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3/19/2008 10:31:22 PM
As many of you know, FxCop is static code analysis tool that we originally wrote to ensure the .NET Framework itself adheres to the .NET Framework Design Guidelines . The tool as been integrated into Visual Studio as the "Code Analysis" feature, but we also continue to ship the stand alone FxCop download. Check out the FxCop team blog and download FxCop 1.35 from Code Gallery.
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3/17/2008 3:21:53 PM
Occasionally I get asked how big the .NET Framework is in terms of surface area for developers. As you might guess this is something we track. As you can see, in each release we are adding new functionality that make it easier to build .NET applications. The number of types in the .NET Framework is 11,417! Any guesses on how many types will be in .NET Framework 4.0? &# ... [ read more ]
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3/16/2008 5:47:47 PM
At Mix08, the Silverlight 2 Poster was a hot item given out in many of the session. If you didn't get yours or if you couldn't make it, you can feel free to download and print your own! [ JPG version 5.8MB] [ PNG version 6.5MB] [ TIF Version 19.9 MB] Also, note that Joe did a very cool DeepZoom version.
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3/12/2008 6:01:00 PM
One of the great things about Silverlight is that the controls are very skinable.. that is you can make them look just the way you want to! Corrina is the lead designer on the Silverlight controls... she has already gotten board with the (very cool) default skin we shipped at Mix08, so she cooked up a few others to keep things interesting . All the source is posted so you can easily include them in your own projects to make your Silverlight apps look cooler, or tweak and make yo ... [ read more ]
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2/28/2008 1:25:48 AM
I am already having a great time at the Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and Sql Server 2008 Launch event in LA… I am gave a very fun session on Visual Studio 2008 for Web Developers... It was fun to pull this together over the last few days (harddrive crash excluded). There is SO much good stuff for web developers in VS2008... From Linq , to CSS \HTML designers , to JavaScript debugging and intellesnse and of course the ASP.NET 3.5 support Ajax ( up ... [ read more ]
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1/21/2008 7:55:52 PM
I recently grabbed the ASP.NET Personal Web Site Starter Kit that we wrote for VS2005\.NET Framework 2.0 and opened it up in VS2008 to see how the new tool and platform could help. It was fun and painless to Ajax Enable the site with the new features in ASP.NET 3.5 and VS2008. Here is a run down of a improvements I have made. Download the full source code for this project VS2008 Can Target .NET Framework 2.0 First, I opened up the project in VS2008, ... [ read more ]
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1/12/2008 11:43:31 PM
A while back I blogged about the .NET Framework 3.5 Namespace poster... We made a few tweaks and updated it, including making it available in more formats. Download Links: Full XPS Split XPS PDF Tiled PDF Enjoy!
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1/11/2008 4:51:31 AM
Krys got his very popular TechEd Europe session on framework engineering posted . Framework Engineering: Architecting, Designing, and Developing Reusable Libraries This session covers the main aspects of reusable library design: API design, architecture, and general framework engineering processes. Well-designed APIs are critical to the success of reusable libraries, but there are other aspects of framework development that are equally important, yet ... [ read more ]
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1/4/2008 3:42:11 AM
Krzysztof spilled the beans ... We just started working on the 2nd edition of the Framework Design Guidelines ... Krys gives some hints on the kinds of things we will be covering .NET Framework 3.0 and .NET Framework 3.5 including LINQ and other cool new framework features. I would not expect the book until LATE '08, so if you were planning to buy the first edition, please go ahead ;-)
I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback.. what should we cover? Wha ... [ read more ]
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12/20/2007 3:34:26 AM
As I mentioned last month , VS 2008 fully supports building applications for .NET Framework 2.0... This is very important as it will take time for some hosters and IT organizations to fully deploy .NET Framework 3.5, but you don't want that to block you from taking full advantage of the cool features in VS 2008 . Today we released ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Templates for VS2008 . This release contains project templates for using Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Web Develope ... [ read more ]
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12/18/2007 4:12:00 PM
Simone Chiaretta is trying to gather some informal data on Ajax usage among .NET Developers . It is a very quick, four question survey… Simone mentioned he would be publishing the results on his blog shortly.
Please click Here to take survey .
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12/10/2007 6:35:25 AM
As I am sure you saw, we recently posted the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions ... I thought i'd do a brief introduction to some of the new features in this release by updating my mix07 demo MySilverlightTV... Download the full sample here MySilverlightTv(noVideos).zip (1.3MB) Note, you can grab the "Data\Media" dir from the original one if you all the cool videos for a demo. 1. Silverlight Support We updated the old <asp:Media> control.. it is now called <as ... [ read more ]
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12/8/2007 11:18:16 PM
We just announced that PDC 2008 will be in LA Oct 27-30... I just love the PDC... it is a HUGE conference and is very developer focused. My team is actively working on some great stuff that will come out right around the PDC... So folks on my team are already competing for a chance to go to the PDC and tell you all about it... I hope you can be there to hear it first hand! Mark your calendars and save the date. More information coming soon. http://msdn.microsoft. ... [ read more ]
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12/4/2007 4:55:35 AM
Chris Love , I long time friend of mine and an excellent member of the ASP.NET community recently published his first ASP.NET book... I think it will be great for anyone just starting out on ASP.NET, and there is enough depth to allow you to grow. I am told there is an ASP.NET 3.5 book coming along once Chris get's over his hangover from shipping this one ;-) ASP.NET 2.0: Your visual blueprint for developing Web applications Enjoy!
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12/2/2007 8:58:12 PM
They just recently posted my Web Cast on Silverlight in downloadable and streamable formats. It is a bit of a challenge to demo HD-quality video over live meeting, but I think you can get the general idea even if you can't get the full wow-factor from the video demos. Love to hear your comments and suggestions. MSDN WEBCAST: AN INTRODUCTION TO SILVERLIGHT (LEVEL 100)
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11/20/2007 9:48:44 PM
If you are a web developer just evaluating ASP.NET 3.5 and VS2008, I strong recommend you go grab VS2008 Web Express and the updated ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit . It is full of some really great AJAX controls for ASP.NET... It is a community driven open source project that Microsoft has put some full time developers on to seed. I love to use these controls in my application building and demos... I am sure you will to! Please check out the sample website page to s ... [ read more ]
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11/15/2007 6:28:00 AM
I thought I'd add my own MVC example to the great work that ScottGu and Hanselman have already outlined... I know folks are ready to get their hands on these bits and believe me the team is working hard to get them out in a public CTP as soon as we can.. In the mean time, you will have to settle for these teasers ;-) In this example, I am going to walk through building an RSS feed from data in a relational database.. My goal here is to give yo ... [ read more ]
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11/11/2007 9:53:19 PM
Kannan Sundarajan has written Rich Text Editor control using ASP.NET AJAX and shared it under the MS-PL license on CodePlex. It has a very rich feature set and Kannan hopes to enhance it further in the future. Since it is a CodePlex project you can report issues and make feature requests. Check out the live demo and see Kirti's blog for the full run down and some great screen shots.
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11/8/2007 8:39:51 PM
Good tools are essential to good engineering... Recently I ran across a couple of good tools that will help with Framework design and implementation. NDepends - is a tool that allows you to analyze your source code in order to get a grip on what is really going on so you can do large refractorings, reduce complexity, etc. Check out the online demos SubMain also has a cool that is effectively like FXCop, but it automati ... [ read more ]
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11/4/2007 3:20:08 AM
Many of you have asked for an update to the .NET Framework namespace poster for 3.5... Thanks to Paul Andrew , Kit George and many others, we now have it! See Paul's blog for more details... Download the full PDF to a color printer near you ;-)
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10/4/2007 2:36:05 AM
Krzysztof Cwalina recently posted about a new set of FxCop rules that making it easier to use Visual Studio 2008 to target .NET Framework 2.0 and .NET Framework 3.0... These rules let you know if any your code tries to call APIs that are only on your system and my not be on your client's system yet. I'd love to year what you think!
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10/2/2007 4:39:42 AM
I recently had a chance to do an interview on Silverlight and the general developer space... We talked about what Silverlight is, and some ways that Silverlight fits in to the lives of ISVs... We also talked about the differences between Silverlight and the full desktop .NET Framework and the best way to usage each... And even just a bit about Surface... Brad Abrams Discusses Silverlight and WPF (is my office really that messy ;-)) PS - Someone just asked ... [ read more ]
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9/5/2007 3:32:06 AM
I just noticed that Vance Morrison posted the source code to his latest project ( Hyperaddin for Visual Studio) on CodePlex. I have long thought that source code comments were not enough to explain what is really going on... often you need to refer the read to other methods or areas of the code. Well, luckily for me, Vance and gang saw the same problem and went out to solve it. Here are a few simple examples: You can refer to a function or type (or any other ... [ read more ]
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8/21/2007 2:28:29 AM
My second favorite Ajax library just added support for Silverlight. From this recent announcement it looks like Dojo is adding support for Silverlight in its 2D vector APIs. That is very cool to see! Dojo 0.9 Final Version Released DojoX high quality implementations of previously experimental features: gfx (portable 2D drawing), data wires, offline, storage, cometd, etc. dojox.gfx now includes Sliverlight support many more features and improvements than t ... [ read more ]
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8/17/2007 5:58:16 AM
Steve Marx apparently never gets tired of writing video centric web sites... he has done it again and it is very cool. I am impressed with the fact that there is so few lines of code (in fact there is more CSS markup than code).. this is due to the simplicity that Linq, ASP.NET 3.5 and Silverlight brings to the developers. Here is the the code and a screen cast . Steve uses a bunch of new stuff! Searching and paging via ListView, DataPager, and LinqDa ... [ read more ]
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8/6/2007 8:07:59 PM
A reader that works for Lufthansa sent me a link to another addictive Silverlight game.. this is a Silverlight based flight "horizon-simulator". Apparently it is more than a game... they plan to use it for one phase of pilot qualifications. Given how badly I did, I guess I will keep my day job ;-) Enjoy!
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7/31/2007 11:46:58 AM
What better combination could you ask for? Earlier I posted about Visual Studio in SecondLife .. I thought I'd remind you about the event today! If I make it to a WiFi hotspot in time, you may see "Darb" there.. if you do, please come up and say hi. Join Amanda Silver, Lead Program Manager in the Dev Div, tomorrow at the Visual Studio Island Theater in Second Life to speak about Visual Basic on Silverlight. Amanda's work involves the language design o ... [ read more ]
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7/31/2007 12:45:32 AM
In my post recently about VS 2008 release I mentioned that I'd love to see folks try out upgrading an ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 web application to VS 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5.. For those of you engaging in that quest, you might be interest in this excellent post from the Visual Web Developer team blog... Upgrading ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 Websites and Web Applications to .NET Framework 3.5 We'd love to hear your feedback!
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7/3/2007 6:43:13 AM
I just got the video for my talk at TechEd this year and I thought I'd share it with you.. For more information on the talk, please see: Silverlight, ASP.NET, Expression and Windows Server 2008 Download the full video I'd love to have your feedback and comments! thanks!
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6/29/2007 4:19:00 AM
Did you know that Microsoft is investing in Second Life? That is right... we recently bought an island and have developed it with some really cool stuff.
Check out the details here https://www.visualstudioisland.com/
I am all for new, cutting edge stuff, so I volunteered to do a talk in the brand new auditorium we build there on the island. Not sure exactly what I am going to say yet, or really how I am going to say it... any tips would be really helpful as I ... [ read more ]
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6/27/2007 3:32:12 AM
When I talked to ISV, they often just want to use the .NET Framework as an implementation detail of their applications.. they don't want their users to have to go to windows update or MSDN to download the framework, and they don't want to have some Microsoft setup UI popping up during the install experience of their application. For this scenario, we have a little known feature of setup where you can install it the .NET Framework silently.. that is with no-UI popping up at all. T ... [ read more ]
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6/19/2007 10:19:42 PM
I just noticed that James Dobson recently got the FFClickOnce support added as an official FireFox plugin .. The latest release includes localization support! Thanks James, this really helps the community out a lot! Before the plug-in, you could not really do much with a clickonce application in firefox... With the plug in you get the much more useful "Run ClickOnce Application"
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6/14/2007 3:55:02 PM
I just noticed that the Virtual TechEd folks recently published ScottGu's " A Lap Around Silverlight" talk. Watch (or download) it now BTW, @~30:00 did you get the joke from the audience? the "fruit box" is a macbook that shows up later in the talk ;-) Enjoy
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6/12/2007 1:50:37 PM
Daniel Moth has a good post describing .NET Framework 3.5 ... I though i'd share part of it here as it is likely better than one I could do... thanks Daniel. Our goal with the .NET Framework 3.5 was to make it very easy for customers to adopt while providing some really interesting new value. The "easy to adopt" comes from what we call the "Redbits".. There we are using the same core bits as .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0 (we just rolled in an SP1 to fix customer reported issues ... [ read more ]
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6/7/2007 4:02:21 AM
Oh, cool, I just learned that if I work fast I can have a blog post of mine featured prominently in Kathy's talk at TechEd, DEV318 - Windows .NET Client: Building Rich Client UI with the “ Acropolis ” Framework. Here is a camtasia of Kathy demoing Transitions...Noticed I published this on Silverlight.live.com with Jame's Live Writer plug in . See the video here: Using Transitions in Acropolis Also, we have on line docs! I love being ... [ read more ]
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6/5/2007 2:05:41 PM
Wow – there has been some really good buzz on acropolis in the last 24 hours… Reading over the blogs and stuff two interesting questions are popping out: Question: When are you shipping Acropolis!! Answer: As soon as it is ready ;-) Seriously, we are very early in the cycle here, we came out at Teched to get some early feedback and find out if we are going in the right direction. Acropolis will NOT ship with Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5… Rather it will ship as an “option pack” s ... [ read more ]
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6/2/2007 9:40:49 PM
The ASP.NET team is looking to fill some senior Program Manager positions and you might be just the right person. I would love to have someone who is passionate about the web’s potential, who is an expert in common web technologies such as Php, Rails, JSP, Ajax (and of course .NET), who wants to build amazingly great products for customers, who knows how to drive, lead and inspire teammates, who knows how to listen (and talk) to customers and partners. There is a change going on here and y ... [ read more ]
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6/2/2007 2:47:54 AM
I just noticed what I believe to be the first 3rd party commercial hoster of Silverlight content. http://www.discountasp.net/ is adverting support for Silverlight hosting... These even have a few cool demos up there showing Silverlight 1.0 and 1.1! daspstaff00.web120.discountasp.net/silver/video/default.html daspstaff00.web120.discountasp.net/silver/scrib/default.html daspstaff00.web120.discountasp.net/silver/Chess/default.html A ... [ read more ]
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5/30/2007 4:11:00 AM
One thing I love about blogs is the informal, “instant”, raw feedback it enables. While I would not bet my next 4 billion dollar product plan on the feedback I get on my blog, I certainly let it influence my, and my teams, opinions on a wide range of topics. So, can I buy you a beer and ask you a question?
