MSDN Flash
UK MSDN Flash
21 October 2009
Editor's Intro

Hello all,

It’s been a busy week for Microsoft and consequently this issue of the Flash is overflowing with announcements. The big news is Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 is now available and we have announced it will launch on 22 March 2010. Beta 2 has many amazing improvements over Beta 1 and includes great new functionality for Sharepoint and Silverlight developers, in fact for pretty much everyone. The best bit is we include Go Live rights to allow you to evaluate in production environments.

I know many of you are still using Visual Studio 2005 and are wondering why to move to Visual Studio 2008, never mind Visual Studio 2010. We spotted the move is difficult to justify because it is not easy to see exactly what benefits you might get from upgrading and that this is worsened by a number of “myths” which are widely held, but not actually true. Which is why the team and I put together this nifty Myth Busting Matrix which allows you to look at all three versions by your area(s) of interest. We’d welcome your comments and feedback on this release candidate version of the Matrix.

You will also notice that MSDN has a much improved user experience based on your feedback. The site is crisper, it’s easier to find information and we have more improvements still to come. Remember to download the Microsoft SDK for Windows 7 while you’re there.

There is also great news for MSDN Subscribers with the inclusion of complimentary eLearning up to 40 hours per year per subscriber and free usage hours of our cloud services platform, including Windows Azure, SQL Azure and .NET services once the products become commercially available.

The final announcement is that with the recent launch of Windows Phone 6.5 we also delivered the new Windows Marketplace for Mobile. If you are a mobile developer make sure you take advantage of the new services available.

In Fresh Discoveries we have two free security tools with great names - BinScope Binary Analyzer and MiniFuzz File Fuzzer. We also have lots of new and upcoming screencasts and webinars, plus some great blog posts from UK developers on WPF, SQL Injection, TDD and more.

Finally, the Technical Article is by my colleague Paul Foster and looks at how Microsoft used its own products to create another product – Visual Studio Team System. Have a great week.

Eric
Follow me and UK MSDN on Twitter. Follow/join the conversation via hashtag #ukmsdn
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Fresh Discoveries

Top Tip
Tip
Show Line numbers in Visual Studio (1min)
Why wouldn’t you? Hint ... error at line 42.
Downloads
Screencast
SQL Server 2008 Express How-to Guide Series
20 screencasts including backup/restore, profiling and upgrading.
Downloads
Screencast
Windows 7 New Features for Managed Code Developers
11 screencasts for making the most of Windows 7.
Downloads
Podcast
Show 10 on Memory Mapped Files, using Oslo and more (24mins)
The podcast for the last edition of the flash.
Articles
Blog
SQL Server 2008 Security - Policy Example
Detailed walkthrough of creating a policy for login passwords.
Articles
Blog
Introduction to IronPython and the DLR
Getting started with IronPython and why you should be interested.
Articles
Blog
Wpf Ninject Dojo: The Data Provider
Create a data provider for any object using the Ninject IOC container.
Articles
Blog
Wpf Drag & Drop behaviour
Control drag and drop functionality using a behaviour.
Articles
Blog
If you really must do dynamic SQL.
Tips on preventing SQL Injection Attacks with dynamic SQL.
Downloads
Screencast
Parallel Framework in .NET 4.0 (20mins)
Geometric Decomposition utilising the .NET 4 parallel framework.
Downloads
Video
Visual Studio Documentary interview with S. Somasegar (27mins)
Also view the actual documentary which spans pre-Visual Basic 1.0 to Visual Studio 2010.
Articles
Blog
New Innovation Showcase Blog
Architecting, designing and developing rich desktop and rich Internet applications.
Articles
Blog
200 page intro to Inversion of Control – actually 1 page!
A walkthrough of Inversion of Control.
Articles
Blog
Five part series on Test Driven Development
An excellent bed time read...
Articles
Blog
URL Routing with ASP.NET 4 Web Forms
Expose clean, SEO-friendly “web 2.0” URLs.
Downloads
Download
Two New Free Security Tools for Your SDL Tool Belt
BinScope Binary Analyzer and MiniFuzz File Fuzzer. Great names!
Articles
Blog
Web Application Toolkit for IE8
Simplify how to create IE8 accelerators, search providers and web slices.
Downloads
Video
Windows 7 embedded webinars
The start of a series of free webinars on Windows Embedded.
Downloads
Download
Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Released
The trial download is now available.


