Adventures In SoftwareLand

Post #8 – Updated Facebook Developer Toolkit for .Net

2009-11-10T00:37:39Z

V3.0 of the Facebook Developer Toolkit was just released on Codeplex.

Major Updates:

• Provide better doc and samples
• Provide support for Silverlight
• Provide support for ASP.NET MVC
• Provide improved support for WPF
• Provide improved support for FBML (FBML Server Controls)
• Provide a login control that can be used to replace the BasePage and/or MasterPage for Canvas Development
• Improve out of the box support for Extended Permission Prompts
• Refactor core source to improve maintainability and design
• Fix known bugs

Post #7 – Serializing Dictionary to/from XML

2009-11-10T00:08:05Z

I spent a bit of time searching for the magic of how to use XmlSerialize with the Dictionary type this morning and thought I’d share the easy-to-use result:

Assuming you have an object, let’s say it’s called “data” that is of type Dictionary<string,string>, you can save it to an XML file whose name is contained in the string “dataName” like this:

XmlWriterSettings settings = new XmlWriterSettings();
settings.Indent = true;
XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(dataName, settings);
DataContractSerializer serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(Dictionary<string,string>));
serializer.WriteObject(writer, data);
writer.Close();

(XmlWriterSettings is used to cause the resulting XML come out on human-readable multiple lines instead of all on one very long line.)

and read it back like this:

XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(dataName);
DataContractSerializer serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(Dictionary<string,string>));

result = (Dictionary<string,string>)serializer.ReadObject(reader);
reader.Close();

Post #6 - “First-time Experience” with the Arch Tools

2009-11-09T15:32:37Z

Cameron Skinner, Product Unit Manager, for the Visual Studio “Team Architect” group, has a great blog post about discovering the new modeling tools within Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1.

Check it out!

Post #5 – Great post by Dane Morgridge on Model First Development

2009-11-09T14:57:28Z

Using Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 to do Entity Framework Model First Development for Visual Studio 2008

Post #4 – Copying VSIX extensions to the Experimental Instance

2009-11-07T19:50:04Z

When using Visual Studio Extensions (aka VSIXs), sometimes you may want to use those Extensions when debugging in the Experimental Instance of Visual Studio.

However, when installing VSIXs via the Extension Manager or by double clicking on a .vsix file, they are only installed in the main instance.

To copy the extensions, select “Reset the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Experimental Instance” from the Start –> Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 SDK –> Tools menu.

Your main instance VSIXs will be copied into a folder for the Experimental Instance and the next time the Experimental Instance is started they will be installed.

Note: They may not be enabled to be sure to check the Extension Manager to make sure the ones you need are Enabled.

Post #3 (a bit delayed)

2009-11-07T19:11:00Z

While I "fell off the horse" of daily blogging, I'm climbing back on and will still do a post-per-day, it's just that I'm going to do 5 of them today :)

Today's post is about the "sticky toolbox" feature you can use with the UML designers.

So many times I've been creating a diagram by dragging and dropping the elements on to the diagram and then went back, one-at-a-time, to select the Connector tool to draw a line.

Turns out you can double click on the connector tool and then it will stay as the selected tool until you hit Esc or select something else. Thus you can connect multiple items without having to go back to the tool box!

Post #2 of NaWriSOMyBloMo (National Write Something On My Blog Month) - Visual Studio 2010 Extensions aka VSIX

2009-11-03T00:11:00Z

Yesterday I started a personal challenge of writing something on my blog every day this month.

Today's hint for Visual Studio 2010 is that it would be very wise to start coming up-to-speed on the new Visual Studio Extension mechanism known as VSIX.

You find and manage extensions by selecting the menu item: Tools --> Extension Manager

Information about managing extensions can be found at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd293638(VS.100).aspx

National Write Something Month...

2009-11-01T17:01:00Z

All over the world people have taken inspiration from the folks at National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and are creating other types of month-long creative self-challenges (vlogging, etc.) so I'm going start my own and see how well I can join in by declaring National Write Something On My Blog Everyday Month (NaWriSOMyBloMo), this post being the first step on the journey.

I've been working on a very cool project for the past 8+ months and, bugs willing, very soon I'll be able to not only talk about it but also share many of the learnings (aka early-adopter-arrows-in-the-back) which we've been accumulating (hopefully to save you, the reader, time/pain/confusion).

I'll start by describing the "problem domain": Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (download), the Visual Studio SDK (download) and the Domain Specific Language (DSL) SDK (download).

VS2010 Beta 2 is a very nice, solid, development tool. Of course, as it was being developed by a team of thousands, it wasn't always this way as the hill from Beta 1 to Beta 2 was being climbed.

These tools are loaded with new capabilities, some of which weren't even in Beta 1, and chock full of enhancements to the ones that were.

I'll start with two of my most favorite features in VS2010: A simple, wonderful user experience for doing something I do a hundred times a day:

Since I build things that developers use to build things, I'm constantly creating new solutions in order to test the tools I'm building as a user would. Thus the inclusion of the "New Project" link on the Start Page has finally inspired me to leave the Start Page turned on.
Adding the MRU (Most Recently Used) list of projects, especially the ability to "pin" a project to the list so it never leaves the Start Page, has also been an enormous time saver and pain reliever. I didn't realize how many clicks or keystrokes it took to go open the "project I just previously opened" until I could do it with one click. Very nice indeed!