What is your primary editor you use with you ASP.NET development? I know from reading the forums and talking to some of you at conferences that many of you experience ASP.NET ... [ read more ]
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5/25/2007 4:20:23 AM
Check out your referral logs.. notice a pattern? If your logs are like mine, a HUGE percentage of your hits are coming through a search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN)... Here is 3 minutes worth of referral logs from my blog... In a world where a good percentage of your content is dynamically created and displayed in Ajax or Silverlight, how can you enable search engines to find your data? Well, a bunch of folks across the web have been doing some thinking on this.& ... [ read more ]
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5/24/2007 3:40:00 AM
One of my favorite features in Orcas is the ability to leverage the ASP.NET Application services from any client application (ASP.NET, Ajax, WinForms, WPF, or even Silverlight!).. This allows you to do things like share a common membership, role management and profiles across a number of presentation tiers. It also enables very easy roaming user state...
Check out how easy it is to use the profile store... here I am using Windows Authentication, but of course you can use form ... [ read more ]
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5/23/2007 6:16:44 AM
A while back I talked about Bringing new life to your VB6 apps with the Interop Forms Toolkit and now they have shipped Version 2.0... If you have a VB6 app and you are looking to take incremental advantage of .NET, you should check this out. Here is a cool example project where they leverage the WinForms MenuStrip and ToolStrip in a VB6 application! Very cool.. I can't wait to see what you do with it!
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5/19/2007 3:22:36 AM
One of the reasons I love working in the developer platform space is that I get to see the amazing solutions people build with our product. I am very impressed with what the Popfly team has been able to create on top of Silverlight 1.1 Alpha in just a few weeks... Not only is it a cool app that is addictive to play with, but it shows what is possible with Silverlight 1.1.. Between it and TopBanna I think we are starting to get a peak at what is to come on the web ... [ read more ]
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5/18/2007 5:45:00 AM
FYI -- I just posted the demo code for my Mix07 talk ... It uses VS Orcas Beta1 , Silverlight 1.0 Beta and the ASP.NET "Futures" .
I'd love to have feedback and comments!
MySilverlightTV.zip [24MB] -- Without example videos
mySilverlightTV(WithVideos) [93MB] - With example videos (Update:I got a fix, should work now!)
Oh, and here is the video , slides , writeup , on line demo and demo steps .
Thanks again to Steve Marx for LOTS of support on the development a ... [ read more ]
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5/16/2007 10:00:00 PM
I am super excited about the ASP.NET Futures release we did recently. I think it shows off some cool new thinking in the ASP.NET space, for Ajax applications and of course Silverlight support.
I demoed much of this stuff as part of my Mix talk , but I wanted to highlight a few here for
ASP.NET AJAX
New functionality includes CSS selector APIs, navigation history support (Back button support), a utility for extracting resources from assemblies, and more. Ch ... [ read more ]
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5/16/2007 5:17:18 AM
Some customers have asked my how we create our API docs internally and what tools they can use... Some of you may have already heard about Sandcastle, but I thought I'd spread the word even more.. Sandcastle enables managed class library developers throughout the world to easily create accurate, informative documentation with a common look and feel. Internally we use Sandcastle to ship .NET Framework documentation and also documentation to http://silverlight.net/quickstarts/ and http ... [ read more ]
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5/7/2007 2:54:00 AM
At Mix I ran into Jeff Atwood who reminded me about a my post on the "Be More Visible" Sham . He also told me I should take a look at Jon Udell's post Too busy to blog? Count your keystrokes [via Jeff's blog ]
While I don't think every PM has to be a noteworthy blogger to have a successful career, I do think Jon's principle of conservation of keystrokes is an important one. By far the biggest problem I see on teams of > 1 is communication. Different peop ... [ read more ]
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5/5/2007 10:06:34 PM
I just noticed that they got the video for my Mix talk posted ... Silverlight: Creating and Delivering Amazing Video Experiences on the Web It is completely free! You don't have to have been an attendee to see it. Please take a look and let me hear your thoughts and feedback. Enjoy!
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5/2/2007 7:16:26 AM
I know many of you are following all the excitement here at Mix from home. I am super happy that they already have several of the sessions posted for live streaming or downloading. Here are a few that I think are worth watching first..
Mike Harsh : Deep Dive on Silverlight Media Integration
Mike goes super deep on the media support in Silverlight...
John Lam and Jim Hugunin : Just Glue It! Ruby and the ... [ read more ]
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5/2/2007 12:50:23 AM
Wow -- less than a day after they keynote we have the source code for the "Silverlight airlines" application posted. Check out David Anson blog on it which includes a live link and of course full source code ! Check it out and build your own! I can't wait to see what folks do with this stuff... please send me your sample apps!
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5/1/2007 4:43:00 PM
I had a great time in my Mix session today... there was great buzz in the room.
Silverlight download ASP.NET Futures download Live demo site [ Demo Steps ]
Here are a few highlights...
I started off talking about the importance of having your site "Look Great and Feel Great". In the demo for this section, I showed off I Expression Media Encoder .
What is really cool is that Expression also outputs the brand new ... [ read more ]
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4/30/2007 7:08:38 PM
Have you checked out the Mix Sandbox in the Sky yet? It is a free web hoster that has all the cool bits we are talking about here already installed. If you are here at Mix, it allows you to build, install and share YOUR work. If you are following the action from home , you can see what folks are building. Steve Marx just got the demo for my talk posted on the sandbox ... Go check it out! But please come to the talk to see how it is built ;-) (today ... [ read more ]
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4/30/2007 3:40:19 PM
I love helping developers understand our developer platform... one of the fun ways I get to do that is be at least a little bit involved in making some fun poster... We have done them for the BCL , .NET Framework 2.0 and .NET Framework 3.0 ... Today we started giving out this Silverlight poster. [updated the picture so it is more clear] If you are at Mix, please come to one of the sessions with "Silverlight" in the title and pick yo ... [ read more ]
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4/30/2007 1:26:32 AM
I just ran into one of the editors from O'Reilly in the halls at Mix and he told me that they just published a "Short Cut" on Silverlight. I have not read it yet, but Shawn Wildermuth is very plugged in guy and a proven author so I am sure it is great. Getting Started with Silverlight By Shawn Wildermuth April 2007 Pages: 62 Let me know what you think...
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4/26/2007 7:06:30 AM
A while back Matt , Bertrand and I filmed a .NET Show episode focusing on ASP.NET AJAX . The .NET Show: ASP.NET AJAX Extensions Several kind readers wrote in to suggest some "out-of-context words" for us to skillfully work into the conversation... I am happy to announce the final score.. Matt with a sly reference to "woo-hoo" got him on the board... Bertrand also seamlessly worked in "Transformers". ... [ read more ]
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4/24/2007 5:40:45 AM
The "shipping software 101" class at Microsoft clearly talks about how we are not done shipping the day the product hits the web (or the media is burned)... An ever increasing element of great software is continuous improvements. This support includes bug fixes , enhanced samples and starter kits , training videos , out of band value-add releases and tools and finally, updating the docs .
We get thousands of bits of feedback every week about the docs... I was very excited to see t ... [ read more ]
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4/20/2007 7:21:00 AM
Wow -- it is great to be done with Orcas Beta1 ... I can't wait to see what the feedback is like... As it would happen, today I had an "Orcas success story"...
Steve Marx is helping me with a demo for Mix and we just today moved it over from VS2005+ASP.NET AJAX+Silverlight to Orcas+Silverlight. In doing so Steve "touched up" a few of the lines of code I wrote to take advantage of Orcas. Here is one such example.... I needed to enumerate all the items in a da ... [ read more ]
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4/19/2007 2:05:56 AM
It was very cool to run across one of the creators of Paint.NET (a very cool replacement for window's paint app written in managed code) on DotNetRocks . Rick Brewster recently joined the development team in my group and you will hear more about what he is working on now in a few months -- stay tuned! Anyway, I just stuck the show on my media player, I hope you do the same!
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4/17/2007 3:32:49 AM
We just finished a very interesting case study on ClickOnce right here at Microsoft. The study covers our people-and-positions management tool (HeadTrax) that is a .NET Framework app used by 72,000 people world wide. Deploying an Internal HR Application Using ClickOnce Technology Saves Developer Time and Support Costs Before moving to ClickOnce our IT group had problem that I think is common in enterprises today.. "The custom deployment method that the Microsoft IT d ... [ read more ]
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4/16/2007 7:44:09 AM
Having been involved in a few of the notably-mediocre names such as "Windows Presentation Foundation" and "Windows Communication Foundation" and the like, I am very excited that we have landed on a good name for our web client platform... Soma introduced Silverlight on his blog earlier tonight and I hear we are in a demo frenzy down at NAB! There is no doubt that Silverlight will become a core part of the .NET platform (I even added a category for it ;-)). ... [ read more ]
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4/12/2007 12:26:00 AM
I love the new VS " Defy All Challenges " theme.. One of the thing that gets me up in the morning (ok, more likely staying up at night) is the idea that we are helping development teams across the world create amazingly better solutions to their everyday challenges. I recently shot part of a Red Vs. Blue inspired video about exactly this... I was honored to be in amongst the some real heavy-hitters that I personally respect a ton! Soma , Anders Hejlsberg ... [ read more ]
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4/9/2007 3:15:04 PM
Steven Clarke (a usability researcher here at Microsoft) has published a set of very interesting papers discussing the core concepts of framework usability. I thought I'd collect them for your reading pleasure... 1. Dr. Dobbs article on Measuring Api Usability which introduce our approach to measuring API usability. (Updated link from original post ). 2. The Journal of Visual Languages and Computing (volume 17 issue number 4) has an article on ... [ read more ]
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3/30/2007 2:51:13 AM
Krzysztof Cwalina (co-author of Framework Design Guidelines ) recently did a talk for the Microsoft Research Group on great framework design.
Online lecture on API design
I gave a lecture on framework design at the Redmond’s Microsoft Research Center. They recorder and posted it on the Research Channel . You can see it here . It’s more than 3 hours long, but I think you will find it worth the time. Let me know what you think
One of ... [ read more ]
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3/25/2007 3:13:27 AM
I just saw that steve does a couple of very cool screen casts showing off how easy it will be for WinForms and WPF client apps to operate effectively offline and in high latency networks... Going N Tier w/WCF, Synchronizing data using Sync Services for ADO.NET and SQL Server Compact Edition ?In part 1 , I used the Visual Studio Orcas Sync Designer to configure and synchronize 3 lookup tables to be cached locally in SQL Server Compact Edition using the Sync Services for ADO.N ... [ read more ]
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3/20/2007 6:41:41 PM
I am super excited about the fact that Microsoft is joining the Open Ajax Alliance . The ASP.NET AJAX team has long had the goal to help evolve AJAX-style development and ensure a high degree of interopablity between Ajax Frameworks and tools. But most importantly I am excited to be able to empowering web developers with technologies that work cross-browser and cross-platform. Check out Bertrand Le Roy’s blog to stay up to date on our part in this effort…
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3/16/2007 6:30:11 AM
It was my good luck to run into Dave McMahon and Richard Costall from NxtGenUG today at the MVP Summit here at Microsoft… We had such a great time chatting they wanted to do a quick little interview for their podcast… Show #30 - The One With The Maracas ... [ list ] You can catch me at about 25:40 We start off talking about the Framework Design Guidelines book and how it is “required reading” at many companies… I am pleased to hear it and I am very happy that the book can be s ... [ read more ]
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3/14/2007 5:13:57 AM
J.D. Meier has a good post on best practices for structuring your projects (ASP.NET and client) for best productivity in a team environment with source control and the like. One of the biggest benefits here is that you can stop arguing about which way is right and just follow J.D.'s lead ;-) Structuring Projects for Team Foundation Server
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3/6/2007 10:08:00 PM
This came up recently internally and I thought I'd share it here in case other are running into it..
