Rob Caron

Five Years Later

Today is the fifth anniversary of this blog, and I'm sad to say it's been nearly 7 months since I last posted to it. However, it still amazes me how much traffic posts on this blog still get.

So much has happened over the past half-decade. Visual Studio Team System v1 was still over a year away back then, and Visual Studio Team System v3 is out in Beta starting this week.

If the blogging bug bites again, it'll probably be on my own domain. I'll update this blog if and when that happens.

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Follow Team System on Twitter

You can now follow Team System on Twitter: http://twitter.com/microsoftvsts

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Free Webinar on Managing a Multi-Team Project in Visual Studio Team System

I used to get questions about using Team System to manage multiple teams working on the same project. Next month (10/16), NetObjectives is holding a webinar (Webinar: Managing a Multiple Team Project in Visual Studio Team System) on that very topic:

Webinar: Managing a Multiple Team Project in Visual Studio Team System

Using the Implementing Agile Development Process Template for Visual Studio Team System 2008

Many Agile/Scrum projects have more than one team, but few VSTS Process Templates address the issues of managing multiple teams pulling from the same product backlog. The Implementing Agile Development process template provides the data, reporting and team communication features to manage the multiple team project successfully.

This webinar will discuss and demonstrate the following features of the IAD process template.

1. Work Item Support for multiple teams.
2. Team communication features including the Agile Team SharePoint sub-site and the Agile Team blog feature.
3. Agile Team reporting.

The webinar will also provide the basic information of how to download and install the IAD process template.

Attendees should have a basic understanding of the operation of VSTS/TFS.

Agenda

10:00 am - 11:00 AM PDT (1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT)

webinar itself

11:00 am - 12:00 PM PDT (2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT)

Q&A follow up (details given in webinar).

Webinar: Managing a Multiple Team Project in Visual Studio Team System | NetObjectives

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Why This Blog Sucks

Reading this list on What Makes a Good Blog, serves to remind me just how much my blog sucks these days. Once upon a time, I think most of the listed attributes applied to this blog. Ah, well. I'm still hoping to get back into the swing of it.

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Martin Woodward on Why Software Estimation is Hard

I'm so far behind on reading blogs that I no longer pretend to actively read them. That said, I was on Martin Woodward's blog today to check out his new site design and came across this post he wrote a couple of months ago on software estimation (Why Software Estimation is Hard).

Suduko is the closest analogy to computer programming that I can find for "normals" - i.e. people that don't code.  This only really works if the person does Suduko puzzles, but my wife does so it works in our house.  Suduko is a numeric analytical problem solving activity.  While there are tricks and techniques to solving some puzzles, there is a significant challenge and difference to each one. Looking at the puzzle, it is hard to know if it is going to be hard or easy.  You can get stuck down blind alleys and have to start all over. Also when you "get into the zone" you can often make surprising intuitive leaps that often defy verbal explanation afterwards. Finally, solving a hard Suduko puzzle quickly involves a fair degree of luck and depends on your state of mind at the time of trying the puzzle.  There is a great amount of satisfaction to be gained from solving a Suduko puzzle along with a high degree of frustration when you cannot solve one - you know that it must be possible after all.

Equating Suduko puzzles to programming challenges is an interesting idea, and it makes it easier to explain the challenges of software estimation to those who don't write code, but who are familiar with doing Suduko puzzles. This is a great post, Martin!

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Coming Soon: Microsoft Visual Studio Tips by Sara Ford

Last week, I had the privilege of writing the Foreword for Sara Ford's forthcoming book, Microsoft Visual Studio Tips, which is based on her popular Visual Studio Tip of the Day blog posts. Whether you're a veteran of multiple versions of Visual Studio, or you are using Visual Studio for the first time, this book is a terrific reference to help you save time and do more with Visual Studio. Part of the great story that accompanies this book is that Sara is donating 100% of her author book royalties to create a scholarship fund at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. For those who follow Sara's blog, you may recall that Sara's hometown of Waveland on the coast was almost wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (Hurricane Katrina and Waveland, MS).

You can learn more about the book on Sara's blog (Microsoft Visual Studio Tips Book Helps Hurricane Katrina Survivors Rebuild Lives), the Microsoft Press site (Microsoft® Visual Studio® Tips), or better yet, take my word for it and pre-order it on Amazon.com (Microsoft Visual Studio Tips).

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40+ Tips to Improve your Grammar and Punctuation

If you don't have your Strunk & White handy, this covers some of it.

Purdue University maintains an online writing lab and I spent some time digging through it. Originally the goal was to grab some good tips that would help me out at work and on this site, but there is simply too much not to share.

40+ Tips to Improve your Grammar and Punctuation | via Dumb Little Man

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Mickey Gousset - Visual Studio Magazine Online

My friend and Team System MVP, Mickey Gousset of Notion Solutions, is now co-authoring with Jeff Levinson the "Inside VSTS" column for Visual Studio Magazine Online. Congratulations, Mickey!

