Multi-Targeting Support with VS2010 & .NET 4.0

This is a great link I can pass on to the people responsible for maintaining the servers who were worried (hey, I was worried too) about installing a beta version of the .NET framework next to production apps using non-beta versions. (For those of you not already familiar with Scott Guthrie, he’s a a Corporate VP in the Microsoft Developer Division and his blog posts are always great references.)

.NET 4.0 can also be installed “side by side” with previous versions of .NET on the same machine. .NET 4.0 has a new version number for both the framework libraries and CLR engine – which means it runs completely independently from .NET 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5. What this means is that you can install .NET 4.0 on a machine that has .NET 2.0/3.0/3.5 installed, and configure some applications to run using .NET 4.0 and others to run using the older .NET versions (the IIS admin tool allows you to configure this for ASP.NET applications). This allows you to use .NET 4.0 for new applications – without having to necessarily test and upgrade all your existing ones.

via Multi-Targeting Support (VS 2010 and .NET 4 Series) – ScottGu’s Blog.

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The State of Team System (YAP)

Yet Another Podcast, (YAP) talking not just about Team System but about effective, predictable software process and the tools that can be used to enact one. (Primarily TFS, but a few others were mentioned.) This discussion, with the issues that were highlight, only further emphasizes to me the definite advantage of using the right process and methodology in software design, and the importance of those “icky” things like unit tests that cost a little up front but save a lot on the back end. It is a big goal of mine to not just be casually familiar with (I think I’m there already) but really able to make the most of what I consider the current “state of the art” in software development architecture, methods, process, etc.

Joel Semeniuk on the State of Team System

Joel Semeniuk is back to catch us up on Visual Studio Team System. Problems solved and features yet to come.

via .NET Rocks!.

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Is Software Development Too Complex? (YAP)

Yet Another Podcast, (YAP) this time about the complexity of software development, the different types of complexity of consider, and an all-around interesting conversation.

Panel: Is Software Development Too Complex?

Recorded live at devLink in Nashville, Tennessee. Billy Hollis, Kathleen Dollard, Jim Holmes, and Josh Holmes (no relation) discuss the issue of the complexity of software development. Several .NET celebrities in the audience also chimed in.

via .NET Rocks!.

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Decompiling .NET

I was just reminded myself how easy and useful it is to decompile .NET assemblies, and thought I’d pass on the favor.

.NET Reflector will examine the IL in a DLL and display it as C#, VB.NET, etc (though this may not be very useful if the assembly has been obfuscated) and the Reflector.FileDisassembler plugin for .NET Reflector will export the disassembly as a Visual Studio project. Doesn’t get much easier than that!

.NET Reflector Video
.NET Reflector
FileDisassembler Plugin

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The Data Mining Renaissance

Nice high-level overview of data mining and where the industry is headed. And the comments were just as illuminating as the article itself. From the information given here it would seem it’s worth seriously exploring MapReduce hosted in Amazon’s cloud.

We are in the midst of a data mining renaissance.

Traditionally, data warehousing implementations were large, complex and expensive, meaning only the top-ranking companies could afford them. Teradata pioneered the initial market for corporate data warehousing solutions and still maintains a segment lead, something HP’s CEO Mark Hurd knows all too well. More recent entrants into the data warehousing and intelligence market, like Netezza, have emerged with cost-effective, appliance-based approaches. Others in this arena include Greenplum, recent Microsoft acquisition DATAllegro and, of course IBM, Oracle and SAP.

But the web changed the way we radiate and consume information and in doing so, created a new opportunity to measure and monetize it. Faced with more user data, logging information, and web content than anyone thought one system could handle, the major web companies developed highly scaled data warehousing solutions themselves. Armed with these tools, they improved customer resonance by building better recommendation engines, more targeted advertising networks and more intricate campaigns.

via The Data Mining Renaissance.

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Oregon Student Transcript Exchange (OSTX)

Sounds like the Oregon DATA Project is up to all sorts of clever shenanigans. I have to wonder if OSTX was created as an interim solution until a more widely recognized standard can be brought into play (SIF?) or if it is intended to stand on its own and possibly expand its user base? (Guess it wouldn’t be “O” then would it? Maybe USASTX?)

What is the Oregon Student Transcript Exchange (OSTX)?

OSTX is an electronic student record transfer application that provides for the exchange of student records and transcripts between schools and colleges and universities. Access is through ODE’s Central Login application and is restricted to authorized users only. OSTX allows schools and districts to quickly exchange student’s information so a student can be enrolled in school and assigned to appropriate classes in a timely manner. The student’s transcript can also be sent to colleges and universities formatted in the industry standard PESC file format used by most of the nation’s post-secondary institutions.

via Oregon Department of Education.

And apparently this is the home of the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council, responsible for the PESC format.

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ReSharper, VisualSVN, and GhostDoc – Happy Productive Days for VS2010!

Just got an email from VisualSVN regarding Visual Studio 2010…

Hello!

We have released VisualSVN 1.7.4 that provides an experimental support for the current beta of Visual Studio 2010.

The only known issue is that QuickDiff feature is currently unavailable for Visual Studio 2010. We will fix that in the upcoming releases.

Could you please download the latest version of VisualSVN and check that Visual Studio 2010 integration works well for you? Any bug reports and suggestions are welcome!

As usual, you can download VisualSVN here:

http://www.visualsvn.com/visualsvn/download/.

Thanks in advance!

—

Regards,

Olga Dolidze
VisualSVN Support

And then just out of curiosity I decided to check if my favorite Visual Studio add-on was available for 2010…

ReSharper for Visual Studio 2010 (preview) – is an early build for those who are trying out Visual Studio 2010 and cannot live without ReSharper. It is neither 4.5.1 for VS10, nor 5.0 for VS10. It is intermediate result of our attempts to integrate with Visual Studio 2010 extensibility model, plus preliminary state of some of ReSharper v5 features (you will find some of them enabled). Complete roadmap for ReSharper v5 will be published soon.

Download ReSharper for VS2010 Here…

Oh happy days! This means most of my additions to VS are now available for 2010, which I’m already using! Wait, what’s this…? GhostDoc is now supported in VS2010 too?! *sniff* I just don’t know what more a developer could ask for, it’s like Thanksgiving and the clearance rack all in one…

Happy coding!

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