Because Vista (and Longhorn Server) run the new IIS7 , there are a handful of tweaks you have to make to IIS and VS to make clickonce publishing work... Brian Noyes has a good blog on the details... But basically.
1. Configure VS to run in Admin mode:
Go to devenv.exe in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE directory.
Right click and go to ... [ read more ]
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3/4/2007 9:32:43 PM
A reader asked about the reference to running part of ASP.NET AJAX on PHP\Apache in my recent interview ... The specific thing I was talking about was running the Microsoft Ajax Library on PHP... Check out the CodePlex project.. Feel free to jump in and contribute to it. http://codeplex.com/phpmsajax Here is the "hello, world" for this project.. <?php
require_once '../../dist/MSAjaxService.php';
class HelloService extends MSAjaxService
{
function SayHello($name)
... [ read more ]
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3/2/2007 6:28:46 AM
Back in October at the Ajax Experience Conference, I had a chance to sit down with Jack Vaughan from ServerSide.NET to talk about ASP.NET AJAX. Check it out: Brad Abrams on ASP.NET AJAX ( Video ) I'd love your feedback or thoughts... Here is an idea of what we talked about You have described basic elements of AJAX . but when you looked at it first, what were the main components of AJAX for someone just even starting out? Jack Vaughan: So, a lot more client side caching? ... [ read more ]
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2/23/2007 6:15:32 PM
We just published a great set of rich online training for ASP.NET AJAX. It includes lots of great information presented in a very easy to understand way. I highly recommend every ASP.NET developer work through it then add "AJAX" to their resume! ;-) Developing Enhanced Web Experiences with Microsoft® ASP.NET AJAX With compelling and complex demos that use an informal, peer-to-peer conversational model, graphics and screenshots of ASP.NET AJAX functionality, an ... [ read more ]
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2/16/2007 5:50:37 AM
A reader just sent me these two .NET love stores... They are great! .NET - A Love Story .NET Love Story Continues... My wife asked me to write her poetry, but I suspect that is not what she hand in mind... How about you, did you get or give any great .NET valentines yesterday?
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2/5/2007 3:29:05 AM
I recently saw a couple of hosters are already offering ASP.NET AJAX support to their customers. This excellent! We build ASP.NET AJAX with hosters in mind, so I hope more will sign... if you are in the market for a hoster, you definitely want to get one that supports ASP.NET AJAX.. In France, http://www.ikoula.com just launched support . At least that is what I am told it says ;-) Closer to home http://www.appliedi.net , just added support &nb ... [ read more ]
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2/1/2007 5:15:53 AM
I just noticed Mitch posted a review of the Framework Design Guidelines . .NET Framework Design Guidelines (Book Review) Mitch gives an interesting categorization of types of tech books... While clearly our foundation in this book is towards .NET Development, I hope time will show it is more timeless than that. When we built the Microsoft Ajax Library we found the guidelines here (in spirit) to be very helpful. And, as I have recently noted Jo ... [ read more ]
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1/30/2007 5:35:00 AM
I just got a copy of Brian Noyes book on ClickOnce
Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce: Deploying Windows Forms Applications with ClickOnce
While I have not had a chance to dig into it yet, I did ask around the team and a bunch of folks on the WinForms and ClickOnce product teams reviewed it and provided feedback. They all said it was an excellent source of detailed and real world information.
Have any of you looked at it? What do you think?
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1/30/2007 5:21:40 AM
Rico is doing some very interesting work to get some sort of idea about the allocation overhead of using different parts of the .NET Framework. As he says, this is a fairly rough approximation done just with static analysis, but it does give you something to chew on.
Rico starts by focusing on making a good hashcode function…
I thought I'd look at properties. As you know the Framework Design Guidelines encourages you to make simple properties that are logically just fields . Th ... [ read more ]
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1/17/2007 3:41:00 PM
I just noticed that Sascha posted a set of hands on labs for ASP.NET AJAX . They look pretty good… go check them out!
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1/16/2007 10:51:00 PM
We have had lots of interest in the White Screen of Darn from VS 2005. No one likes dealing with errors in their applications, especially those that are hard to diagnose. We have spent a bunch of time listening to feedback on the VS2005 WSOD and have made some improvements..
If you have ever come face to face with this screen, the experience has probably given you an opinion or two on how it could better help you debug your app. Now is your chance to share that opinion, because Scott Morri ... [ read more ]
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1/16/2007 4:54:00 PM
A co-worker of mine sent me this presentation Joshua Block ( Effective Java )… Joshua was a key API designer for Java at Sun and is now working at some small search engine company. It is so great to learn from your competitors and Josh really is a smart guy with clear, crisp ideas that resonate well in the .NET world.
How to Design a Good API & Why it Matters
A few takes aways for me:
If the names are nasty, you likely have bad design
Agility tr ... [ read more ]
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1/15/2007 7:56:12 PM
It has been just over a year since .NET Framework 2.0 \VS 2005 shipped , SP1 is out , and Vista (with built in .NET Fx 2.0 and 3.0 supports) is shipping this month. These factors are driving the next wave of customers is starting to migrate.
If you fall into the category, I encourage you to check out xxx latest post giving some real world experiences migrating from 1.1 to 2.0…
.NET 1.1 to 2.0 Upgrade Post-Mortem
A few other resources he points out that I will highlight
.NE ... [ read more ]
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1/12/2007 6:19:24 PM
It has been a while since I posted about a review of the Framework Design Guidelines book… But I just saw this one Review: Framework Design Guidelines …
It also includes a great picture… ;-)
Enjoy!
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1/9/2007 4:26:00 AM
We have not even released yet and we already have a very impressive show case of web applications and web site using ASP.NET AJAX … I am impressed with the creativity these folks have been able to use.
See the full list and read the case studies at the ASP.NET AJAX Showcase
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1/8/2007 4:26:22 AM
I was thrilled to get a copy of The Old New Thing recently. You likely know that Raymond is one of the most popular bloggers on MSDN and his book does not disappoint. There is tons of interesting information on both how and why things work in windows. Raymond added some additional goodness, so it is not just a reprint of his blog… A few interesting ones:
Why do you have to click the Start button to shutdown?
Buying an entire Egghead Store
Sometimes an app just want crash
I am ... [ read more ]
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12/22/2006 1:05:15 AM
One of the core skills of a Program Manager is to build consensus. Microsoft (like many knowledge-worker driven IT companies) is not a top-down organization. For the most part, projects, ideas, directions are taken on through a consensus building exercise at one level or another. While this can be frustrating and slow at times, it does a very effective job at weeding out bad ideas and honing good ones.
So how do you go about getting an idea to stick? Because Microsoft is an organization of p ... [ read more ]
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12/21/2006 5:36:54 PM
If you are an ASP.NET AJAX developer, I recommend you grab SP1 of VS2005… Not only does it include tons of bug fixes, but it also includes the first round of basic support for ASP.NET AJAX in Visual Studio… If you are having formatting or incorrect validation (those red underlines) issues using ASP.NET AJAX then you will love SP1.
Go grab it today: Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
There are of course tons of other support as well… check out Omar's post about Visual Studio 20 ... [ read more ]
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12/18/2006 11:59:45 PM
I recently had a chance to talk to the good folks at SpiDynamic about their DevInspect product which includes some great support for ASP.NET AJAX … In the process we started talking about AJAX security in general is and they sent me these links… looks like good information I wanted to pass on!
Billy Hoffman, SpiDynamic's lead researcher in our SPI Labs group, has an on-demand web cast "Ajax (in)security" at < https://download.spidynamics.com/registration/AJAX_webcast.asp & ... [ read more ]
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12/14/2006 11:33:00 PM
Check it out! We just posted the ASP.NET AJAX RC bis … Just in time for your holiday coding fun…. We are getting to the home stretch here and we really need your last minute feedback on the product.
The big change you will notice here is that we moved from the Microsoft.* namespace to the System.* namespace… we did this based on clear customer feedback that folks want ASP.NET AJAX apps to work seamlessly on top of the .NET Framework “orcas” r ... [ read more ]
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12/13/2006 4:39:00 AM
Folks, something tells me 2007 is going to be a great year for developers… Just as we start the planning process for Mix '07 , I saw that we announced the dates and location for PDC 2007… As most of you know, we only hold the PDC when there is big developer news. So it is a conference you don't want to miss for forward thinking announcements, and of course bits!
It will be Oct 2-5 in LA! See you there!
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12/8/2006 5:16:00 AM
I just saw that the MSDNWiki RC0 just went live! I love this project because it allows us as a community to control the quality of the documentation and samples. It makes it super easy for Microsoft folks and the community to quickly and easily add content to the MSDN docs…
This opens up a whole new concept.. I call it documentation Karma.. the theory goes if you spent a little time each week adding a few tips or code examples to your favorite types, then you build up doc karma, if you have ... [ read more ]
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12/5/2006 5:19:00 AM
Some great videos from TechEd Europe were recently posted… If you couldn't make it to Barconlna this year, at least you can hear some of the great talks. Here are a few of my favorites… Please let us hear your feedback!
ASP.NET: Developer and Designer AJAX Bliss with Visual Studio and Expression Brad Abrams Explore how the ASP.NET AJAX controls and components remove the complexity from designing rich, interactive experiences, and help you build AJAX-style applications mo ... [ read more ]
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12/1/2006 3:59:05 AM
Sam dropped by the other day and interviewed me for Port25 about ASP.NET AJAX … There is some fun history stuff at the start then some explanation of how we see the AJAX space and of course a demo of the Microsoft AJAX Library working with PHP…
From Atlas to ASP.NET AJAX: Sam Interviews Brad Abrams
I'd love to hear what you think!
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11/26/2006 6:19:39 PM
Patrick , one of the founding members of the CLR team, starts a blog by posting a brief bit about this history of the CLR.
I dug up a few other bits of CLR history… Enjoy!
History Of Csharp Brian Harry on the CLR My DotNet Rocks! show posted Resource management
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11/25/2006 10:51:31 PM
I am running into some bumps with a couple of different software project I am involved with…. After mulling those over the break it occurs to me that they have the same root cause: complexity. As I think through the projects we have Program Managers, Development Managers, Development Lead, Software Architects, Software Designer in Test Tech Leads.. but who's job is simplicity? In many ways we reward complexity… of course we don't call it that. We say things like: architectural purity, broa ... [ read more ]
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11/22/2006 3:59:11 PM
Charlie Arehart posted a helpful article on getting the Microsoft AJAX Library working with ColdFusion…
Using Atlas (MS Ajax Toolkit) with CF, and getting CF / Atlas example working
Thanks Charlie!
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11/10/2006 6:14:00 PM
I had a good time today during my session on Getting the Most out of WinForms and WPF … The session was packed out even though it was the last session of the conference! That is certainly a sign that folks are hungry for this sort of information. Attached is the slide deck.
We talked about the focus for WinForms and WPF is very different. WinForms is focused on the typical line of business application, a forms over data scenario and WPF is focused on differentiated client experiences where ... [ read more ]
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11/7/2006 5:55:00 PM
Thanks for coming.. I had a great time during the presentation.. I took most of the time during the session to build up this site… In the attached zip you can find a complete demo script, you can find the slides on an earlier post ...
The demo requires Beta2 of ASP.NET AJAX … Please let me know what you think!
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11/7/2006 3:48:00 PM
Looks like the dates and venue for Mix07 have been announced. Mix07 will be in Las Vegas at The Venetian hotel on April 30 – May 2, 2007. My team has been working on some fun stuff for Mix07… If you are a web designer, developer or BDM, you will not want to miss it!
Subscribe to the blog and start saving your pennies.. looks like registration will open in the new year.
See you there!
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11/7/2006 7:52:00 AM
I had a great time putting together the slides and demo for this talk… It should be fun one where I show off how developers and designers can work together to build a compelling web site…. As part of this I will be showing Expression Web and of course, some cool new stuff in ASP.NET AJAX Beta2 !
If you are in at the show, please come by
DEV351 ASP.NET: Developer and Designer AJAX Bliss with Visual Studio and Expression
Brad Abrams
Tue ... [ read more ]
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11/7/2006 7:19:48 AM
Today two of the products I have spent a bunch of time ship!
.NET Framework 3.0 ships! With the 3.0 version of the .NET Framework I can look forward to the day when every application will offer compelling user experiences that that fuse the seamless, immersive nature of TV with the power and productivity of windows applications. These applications will communicate securely and reliable between each other and to a huge array of cloud services offered by a variety of vendors. The business ... [ read more ]
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11/1/2006 4:44:00 PM
Preparing for my talk at TechEd Europe gave me an excuse to play around with the animations support in the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit … Very cool stuff.
UPDATE: I posted the full VS project here: picturebox.zip enjoy!
I wanted to write a control that allowed the user to scroll through a list of background images… The trick here is that I wanted the images to smoothly animate across, have a little bump effect then fad slightly…
Luckily it was very easy to do ... [ read more ]
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10/31/2006 4:13:00 AM
I just saw a cool screen cast on the Microsoft Interop Forms Toolkit 1.0…. Great stuff! It enables you to incrementally enhance your VB6 applications with the power of the .NET Framework…. It has been a while sense I have really wanted to install VB6, but this makes me want to just to see what I can do. I think this is a great solution for anyone supporting an existing VB6 app that wants to be able to leverage all the great stuff in the .NET Framework. The screen cast shows advanced databin ... [ read more ]
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10/30/2006 4:57:20 PM
The developer for UpdatePanel recently posted a couple of good articles about the changes we made in the most recent Beta…
Enjoy!
