Eric and the .NET Framework

Believe it or not – I’m off on holiday again

I really have got a taste for this thing called “holiday”  - hence I am off to do it again for a week. Have fun all.

WPF Datagrid is here – well, nearly here…

I posted in July on DataGrids (or rather the absence of them) in WPF. While I was on holiday last week, this snuck out - The WPF Toolkit on Codeplex.

The WPF team have split their work into:

• Toolkit – what they know they will release
• Futures – what they might release

The Toolkit includes a CTP of the new DataGrid control. Jaime Rodruiguez has done a 3 part blog on using the DataGrid. Enjoy!

Visual Basic and .NET Framework Versions

A couple of folks have asked me recently about Visual Basic versions and .NET Framework versions and how they tie up. I thought I would have a stab at a concept map to demonstrate the relationship.

Note that things got very different with the release of VB9. VB9 targets three versions of the framework and really brings to the fore the separation between the language/compiler and the runtime .NET Framework. What that means is new VB9 features (such as extension methods) will work just fine on a machine with only .NET Framework 2.0 (or 3.0) installed. Very clever stuff and one of the reasons VB9 (and VS2008) is the right choice even if your world is about .NET Framework 2.0.

NB: VB9 = Visual Basic 2008, VB8 = Visual Basic 2005, VB7 = Visual Basic.NET, VB6 = “the good old days” :-)

EDIT: By popular request (well – Michael asked) the same diagram without VB (a world without VB – surely not!)

.NET Reflector acquired by Red Gate

In simple terms, .NET Reflector is… a must have. It was developer by Lutz Roeder back in 2000 before he went on to join Microsoft. Red Gate have announced that they have acquired it and the good news is a free version will continue to be available (Thanks to Ian for the heads up)

There is more detail over at http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/opinion-pieces/the-future-of-reflector-/

I’m back…and Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 shipped

We had a superb holiday last week in Yorkshire and amazingly it was reasonably dry which was handy as the house has a tiny beck behind it which apparently can become “huge”. I am still catching up on stuff but I was pleased to see SP1 shipped last week. SP1 really is not a ordinary Service Pack – it is a significant feature pack which extends the capabilities of VS2008 significantly. IMHO it is a must have download for a developer building .NET Framework 3.5 applications.

The important downloads are:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack Preparation Tool Handy If you previously installed a beta of Service Pack 1.
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions with Service Pack 1 Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions with Service Pack 1.
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (Installer) Apply SP1 to Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit Which Includes presentations, hands-on labs, demos, and event materials which you may find useful.

P.S. I remember 10 years back standing up and saying to a bunch of developers “We know that we are abusing Service Packs by adding significant new features. We will work to stop that and create a new parallel capability called a Feature Pack”. At the time I remember thinking “blimey – that sounds hugely complex to do as machine installs will diverge significantly over time”. Oddly enough – it still hasn’t happened :-)

See you all in a weeks time

I need to crack on with some other work today before my holiday. I should be back on the blogosphere (!) on the 18th. In the meantime – have fun, cut great code and always make up before bed time…

Your advice needed – what should I do with this devx site?

Hi folks – I need your help. My extended team looks after the UK MSDN site and delivers you the MSDN Flash every two weeks (for which I am the new technical editor – and slowly finding my way). This has been our only “vehicles" for sometime now to help UK developers explore our technology.

However prior to my joining in July, the team was dabbling with a “sponsored site” over on DevX – Microsoft Developer Tools and Technologies. As it stands, there are 3 Microsoft sponsored sites. Two from the USA (RIA and Destination .NET – which is the US ISV team) and ours from the UK. The UK site apparently gets targeted at … folks from the UK :-)

I have been asked to take over as Technical Editor of the devx site BUT I am just unsure what to do with it. Things I am kicking around include:

• Rename it to something catchy?
• Brand it more clearly as UK?
• Make it more like a magazine/newspaper column – every 2 weeks I dig into a different theme or topic as a short article and at the same time significantly change the linkage on the page for additional resources etc?
• Simply make it a doorway to MSDN – for folks who prefer to surf around devx to be enticed over to MSDN?
• Make it a snazzier version of the MSDN Flash – hence update every 2 weeks with the Flash content with a little more detail etc.?
• Narrow the focus (e.g. as the RIA site does). Maybe data- LINQ, Data Services, SQL 2008 etc?
• Narrow the focus onto interop as devx has a wider audience?
• Make it a showcase for all the content my team produces – links to video, ppts, best blog posts etc?
• Something completely different…

Ultimately I like the idea that we have another way of talking to UK devs and in some ways it is easier to get content on DevX site than our own MSDN (don’t ask). Hence it is great that we piloted it. Now…what next…

Thoughts?

LINQ Overview concept map #2

Just started the day with a swift play with my original concept map.

Updated the list of events I will be attending/delivering sessions

Just a quick note to say I have updated my “Eric will be appearing” page. October is looking busy :-)

• 2nd MSDN Event Reading http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/bb905504.aspx for all MSDN events
• 7th MSDN Event Manchester
• 14th MSDN Event Birmingham
• 16th MSDN Event Edinburgh
• 22nd MSDN Event Bristol
• 23rd MSDN Event Exeter
• 24th MSDN Event London
• 8th, 9th, 10th Future of Web Apps in London http://london2008.futureofwebapps.com/ (likely)

Two tools I MUST find some time to try – Typemock and NDepend

I have had my eye on two tools for sometime. Both tools look extremely useful. Both tools have a very different focus. Both tools look hot!

