks and code for the sessions. I don't have the content from the LINQ & VSTO sessions yet, but will update this post when I get them. However, I did promise to have a post up this morning.

How Visual Studio Team System 2008 will benefit your organization? - deck

Language Integrated Query (LINQ)

Overview of the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 & ASP.NET MVC - deck, resources, code (links to a post explaining how to get the code I based me demos on)

Office Development with VSTO and Office Open XML Format

If you are interested in other content, I have a list of recorded webcasts in My Recorded Webcasts list. There is a session similar to Joel's LINQ session that covers LINQ to SQL in a little more detail as well as other topics which might interest you. You might want to check out My Screencasts as well.

Technorati Tags: .net framework,visual studio,ado.net,linq,asp.net,mvc,wcf,wpf,vsto