What's up with UpdatePanels and how come nothing works? This is a higher level piece that explains how UpdatePanel changed from being automatic (and broken) in the CTP to the new functionality in the beta.
HOWTO: Write controls compatible with UpdatePanel without linking to the ASP.NET AJAX DLL This article goes in depth on how to use the new registra ... [ read more ]
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10/28/2006 5:59:00 AM
I am working on a rich content app for one of my talks at TechEd Europe and I thought it would be a good idea to implement a search box with an autocomplete of the past search quires. The intuition here is that the changes are someone else has searched for the same thing you are searching for, so past queries is an interesting set of options to offer. Not to mention it is fun to look at what other people are searching for ;-) What I think is cool about this is I was able to implement it with le ... [ read more ]
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10/24/2006 3:17:37 AM
I had a great time at the AJAX Experience Conference today.
John Resig did a good talk on choosing the right Ajax framework for you. He laid out four attributes you should use when you judge an Ajax library…. While he didn't mention the Microsoft AJAX Library, I think it stacks up very well in these attributes.
Documentation – By this, John means how well is the framework explained, are their great examples? Microsoft Ajax Library has great docs already http://ajax.asp.net/docs/ ... [ read more ]
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10/17/2006 4:19:29 PM
A few months ago I had the opportunity to review Elements of C# Style and I really enjoyed it. It is a concise little book, great for a quick reference on everything for C# syntax basics to designing an inheritance hierarchy. Last week I ran into Andy Grey (one of the authors) and he gave me a copy.. I just love the form factor… small, <150 pages… easy to drop into your laptop bag!
Enjoy!
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10/17/2006 3:23:00 AM
Steve has a great post (with Video and slides) for building offline apps… Worth a look!
My guess is lots of client apps need "occasionally connected" features, it has just been prohibitively hard to build in the past… Has anyone tried this out? We'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts.
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10/10/2006 3:01:00 PM
I noticed a good debate going on the BCL blog (and now Krzysztof Cwalina’s blog ) about the naming of TimeZone2… Clearly the name brings back bad memories of the Win32\COM world …. As Krys points out there is not an easy answer here. Ideally we could come up with a meaningful name, but lacking that, this seems like the least bad option…
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10/9/2006 12:00:00 PM
I am looking forwarding to doing the keynote at the Pattern and Practices Summit today. I thought for a while about what to do… I have been into the Ajax thing recently and it is very cool, but ultimately I decided the real timeless information I had to share was going back to my roots in Framework design . Working with Krzysztof Cwalina , I distilled down 7+ years of framework design experience into 5 key principles. While these principle ... [ read more ]
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10/7/2006 10:39:00 PM
I was talking recently with a coworker of mine about the “what” and the “how” of software projects.
The “What” is the definition of the thing you are building. What customers should we go after? What markets should we serve? What competitors do we care about? What scenarios matter most? What feature should we have?
The “How” is the definition of the way you build it. How should we org the team? How should we ensure quality? H ... [ read more ]
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10/1/2006 6:29:00 PM
Just noticed that Patrick Spieler has a nice simple walk through of BLINQ . In a couple of easy steps you can go from a database to a rich data driven application!
BLINQ! Web-Application generated
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9/29/2006 1:55:00 AM
Thottam is asking folks to tell him about your experience with COM interop . I know many of you have a earful to tell him about how you love, learn to live with and at times hate ComInterop… Please take a few minutes to comment on his blog with those thoughts and if you are so inclined responded to his detailed set of questions… Thottam is right in the middle of figuring out where to take this feature so your feedback would be very timely…
thanks ... [ read more ]
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9/28/2006 12:45:00 AM
The folks over at the NYTimes have released the beta of the NYTimes reader … a .NET Framework 3.0 based application that provides an amazingly rich experience for reading the newspaper… I have been on the internal pre-beta program for a while and I have found it great! A few weeks ago I actually read the newspaper end-to-end… I don’t think I have done that in 10+ years.
The other thing I love about the app is that it has a seamless update s ... [ read more ]
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9/23/2006 11:41:00 PM
I just noticed the VB folks created a great little WinForms control that gives you the VB6 style “print form” functionality… Looks pretty easy to use and can be used (via a DLL) in VB or C# projects. Enjoy…
PrintForm Component 1.0
The PrintForm Component is designed to bring back the ability to easily print a Windows Form. With this new PrintForm component you can once again layout the Windows Form exactly as you want it and allow your users ... [ read more ]
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9/11/2006 2:39:00 PM
As you saw from ScottGu’s blog, we gave Atlas an official name and, in response to strong customer feedback, have it on a plan to ship 1.0 around the end of the year on top of VS2005 and ASP.NET 2.0. The team is super focused on this goal and I am very pumped to be able to deliver it!
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9/6/2006 1:07:00 AM
Wow – Very cool to see IronPython reach V1 status … and I particularly love the fact that we ship a ton of code with it so you can see just how it is done… as well as run your favorite Python code at CLR speeds!
See what the other bloggers are saying …
Enjoy!
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8/24/2006 10:44:00 AM
I have been doing some thinking recently about what sort of client application model would benefit customers the most. It seems very clear that parts of the web application model are super important (URL deployed, seamless\transparent install and update, server centric deployment, etc) and we have to provide those in whatever model we build. But there are a few other attributes of web apps (like running the browser frame, navigation, etc) that are also true of web apps today (A ... [ read more ]
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8/17/2006 2:30:51 AM
Steven Smith has a good discussion going on about what we should name "Atlas"... I can confirm that "Atlas" will not be the final name, and clearly we are listening, so add your funny and serious suggestions a like... Atlas Naming Game (note, you gotta check out all the comments.. that is where the fun is)
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8/11/2006 12:46:51 AM
I love it when the product just keeps getting better over time.. Two new whitepapers were just published on WinForms and data... Behind the Scenes: Improvements to Windows Forms Data Binding in the .NET Framework 2.0, Part 1 Building a Drop-Down Filter List for a DataGridView Column Header Cell Enjoy!
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8/5/2006 6:41:11 PM
I recently had a fun time baking cookies with my three year old son.. He had a great time scooping out the floor, dumping in the sugar and plopping in the butter... but when they came out of oven and I took my first bite, I know something we dreadfully wrong, they tasted terrible! Just then my wife came in with a helpful observation: “Well, did you measure?” This time my lack of measuring only cost me a plate of cookies... If you are building a business critical app with a perf problem, the ... [ read more ]
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8/2/2006 7:10:33 PM
A customer recently asked a set of questions about .NET Framework deployment that I suspect are very common across corporation today. I thought these might help some of you... Let me know what other questions you have, or better yet, what other resources you have found! Is the .NET Framework developed to be backwards compatible? Will applications built on .NET Framework 1.1 function properly on .NET Framework 2.0? Yes... ... [ read more ]
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7/26/2006 12:13:52 AM
If it is good enough for the TheServerSide to repost, it is good enough for me to repost here ;-) Krzysztof Cwalina gives a good interview about the Framework Design Guidelines work we have been doing for a long time... He gives some good high level tips... Check it out Inside framework design with author Krzysztof Cwalina
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7/25/2006 1:22:00 PM
Polita Paulus does a great demo on Blinq .
Polita Paulus – BLINQ
(hint, the demo starts at 7:15).... Keep in mind the * WHOLE * app she is showing is completely created by running a BLinq against the northwind database... no code!
Oh, and Charles , is Channel9 really still on 1.1? we need to get you guys over on to 2.0!!
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7/24/2006 11:28:00 PM
The Windows Forms documentation team just published a new whitepaper about how to get a great layout with your WinForms app... So if you are tried of grey rectangles and borwing layouts... check this out!
Creating Smart Application Layouts in Windows Forms 2.0
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7/20/2006 1:17:00 AM
Well, it is not really, but I it does remind me of staying up past my bedtime .... What Live from Redmond is really about is a set of videos directly from the product teams here in Microsoft main campus in Redmond , WA ... I hope you will take time to attend a few of these and let me hear your feedback... what do you like, what do you want to hear more of, which speaker should get a big fat raise, etc.
List of client talks:
... [ read more ]
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7/16/2006 6:28:00 PM
Arturo and I had a great time at Web Design World in Seattle this past week... It was really good to see there is so much passion about getting developers and designers working well together. I am still not sure I am “seeing the world in CSS” yet, but I am working on it ;-)
At any rate, here are the slides from my talk ... enjoy!
Oh, and BTW, I am sure some of you were wondering how we got the 3-D dice look in the Xaml part of ... [ read more ]
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7/13/2006 12:07:00 PM
Matt Gibbs (the dev manager for Atlas) recently posted a great article on Atlas... A very good introduction.. have a read!
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/07/AtlasAtLast/
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7/9/2006 7:21:00 PM
I just noticed that Mike Swanson was blogging about CSS-Like Visual Styling for Windows Forms with Infragistics ’s NetAdvantage AppStylist .. Very cool to see our partners embrace the rising tide of better user experience.
Has anyone created a great looking app with this tool? I’d love to see a screen shot, or better yet a clickonce link ;-)
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7/5/2006 7:53:00 PM
I just noticed that a design house has started putting up some great examples of what is possible with the possible with the .NET Framework 3.0... There are videos and apps included!
http://www.thirteen23.com/
What do you think?
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6/23/2006 1:26:00 AM
What percentage of web applications would you say fall into the category of glorified View-Add-Update-Delete operations over a database? That is, you have data stored in a database and you want to expose a web front to look at the data in interesting ways (master details, etc) and add/update/delete the content.. Seems like there is tons of information stored in relational database that can make generating those types of web applications MUCH easier.
... [ read more ]
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6/20/2006 2:37:00 PM
Can you believe we already have two books published on Atlas? Makes me think we have hit on something big here ;-)
Foundations of Atlas: Rapid Ajax Development with ASP.NET 2.0
Programming Atlas
Oh and I just noticed that Matt Gibbs and Bertrand Le Roy (both developers on the Microsoft Atlas team) recently published a nice short overview of Atlas server side support, mostly around using UpdatePanel correctly. I learned st ... [ read more ]
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6/19/2006 5:40:00 PM
David Barkol, one of our partners, recently posted a webcast of a good introduction to Ajax and Atlas... It is great fun for me to hear our story from one of our customers!
Download and enjoy!
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6/12/2006 12:02:00 PM
Have you checked out http://www.seewindowsvista.com/ ???
It is a very cool way to see some amazing things that developers are doing with Vista and .NET Framework 3.0. The site is clearly focused at end-users, but as a developer you might want to know what technology bets it took to make those apps.. I did a little poking around and here is what I was able to find out.... If there is some specific showcase you’d like to find more about ... [ read more ]
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6/11/2006 11:44:00 PM
I wanted to respond to a few comments..
Keeron asked about what .NET Framework includes exactly. JasonZ does a good job with this one..
The Linq support for C# (and VB for that mater) is scheduled for Orcas... We have not locked on a final version number, my hunch will be “.NET Framework 3.5”
We do actually have a merged Windows SDK that includes all of the content as of .NET Framework 3.0\Vista...
George asks about SP1 of the .NET Framew ... [ read more ]
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6/10/2006 6:16:00 PM
Wow – I am really happy about all the feedback we have received on Soma’s blog about the name change from WinFX to .NET Framework 3.0! I feel very lucky to work on a product that people care so passionately about.
As you might guess, this decision was one we discussed at great length in internally... I wanted to share some of the discussion from my point of view...
For me, this debate started years ago, before .NET Framewor ... [ read more ]
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6/9/2006 1:26:00 AM
Unfortunately I can’t make it to TechEd this year, but a fair number of folks from my team are going. If you get a chance please go check out these sessions!
I bolded the sessions given by folks directly on my team, so if you make it to any of those sessions, please drop me a line and let me know how the presenter did... I told them I’d have spies watching for me ;-)
Smart Client Breakouts:
Cod ... [ read more ]
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6/6/2006 8:55:00 PM
A customer recently asked me if they can use the standard Microsoft explorer icons in their applications. The answer is yes! In fact Soma blogged about the extended set of Icons we have in VS2005 , but basically you can find the VS 2005 Image Library at %vs install path%/common7/ide/vs2005imagelibrary/vs2005imagelibrary.zip. The Windows, Office, and Visual Studio icons that we license for reuse are all contained in there.
