April 2005 - Posts
The team who has build Enterprise Library V1 is working on Enterprise Library V2! Enterprise Library V2 is targetting the .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005. Some changes to the currently included application blocks will be made and - of course - the use of some new Whidbey-related features will cause new best practices to be included. Scott Densmore blogs the roadmap of this upcoming release. The first community drop will focus on Logging, Data, Configuration & Instrumentation and it looks it will become available within the next few weeks.
Scott, Brad, Peter, Brian will be doing a webcast on Test-Driven Development: Test-Driven Development Using Visual Studio Team System.
Summary
Why test-driven development? Although developers have been unit testing their code for years, tests are typically performed after the code is designed and written. As a great number of developers can attest, writing tests after the fact is difficult to do and often omitted when time runs out. Test-driven development attempts to resolve this problem and produce higher quality, well-tested code by putting the cart before the horse and writing the tests before we write the code. This webcast demonstrates how you can use Microsoft Visual Studio Team System to implement test-driven development in your organization.
Jim Newkirk, author of "Test Driven Development with .NET", will be discussing how you can use Visual Studio Team System to implement test driven development in your organization.
Sign up here!
If you're building applications that make use of IIS, the portal www.iiswebcastseries.com is definitely worth a visit! It's a great resource for guidance, training, and information about upcoming webcasts.
Below an overview of upcoming webcasts:
May 2005:
Using Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) Web Sites and Services Management Pack with IIS (Level 200)
Are poor response times or unavailable applications costing your enterprise hundreds to thousands of dollars in lost revenue? You need the recently released MOM Management Pack. This management pack helps administrators and developers find out about problems before they affect clients, by mimicking the client experience with Web applications and Web Services. In this webcast, you will learn how the MOM Management Pack works and watch demos that show how it can help you maintain application health.
Understanding Exchange Outlook Web Access and IIS 6.0 (Level 200)Outlook Web Access (OWA) is a popular way for clients to access their mailboxes. OWA, which is part of Exchange, runs as a virtual directory or server in IIS 6.0. In this webcast, you will learn how IIS and Exchange work together to build this infrastructure and how Exchange 2003 uses several key ISAPI extensions.
June 2005 - IIS Debugging Series
IIS Architecture Overview (Level 200)
Before administrators and developers attempt to debug IIS it is essential that they thoroughly understand the IIS architecture. This webcast is an overview of the architecture that serves as a base on which the rest of the week's webcasts are built. We will also describe IIS and COM+ integration in legacy versions of IIS and how IIS 6.0 architecture is different.
Overview of Debugging Tools (Level 200)Debug Diagnostics Toolkit 2.0 with its easy-to-use interface will be the primary tool used to debug IIS application problems at Microsoft. This webcast outlines the key features of this new toolkit and compares it to the Windows debugging toolkit.
How do you define a crash? If you're not sure, this webcast is for you. We'll discuss the basic definition of a crash and cover major details such as the differences between native and managed code access violations. Learn how to attack crashes with the right tools and fix them the first time.
The Ins and Outs of Hangs in IIS (Level 300)Most administrators and perhaps even some developers would agree that they spend a lot of time troubleshooting situations in which IIS hangs. In this webcast we will define what a hang is in the context of IIS and discuss some of the most common reasons that IIS processes hang. You'll also learn how to use the appropriate tools to reduce the time to resolution.
July 2005:
IIS 6.0 Service Pack 1 Tracing: Inside and Out (Level 300)
Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 offers major IIS enhancements to the Enterprise Tracing for Windows. With nearly 250 events IIS 6.0 diagnostics allow granular monitoring for failures and provide lots of helpful information. Watch this webcast to see the future of diagnostics today.
Capacity Planning and Tweaking with IIS 6.0 and ASP.Net 2.0 (Level 300)Learn about ASP.NET 2.0 by taking advantage of tweaks and tips discovered in experienced ASP.NET installations. This webcast outlines various ways to optimize the newly released ASP.NET 2.0 with emphasis on information for administrators as well as some developer hints.
