Office 2010 RTM, SharePoint 2010 RTM, and Visio 2010 RTM are Now Available

Office 2010 RTM, SharePoint 2010 RTM, and Visio 2010 RTM are Now Available on the MSDN Subscriber site. Not sure how I missed this, but if I did, I figured others may have not know as well. I have just been to busy to read blogs this last week, and actually stumbled across them when I was looking for a different download in MSDN.

Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2010 Book Review

This is a pretty sweet book. There are a ton of features in Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010. This book does a great job of covering all of them that are related to Application Lifecycle Management. The book goes into enough detail to give you a good understanding of the feature they are covering. With the number of features covered to go into great detail would have made the book 5 times larger. I did not read any topic that did not have enough detail to give me a good understanding of the feature. The book is broken down into 5 parts. Architect, Developer, Tester, Team Foundation Server, and Project/Process Management. The book covers UML, using the Architecture Explorer, using Layer Diagrams, Unit Testing, Code Analysis and Code Metrics, Profi ling and Performance, Database Development/Testing/Deployment, IntelliTrace, Web Performance and Load Testing, Coded User Interface Testing, Lab Management, the Team Foundation Architecture, Version Control and Branching and Merging, Team Foundation Build, Reports, Portals, Dashboards, Workbooks, and Process Template Customizations. That is a ton of stuff!!!! The authors have a good writing style that makes the book easy to read. If you want to get to know Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010, this is a great place to start!!!

Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 is Live

Microsoft has released the latest version of the patterns and practices Enterprise Library which is now compatible with the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.

Overview (from MSDN Site)
Enterprise Library consists of reusable software components that are designed to assist developers with common enterprise development challenges. It includes a collection of functional application blocks addressing specific cross-cutting concerns such as data access, logging, or validation; and wiring blocks, Unity and the Interception/Policy Injection Application Block, designed to help implement more loosely coupled testable, and maintainable software systems.

Different applications have different requirements, and you will find that not every application block is useful in every application that you build. Before using an application block, you should have a good understanding of your application requirements and of the scenarios that the application block is designed to address. Note that this release of the Enterprise Library includes a selective installer that allows you to choose which of the blocks you wish to install.

Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 contains the following application blocks:

* Caching Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate a cache in their applications. Pluggable cache providers and persistent backing stores are supported.
* Cryptography Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate hashing and symmetric encryption in their applications.
* Data Access Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate standard database functionality in their applications, including both synchronous and asynchronous data access and returning data in a range of formats.
* Exception Handling Application Block. Developers and policy makers can use this application block to create a consistent strategy for processing exceptions that occur throughout the architectural layers of enterprise applications.
* Logging Application Block. Developers can use this application block to include logging functionality for a wide range of logging targets in their applications. This release further improves logging performance.
* Policy Injection Application Block. Powered by the Interception mechanism built in Unity, this application block can be used to implement interception policies to streamline the implementation of common features, such as logging, caching, exception handling, and validation, across a system.
* Security Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate authorization and security caching functionality in their applications.
* Unity Application Block. Developers can use this application block as a lightweight and extensible dependency injection container with support for constructor, property, and method call injection, as well as instance and type interception.
* Validation Application Block. Developers can use this application block to create validation rules for business objects that can be used across different layers of their applications.

Enterprise Library also includes a set of core functions, including configuration and instrumentation, and object lifecycle management. These functions are used by all other application blocks.

Read more about it here.

Download the help documentation here.

Download the Binaries and Source here.

CLR via C# Book Review

There are plenty books that show you what you can do with C#. This book shows how C# does what it does and tells you why. There is no better advanced C# book available on the market. If you want to learn the CLR, this is the way to do it. There is no better way. You will not find a better treatment of threading. This book covers threading in great detail. The author’s style of writing makes the book very easy to read, and he is able to present complex topics in an easy to learn format. The only part of the book I can’t stand is the Forward. There Jeffrey’s wife tells us that this is his last book. That would be understandable, but ashame. All the code in the book is in one solution and is easy to use. All in all, this is an absolute must read for any C# developer. The understanding of C# you gain from this book will take you too the next level, no matter what level of programmer you are today.

The Decision Model: A Business Logic Framework Linking Business and Technology Book Review

This book is a very interesting read. It is about a new type of modeling called the decision model. The decision model has the potential to add great value to the software development process. It is intended to bridge the gap between the business users and the technical team on any given project. This book does an excellent job of explaining the decision model by putting it into its proper context. The book also does a great job of showing how the decision model would integrate with common industry standard UML diagrams used today. The authors show how the decision model can be integrated with the traditional business process model using BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation), use case models, the TOGAF process, and the Zachman Framework. The major downside to the book is that tooling has not been developed to support the decision model. I did contact the authors and ask what tools they were using. They gave me the same list of the few listed in the book. IBM has a plug-in and New Wisdom has something in the works. Not having any tools available to make decision models will hurt the potential this book has for making a big impact on the current industry standards for gathering requirements. I have been trying to make a UML Profile in SPARX EA, but just can’t get the time to complete it. It will be a rather complete and should probably be created as a plug-in instead. If tooling, that is cheap tooling, becomes available I think the Decision Model has great potential, until that happens it is great theory, but that will be all it is.  SPARX EA and Visio templates will be a must for it to reach the masses that I deal with. Because the book does such a great job of explaining the decision model I have a hard time dinging it because of the lack of tools. It is very thorough and a very good read. The theory is sound and has a ton of potential. I highly recommend reading this book for the theory itself, and if modeling tools become available you will be a step ahead in the industry.