We’d love to hear feedback on wha ... [ read more ]
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6/5/2006 8:23:00 PM
José Lema posts a good review of the Framework Design Guidelines .. He is the first reviewer to mention the high level philosophical guidance Krys and I give in the first section of the book. In some ways I agree with Jose, this is the most valuable part as it really informs the rest of the book which contains the much more logistical do...don’t guidance on nuances of your framework. It is possible to get your naming conventions 100% right, use every member the right w ... [ read more ]
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6/4/2006 6:49:00 PM
Last months Dr. Dobbs has an interesting article on the changing face of software development jobs which rings true to me. As the software development discipline matures you might expect the roles to become better defined and specialized. Just like Eskimos have many words that all mean “snow”, in the software development world we have many names for what amounts to “developer”: Developer, Web Developer, Integration Developer, Build Facilitator Developer, Arc ... [ read more ]
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6/1/2006 12:52:00 PM
I just saw that the Framework Design Guidelines got a good review from Peter A. Bromberg over at EggheadCafe
Book Review: Framework Design Guidelines
A couple of quotes:
This is what Framework Design Guidelines does for you as a .NET programmer. It lays out, in incredible detail, the exact naming conventions, framework design goals and patterns that are necessary to develop quality reusable .NET ... [ read more ]
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5/30/2006 12:57:00 PM
I am very excited to do a keynote at the Web Design World conference in Seattle July 10-12 th I am honored to be up there with a great group of speakers .
Here is the talk I am planning to do... Any thoughts\comments? I’d love to hear from folks that are going..
Brad Abrams, Group Program Manager for the UI Framework and Services Team, Microsoft
Tuesday, July 11 — 9 a.m.
In this keynote address, Microsoft will ... [ read more ]
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5/23/2006 1:31:00 PM
Today at WinHEC BillG announced the Beta2 of WinFX with a Go Live license ......
The Go Live is great because it let’s you build apps on WinFX and let customers actually use them! This bits (and the go live ) work great on XP as well as Vista ...
I can’t wait to see what you build with it.. I have beta2 installed and I am ready to install the great apps you build, so send me a link!
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5/22/2006 11:55:00 PM
In response to comments I posted a high-res version of my recent Atlas talk... (it is actually the dry run I did the night before) It is very demo heavy, but if you want to skip a bit... here are some suggestions
5:58 – Task List Demo
25:00 – Dice Demo Search Page (Server centric Atlas\ASP.NET)
38:00 – Dice Demo Configurator (Client centric Atlas)
57:00 - Atlas without ASP.NET
1:00:03- Atlas Control Too ... [ read more ]
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5/22/2006 3:56:00 PM
Cool article on Top 13 reasons to CONSIDER the Microsoft platform for Web 2.0 development from the folks at http://web2.0central.com/
They didn’t mention the cool dice demo as a reason... but still a good list to show to your management ;-)
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5/12/2006 12:00:00 PM
I posted the slides and demo for my talk on the Atlas Ajax framework that I will do this morning at the Ajax Experience .
Slides
Demos
Updated: Video of a dry run I did the night before the talk. It is very demo heavy!
Updated 2: High-res version of video
Enjoy!
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5/12/2006 11:33:00 AM
Thanks to the Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer (and my fellow panelist) for having me on panel last night. I had a great time and continued to learn a ton! For those of you that were not there, I captured a few of the questions that stood out to me...
- Are we at an infliction point in application development?
Absolutely... The rising tide of expectations users have for the e ... [ read more ]
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5/11/2006 12:00:00 PM
The Ajax Experience conference kicked off yesterday in beautiful San Francisco ... I am having a great time down here already. It is WAY different than some of the big Microsoft run conferences (PDC, TechEd).. for one thing I am one of only three MS employees down here ;-)
I have already learned a lot from the attendees and the speakers... A few nuggests I picked up...
- Even at this ... [ read more ]
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5/9/2006 12:24:00 AM
My team is starting detailed design and implementation work over the next week or so and I know of few of them read this blog ;-)
So I thought it would be worth reminding everyone of an adage of good software design that Rico coined a while ago ...
The Pit of Success : in stark contrast to a summit, a peak, or a journey across a desert to find victory through many trials and surprises, we want our customers to simply fall into winning practices b ... [ read more ]
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5/7/2006 11:12:00 AM
Check it out, the sessions from Mix06 have been posted... you can see a streaming video of the entire presentation and get slides. Check out a few of my favorites:
Developing a Better User Experience with "Atlas" - Shanku does a nice overview of Atlas..
Designing a Better User Experience with AJAX and "Atlas" – Rick and I have fun hitting on the experiences that make a great web 2.0 app
Building Components and Services for ... [ read more ]
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5/6/2006 2:30:00 PM
3 rd party control vendors are an important part of any successful platform, so I am very happy to see a couple of control vendors come out with some Atlas enabled controls.
Check them out...
ComponentArt Announces Support for Microsoft "Atlas"
Trlerik: Third-party controls and support for Atlas
Did I miss any?
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5/5/2006 2:28:00 AM
TimS does a great post on getting the Vista “glass” look and feel in a WinForms app...
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2006/04/18/578637.aspx
This is a cool little “light-up” feature you can do in your WinForms app to make them look even cooler when they run on Vista ... It is also an excuse to get a high-end video card to test it out ;-)
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5/2/2006 11:40:00 PM
Steve posts some good information on getting offline client apps developed with VS2005 and .NET Framework 2.0... I’d love to hear feedback or success stories...
From Steve’s blog..
Using SQL Server Mobile w/Visual Studio 2005 – 7 minutes A quick walkthrough of building an Order Form including configuring ComboBoxes lookup controls. Using the Data Sources Window you can easily consume SQL Mobile databases to create a Strongly Typed Dataset. T ... [ read more ]
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4/24/2006 1:15:00 AM
Amazon has a cool new feature on many of there pages called “ What do customers ultimately buy after viewing items like this?”
Seems pretty self-explanatory... After folks view one item, what item do the eventually buy... Joe Wikert noticed this as well and calls it “Wisdom of the masses”...
I guess it might be, but I am struggling with what it might mean about the Framework Design Guidelines , that Jeff’s CLR via C# is more attractive to 41% of those t ... [ read more ]
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4/13/2006 12:07:00 AM
One of the things that I really love about Atlas is that it offers a framework approach to ajax style development. That is, rather than each new control having to be a “stove pipe” of plumbing code, with Atlas each new control is able to leverage a rich, integrated framework. This not only makes it easier (and fun) to build applications, but it also makes it easy to build reusable components that can be leveraged across your sites or across the net.
&nbs ... [ read more ]
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4/12/2006 10:15:00 AM
I just got my copy of Joe Duffy’s new book Professional .NET Framework 2.0 . Joe was a member of my team on the CLR during most of the time he wrote this book.. While I have not read it cover to cover yet, I can tell you it is going to be a good one. Joe has an insatiable curiosity to figure out how things work and no doubt that will come through in his writing.
Oh, and I just noticed that Dot Net Rocks! got Joe for an interview recently… you c ... [ read more ]
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4/11/2006 11:04:00 AM
INETA (the .NET User Group People) just created a virtual user group called Live From Redmond … We will have Microsoft folks give Live Meeting talks every week on topics we hope you will find interesting. These are open to anyone. We hope you will come and enjoy… and maybe even join your local INETA user group to continue the fun!
Enjoy!
Date
Description
April 12th 5:30 pm PDT
Cross ... [ read more ]
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4/11/2006 12:48:00 AM
We just posted the April CTP of Atlas … this is mostly a set of bug fixes that we got feedback from customers at\after Mix… Pick it up and let us here what you think !
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4/10/2006 11:27:00 AM
A huge differentiator between mediocre PMs and excellent PMs is how they deal with information. Anyone that has been a PM for more than a few days inherently knows that information – getting, distilling, combining and distributing of ideas – is a key part of just about every PM job. PMs that know how to get, process and share information in a timely way are a huge asset to their teams.
Here a few ideas around information sharing... ... [ read more ]
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4/7/2006 3:29:00 AM
I am excited to be headed down to the The Ajax Experience Conference May 10-12 in San Francisco. I’ll be giving an overview of Atlas ... maybe work in some dice action and maybe some of Shanku’s php\Atlas fun ... Any other ideas? What would folks like to hear?
I am really impressed by the speaker list... it reads like a “who’s-who” of the Ajax community... I am sure I am going to learn a TON while I am down there. &nb ... [ read more ]
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4/3/2006 12:11:00 PM
Over the last couple of years, the CTP or C ommunity T echnology P review has been one of the bigger changes in the way Microsoft release software. Microsoft introduced the concept of CTPs with the “Whidbey” .NET Framework and Visual Studio release but I was happy to see the concept spread to SqlServer, Expression, WinFX and even Windows!
CTPs have been very valuable to us as we have been able to get some great feedback in nea ... [ read more ]
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4/2/2006 11:38:00 PM
I just noticed that Stephen Toub posted a great Suduko game . The tablet\ink integration is really nice... and of course he posts all the code so you can see how it is done.
Now what I really want is to see the .NET Framework 2.0 version.. how many lines of code do you think Stephen can save? Even better, what about the WinFX version ;-)
Anyway, check it out, it is way better than the lame one I wrote on the airplane ; ... [ read more ]
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3/30/2006 4:44:00 PM
One thing I love about blogs is the instant feedback aspects. While certainly comments on a blog are far from scientific you can get some great anecdotal responses that can help you see problems in a new way or provide some real-world data to backup one position or another. So my tip to PMs out there is to think carefully about what question you want to know the answer to and blog it! I have really benefited from the feedback I have gotten on my blog and I know severa ... [ read more ]
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3/30/2006 1:43:00 AM
for an interview that is... I was honored to sit down with Wally McClure (of Beginning Ajax with ASP.NET fame) at Mix for an ASP.NET Podcast . A few topics we talked about:
A little about my history at Microsoft...
A few nuggets from the history of the CLR for long time readers of my blog...
Some history around Atlas
A good summary of the client and server sides of the Atlas story
Some new stuff showing up ... [ read more ]
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3/29/2006 1:45:00 PM
Bertrand (dev on the atlas team) is beginning a series explaining how to build the cooler parts of my mix demo . He starts with the accordion control
BTW, full source for the demo can be found here , Soon Bertrand will post on the details of the implementation... if you want to re-use it as-is, please feel free... you can find the implementation in dice.js.. or attached to this post...
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3/29/2006 12:54:00 AM
At my Mix talk one of the things I got asked about was the development experience for writing Javascript. While we are doing some great stuff in Orcas to make that better, it is actually surprisingly good with VS2005 and Atlas... if you just know where to look...
http://atlas.asp.net/docs/Overview/debug.aspx
This doc covers how to setup IE and Firefox for a great development experience... shows you the right knobs to turn in VS to attach to ... [ read more ]
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3/28/2006 2:03:00 AM
I just saw JHawk did a great post on using Atlas and Live Local to build a great Map mashup... This post includes a great step-by-step tutorial on how to do it. Building a Mashup of National Parks using the Atlas Virtual Earth Map control ...
Seems like a good starting place for the Mash-it-up contest ..
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3/28/2006 1:36:00 AM
Someone recently forwarded me a couple of sites that are keeping up with all those .NET languages... Wow.. Does anyone know all of these ;-)
www.dotnetlanguages.net
http://www.dotnetpowered.com/languages.aspx
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3/24/2006 1:40:00 AM
Great news... Rotor V2.0 ships ... I have found Rotor a great way to look at (mostly) the real source code from the CLR and BCL to see what is really going on under the covers.
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3/23/2006 3:06:00 PM
Mix06: The Atlas Dice Demo
Rick and I had a lot of fun giving our talk Designing a Better User Experience with AJAX and "Atlas at Mix06. I have already had a bunch of folks as me for the code. So here it is! Keep in mind I am not suggesting it is anything more than a demo – so if you are going to setup a real eCommerce site selling dice I suggest you spend some time hardening it ;-)
Download Demo: DiceRus.zip
Dow ... [ read more ]
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3/18/2006 7:59:00 PM
If you are headed to Mix06 you will not want to miss the sessions on Atlas ... Oh, and BTW, even if you are not going we are going to make a ton of this content available on atlas.asp.net and a few weeks after the show the sessions videos will be available to stream!
Monday 3p: NGW014 - Developing a Better User Experience with "Atlas"
Shanku will show you in detail how to build a web 2.0 application using At ... [ read more ]
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3/18/2006 1:02:00 AM
I feel great about the recent Jolt awards ... The two most close to home for me are:
The Framework Design Guidelines book taking a Jolt Productivity award .. It is great to be recognized and to know that the book is meeting its goals: Help developers being wildly successful on our platform. Oh, and I love the company we are in. Krys mentions a few other past winners in the category.
· & ... [ read more ]
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3/12/2006 1:36:00 AM
I just saw that Jeff Richter’s CLR via C# is in stock on Amazon. This is an update to his very popular Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming and it covers a bunch of new goodies in CLR 2.0...
I gotta say I love the title change... CLR via C# is one of the shortest tech book titles I have seen... Oh course that is coming from the guy who came up with Standard Library Annotated Reference Volumes 1: Base Class Library ... [ read more ]
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3/9/2006 2:02:00 AM
I just noticed that Jonathan Hawkins posted a great new webcast covering the basics of Atlas ... You will get benefit from this webcast whether you are a longtime ASP.NET head wanting to easily leverage the power of Web 2.0 with the Atlas server side model (UpdatePanel and fiends) or a die-hard Web 2.0 hacker who wants to push the envelop in terms of what you can do with Ajax by using the Atlas client side framework.
Let me hear what you think
Enjoy! ... [ read more ]
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3/2/2006 1:58:00 PM
I had an interview candidate ask me recently what I loved most about working for Microsoft. Oddly enough the answer is you! I love the amazing community of developers Microsoft is fortunate enough to have. I love it that you let us know when things aren’t work the way they should and I really, really love it when we can fix those things right away.