Rick, general manager of Visual Studio Team System, defines what team system is. This is the first of two parts. The second part of the interview with Rick, which you can download here, talks about the licensing issues surrounding VSTS.
Don't know what VSTS is? This will give you a great overview of what it is from the guy who runs the team.
[Via Jeff Sandquist]
This week I have been visiting a number of customers and ISV's who are building applications on the .NET Framework 2.0 with Visual Studio 2005. Most of them are heavily relying on SQL Server 2005 for data management and analysis. While all these customers are waiting for the beta 2 bits they are also very interested in knowing what will be contained in the Viusal Studio 2005 go-live license. As announced earlier, the beta 2 contains this go-live license. More license details will be announced beginning of next week.
During my visits I also received a number of questions on the use of XML in SQL Server 2005 and more specific on XQuery and XPath. For those of you interested in some good posts on SQL Server 2005 subscribe to these expert blogs:
Some great posts on XQuery can be found on Bob Beauchemin's blog. More XML Best Practices for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 can be found in this MSDN article.
From Monday on there are also a number of web casts (Level 200 & 300) on SQL Server 2005 coming your way. A complete overview can be found on http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/msdnsqlserver2005.mspx.
Oh ... and it looks like beta 2 is on its way to the MSDN Subscriber Downloads and betaone. Now you just have to find the right SQL Server 2005 build for Visual Studio 2005 beta 2. Not?
Some of the customers I visited lately, told me the that the SQL Server 2005 Hands-on Lab found in the Beta 2 Kit has expired. Well ... the good news is that there is a fix available on http://msdn.microsoft.com/SQL/2005/2005Labs/holupgrade.aspx. The only requirement to apply this fix successfully is a retail license of Windows Server 2003.
Upgrading Your Expired HOL Installation
You will be booting into safe-mode to upgrade the Windows installation from an evaluation copy to a retail copy. Note that if you have a retail key (an MSDN license, for example) that requires activation, you'll have to do that immediately after the upgrade is complete; there will be no grace period.
- Start the image and during the boot sequence press F8 to enter Safe Mode.
- Log into Windows.
- Load your CD or ISO image (ISO is much faster) for Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (Retail or Volume License Key).
- When the Windows Setup Wizard starts choose "Upgrade (Recommended)".
- Enter the product key if you are using a Retail or MSDN version of Windows.
- When the Setup Wizard asks, click No to decline downloading updated setup files.
- Click Next past any QFE warning message.
- Once setup is complete, you will need to activate Windows when you login. Note: it is possible your mouse will not continue to work. If this occurs, uninstall and then reinstall VPC additions from your VPC install media.
- Run Windows Update to reapply all patches. Also, you should install your own anti-virus client at this time.
Next Thursday, April 14th, I will be delivering a presentation on Test-Driven Development for the Software Testing User Group of TI/KVIV. This meeting will take place in the "Ingenieurshuis" in Antwerp, and will start 19:00 sharp. The exact address is Desguinlei 214, 2018 Antwerpen, Belgium (map).
The theme of the presentation is "Test Driven Development".
Abstract
Test Driven Development (TDD) is a way of writing code that produces clean, concise and well tested code. It is different than the way most people are
taught to develop code, and takes some time to getting used to. Test Driven Development is one of the most important disciplines of Agile methods.
In this session you will get an in-depth description on how TDD serves as a bridge between high-level application design and code design. You will also learn how to write unit tests employing test-first design and how these tests will help in simpler, clearer and more robust code. The session concludes by covering some tools, frameworks and techniques that will help you getting started with Test-Driven Development.
This presentation will be held in English. After the presentation a drink will be offered to the attendees.
This meeting is free of charge for everyone interested. Attendees should register! See you there!