Regrettably – both tools continue to be ignored while I spend time getting myself up to speed on the basics :-(

Anyway – would love to hear from anyone with experience good or bad.

Typemock http://www.typemock.com/

This allows you to isolate, stub or mock any class in your system. I like the quote:

“Holy crap, this thing is hot. In technical terms, you might call it the bomb-diggity. I haven’t been this stoked about a technology for quite some time...”

To my untrained eye, it looks very, very useful.

NDepend http://www.ndepend.com/

I have had a chance to play a little with this one and I was very impressed. Again a great quote:

“Once I realized the depth and breadth of the information I was looking at it, I was like a kid in a candy shop”

NDepend supports the Code Query Language (CQL) which allows you to really dig into your code base. E.g.

• Which public methods have more than 30 lines of code?
• SELECT METHODS WHERE NbLinesOfCode > 30 AND IsPublic
• Which classes implement System.IDisposable?
• SELECT TYPES WHERE IsClass AND Implements "System.IDisposable
• Which methods have been refactored recently and is not thoroughly covered by tests?
• SELECT METHODS WHERE CodeWasChanged AND PercentageCoverage < 100

But it is much more than that – you get a great GUI to go with it.

Patrick who wrote it even used it to analyze what changed in .NET 3.5 SP1. You will be pleased to know there were 636 new public methods and 57 new types :-)

My first concept map – LINQ overview

Well – my first using a tool inspired by Udi. Took…maybe 5 minutes. Very sweet. Clearly this could be exploded out into much more detail – but I have real work to do :-)

Is it time I went 64bit Vista?

My notebook (a rather nice Compaq nc8430) is in need of a major cleanup. Over the last 6 months I have installed many Beta (and Alpha) bits of software. Hence it has the odd “issue” :-)

We are about to enter a “most has RTM’d moment”:

• SQL Server 2008
• Visual Studio 2008 SP1
• .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
• Sync Framework 1.0
• etc

Which means I fancy doing a complete rebuild. However – is it time I switched to 64bit? Several of my colleagues have and after initial hiccups consider it a solid and viable option. They are not alone.

Hmmm… it certainly feels like that moment has come. But… still means a day of my life to get it all back up and I am holiday next week. Maybe later :-)

Wow – a concept map of “everything”

I was just skimming in FeedDemon and spotted this post by Udi on concept maps. Nasty at first glance – but have fun following the concepts around…

I particularly liked the distance between TX and OLTP :-)

What is really scary – is there is so much not on this. We live in a complicated world…

Anyway – that lead me to install http://cmap.ihmc.us/download/index.php for a swift play as I wanted to do something similar on a smaller scale.

Microsoft Sync Framework released

Ok – I will be honest, I forgot it hadn’t actually released (It is tough keeping on top of the staggered releases we have at the moment!)

This is a shameful cut and paste from http://blogs.msdn.com/sync/archive/2008/08/06/top-new-features-in-sync-services-for-ado-net-v2.aspx

Microsoft Sync Framework includes the latest version of Sync Services for ADO.NET.  A great deal of work has gone into this release and I thought I would take some time to point out some of the top new features in version 2 since our previous release.

• Peer-to-peer synchronization support:
  • Beyond the traditional hub-and-spoke synchronization support built into Sync Services for ADO.NET.  v2 now supports peer-to-peer synchronization.  The focus with this part of the API is collaborative applications. For example, in an application that allows users to share project notes, project team members often require a local copy of data that they can work with. When they have made changes, they can synchronize with another team member to exchange changes.
• Sync Services is now based on Microsoft Sync Framework:
  • Sync Services now uses Microsoft.Synchronization.dll. If you installed Sync Services by using SyncSetup.exe, this DLL is already installed. This enables Sync Services for ADO.NET to take advantage of all the features and capabilities built into the Sync Framework.
• Synchronize with devices:
  • Sync Services for ADO.NET 1.0 enabled synchronization between a server database and a SQL Server Compact 3.5 database on the desktop. Now, you can also synchronize between a server database and a SQL Server Compact 3.5 database on a device.
• Support for SQL Server 2008 Integrated Change Tracking:
  • If you are using SQL Server 2008, Sync Services for ADO.NET has the ability to take advantage of the new SQL Server integrated change tracking feature. This feature addresses many of the issues of custom-tracking systems and provides a straightforward way to track changes. Change tracking is also supported by the Local Database Cache in Visual Studio 2008 SP1. Developers can now specify that the Configure Data Synchronization wizard should enable SQL Server change tracking on the server and generate the commands necessary to select and apply changes to the server database. Unlike custom change tracking systems, SQL Server change tracking does not require any schema changes in the server database.
• Support for the new data types in SQL Server 2008:
  • Sync Services for ADO.NET has added support for a number of new data types including those added in SQL Server 2008.
• The ability to trace the synchronization process:
  • In distributed applications, tracing can be crucial because it enables you to troubleshoot issues that might otherwise be difficult to identify. Sync Services includes tracing for the client and server synchronization providers.

SQL Server 2008 is finished – break out the bubbly

SQL Server 2008 RTM’d yesterday (August 6th). It is already available on MSDN subscriber downloads http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx.

Express edition doesn’t appear to be up there yet.

Well done to the team.