Register Now to Avoid Disappointment

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22 October, Southampton: NxtGenUG - Sebastien Lambla on MVC
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5 November, Leeds/Bradford: Office 2010 - Early Access by Black Marble  
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5 November, Leeds/Bradford: Silverlight 3 with Richard Costall
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11-13 November, London: Progressive .NET Hands-on Training Course with Gojko Adzic £1595 or quote SM1521-622945-MSDN for 10% saving

Technical Article


Deconstructing Visual Studio Team System

Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) is a great example of a solution implemented using the Microsoft platform. At the centre of VSTS is the Team Foundation Server (TFS). Through clever instrumentation business processes are measured, guided and enforced providing the business with reduced bureaucracy while obtaining the detailed level of oversight required in the modern marketplace. Extraordinarily high levels of integration and accessibility ensure everyday productivity tools and specialist developer tools can fully participate in application lifecycle management. While additional extensions, methodologies and new tools can easily be integrated into the solution as future projects or technology choices demand. It is also used by Microsoft product teams – usage stats below.

TFS takes advantage of several key Microsoft products and Windows Server features to deliver enterprise class project management and source control. Implemented in classic three-tier architecture, TFS uses SQL Server as the data tier with both an operational relational store and a data warehouse.

In the application tier, SQL Reporting Services and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) provide significant functionality and infrastructure. By utilising WSS, TFS gets version-controlled document libraries for all those non-source code artefacts typically built and requiring management during a software development project. Using the WSS document libraries enables the broad project team to capture project vision, requirements, design, test plans, deployment procedures, and training plans, in a wide variety of productivity tools, as suits the purpose or standards of the organisation. The document libraries are easily accessible through the Team Project Portals automatically built, using WSS, by TFS at the setup of a new project.

Specific TFS functionality is implemented in and exposed via the TFS Web Services to complete the application tier. The TFS Web Services provide to the client tier an API to TFS functionality, such as Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC). TFVC provides enterprise class source code version control, being built from the ground up to address the challenges of large development projects. TFVC uses SQL Server as its robust, scalable and high-performance storage mechanism.

To illustrate the scale and reliability of TFS, Microsoft’s internal IT department has published statistics on Microsoft’s own use of TFS. This data covers not just the internal deployment of TFS for Microsoft development projects but also Microsoft’s open source internet service Codeplex, which is built on top of TFS.

You don’t need to be using Microsoft development tools to take advantage of TFS. Microsoft’s eternal ‘wingman’ – the partner ecosystem – ensures other development tools, methodologies and technologies (such as Java development) can participate as first class citizens.

VSTS demonstrates so many great things. It delivers key functionality by reusing key Microsoft platform technologies, ensuring that users can use familiar productivity tools for ALM; but also, the IT Professionals who have to manage the infrastructure, get to manage familiar things. With consistent skills and reduced training costs all round, VSTS shows us how application solutions should be built.

Paul Foster
Microsoft
Blog: http://wotudo.net/


Flash Poll Question


Question of the month:

Which platform(s) do you develop for?

There are many platforms including Windows, Unix, Linux and Mac OS X. Which do you build applications for?

1. I develop just for Windows
2. Primarily Windows but also for other platforms
3. Some Windows but mainly other platforms
4. I am moving away from Windows
5. I don’t develop for Windows

To take part in this week’s poll question please visit my blog to submit your answer.


Results from last poll: 

How many lines of code did you write yesterday?

23% Nil, nada, zip, not a sausage
28% A smidgen – less than 100
21% 150 +/- 50
13% At least several hundred … but I’m not boasting
13% It is not the quantity it is the quality that counts
2% I managed all development using drag/drop/click

Flash Results

On the Horizon

Community event
Community event
19 November, Cambridge: Software East 5 Steps to Kanban 
Community event
19 November, Southampton: NxtGenUG Ray Booysen on WPF Patterns
Community event
25-27 November, London: Core NHibernate: Persistence with NHibernate hands-on workshop £1435 if booked by 26 Oct, or quote SM1521-622945-MSDN to save 10%
Community event


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