Mike talked about one of those things in his recent post on shipping the WPF-WinForms intero ... [ read more ]
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3/2/2006 1:05:00 AM
Dr. Dobbs Bookshelf reviews the Framework Design Guidelines in the current issues . I appreciate the fact that Peter notes that the book is good for people learning the.NET Framework as well as those designing their own libraries. While we did specifically target the book for folks building libraries, it has been my experience that LOTs of developers can find value in the book... Knowing the rules to the system help you understand the system.
... [ read more ]
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3/1/2006 1:42:00 PM
Folks on the Windows Forms team are working hard to make sure Windows Forms applications look great on Vista, but we can always use your help in the real world apps you are using. I know many of you MSDN subscribers have picked up the Vista CTPs and tried your own Windows Forms apps on it. We’d love to hear your feedback on how it went. Did the functionality work? Did it look right? Did it feel like a Vista era application? Please comment here or ... [ read more ]
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3/1/2006 12:51:00 AM
ClickOnce is a very cool client application delivery system that we shipped in V2.0 of the .NET Framework and that WPF (aka Avalon) makes use of as well. Before we even shipped V1.0 of the .NET Framework we have know that deployment is the key issue for client applications. No mater how good the UI framework is if the app can’t be deployed it is useless. While ClickOnce doesn’t solve all deployment (machine provisioning for example) it does make HUGE steps towards del ... [ read more ]
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2/25/2006 3:16:00 PM
Very cool to see Slashdot address framework design , although I am a bit disappointed they didn't reference the Framework Design Guidelines as it covers all of these areas. I do basically agree with the primary point of the post...
Our presumption is that software developers mostly evaluate following software framework characteristics based on:
perceived ease of use (e.g. easy to learn, easy to adapt)
perceived usability (e.g. imp ... [ read more ]
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2/22/2006 10:54:00 AM
One of the core jobs of a PM is to hold tight to the vision of the product. There are a million things that can distract you and set you back. Features get cut, resources get moved, partners fail to deliver.. the list goes on and on. Many of these things are within your control and you should do everything you can to make those things come out right. But let’s face it, there are also a number of things that are outside of your control. You can chime in, ... [ read more ]
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2/20/2006 1:27:00 PM
Shanku , Bertrand Le Roy and I recently shot a spot about our Atlas\Ajax presence at Mix ... I’d love to hear thoughts... what would you like to hear us cover? Here is a list of the breakouts that are directly Ajax focused... There is also some good information in the keynotes.
Developing a Better User Experience with "Atlas"
Speaker(s): Scott Guthrie
Focus(s): Developer
Session Type(s): Breakout
This sess ... [ read more ]
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2/20/2006 11:46:00 AM
As a PM, one of your key jobs is building excitement for your feature. This excitement is important among many different audiences.
· Among potential customers for your feature – Customers rarely buy or adopt what they are not excited about.
· Within your feature team – People do better when they are working on something they love. Hel ... [ read more ]
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2/18/2006 2:21:00 AM
While Ajax is getting lots of buzz in the new Web 2.0 style applications it enables I was struck recently by the impact this programming style could have on possibly the most popular web application: web based forms!
I hate filling out web forms, in fact one of the only things I hate worse than filling out web forms is doing it twice! Several times recently I have been in the middle of filling out a form and lost all by work. There are ... [ read more ]
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2/17/2006 2:35:00 AM
The Squeet folks are blogging about their usage of Atlas . I can’t wait to see many many more!
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2/10/2006 1:32:00 PM
David Hayden (a C# MVP) recently posted a good review of the FDG . Here is one notable comments:
Although I was originally worried that it would be more theoretical in nature and mainly apply only to architect types, such is not the case. It is a great combination of 1) best practices concerning fundamental API and class design; 2) great tutorials on .NET framework classes and the when, why, and how to use them; and 3) common design p ... [ read more ]
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2/8/2006 8:18:00 PM
I recently ran across this review for the Framework Design Guidelines . A couple of interesting quotes:
The fun part of this book was reading all the annotations that were given throughout that sometimes revealed insider mistakes made and I got a sense in some areas of some "I told them so and now they agree I was right" attitude. I related well to many of the stories as I've been there in my own mistakes.
This is exactly the atti ... [ read more ]
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2/7/2006 8:00:00 PM
I am fairly late in noting that the spot that Joel Pobar and I did a while back on .NET Rocks was posted and Carl even did a bit for Code Magazine on it ..
This one is CLR focused of course... maybe Carl and the gang will have me back on to talk about the cool stuff going on with our UI Framework work such as Atlas and our client technologies.
Enjoy,
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2/6/2006 10:41:00 AM
I haven’t heard much feedback on the .NET Framework poster in the VS 2005 box. Kit George (from BCLBlog fame) put this together and I think it turned out pretty well.
Unfortunately the only way I know how to get a copy of the poster is to buy the VS 2005 product, but I thought I’d make an electronic version available to you here
http://blogs.msdn.com/photos/brada/picture524537.aspx
Oh, and what do y ... [ read more ]
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2/2/2006 9:04:00 PM
As I am coming up to speed on my new role, I have found out about the great work the teams have already done. One of them is reviewing books so that our community gets the best possible data. The team reviewed this one and their feedback is that it is very good overview of the most important new features of WinForms in .NET Framework 2.0.
Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0 : Programming Smart Client Data Applications with .NET
Enjoy ... [ read more ]
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2/1/2006 5:20:00 AM
Darryl K. Taft from eWeek does a good article on Atlas. This highlights what I think is the core value of our Atlas project .
Microsoft's Atlas Eases AJAX Development, Consultant Says
Some quotes:
“One of the biggest problems with the AJAX approach is the amount of time it takes writing and debugging all that code," he said.
"So wouldn't it be nice if somebody could do all that for you?" he asked. "The answer ... [ read more ]
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1/31/2006 6:47:00 PM
As part of building a new team, I am spending sometime thinking about what makes a good manager... In particular, I have a couple of brave souls on my team that are taking the big step to managing people for the first time.
In the process, I have been thinking about the books that I have read that have directly or indirectly influence my management philosophy... It is a bit of an odd list I know, but my general philosophy is that the core issue with management is a ... [ read more ]
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1/30/2006 8:56:00 PM
Stefan Schackow a PM on my new team recently published at great book on the applications services offered by ASP.NET 2.0. While I have only worked with Stefan for a month now it is already obvious that he knows his stuff... do doubt this is reflected in his book!
Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Security, Membership, and Role Management
Enjoy.
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1/30/2006 1:08:00 PM
The Register does a review of the Framework Design Guidelines ... Other than a crack about the title of the book the review is positive. ;-) One point that I have not seen before:
While the .NET focus is evident, it has to be said that the principles and guidelines are independent of language and, to a very large extent, independent of platform. So, not only is this a book that applies to all of the .NET languages rather than just C#, most of it makes good ... [ read more ]
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1/28/2006 7:56:00 PM
One common message PMs get from their managers is to “be more visible” (I know I have given that feedback myself) . The manager often says it this way: “Billybob, you are doing great work, getting the right things done on time, but you are not being visible enough about it so no one knows it”. This is a sham! It implies there is some inherent value in showing up to meetings, sending lots of email, doing slick mulit-color status reports. There is not. ... [ read more ]
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1/27/2006 1:44:00 AM
I sat down with some folks from the Live Local team and the Atlas team to talk about the session at Mix06 that we are giving together. "Designing a Better User Experience with AJAX " (title is tentative).
Here is our current thinking, very much subject to change, as we are early days here.
The goal of the session is to connect with the web application designers and have a conversation about what makes a gr ... [ read more ]
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1/21/2006 7:51:00 PM
I just heard that the Framework Design Guidelines is a Jolt Award finalist ... The rest of the finalist in this category are very impressive. I am honored to have the FDG be among them..
Agile Web Development with Rails by Dave Thomas et al. (Pragmatic
Bookshelf)
Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for
Reusabl ... [ read more ]
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1/19/2006 7:10:00 PM
As many of you know after you ship a major release there is inevitably a re-org as the teams get in alignment to deliver on the next set of opportunities… One of the outcomes of our post- Whidbey shuffle here at Microsoft was to create a product unit that brings together our client and web frameworks and a very close connection to the WPF team with application services (such as user profiles) to deliver an awesome developer programming model experience. Specifically the tea ... [ read more ]
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1/16/2006 12:02:00 PM
Recently a customer asked me if XP SP2 is a required preq for .NET Framework 2.0... Here is the answer we were able to get out to them... I thought you’d be interested. While the .NET Framework 2.0 may install on SP1 or XP Gold, these will not be supported configurations.
Microsoft is making concerted efforts to ensure that systems are as secure as possible by default. As part of these efforts, the only version of Windows XP that .NET Fr ... [ read more ]
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1/15/2006 1:38:00 AM
I had an opportunity recently to chat briefly to Eric Hahn (of Netscape and Lookout fame) about his next interesting project… which btw, will be built in C# just like lookout. He mentioned that it was hard to find developers with world class ISV-style experience in C#. While there is a healthy market for enterprise developers in C# and VB the ISV developers are harder to find.
I assured Eric that you are out there… I know, because I have ta ... [ read more ]
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1/11/2006 5:16:00 AM
Scott Mitchell's did a review of the Framework Design Guidelines in his MSDN- ToolBox Column ... My favorite part of the review was again around the annotations... It is fun to see what folks pull out and find interesting:
What I liked best about this book was the style in which it was written. Rather than being a stodgy tome on framework design, it is very readable thanks to the many "discussions" interjected throughout the book by various Microsoft architects. These discuss ... [ read more ]
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1/10/2006 3:26:00 AM
http://www.dotnetslackers.com/ has a good review of the Framework Design Guidelines
Book Review: Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries
My favorite part of the review is here:
Guidelines can be boring to read but not this book. It is full of insight on how Microsoft did it, the struggle they had on some issues and the mistakes they made. More then that, the book is fully anno ... [ read more ]
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1/6/2006 1:58:00 AM
The . NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference, Volume 2 gets a well thought out review from Mike Riley on www.AspNetPro.com . Mike does a good job of highlighting what I think is the core value of the book – and why I had so much fun working on it. As always, I’d love to hear your feedback.
PRObooks: .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Volume 2: Networking Library, Reflection Library, and XML Library
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1/4/2006 5:39:00 AM
Well, it is that time of year for “ Top 10 of 2005 ”. Thanks to some help from a fellow MSFT blogger I was quickly able to generate the list of the “most popular” blogs of 2005 from this site. I was not exactly sure how to measure “most popular”.... So a did a combo. The first is the most number of hits (agg+web views) and the 2 nd list is the most number of comments... those are almost more interesting to me!
... [ read more ]
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12/27/2005 8:44:00 PM
I was recently reviewing some samples and I ran across one that made me really appreciate the work we did in BCL in .NET Framework 2.0... it maybe a very trivial thing, but it really improves the code.
The code sample in question looked something like:
if (autoCompleteWordList == null)
{
List<String> words = new Lis ... [ read more ]
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12/26/2005 5:12:00 PM
I spent a little time over the holiday break experimenting with Ajax development specifically with the December Atlas preview . Overall I am very impressed with what you can do with zero client impact.
One problem I ran into fairly quickly was that I needed to debug to the client side JScript I wrote. All IE was giving me was the “error on page” icon on the bottom left and there was no obvious way to get details on what the error way. ... [ read more ]
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12/17/2005 1:04:00 PM
I have been doing a little thinking recently about how to be a good Program manager. What skills, habits and practices I have seen successful in the past? And I have been making my way through Orson Scott Card’s Ender series . I never thought the two would meet... but they did.
Last night I ran into this quote, that colorfully characterizes one aspect of being a PM I really value.
You, however, understand the profound ... [ read more ]
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12/14/2005 2:04:00 PM
Joe recently published some thoughts on concurrency in the CLR… this is still early thinking kind of stuff, but it does give you an idea of where our current thinking is.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/01/EndBracket/
Love to hear your thoughts\comments.
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12/11/2005 12:52:00 PM
A reader asks me about a salutation where they are catching a SoapException and wrapping it with their own API specific exception type. I think this is a fairly common scenario so I wanted to start a dialog about it here.
Part of this is covered in chapter 7 of Framework Design Guidelines.
First, it is goodness to wrap the SoapException with your own custom exception type. Essentially you are abstracting away some implementation det ... [ read more ]
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12/6/2005 8:00:00 PM
David did a little digging and came up with the good write up… take a look!
http://davidbetz.net/winfx/2005/12/trycatch-in-net-20-part-2.aspx
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12/2/2005 1:54:00 PM
Framework Design Guidelines on Names of Generic Type Parameters
Continuing in the series of discussing topics from the Framework Design Guidelines … The last post generated some good discussion on generic type parameter naming I though I’d include this.
Names of Generic Type Parameters
Generics are a major new feature of the .NET Framework 2.0. The feature
introduces a new kind of identifier called type parameter. The follow ... [ read more ]
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11/23/2005 8:18:00 PM
Continuing in the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 2 with some information on CultureInfo.
SS (Shawn Steele)
Always use cultures when appropriate, but be careful where you use them. They are meant to
be specific for a user or machine, and they could change. For example, as countries join the EU,
their cur ... [ read more ]
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11/22/2005 9:32:00 PM
Enjoy!
