Database Unit Testing with Team Edition for Database Professionals

Summary: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals is the first toolset to deliver a comprehensive framework for performing database unit tests. This product brings to the data community the same first-class capabilities for performing unit tests that many application developers enjoy today. This paper explains exactly what database unit testing is, shows you how to develop database unit tests by using the framework, and walks you through how to leverage its rich capabilities to develop an effective strategy for performing database unit tests inside your organization. (21 printed pages)

What the heck is Dependency Replication?

Dependency Replication is a process that most development teams have to do
as the scope of what they are trying to achieve grows. The idea is that within
your organisation you might have a set of common frameworks that you use and
maintain. Rather than linking in the source code into each new project that you
undertake you treat the framework like an internal product which you build
seperately.

BPEL for Windows Workflow Foundation March Community Technology Preview is released

BPEL for Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is an add on for Windows Workflow Foundation in the .NET Framework 3.0. BPEL is the Business Process Execution Language and this download is an unsupported Community Technology Preview (CTP) for using this technology with WF. The download, which is aimed at software developers, provides import and export tools for BPEL and includes WF activities representing BPEL for the WF designer in Visual Studio 2005.

This release reinforces how WF is extensible and not dependant on any specific modeling language for its declarative modeling approach. Others in the community are encouraged to build activity sets that represent other process modeling languages that suit their needs. By supporting declarative modelling with WF in an extensible way Microsoft is providing .NET Framework developers with a familiar code oriented approach that can also be higher level and more productive.

New "Orcas" Language Feature: Extension Methods

Here's another Guthrie's great post about C#3, with a simple "down to earth" explanation about extension methods.

Continuous integration made easy

It'a about time! Here is CI made easy:

CI Factory is a canned Continuous Integration(CI) server and installation script. Adherence to a standard development workspace allows for this product to build most any project out of the box. It uses a plugin architecture. For more information on what it is and how it works see the introduction.
If you are ready to get start using it download it and read the install document. You should be able to get a build server up and running in no time. Packages currently bundled with the CI Factory installer:

Visual Source Safe
Subversion
Assembly and product versioning
PVCS Tracker
.NET Visual Studio 2003/2005 solution compilation
Unit
Test execution with MbUnit
Code Coverage with CoverageEye
nDepend
Deployment artifact publication
Install Shield or VS deployment packages

Independent Packages :

Ant
VB6Compile
LinesOfCode
MSTest
NCover
BackUp
Simian
Analytics

Structuring Projects for Team Foundation Server

J.D. Meier's has just posted his opinion about project structuration on TFS. Here it is.

Shifts in .NET Object-Relational maps (ORMs): Seismic and subtle

Here's George Lawton and Jack Vaughan opinion about OR/M momentum. In this post, they reference Tech Talks’s Hassa as saying:

LINQ is a fact for the future – the question is only when, whether it will be launched proper at the end of 2007 or if we need to wait until 2008. ORMs should provide a good migration story to LINQ and protect your project investments for the time when LINQ has been released.

I couldn't agree more.

The gods must be crazy

No comments: http://www.defyallchallenges.com/

What next? I'm afraid to ask... Ok, msdn.microsoft.com is not too appealing for people who doesn't have to use it, but COME ON!...

[update] shouldn't this at least be written in WPF/E? Why Flash?

The death of computing

In this interesting post, Neil McBride says:

Computer science was populated by mathematicians and physicists but now virtual robots can be created by eight-year olds without needing programming, logic or discrete mathematics skills. Does that mean we have a dying discipline?

...

Dropping numbers of A Level students, a view that IT is a job for geeks and social misfits and a perception that there’s nothing interesting in computer science doesn’t help. Even the value of the research base is being questioned.

...

Computer science has lost its mystique. There is no longer a need for a vast army of computer scientists. The applications, games and databases that students once built laboriously in final year projects are bought at bookshops and newsagents.

And the problem's global. In the US, the number of students choosing computer science dropped by 39 per cent between 2000 and 2005. In Australia, cuts in IT academic staff are the order of the day.

Where are Vista's security problems?

Strangely enough, the next Microsoft Bulletins won't contain any security reference. Is Vista the first Microsoft OS that proves itself from day 0, or is Vista just not being used at all?

[Update] After writing this post, I've checked my Vista's updates: Microsoft is yet to post a critical update...

Hiring and Interviewing Engineers

Need some help hiring people? Here's Hanselman's aproach.

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista

Yeap, here it is, the final one.