It's been a long while coming, and I lot have people have been asking for it.  The compatibility breaking change list for Version 2.0 (Beta1) has now been published up on GotDotNet  publicly.  See the default page at http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/changeinfo/default.aspx for further details.

There is a lot of good information up on this page.  First is a list of all the API's that were obsoleted in V2.0.  Second is a list of known breaking changes that you might encounter when running or transitioning your apps from V1.1 to V2.0 that we worked on as a team.  Third is a list of API Changes made between the two versions.

I hope this information is useful, don't hesitate to comment on what you feel we need more of, are missing, etc.  Looking forward to some good feedback.

Today I attended the Microsoft Research Group's Techfest.  It's like a giant science fair for the folk over in MS Research to strut their stuff and show us blue badges the latest and greatest in the world of technology.  Anyways, I can't say much other than I was VERY impressed. 

In particular, a lecture by Colin Campbell from the Foundations of Software Engineering group was particularly interesting.(http://research.microsoft.com/foundations/) One of the often forgotten areas of research is that of formal software testing practices.  I'm sure that everyone out there who's been through Electrical Engineering/Digital Electronics 101 courses knows about finite state machines and how you can model event driven scenarios as as set of transitions between various states.  In fact, I remember an interview question somewhere in which I was asked to model a Pop machine as an FSM in order to test it.  Anyways, the basis of using this model for testing comes from a language called ASML (Abstract State Machine Language).  The idea is that ASML provides a way to communicate a design non-ambiguosly, and that you can identify the behaviours of your component and generate tests from this specification.

Check out the free download: http://research.microsoft.com/fse/asml/   Cool stuff, eh?

This post is stated “as is” and confers no warrantees and guarantees no rights.

All too often I notice that we're slammed by the media as the “evil empire” who doesn't care tenderly for its customers.  I agree that we've made our share of mistakes in the past, but we're really trying very hard to change that misconception.

Here's your chance to help us help all you devs out there with compatibility issues.  We want your feedback!  I know a lot of you have PDC bits and have had a chance to upgrade from V1.0 and V1.1, and I've personally met quite a few of you out there who've come to Redmond for DevLabs or ISV labs.  Just today I got a lot of comments about a quick talk on some of our CLR compatibility efforts I gave at the VSIP Summit.  I'd love more, you know how to contact me :)  I also have a question - how would you folk like to be able to discuss compatibility issues you run into with us?  Would a newsgroup dedicated to CLR Compatibility be something you'd like to see?

This post is provided “as is” and provides no warranties and confers no rights.

I used to (and still do) play computer games.  I remember playing this flight simulator game as a kid on Windows 3.x which I totally loved.  I used to think about playing it at school and couldn't wait to get home just so I could sit my arse down and shoot down attacking cat-alien beings.  Anyways, I installed some poker game one day and it apparently copied over some newer .dll's that my beloved flight sim needed and everything broke.  That stunk.  Well, side by side seems to be a solution to this - just allow multiple versions of libraries to exist simultaneously and you'll never hit this “.dll hell” problem.

This is a great idea, but we often forget that there are drawbacks.  First, what if a new FX version has significant perf improvements?  It would suck if your app couldn't take advantage of this especially if there were no changes that would break its functionality.  Second, if you want to run against one and only one version of the FX what happens if someone doesn't have that version and doesn't want to install it?  Here's a scenario - you have this managed app that doesn't ship with the redist on its CD, but your laptop has a newer FX version installed. You're sitting in a hotel room in TimBuk2 and they only happen to have dial-up 'net access that's sporadic at best.  It would smell like old cheese to have to download the redist before running the app.  Wouldn't it be great to just have it work on the newer FX?

I could go on and on about this, but the truth is simple.  Though side-by-side is an important concept and can be a solution in some scenarios, the need for compatibility going forward is great.  I'm glad I can be part of this, it's a huge problem and we're on the forefront of trying to solve it.

Anyways, that's it for today's rant.  I'm going to eat sushi over in Redmond Town Center now as it's my friend's bday and on your bday you get to eat free.  They have lots of tuna there everytime I go and it's always pink and fresh.  Mmmmm... tuna ;)

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.