Favorite v2.0 Features in the Base Class Libraries
Kit George and Ari Weinstein show some of their favorite Base Class Libraries features new to the .NET Framework 2.0. Features include Generic collections, new String APIs, the TryParse pattern, Console improvements, new APIs for simpler file access, and the Stopwatch class.
IronPython: Python on the .NET Framework
"IronPython" is an implementation of the Python language ... [ read more ]
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11/21/2005 7:56:00 PM
One of the reasons planning software projects is so much fun is that there are tons of inputs… customer requests, what the competition is doing, what the business needs to grow, supporting other groups at the company, our own personal pet peeves about the product… the list goes on and on. Out of all of this data the thing many of us find is that our existing features just need to get incrementally better. While there is certainly a lot of goodness is making existing features i ... [ read more ]
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11/18/2005 3:01:00 PM
At long last we have a WinFX build to release that works great with “Whidbey” RTM. Here is the low-down:
Uninstall any previous release (you can use the uninstall tool )
Download and install WinFX Runtime bits
Download and install the SDK . Note this is a rather large ISO image this time, we will make the install experience MUCH better in the future. For now we recommend using the Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel fo ... [ read more ]
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11/18/2005 2:53:00 PM
Continuing in the series of discussing topics from the Framework Design Guidelines …
DO NOT give class names a prefix (e.g., C).
KRZYSZTOF CWALINA The only prefix used is I for interfaces (as in
ICollection), but that is for historical reasons. In retrospect, I think it
would have been better to use regular type names. In majority of the cases
developers don’t care that something is an interface and not an abstract
class, for example. ... [ read more ]
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11/18/2005 1:47:00 AM
Here is a new one for the API design Hall of Shame …. It has been in the .NET Framework from V1.0 days and I can’t believe I didn’t know about it until today… Maybe I did know about it before but I blocked it out of my memory ;-)
This API takes “true” and “false” rather than a Boolean value true and false…
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.appdomainsetup.shadowcopyfiles.aspx
public string ShadowCopyFiles { get ... [ read more ]
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11/16/2005 8:17:00 PM
Continuing in the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 2 with some information on CharSet.
public enum CharSet
{
CF Ansi = 2,
Auto = 4,
MS CF None = 1,
Unicode = 3,
}
AN
It’s somewhat unfortunate that CharSet.Ansi is the default behavior for PInvoke, since
... [ read more ]
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11/15/2005 8:49:00 PM
One thing I love about software is that there are very few limits to what you can do. Basically if you can imagine it, it can be done. After all it is all ones-and-zeros. One implication of this is that it is easy to think up new features for a software product. What developer hasn’t dreamed up an idea for making VS better or some new API for the framework? But features in and of themselves don’t make for a great product. What is important in pl ... [ read more ]
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11/14/2005 3:31:00 PM
I just saw some mail internally where folks were looking for a list of the breaking changes between .NET Framework 1.1 and 2.0… As you likely know we work * very * hard to ensure that your V1.1 apps will this just work on 2.0, but none-the-less, this doc is likely worth a quick scan as you migrate to 2.0
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/programming/breakingchanges/
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11/14/2005 2:51:00 AM
Peter just posted a version of the Power Collections for V2.0 . I’d love to hear your feedback on these and the general model. Our goal with helping out Peter and Wintellect with power collections was to provide a first class extension of the existing collection classes that developers could use to take full advantage of the platform.
Do you think we meet that goal? Would you use Power Collections in your next application? Would you like ... [ read more ]
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11/12/2005 3:04:00 AM
We are finalizing plans to do a 2 nd printing of the Framework Design Guidelines (thanks for those of you who bought a copy)… As you may be aware, with additional printings they don’t generally like authors to add new content, but it does afford an opportunity to fix small errors. Krys and I have found a few of on our own, but we’d love to hear your feedback as well. What errors have you found? While I can’t promise to send you $2.56 like Knuth does I wil ... [ read more ]
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11/12/2005 2:52:00 AM
Continuing in the series of discussing topics from the Framework Design Guidelines …
Expert from 3.3 Names of Namespaces
DO use a stable, version-independent product name at the second level
of a namespace name.
DO NOT use organizational hierarchies as the basis for names in
namespace hierarchies, because group names within corporations tend
to be short-lived.
BRAD ABRAMS This means staying away from the latest cool and
catchy name the marketing ... [ read more ]
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11/9/2005 8:19:00 PM
Continuing in the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 2 with some information on DecimalConstantAttribute.
RJ (Rex Jaeschke)
The metadata does not directly support the representation of constants of type System.Decimal. As a result, in the code generated by the C# (and VB) compiler, they are stored as an ... [ read more ]
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11/9/2005 8:15:00 PM
Continuing in the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 2 with some information on BindingFlags.
public enum BindingFlags
{
CreateInstance = 0x200,
DeclaredOnly = 0x2,
MS Default = 0x0,
ExactBinding = 0x10000,
MS FlattenHierarchy = 0x40,
GetField = 0x400,
GetProperty = 0x1000,
IgnoreCa ... [ read more ]
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11/9/2005 12:45:00 AM
We never really considered the canine market when we wrote the book , but good to know they are interested none the less
Check out the picture
thanks Richard for this link!
Krys and I are collecting these, so please send along your “funny” pictures with the book…
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11/4/2005 6:03:00 PM
For those true CLR geeks --- you will love this MSDN TV spot with Joe and Joel talking about CLR Method Dispatch . Let us hear what you think about it.. and what other topics we should cover…
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11/4/2005 12:34:00 PM
Continuing in the series of discussing topics from the Framework Design Guidelines …
Expert from 3.2.5 Word Choice
DO NOT use Hungarian notation.
KRZYSZTOF CWALINA There have always been both positive and negative
effects of using the Hungarian naming convention and they still exist
today. Positives include better readability (if used correctly). Negatives
include cost of maintenance, confusion if maintenance was not done ... [ read more ]
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11/2/2005 8:15:00 PM
Continuing in the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 2 with some information on BadImageFormatException.
BA
You have to be careful when you pick a code name for a project as they sometimes leak out into
the final product. “Fusion” (as in the FusionLog property) is a classic example of that. Fusion
is the code name ... [ read more ]
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10/28/2005 11:32:00 AM
Continuing in the series of discussing topics from the Framework Design Guidelines …
Expert from 3.1.4 Case Sensitivity
Languages that can run on the CLR are not required to support case sensitivity,
although some do. Even if your language supports it, other languages
that might access your framework do not. Any APIs that are
externally accessible, therefore, cannot rely on case alone to distinguish
between two names in the same context.
DO NOT assume th ... [ read more ]
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10/27/2005 12:26:00 PM
Ok, Ok, I am a little behind. But I recently finished listening to David Treadwell’s interview with DoNetRocks . It is a very interesting look back at this history of .NET and windows generally as David has been deeply involved in the platform for a long time!
Check it out.
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10/26/2005 5:18:00 PM
Continuing in the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 2 with some information on Authorization.
Danny Thorpe
Avoid creating methods with Boolean parameters. Boolean parameters make calls harder to
read and harder to write. Quick! What’s the difference between Authorization("foo",
true) ... [ read more ]
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10/21/2005 7:50:00 PM
Continuing in the series of discussing topics from the Framework Design Guidelines …
Expert from 3.1.1 Capitalization Rules for Identifiers
There are two appropriate ways to
capitalize identifiers, depending on the use of the identifier:
PascalCasing
camelCasing
The PascalCasing convention, used for all identifiers except parameter
names, capitalizes the first character of each word (including acronyms
over two letters in length) as in the following ex ... [ read more ]
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10/19/2005 7:09:00 PM
Continuing in the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 2 with some information on AssemblyLoadEventHandler.
CF public delegate void AssemblyLoadEventHandler( object sender, AssemblyLoadEventArgs args);
BA
Looking back on it now, there are way too many types included in the System root n ... [ read more ]
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10/17/2005 11:04:00 AM
I will be giving a talk at the Seattle Code Camp this weekend, basically a shorten reprise of my PDC precon… please feel free to come if you happen to be in the area.. it is free! What is code camp? Check out the FAQ
Seattle Code Camp v1.0 - October 22 & 23, 2005
My talk with be Saturday Oct 22, 3:15-4:30 … Go ahead and register… it is free!
Framework Design Guidelines: The Art of Bu ... [ read more ]
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10/15/2005 1:32:00 PM
Mobilized Software has a good review of the Framework Design Guidelines ... Check it out…
A couple of quotes I found interesting…
Turns out that perhaps the use of the word "Framework" in the title was a bit too grand. […] Anyone who creates libraries for others to use (or even for you to use yourself for a long time) will benefit from the advice given in this book.
[…]
Now, I know what you are thinking. The folks wh ... [ read more ]
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10/14/2005 11:43:00 AM
Continuing in the series of discussing topics from the Framework Design Guidelines …
Expert from 2.2 Fundamental Principles of Framework Design
DO NOT rely solely on standard design methodologies when designing
the public APIs layer of a framework.
CHRIS ANDERSON Each developer has his or her own methodology,
and although there isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with using other
modeling approaches, the problem gene ... [ read more ]
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10/13/2005 11:50:00 AM
David just started a blog the truly geeky CLR folks will love…Like all great blogs, he is talking about what he knows best -- how to use the CLR’s profiling APIs… that is if you wanted to * write * a profiler this is your blog! I also find it interesting as it explains a bit about how the CLR really works under the covers…
http://blogs.msdn.com/davbr/
Enjoy
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10/12/2005 7:07:00 PM
Continuing in the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 2 with some information on Assembly.
SC
Calling Load(AssemblyName) is not necessarily the same as calling Load(String) . If the
AssemblyName.CodeBase is not set, then they do the same thing. So, if you’ve set the
AssemblyName.Name , CultureInfo , public ... [ read more ]
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10/11/2005 11:33:00 AM
At the PDC during the CLR Futures panel an attendee asked the panel what books they recommended on the CLR… I promised to blog the list that the panel suggested.. so here it is (a little late). Notice this is NOT meant to be an exhaustive list… this is just the few books that popped into the minds of the panelist. Most of them were authored by or in very close collaboration with the CLR product development team.
BTW –Amazon has a decent li ... [ read more ]
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10/7/2005 5:56:00 PM
Continuing in the series of sharing information from the Framework Design Guidelines …
Expert from 2.2 Fundamental Principles of Framework Design
Providing a development platform that is both powerful and easy to use is
one of the main goals of the .NET Framework, and should be one of your
goals if you are extending it. The first version of the Framework indeed
gave developers a powerful set of APIs, but some of them found parts of
the Framework too dif ... [ read more ]
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10/5/2005 7:06:00 PM
Continuing in the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 2 with some information on AppDomain.
BA
We introduced Application Domains as a lightweight process mechanism. Because managed
code can be verifiably type safe (memory safe) we did not need the heavyweight address space
barrier that processes provide. This savings wor ... [ read more ]
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10/5/2005 5:30:00 PM
Krzysztof was recently interviewed about framework design in general and the Framework Design Guidelines in particular.
Inside framework design with author Krzysztof Cwalina
Here is my favorite part, we get this question all the time..
SVB: How do design patterns often discussed in object-oriented circles relate to framework design?
KC: The Design Patterns community has concentrated on internal implementations, ... [ read more ]
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9/30/2005 10:05:00 PM
Today I noticed that Amazon has the Framework Design Guidelines in stock (finally)... you can also post comments up there now. Especially for those of you that already have a copy of the book from the PDC, please do post a review and let us (and your fellow developers) hear what you think of the book….
In honor of this day I thought I’d kick off a series of blogs discussing bits of information from the Framework Design Guidelines . I am looking fo ... [ read more ]
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9/28/2005 7:02:00 PM
Continuing in the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 2 with some information on AmbiguousMatchException.
public sealed class AmbiguousMatchException : SystemException
{
// Constructors
public AmbiguousMatchException();
public AmbiguousMatchException( string message);
public AmbiguousMatchException ... [ read more ]
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9/27/2005 2:54:00 PM
While it is not a requirement to start a blog when you join my team… there is certainly a lot of positive peer pressure to share with the community in some way… I was happy to see that our latest team member started a blog recently.. please welcome Kathy to the .NET community…
http://blogs.msdn.com/kathykam/
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9/25/2005 5:57:00 PM
On an airplane ride recently when I ran across a Sudoku puzzle in the local newspaper…. Seemed easy enough… the first few rows and columns went easily enough, but boy it got harder at the end. The rules are very simple…
Fill in the 9x9 grid so that
every row,
every column, and
every 3 x 3 box ... [ read more ]
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9/20/2005 5:45:00 PM
I was recently asked what the difference between CIL and MSIL is… the short answer is not much. They both describe the underlying CPU-independent instruction set the CLR executes after a high level language (C#, VB, C++, Python, Ruby, Pascal, etc) has compiled your source code. The difference between them is the exact version you are referring to.
CIL - Common Intermediate Language - is the term used in the International Stan ... [ read more ]
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9/20/2005 2:27:00 AM
Jessica did a great post listing the frequently asked questions she received while at the PDC this year… I only hope more teams do the same thing. This is an excellent resource!
http://blogs.msdn.com/jfoscoding/archive/2005/09/19/471492.aspx
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Brad Abrams
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9/15/2005 3:23:00 PM
The MSDN folks keep giving this morning… They just posted a highres version of the namespace poster we gave out here at the PDC. Enjoy!