I would like to introduce everyone to a new author for this column -- Mickey Gousset. Mickey is a fellow Team System MVP, co-author of the book Professional Team Foundation Server from Wrox and an all-around great guy. Mickey and I will be alternating the authoring of this column. Enjoy! --Jeff Levinson

Read his first column on "The Red X of Death":

Can't access the Documents or Reports folder? Mickey shows you the two most common causes for this problem and how to correct them.

Visual Studio Magazine Online | Inside VSTS: The Red X of Death

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Over 30 Essential PDF Documents Every Designer Should Download

Found this post on The Graphic Design Blog over the weekend with links to a lot of great info:

Well it took me a lot longer than I had originally expected but I was able to track down the original links to more than thirty PDF documents that I have collected over the past couple of years. I have personally archived every one of these files due to the high quality of content. No matter what you call them; ebook, white paper, or resource they all contain information that no designer should go without. (In actuality there are more than 30 files however it was a good round number for the title…)

30 Essential PDF Documents Every Designer Should Download :: Positive Space :: The Graphic Design Blog

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Are You Smarter than a Sixth Grader?

In the US, middle school starts with Grade 6. How would seeing stuff like this when you were about 12 years old have influenced your decision to pursue software development as an occupation? I think back on the first computer course I took in the early 80s and remember learning BASIC with an Ohio Systems (?) minicomputer with dumb terminals and 8" floppies. This would've been cooler:

Microsoft Visual Studio Middle School Power Toy 1.0 is a software package particularly designed by Microsoft to help middle school students learn computer programming. It consists of the following five components:

• Visual Sort Designer Control is a supplementary teaching tool developed for middle school students to learn the basic concept, algorithm and implementation of the computer sorting. It supports bubble sorting and insertion sorting. It generates initial value automatically and demonstrates intermediate state of the sorting process, and can also generate sorting source code for both Visual Basic and C#.
• Visual Search Designer Control is an assistant teaching tool developed for middle school students to learn the basic concept, algorithm and implementation of the data structure search. It supports binary search and sequential search. It generates initial value automatically and demonstrates intermediate state of the searching process, and can also generate source code for both Visual Basic and C#.
• Visual Variable Declarative Designer is an intuitive variable declaration designer designed for middle school students. During the design process, not only do the students can declare various generic types of variables, but also generate the source code at the same time. Visual Variable Declarative Designer allows variables to be declared in a visual design method. Teachers in IT fields can use it as a good educational tool to make students understand the basic concepts of the variables declaration easily, such as variable name, access modifier, variable type, initial value and so on.
• Assistant Class Designer is a visual class designer designed for middle school students. During the design process, students can see the processes of adding classes, properties, methods and events. These processes generate the source code at the same time, and the corresponding modification can be reflected into the source code immediately. By using this class designer and code generator, teachers or students can easily create and configure complicated classes. Assistant Class Designer provides intuitive, interactive class design method, not only does it become an excellent teaching assistant to teachers in the IT fields, but also helps students to better understand the object-oriented concept, create classes and object-oriented applications. It supports many important concepts in object-oriented programming, such as class, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism.
• Visual Programming Flow Chart is a supplementary teaching tool developed to help middle school students to learn program control flow. It can generate flow chart of functions, and save it as JPG picture format. It can be easily ran from the integrated development environment (IDE) by simply putting mouse cursor in the function where the flow chart needs to be generated, and choosing the command. After that, you will get the flow chart of the source code, and you can also customize colors and other effects. This visual demonstration allows students to have an intuitive feeling about the flow of the source code, make them have clearer programming ideas and easily find the logical errors in the source code.

Download details: Middle School Power Toy

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Team System Preconference Course at PDC 2008

If you're new to Team System, or if you're ready to use Team Foundation Server for more than version control, you should consider attending the Team System preconference course taught by Brian Randell at PDC 2008: Get More Out of Visual Studio Team System 2008. Brian has been in and around Team System since the early days, and he knows his way around Team Foundation Server.

Get More Out of Visual Studio Team System 2008

Presenter(s): Brian Randell

This preconference will focus both on implementing best practices and avoiding worst practices when working with Team Foundation Server and the suite of client tools. Throughout the day you will cover end-to-end life cycle management. Begin with guidance on defining your team project, source code control, and project classifications system, tips for customizing your process templates and using work items to drive your teams progress. From there you will learn effective techniques for getting your builds set up and running, using quality practices and tools including unit testing, web testing, test publication, profiling and load testing. We close by covering how to move forward once a major milestone is complete. This session assumes familiarity with Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Client Tools; each section of the session will provide practical guidance so that you are getting the most of VSTS and you leave prepared for changes coming in future releases of Team System.