SPARX has Released Enterprise Architect 8

SPARX has released version 8 of Enterprise Architect. This tool is my right hand man. I am actually in this tool as much as I am in visual studio, maybe more. This tool has come a long way and offers some really awesome functionality now. The business rules composer is sweet.

Here is an overview of some of the new features in this release (from the SPARX site):

New User Experiences
•The new Structured Scenario editor lets you rapidly build use case analysis models that drive downstream development.
•Leverage your scenarios to generate acceptance tests, activity graphs, state charts and other behavior diagrams. Achieve maximum traceability by linking scenario steps directly to business rules, domain elements, glossary items and more!
•Create Workflow scripts for finely tuned change management controls. Complementing role based security, scripts can leverage user permissions, compare current vs proposed values and issue warnings for denied changes.
•Combine Workflow scripts and Model Search for a running list of personal tasks.
•Streamline the modeling environment easily for your specific role with the new Workspace Layout Manager. At the click of a button, switch between analysis, developer and tester roles or simply define any window layout that works for you!

New Tools and Technologies
•Execution Profiler adds timing information to analysis of executing apps (Windows native). Quickly report on the most frequently called functions and tasks that consume the most time.
•Introducing support for the Unified Profile for DoDAF and MODAF (UPDM).
•The new Keystore Service provides robust license management, to govern key utilization across your entire enterprise! Supports full logging, admin dashboard, keystore migration.

Lightning Fast Performance!
•Application start-up, model load, general editing, code import and diagram display - all tuned for high performance with massive scalability!
•'Load on Demand' supported for local EAP models.
•New DBMS index packs improve overall performance for extremely large server-based repositories.

Productivity Gains
•Enhanced Element Browser now includes Testing, Project Management, Structured Scenarios and Maintenance items, creating a central hub for dynamic model reviews and a context sensitive launchpad for appropriate actions.
•Dynamic Visual Filtering lets you highlight or hide diagram elements based on selected properties. Perfect for presenting 'as-is' and 'to-be' architectures!
•RTF Reporting includes new fields and sections, improved template editing and enhanced performance.
•Glossary Term auto-completion and intellisense suggestions save you typing and help improve consistency of terms across your project.
•The Source Code Editor includes syntax highlighting for VBScript and Jscript, line number toggling and improved management of unrecognised code segments.
•Improved Windows Vista/7 compatibility with better management of user settings and User Account Control.

Get it and read more about it here.
Check out some of the custom UML profiles I have created for it here.

Visual Studio 2010 RTM Available NOT!!!!!

Pitiful… no MSDN download available??? We used to be privileged and get it first.

Seems those days are long gone.

What was the 3 days of maintenance for???

What a clown show….

UPDATE: They are supposed to be posted at 10am PST according to a tweet by Scott Hanselman. Still consider it a clown show.

Pro WPF in C# 2010 Book Review

I have the first and second edition of this book (Pro WPF: Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 3.0, Pro WPF in C# 2008), so I was hesitant in buying this version. I had not destroyed the Pro WPF in C# 2008 book, like I did Pro WPF: Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 3.0, so I didn’t really need a new copy of the book. I am glad that I did buy it because there are plenty of new features covered in this version making it worth the purchase, at least to me. This version of the book has also been reorganized. Chapters have been moved and renamed to fit new functionality. Here is what is new in this release: --New DataGrid, Calendar, WebBrowser, Ribbon (separate download), and DatePicker controls --Visual State Manager --Easing Functions --Cached Composition (Bitmap caching) --Windows 7 taskbar and multitouch support Matthew has added content for all the topics listed above, Some of the highlights of the book I like: --The coverage of animation easing. --The new Windows 7 taskbar coverage. --His in-depth coverage of printing. --His Custom Elements chapter. --The new chapter on Application Add-Ins. --The chapter on using ClickOnce with WPF. --Everything is gone into in depth. This is not a brush over the topic book. --The usability of the code makes the book all that much more valuable. The book focuses on WPF only. It has a few pages on LINQ, but that i s about it as far as the rest of the .NET 3.5 framework goes. In other words, the book does not cover how to best use WPF in relationship to WCF, WF, or LINQ. This does not take anything away from the book because Matthew does not claim that the book does this. I only mention it because his ASP.NET 3.5 book does go into LINQ application integration. The downloadable code is very well organized and is very usable. I highly recommend this book to anyone getting into WPF with .NET 4.0.

Beginning WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4.0 Book Review

I know I said I would not consider using Windows Workflow until 2011 (Good-bye Windows Workflow Foundation see you in 2011) but I at least wanted to check out the changes. This book is the ideal book for that. It goes into enough detail to give a very thorough understanding of what is going on with Windows Workflow 4.0. The book is very well written and organized. It covers designer-based and code-based workflows, implementing SQL persistence, creating workflow extensions and custom activities, communicating with applications, long-running workflows, and workflows using WCF services. The downloadable code is well organized and very usable. All in all, this is a good book for getting into the guts of WF 4.0. It is a nice introduction.