You can also follow me on Twitter @michael_lehman or friend me on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/michael.lehman

Update on MicroISV Evangelism

2009-05-28T00:06:00Z

For the past 4 years I have had the enjoyable task of being the MicroISV Evangelist for Microsoft. Recently based on some organizational changes and task assignment realignment, I have begun to focus my attention full-time on other efforts and thus, effective now, am no longer tasked with MicroISV-related responsibilities.

If you are a MicroISV and are interested in working with Microsoft, I'd highly recommend checking out the BizSpark program and the Microsoft Startup Zone http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/pages/home.aspx

I may get the opportunity to attend SIC this year but it's looking increasingly unlikely. If I can swing a speaker slot at TechEd EMEA, I'll be visiting ESWC '09.

I thank all of the members of the MicroISV community for their interest and support and look forward to all your wonderful products which I, and millions of other Windows users, continue to enjoy each day.

Update on Microsoft Blueprints

2009-05-28T00:01:00Z

Most of you who read this blog know that for the past 3 years I’ve been driveing a project that was first called Project Glidepath, then Software + Services Blueprints and finally Microsoft Blueprints.

You may have also noticed recently that the Codeplex project where we were distributing the bits has been closed and wondered what’s up.

We are making some changes around Blueprints. Blueprints were an important incubation whose purpose was to explore process guidance and automation. They helped us gain a better understanding of requirements for this kind of technology through customer and partner feedback.

Recently, however, we took down the Blueprints project on CodePlex and the Blueprints home page on MSDN. We did this in order to focus on the incubation internally. This work includes determining how best to support process guidance and automation capabilities in a manner aligned with Visual Studio Team System product direction.

Since February, I also have moved from focusing on evangelism to spending my time working more closely with the Visual Studio team and am looking forward to seeing what comes from that collaboration.

Lang.Net 2009 is underway

2009-04-14T23:40:46Z

Missed it last year but I did manage to attend Lang.Net 2009!

Very interesting to hear what programming language designers and implementers are thinking in this brave-new-web-world.

Check it out for yourself: http://www.langnetsymposium.com or follow #langnet or langdotnet on Twitter

Technorati Tags: langnet,programming,languages,compilers,dynamic languages,DLR,Lang.Net

Multi Tenant Data Access (MTDA) S+S Blueprint Now Available

2008-08-25T23:53:00Z

The MTDA (Multi Tenant Data Access) S+S Blueprint is now online.

You can get more details by watching the Channel9 interview I did with Eugenio Pace: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/MichaelLehman/MultiTenant-Data-Access-MTDA-SS-Blueprint-Released/

Download either using the S+S Blueprints Manager or from codeplex: http://www.codeplex.com/mtda

Silverlight Blueprint for Sharepoint (Beta 2) available

2008-08-25T23:51:00Z

The Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint is now online on Codeplex: http://www.codeplex.com/sl4sp

This latest update works with Silverlight 2 Beta 2.

New CodePlex site: Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint now live!

2008-06-09T00:36:42Z

The new CodePlex site for the Sliverlight Blueprint for Sharepoint is now live!

Currently the code for this S+S Blueprint is in beta and we are actively revising it to work with the recently released Silverlight 2 Beta 2.

Head on over to http://www.codeplex.com/SL4SP for an FAQ, a link to a screencast about installation and discussion forums where you can ask questions to the developers and make suggestions.

Got myself a cool new gig - Senior Architect for S+S Blueprints and Software Factories!

2008-05-31T01:26:21Z

Just after I joined Microsoft, nearly 4 years ago, I had the opportunity to learn about a super exciting brand new(at least to me) concept called Software Factories. At the time I was fortunate to be working in a group that enabled me to spend a small portion of my time digging in to the factories concept. In October 2004 I got the chance to work on a full-day OOPSLA tutorial with Jack Greenfield and Keith Short who, along with Steve Cook and Stuart Kent, wrote the definitive book on the subject, and found that while there was a strong theoretical foundation there was very little implementation. After OOPSLA I started a small "skunk works" project to try to build something concrete but then put that on hold when I moved to Seattle in March of 2005.

For the past 3 years I have been on the Platform Evangelism Team as a Technical Evangelist and have been on-point for an interesting stream of technologies and audiences:

VSTA - Visual Studio Tools for Applications (the C#/VB next gen app scripting engine)
VSTS - Visual Studio Team System
Compilers targeted at the CLR
Shareware/MicroISV developers
Software-plus-Services Blueprints

as well as on-going work as part of the Channel9 team doing audio and video podcasting.

As part of the work I did as the MicroISV evangelist I created Project "Glidepath", a lightweight Software Factory system which delivered guidance, code and tools helping developers move their applications to Windows Vista. While this was a fun thing to do, building Software Factories wasn't really part of my job description!

A year ago I got the opportunity to lead an effort to create something we eventually named Software-plus-Services Blueprints. For this I adapted the Project "Glidepath" engine to enable a rich UX for delivery of the blueprint contents, essentially creating a branded collection of Software Factories helping people build S+S applications.

Now, due to a fortunate series of serendipitous events, (including Jack moving to the Platform Architecture Team, an unexpected re-org, etc.), this week I moved to the Platform Architecture Team and will finally be working directly with Jack responsible for both S+S Blueprints and Software Factories!

Final note, I am still the guy on-point for MicroISVs. I'll see everyone, as I have for the past 3 years, at the Software Industry Conference in Boston this July and at the European Software Conference in Berlin come November.