Windows .NET Blog

Windows Live! Lives...

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:09:57 -0500

Microsoft is massively increasing its offerings under the Windows Live platform umbrella and it's worth a look if you're doing anything in the web space (who isn't these days).

Visual Studio.NET 2008 goes live!

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:41:40 -0500

Well, the long wait is finally over for Microsoft-technology developers. Visual Studio.NET 2008 (formerly code-named Orcas) was released by Microsoft on Nov 19th 2007. Microsoft immediately made the release available for download from MSDN for users with a current subscription. In addition to the IDE and other developer tools, an enhanced Team Foundation Server was also released providing a series of new capabilities to users.

Scrum: Are distributed teams an oxymoron?

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:50:27 -0500

As an Agile practice, Scrum puts great emphasis on frequent daily colloboration among the team members. As an example, the Daily Scrum is a 15-minute, daily, stand-up meeting where the Team comes together to discuss the all important 3 questions - what did I do/finish yesterday, what am I working on today, and what is holding me up? Often, Scrum teams work in large, open rooms where dedicated workspace is eschewed in order to work more closely together on common tables. Whiteboards are hung on the walls with notes, product backlog items (PBIs), impediments, the Scrum burndown chart, and so on. So it would seem that a team that needs or wants to be distributed outside of a single space is a no-can-do in Scrum, right?

Wrong.

TeamPlain v2.0 is unleashed

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:57:00 -0500

You may recall that Microsoft purchased TeamPlain v1.0 from DevBiz Solutions earlier this year. This is the web based front end to the Microsoft Team Foundation Server. It's much simpler and easier to use that the Team Explorer that comes with Visual Studio. And it relieves end users from having to install Visual Studio to interact with a TFS project. DevBiz was in the middle of v2.0 when they were purchased. Since this, all has been quiet.

Until now.

Windows Workflow Survey

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:19:05 -0500

Kavita Kamani posted a link to a Windows Workflow Survey now being conducted by Microsoft's Connected System Division. They're looking for input on potential improvements for future releases, but they're also interested in hearing from developers who aren't currently using Windows Workflow. The survey takes about 30 minutes.

PowerGUI: get-beta �newest

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:28:35 -0500

Recent MVP inductee Dmitry Sotnikov has released the latest beta of PowerGUI, the free admin console for Windows Powershell. PowerGUI.1.0.11.207 includes several improvements suggested by users, including the standalone mode script editor. Last August, Dmitry demonstrated PowerGUI for Microsoft's Jeffrey Snover on Channel 9. Jeffrey and Dmitry also contemplated future enhancements: Learn and Master Windows PowerShell with Quest Software�s PowerGUI. The PowerGUI site also features several additional screencam demos.

Bundles of Advice

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 16:34:59 -0500

The Microsoft Patterns & Practices team has been busy bundling their advice. So busy in fact, they've decided to package the advice along with software bits including software components, test harnesses, guidance documents, How-To tutorials, and so on. And you guessed it. They're calling these things bundles.

Moving up the Food Chain

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:56:03 -0500

The astonishing, and to me, profound thing about some the new .NET technology coming out from Microsoft is how we are now beginning to move away from low-level, implementation worries and toward enabling construction of applications from ever larger abstractions. In a way, and to me at least, this is what will get us to where we need to be to deal with ever larger amounts of complexity.

Time for bigger plates.

.NET Future Directions

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:44:30 -0500

So you've gotten used to .NET 2.0, and are probably reading up on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communications Foundation (WCF), LINQ, and so on. You're probably thinking that there's a lot of parts to .NET now, and you're drinking from the proverbial firehose.

Microsoft hasn't even gotten warmed up.

Scrum: How to be consistent about Team weighting

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:54:35 -0500

Occasionally I'll return to the theme of Agile/Scrum and cover more detailed HowTo's that hopefully will give you additional insight into applying Scrum to your development practices. This time I'll cover issues around Team weighting of Product Backlog items for a Sprint, and the challenges of keeping consistency in the weights themselves.

Agile 2007 is near

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 12:11:04 -0500

Hopefully you signed up for the Agile 2007 conference that is coming to Washington D.C. from August 13-17. If not, you're out of luck since it sold out. If you are going, be sure to attend the sessions on introducing Agile to a team and various means to ensure its success.

The Acropolis Leaks

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 15:48:22 -0500

No, not the one in Greece.

Smart Client Software Factory V2 Goes Live

Wed, 30 May 2007 14:38:39 -0500

The Microsoft Patterns & Practices team has released v2 of the Smart Client Software Factory which you can find here. This new release includes support for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), improved Offline support, improved guidance packages, newly enhanced support for Click-Once Deployment, VB2005 Support, and of course, many bug fixes.

Early Bird on Agile 2007 Conference

Fri, 04 May 2007 12:08:26 -0500

Just a reminder to everyone that the Agile 2007 conference to be held on August 13 to 17, 2007 in Washington D.C. has a Super Early Bird discount on cost if you register by June 1.

Microsoft WCSF Workshops Available

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:09:13 -0500

The Microsoft Patterns & Practices team held a workshop in Redmond on March 12 & 13 covering the Web Client Software Factory (WCSF). These workshops are a great way to learn about the latest P&P offerings from the actual team doing the development. If you get a chance to attend one, I highly recommend it.

The Microsoft team has made freely available the materials from the workshop which you can use to learn more about WCSF.

Also, Glenn Block has joined the P&P team at Microsoft taking over the Product Manager role from Eugenio Pace who moved on to the Architecture Strategy team. Welcome Glenn!