I’d still love to hear you feedback …
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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9/15/2005 12:33:00 PM
As promised , the good folks at MSDN have posted our precon slides. Please take a look. Remember that plagiarism is the highest form of flattery [:D] I’d be honored if you used these slides to push good design practices at your company…
I’d love to hear your success stories (or otherwise [:)]).
Oh, and if you didn’t fill out an eval for the precon, there is still time, love to have your feedback there as well. ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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9/14/2005 6:38:00 PM
You will love this drop of WinFX… it has the Windows Workflow Services stuff in there as well as Windows Presentation Foundation (“Avalon”) and Windows Communication Foundation (“Indigo”)…
Just a note – it does work only with the BETA2 build of .NET Framework 2.0 and VS 2005… So don’t try to make this work on top of anything more recent.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/getthebeta/default.aspx
Have Fun!
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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9/9/2005 12:07:00 AM
Check out the new release from Verizon… https://www22.verizon.com/verizon-one/tour/
Verizon One is a “super” featured desktop phone that runs the .NET Compact Framework… I wonder if they let you develop for the thing? It would be cool to write a RSS reader for the thing ;-)
Let me know if you get one, I’d love to hear how you like it…
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Brad Abrams
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9/7/2005 9:03:00 AM
I just love it when things come together.. I have been completely slammed out the last couple of months mostly on two things: (1) PDC planning and (2) V.Next planning. And now those two things are coming together!
At PDC 2005 we’re planning to conduct a series of focus groups to consider ideas for our product roadmap for Visual Studio and the .NET Framework..
Right now our team is working on building a series of end-to-end scenarios tha ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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9/6/2005 6:50:00 PM
A reader asked me a couple of “logistical” questions about the PDC… I thought I’d respond by posting the answers on my blog for every to benefit from.
Question : Where is the cool web based calendar app that will allow me to create my schedule?
Answer : http://commnet.microsoftpdc.com/ log in with the same passport you used when you signed up for the PDC. Once you logged in click on “My Schedule” on the left bar. & ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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9/5/2005 6:47:00 PM
Looks like the SLAR vol2 finally made its way to book sealer’s warehouses which means everyone that pre-ordered should be getting their copy soon. I’d love to hear what you think and I’d encourage you to help your fellow developers by posting a review on Amazon and\or on your blog.
In honor of this day, I thought I’d restart the series sharing some of the information in the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 and .NET Fr ... [ read more ]
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Brad Abrams
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9/2/2005 2:53:00 AM
As we are in full-swing in talk preparation for the PDC, I thought I’d reference a great talk on, well, how to give a talk .. Simon Peyton Jones is a senior researcher at Microsoft Research and he gave this talk a few years ago, but it is equally valuable today as it was a few years ago when he presented it and spookily applicable to the PDC as it is to the research community.
For those of you going to the PDC, I encourage you to fill out the surve ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/29/2005 9:59:00 AM
I am super excited to get the opportunity to moderate the Looking Ahead to the Future of the CLR panel at the PDC.. While the panelist and I have some great ideas of what we could talk about, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Where do you want to go with panel? What are you hoping to hear about?
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/29/2005 12:28:00 AM
Possibly old news, but I wanted to archive the answer here for posterity. XP SP2 made some security related changes that impacted ROTOR … in particular a customer recently reported:
The issue revolves around exception handling. It would appear that XP SP2 introduced a breaking change to the exception handling in the SSCLI 1.0 so that it no longer catches exceptions (ignores catch blocks and just terminates the application) and it no longer reports exception message ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/28/2005 2:37:00 AM
Monday we start our 2 nd set of dry runs for nearly all the breakout sessions content at the PDC. These dry runs not only serve as an excellence forcing function to get the talks done, but they give the MS folks here in Redmond a chance to see the PDC content before the event.
Last week’s dry runs were a lot of fun, the talks are really coming together. I did a dry run for part of my precon and got some excellent feedback. I also enjoy ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/27/2005 12:36:00 AM
Check out these great channel 9 spots… My only regret is that the PDC is sold out so we will not see the spike in registration I was hoping for ;-).
But maybe we will see more people is coming to these sessions at the PDC..
http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=104544
http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=104541
See you there!
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/25/2005 10:01:00 AM
DevX.com recently posted a sample chapter of .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference, Volume 2
They choose System.Xml.XmlReader … some good annotations on this one.
I’d love to hear your comments on this sneak peak…
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/25/2005 3:09:00 AM
Coming to the PDC? Looking for a way to maximize your time? I have just the idea for you. The truly unique thing about the PDC is the level of technical expertise in both the attendees and staff. We have gather some of the best staff to provide you with the rare opportunity to work One-on-One with real developers and architects at Microsoft directly on your problems. These sessions are designed to be custom-tailored just for you and your problem space. &n ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/24/2005 2:04:00 PM
The channel9 guys just posted an interview we did focusing on the PDC. Check it out … Love to hear your comments.. Anything you didn't know before? BTW, I don't think it is too late to register for the PreCon if you are already comming to the PDC, you might as well come a little early.
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/24/2005 10:00:00 AM
Joel and I had a great time on this show … a few highlights to get you to listen to the whole thing ;-) Lots more jewel’s in the show…
A lot of talk about GC, only for you “Core Geeks…”
History around the dispose pattern (on
& ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/24/2005 1:14:00 AM
Richard does a great series of 4 posts on the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) in CLR 2.0 ..more than you need to know for sure!
The Wonders of the Whidbey GAC -- Part I: Processor Architecture
The Wonders of the Whidbey GAC -- Part II: Interop with the Everett GAC
The Wonders of the Whidbey GAC -- Part III: Binding Order Among the v1.x, v2.0 MSIL and v2.0 Bitness GACs
The Wonders of the Whidbey GAC -- Part IV: Shipping Everett and Whidbe ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/21/2005 7:35:00 PM
I talked a while back about some issues around battery life , but recently a co-worker set me a really interest set of factoids about power management I thought I’d share with you..
There are no “miracles cures” on horizon for the issue of battery life. Fuel cells, although an exciting technology, are probably 5+ years away. It is pretty much up to the platform to extend battery life--and this includes software. (see http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1772287,00.asp ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/19/2005 4:37:00 AM
Joel Pobar invited me to crash his chat with DotNet Rocks tomorrow (or is that later today now…) I am really looking forward to it… I download their shows all the time.. It should be really fun to be on. My understanding is that Joel and I are going to talk about the early days of the CLR\ .NET Framework… Does COM+ 2.0 or NGWS mean anything to you folks?
For those of you that have been on before, any tips of dealing with Carl and Richard ? ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/17/2005 1:09:00 AM
A co-worker just forwarded me his VB theme song… best I have heard.. Nothing like a song about a “Big Cold Beer” to make me code better in VB..
http://www.fosters.com.au/enjoy/docs/VB_song_original.mp3
Oh, btw, VB in this case is Victoria bitter .. but I think the song is equally applicable to the other VB
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/16/2005 12:01:00 AM
With the SLARvol2 and FDG being published very right around the time that the .NET Framework 2.0 (“Whidbey”) is shipping people are naturally asking about how applicable these books are to .NET Framework 2.0… The short answer is very applicable.
While the SLARvol2 does not cover types just added in .NET Framework 2.0, the types it does cover are still the core types in the system and are as important as every. In addition all of the sa ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/15/2005 1:33:00 AM
…and it is not even published yet. We asked Bill Wagner (of Effective C# fame) to review a draft of the manuscript. His feedback was very helpful polishing the text and hopefully you will find his review (or is that preview) of the book helpful as well… btw, you can pre-order the Framework Design Guidelines on Amazon already ;-)
Thanks for your kind words Bill!
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/12/2005 1:03:00 AM
If it is on Amazon it must be for real ;-)
Framework Design Guidelines : Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries
How should we refer to this one? We affectionately call the others SLAR1 and SLAR2 … what should this be? I am found of just saying “DG”.. “FDGCIPRNL” seems like a mouth full… Maybe just FDG? Love to have your thoughts on this important issue! ;-)
I understand you can pre-order right now… be ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/11/2005 1:28:00 AM
When in a domain, a machine’s name is limited to 15 characters, but in a workgroup a machine name can be much longer. However, as one of our internal customers noticed, Environment.MachineName truncates after the first 15 characters. This is because Environment.ComputerName maps to NetBIOS name of the local computer and not the DNS host name. NetBIOS name is limited to MAX_COMPUTERNAME_LENGTH which is 15 for Windows (refer to winbase.h).
You might want to look into ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/10/2005 1:14:00 AM
Check it out, we opened up the Birds of a feather suggestion center … this is your chance to lead your own discussion at the PDC on topics YOU care about. PDC is a great forum for this because the best-and-brightest developers targeting windows will be there as well as TONS of Microsoft folks.
As a Microsoft person, I am not able to lead any of these, but I figured it would be OK if a mused a little about what some fun sessions might be… If you want to pi ... [ read more ]
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/8/2005 12:43:00 AM
I just ran across these and thought they are worth sharing:
http://research.microsoft.com/~birrell/papers/ThreadsCSharp.pdf
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/08/Concurrency/default.aspx
Enjoy!
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BradA via
Brad Abrams
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8/6/2005 3:25:00 AM
Oh, what a great day… I * just * finished doing the final page proofs for the design guidelines book that Krzysztof Cwalina and I have been working on .. it has been a long road, but this thing is almost in the bag. Doing page proofs is always hard for me as I could endlessly tweak this thing to add more guidelines, more examples, more annotations… but just like software we have to get it to good state and then ship it! A whole slew of folks at Addison and Microsoft have bee ... [ read more ]
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Brad Abrams
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8/6/2005 1:00:00 AM
Good to see the CLR team’s trip down-under is having an impact … Not just long days in the pub ;-)
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Brad Abrams
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8/5/2005 12:43:00 AM
Well, not like that ;-)
But Rico is open for business at the PDC. .. We got him hooked up with a small office where he can meet 1-1 with anyone that is having perf issues. He can live debug your application or just talk architecture with it. Rico has done many of these with customers on campus, so I know it will be worth your time.
One suggestion I have to bring your not-so-perf aware co-worker and just enjoy watching Rico work ... [ read more ]
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Brad Abrams
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8/3/2005 3:28:00 PM
We are just starting to kick off the hard core planning for the next release of ROTOR , a shared source version of the CLR. One of the first tasks here is to staff up the team! We need at least 1 PM and 2 developers that have a vision for what ROTOR should be to engage academics and the broader community. For the PM the challenge is around how to excite the community and get tangible results out of this work. For the dev team the ... [ read more ]
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Brad Abrams
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7/27/2005 2:56:00 PM
Check out… we got some coolness going on the MSDN Vista page and * ANYONE * can download the WinFX Runtime Beta1 bits. They are very close to the RC we posted a while back, mostly just bugfixes, but good to have it done.
We are celebrating the launch of WinFX Runtime Beta1 internally by getting the products teams together tomorrow for an all demo powerpoint free event.. We are going to get to preview a bunch of great demos people are putting together for ... [ read more ]
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Brad Abrams
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7/24/2005 3:30:00 PM
As a follow on to our meeting with Don Krzysztof and I meet with Jeff Richter to get his take on what it takes to deliver an excellent precon. I certainly respect Jeff’s opinion because he is the best selling .NET author and a very popular speaker at conferences and training classes.
Some thoughts and tips Jeff gave us..
Tell stories – People want to understand the story behind the technology. What were the discussions around a given ... [ read more ]
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Brad Abrams
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7/20/2005 12:12:00 AM
Check it out -- http://blogs.remobjects.com/blogs/mh/archive/2005/07/17/3023.aspx Looks cool...
I also so a demo of a COBOL implemenation doing XAML as well this morning... I love seeing our language vendors excited about opening the platform to a wider community… Keep it up folks!
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Brad Abrams
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7/18/2005 11:53:00 PM
If you are one of the many folks that have already registered for the PDC please take the time to complete the Session Preference Survey . Internally we take this data very seriously to put talks in smaller (or bigger) rooms and in some cases even cut talks that very few people want to see to make room for other content..
You get 15 votes (that is the max number of sessions you can attend, that is if you don’t use the Blink rule )… so don’t spen ... [ read more ]
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Brad Abrams
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7/17/2005 9:31:00 PM
Recently Paul Vick noticed that his name was not baked into his PDC session title like some other notables … Well, I wanted to correct that injustice right away, so I had the session list updated on the web…
It now, much more powerfully reads:
Visual Basic : Future Directions in Language Innovation from Paul Vick
Paul, I want you to know we will be watching PDC registrations for a spike now that this important fact is out ;-)
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Brad Abrams
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7/17/2005 3:41:00 AM
The design guidelines around method overloading are clear… you should only overload methods that do semantically the same thing. That is you should be able to change your code from calling one to calling another without substantive changes to the rest of your code.
Someone recently forwarded me this thread post on change the return type in an overload . I completely agree with the conclusion reached here… I don’t see how you can change the return type and keep the metho ... [ read more ]
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Brad Abrams
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7/15/2005 3:00:00 PM
I just got through reading Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking … well, ok I actually listened to it while rocking my baby to sleep…
I thoroughly enjoyed this book…It is chock full of fascinating research that has been done on how people think. One of my career goals was to work with software and people… I have that in spades in my current role. All day long I deal with people about software… but ... [ read more ]
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