About the presenter(s):

Brian A. Randell is a senior consultant with MCW Technologies, LLC. For over 20 years, Brian has been building software solutions and educating his fellow developers. Brian spends his time teaching Microsoft technologies to developers, working with new and emerging technologies like Visual Studio Team System 2008, and consulting worldwide for Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, state and local governments, and small businesses. Brian enjoys helping people get the most out of their software. He does this through training for Pluralsight, and speaking at events such as VSLive!, Tech•Ed, and the PDC. In addition, Brian shares through the written word. Brian currently writes the Team System column for MSDN Magazine. He is the author and lead instructor of Pluralsight’s Applied Team System and Applied Windows SharePoint Services courses. You can reach Brian via his blog at http://www.mcwtech.com/cs/blogs/brianr.

PDC2008 | Agenda | Pre-Conference

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Templex - The Team Foundation Server Process Template Library

Interested in sharing your process template? Would you rather use one someone else created? Check out the Templex project on CodePlex, which will serve as a library of process templates for use with Team Foundation Server.

Set your templates free! Share and discover Team Foundation Server process templates and other goodies here.

This CodePlex projects serves as a repository for open source Team Foundation Server (TFS) process templates, work item type definitions and report definitions. TFS uses process templates to configure new team projects. Each process template includes the following:

• TFS Security groups and permissions
• Initial set of Areas and Iterations
• Work item type definitions
• Initial set of work items
• Work item querys
• MS Project Mappings
• Version control permissions and settings for check-out and check-in
• Project portal document library settings, including an initial set of documents
• SQL Reporting Services report definitions

Once a team project is created, the following configuration items can be imported, exported and modified:

• Work item type definitions
• Work item queries
• Report definitions

Templex - The TFS Process Template Library

via Microsoft ALM process templates site set up.

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Getting Started with Software Development via Facebook

Just found some really cool content on the Microsoft profile on Facebook for those learning to create applications for the Web and Windows using the free Visual Studio 2008 Express products. Sam used to work with me on my previous team. It looks like he's really enjoying his new gig.

Free Software, Free Learning: Visual Studio 2008 Express

At Microsoft the word 'Express' equates to 'Free' and Express Editions can be downloaded and used by anyone. With Visual Studio Express, you don’t need to be a seasoned programmer to explore your creativity. Check out the Coding4Fun blog for ideas…
Watch and Discuss

Podcast
Sam Gazitt discusses his favorite features of Visual Studio 2008 Express. This is the overview of VS but contains features that are not in the Express editions…there should be a non-pro version of this on the podcast site. I also cover popfly and samples that we ship as part of Coding4Fun.
(WMA 2MB) | MP3 (6 MB)

Getting Started
Jacqueline Russell walks through step-by-step instructions for downloading, installing and first project.My First Windows Application Video (WMA) or My First Web Application Video (WMA)

Program Now: Video How Tos
Create a C# WPF Application Video (WMV) | Article
Create a C# Windows Form Application Video (WMV) | Article
Create a C# Console Applcation Video (WMV) | Article
Writing Queries in C# (LINQ) Video (WMV) | Article

Facebook | Microsoft

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Can Process Improvement and ALM Really Improve Your Business?

Andrew Cook just tipped me to this webcast coming later this month. It's always refreshing to see a webcast presented by someone outside of Microsoft. It feels less like an echo chamber, and I'm more likely to hear something I haven't already heard. I'm registered.

The term Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is attracting significant attention from tool vendors, research groups, and industry thought leaders. Although proactively managing your application throughout the life cycle seems to be a simple concept, in fact there are seemingly innumerable ways to accomplish the goals of ALM. Coordinated toolsets, the Capability Maturity Model, innovative modeling techniques, and commercially available processes all provide pieces of this frequently misunderstood and often complex puzzle. In this webcast, we discuss the basic tenets of Application Lifecycle Management, describe what kinds of projects benefit most from ALM, explain how the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System supports this initiative, and examine why a repeatable, pragmatic software development process cannot be overlooked when implementing ALM.

Presenter: William F. Nazzaro, Chief Technical Officer, IconATG, Inc.

William F. Nazzaro is the vice president and chief technical officer of IconATG and has over 18 years of success in delivering enterprise software solutions for Fortune 100 companies. He has provided unparalleled services in organizational and project assessments, use-case training, use-case modeling, Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) adoption, Unified Process development, Agile Scrum development, service-oriented architecture, application architecture, project mentoring, and technical curriculum development and delivery. William has an accessible and down-to-earth speaking style, and he has provided in-depth talks on service-oriented architecture, Unified Process development, software development life cycle, agility, use-case modeling, and object technology.

Momentum Webcast: Can Process Improvement and Application Lifecycle Management Really Improve Your Business? (Level 100)

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Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds

One of the books I added to my permanent collection earlier this year is Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter) by Garr Reynolds. This was around the time I attended VizThink, which filled my head with ideas of how presentations can be more compelling and engaging experiences. In March, Reynolds spoke at Google and the video of that presentation is available for online viewing (Found via a blog I was reading last night, but I can't remember which one).

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