When updating an assembly from one version to the next, it can be difficult to assess which changes will affect clients of the assembly. Generally referred to as a “breaking change”, altering an assembly can have dangerous side-affects which both irritate, and compound problems for users. At their minimum, breaking changes are problematic and frustrating. At their extreme, they mean that an application built upon the broken assembly will no longer function, therefore tying that consumer to your older assembly, meaning a) the client loses any and all benefits from using the new assembly, and b) you lose income from providing the newer assembly, which clearly is not what the client wanted.
Effectively, the decision to break an assembly paints your client into a corner: redesign their own Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to take advantage of the new assembly, or be stuck with the older assembly. One choice is costly to them, the other is costly to you. Neither is optimal.
It is useful therefore, to define what changes you deem ‘acceptable’ for your assembly. While all considerably breaking changes should be addressed on their own merits, a general framework for helping make the decision can only be good. [Via Brad Abrams]
If you are about to make a code change, and are uncertain if the change is breaking then you should definitely read this document. Especially if you're working in an environment where you don't control all client code this can be considered as good guidance!
Offered as a birthday present from Channel 9 to the community:
Thanks guys!
The Visual C# and Windows Forms teams are coming to Brussels! Sign up now for this free full day event covering Visual C# and Windows Forms enhancements in Visual Studio 2005.
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When? |
April 29, 2005 |
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Where? |
Kinepolis, Brussels |
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Speakers? |
Dan Fernandez |
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Daniel Fernandez is the C# Product Manager in the developer division at Microsoft. He has been with Microsoft since July 2001, most recently working as a Developer Evangelist in the Mid-Atlantic district. Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked as a developer at several consulting firms including IBM Global Services specializing in web-based and mobile application development. |
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Joe Stegman |
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Joe Stegman is a Lead Program Manager for the .NET Client Team which is responsible for the Windows Forms class libraries, the Windows Forms visual designers and ClickOnce deployment technologies. Joe has worked at Microsoft since 1998 and spent his first few years in consulting before moving into the developer tools space. During his time in the .NET client team he has focused on the visual designers and the Windows Forms data APIs. |
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Agenda? |
1. Windows Forms in Visual Studio 2005: An Overview |
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2. Windows Forms: An In-depth Look at Windows Forms in Visual Studio 2005 |
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3. Visual C# 2005: Language Enhancements in C# 2.0 |
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4. Visual C# 2005: IDE Enhancements for the C# Developer |
Don't miss this unique opportunity to get expert advice directly from the product team on how to build powerful C# & Windows Forms Applications on the .NET Framework 2.0. Register today!
See you there!
As you might have noticed … not a lot of blogging activity lately due to a very busy schedule. Let me wrap-up.
After solving our Authorization Manager issues at customer site we prepared an interim release of our application ... which should be deployed by now! This iteration took us 3 weeks and no big issues had to be solved.
Almost every night for the last two weeks I've been catching up with the overload of content on the upcoming new beta releases of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL 2005. I managed to go through a lot of presentations and HOL's on both products.
And last Wednesday and Thursday I've been busy backing up all the data of my laptop to DVD. Backing up because Thursday was my last working day at Compuware. Yes, that's right … after 6 years of consultancy on the Microsoft platform I decided to take the red pill. I'm going to Microsoft Belux to be a Developer Evangelist. If you want to know on the role of a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft check out this post by Jeff Sandquist. It describes well what it is all about.
So what will I be doing in the next months? A lot of things as you might have guessed. I list some of them:
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From tomorrow on I'll be closely working together with a number of partners and ISV's who are participating in one of the Ascend programs:
The Ascend Program provides Microsoft industry partners and customers with deep technical training, tools and hands-on labs to accelerate the process of migrating to next-generation technology.
It's my goal to help them as much as possible to successfully build solutions in the 2005 versions of Visual Studio and SQL Server before they get officially released. Hence why building relationships with those customers, partners and Microsoft product teams will be pretty important.
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I'll deliver on site presentations to customers and partners, at industry events and developer communities.
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Together with the rest of the DPE-team (Tom Mertens & Alain Leroy) I will be driving Broad Customer Connection programs in Belgium.<