Wojtek's Blog

Code Generators: when can you live with them?

Tom Hollander just posted a note Code Generators: Can't live with them, can't live without them . His question is really about the ROI on developing code generators. Most of the comments, however, are about the specific case he is trying to address with

Inputs to Web Service Software Factory: Take 2

After my post " Web Service Software Factory; the Modeling Edition " Jason Hogg reminded me that I missed two significant inputs: EDRA and Web Service Security Patterns . I have added them to the top of the diagram below. EDRA, which stands

Application Management, Here I Come

After almost 5 years in patterns & practices, after participating in building EDRA, architecting GAX, working on three software factories, helping define the software factory platform, working on pattern languages, and doing other tings, I am moving

Web Service Software Factory; the Modeling Edition

Last week we (the Microsoft patterns & practices team ) released the Web Service Software Factory (or WSSF), the Modeling Edition ( WSSF MD ). When I looked back I realized that this factory is a cumulative result of an interesting chain of developments.

Patterns vs. Tooling

At the p&p Summit last week Jason ( The Hogg Blog ), Ade ( #2872 ), Dragos ( Dragos Manolescu's blog ) and I staged a discussion that was designed to polarize and divide the audience along "patterns vs. tools" line. Jason describes the event ( The

I have been tegged

I have been “tagged” by Jezz Santos , Daniel Cazzulino and J.D. Meier . There aren’t that many things about me that are either interesting or worth knowing J . So after searching my memory banks for a while, here are a few possible candidates 1. I almost

The First Three Software Factories From p&p

You may have noticed that in the span on one month the patterns&practices group ( p&p ) released three software factories. The first out was the Smart Client Software Factory ( SCSF ). It is a factory for developing WinForm-based, composable client

New Version of GAX

It has been a while since I posted a message, but this occasion is hard to pass; we will be releasing a new version of GAX. Since the last release in December we have been using GAX and GAT extensively on a number of projects including the Smart Client

Recipes Are Not Wizards

I was helping another friend design a guidance package, and I realized that he was thinking about recipes as wizards. This is not such a good idea, and may lead to misusing GAT. Recipes are simple animals; they get information from the user and/or their

Nothing Shows Up Without a Reference

I was helping Eugenio write his first guidance package. He asked me to show him a few things "so he did not have to read the documentation" J . He created a project template by copying one of the existing ones, rebuilt the guidance package solution (which

A Short History of the GAT Project

I though you might be interested in how it happened that PAG developed a VS extensibility mechanism. So here is a short, unedited, history of the project. The history starts before I joined PAG two years ago. When I came onboard Scott Densmore (yes, the

Introduction

I am a Software Architect in the PAG (Platform Architecture Guidance) group, which is behind most of the developer and architect content posted on the Microsoft patterns & practices site. If you ever need to say my names, here is a few helpfull phonetic