Microsoft .NET 2.0 Tools Evaluation (Part II- Update) - DSL, GAT, SQL 2005, Mobile 5, VSTS, Enterprise Library, Reporting Services, etc.

Here is an update on our progress with the Microsoft products and toolkits that we are considering for use on my current project. The first post is here.

Domain-Specific Language (DSL) Tools - DONE - Going with UML. DSL's have a great potential if used by the right people for the right things. Currently this would be a great overhead. In the future DSL's may serve a purpose in allowing a visual representation to configuring our product, but only after it has been institutionalized as a product, we are experts in DSL, and DSL tools from Microsoft have proven their effectiveness in the software engineering field. See this for more info.

Software Factories- DONE - Too far off in the future for too much consideration. The core practice does involve Product Line Engineering, so in the future we may be able to migrate over. This would include taking advantage of DSL.

Guidance Automation Toolkit- DONE- This will work great for restrictive development in the application development cycles, and for configuration of the core asset library. See this for more info.

Composite UI Application Block- DONE - This is a very thorough application block. It takes some time and some proof of concepts to ensure it's usability. It will also have to conform to your architecture. The team that worked on this block is providing great information on the block. See this for more info.

Enterprise Library .NET 2.0 release- DONE - Once again an excellent release from the EL Team.

SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition- DONE - Excellent integration for design purposes into VSTS and SQL Manager. We are using it as a local data cache on our PPC smart client application.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition 3.0 Merge Replication - DONE - We are using merge replication only if the client insists on it. Although merge replication has a great potential for minimizing the amount of development done in resolving concurrency issues with the database, it has proved itself overly complicated and not dependable with previous applications. The development effort will be less effort than it would be to resolve all the issues merge replication introduced. We are also opening up the doors to databases other than SQL for future releases, so merge replication is being avoided.

Visual Studio Team System Suite - DONE - We are using Developer edition of VSTS 2005. The advantages of using the suite where not worth the additional cost. Architect adds no value unless you are a System Architect (See this for more info), and the Tester version would only be good for us if we had a fulltime test team. We are using Sparx EA (see this for more info) to make up for the lack of modeling tools in VSTS.

SQL Server 2005- DONE - Just using and testing. This version's manager rocks compared to 2000 as well as its other enhancements.

Web Services Enhancements 3.0 for .NET - DONE - Because of the lack of support in the Compact Framework 2.0 on Mobile 5.0 we are not using WSE for anything. See this for more info.

Visual Studio Team Foundation Server - NOT STARTED - A possible replacement for the vault and an integration tool for project management.

Reporting Services - NOT STARTED/Looking Good - This will serve as a replacement to Crystal Reports which is currently being used. As mature as SQL 2000 Reporting Services were upon release there is no reason to not accept this change, especially for customers using SQL 2005 or for that mater users that use SQL 2000 which allows for free use of SQL Reporting Services with their SQL Server License.

Mobile 5.0 - DONE - Mobile 5.0 has a lot of great enhancements. They way the mobile market moves forward, we don't have much choice but to use Mobile 5.0.