Monday Keynote – Visual Studio 2010 Launch

Major points of emphasis for the 2010 releases:

1. Stay in the Zone

The idea is to enable SW engineers to stay in context, maintain focus and minimize switching cost.  This is accomplished by providing the features SW engineers need through their respective IDE:

• Visual Studio for developers
• Test and Lab Manager for testers
• Team Web Access, Office and SharePoint for program managers

2. SharePoint Made Easy

This consist of major enhancements to SharePoint and improved integration and support of SharePoint in SharePoint Designer, Visual Studio and Access. Particular features include:

• Simplified administration and configuration
• Near feature parity of SharePoint Online
• Visual Studio support for debugging and automated deployment
• SharePoint can be run on Windows 7 so that developers are not forced to use a server OS for their development computer
• Support for LINQ

3. Support for the Cloud

Cloud technology is seen as an inflection point that will change the landscape of software applications. Reasons given include

• The Cloud provides a 10x reduction in overall hardware costs. For example, the normal ratio of operators to servers 1 to 30. World class IT shops have achieved 1 to 300. The Cloud enables 1 to 3000.
• An order of magnitude improvement in support for scalability, elasticity, up-time and reliability
• Visual Studio 2010 features for making Cloud development easy and consistent with development of on-premise applications

4. Support for All Kinds of Devices

Extending support and deployment to all devices everywhere will create huge new opportunities for software applications.

• Windows 7 support to extend to many different devices so that the same bits  can be deployed and run the same bits all kinds of different devices including phones, game boxes, and televisions
• Visual Studio 2010 provides the emulation and debug  tools
• An “online application marketplace” where applications can be uploaded and then consumed by device users

5. Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere

Formerly Teamprise , this provides access to TFS from within a number of different IDEs on different platforms

6. Understanding the Code

This is supported by a number of new features including:

• Architecture Explorer, which provides visualizations of object/symbol relationships
• Reverse engineering of dependency diagrams and sequence diagrams
• Intellitrace, which is historical debugging (i.e. the time travelling debugger)

7. Less time in Status Meetings

• Team members mark work items closed and TFS consolidates and provides status reports
• Traceability is automatically maintained
• Team Web Access
• MS Office/TFS integration

8. Test Automation

• Test case steps and system information automatically written to the SAR
• Video, screen shots, Intellitrace and VM checkpoint automatically linked to the SAR
• Manual test execution recording and playback
• Automatic execution of unit tests, deployment and execution of coded UI tests
• Automatic selection of regression tests based on code changes (i.e. test impact analysis)

Tuesday Keynote  – SilverLight 4 Launch

• Since November 09, SilverLight has increased its worldwide desktop install base from 45% to 60%
• The 4.0 release enables better application performance (2x), faster startup (30%) and new performance profiling support
• Applications can extend beyond the browser and can be deployed to all kinds of devices
• Develop applications that support multiple monitors
• Presentation of SilverLight 4.0 developed product, Ormetis
• Presentatino of the SilverLight 4.0 pivot control for deep zoom and analytical processing
• Easy access to data via WCF services

Session Consolidation

Team Foundation Server (TFS)

• VS/TE 2010 backward compatible to TFS 2008
• VS/TE 2005 forward compatible to TFS 2010
• Other compatibility scenarios
• Team Build now driven by Windows Workflow (WF) 4.0
• 2008 build definitions can run as-is in TFS2010 using the Upgrade Template on the expanded process tab of the build defintion
• Can support parallel builds
• Gated check-in and buddy builds
• “Test impact analysis” to drive selective execution of unit tests and coded UI tests locally and as part of the build “deployment” workflow
• Branching visualization for change-sets by path and by time-sequence
• Use a proxy TFS server for builds to take transaction load off the main TFS server 

Talmia

I met with the Talmia team and participated in a demonstration of Talmia’s process design and implementation features. Talmia is an ALM process control product. It provides event-driven workflows that can be implemented into TFS as part of the TFS Process Template.

Visual Studio 2010

• To use VS 2010, projects and solutions must be converted to the 2010 format. This is permanent and once performed these files cannot be read by VS 2008
• 2010 projects can target .Net 4.0 or 3.5 or 3.0 or 2.0: solutions can have projects targeting different platform versions
• VS now very much easier to extend and customize (Managed Extensibility Framework)
• Keyboard shortcuts are now displayed on the right-click context menus. The full list of 2010 keyboard shortcuts is here. Some nifty ones presented at the conference are:
  • Zoom code editor – Ctl + mouse wheel
  • Multi-line editing – Alt, select
  • Redock a floating tab – Ctl + double-click
  • Bring up the quick “Navigate To” dialog – Ctl +  comma
• The new architecture “analysis” features will identify and display:
  • Circular references
  • Un-referenced nodes
  • Hubs

SharePoint

• Development for SharePoint 2010 now much more consistent with the development of ASP.NET applications
• The SharePoint sever is now listed in the VS Server Explorer 
• Improved SharePoint designer; for example, organizes information in logical categories instead of by file path
• Support for offline work and automatic sync once online
• Ability to pull data from multiple sources to display in a SharePoint web part
• Active Access databases can be published to SharePoint and can continue to be updated natively and through SharePoint
• List can now contain up to 50 million items (enabled through a new query throttling feature)
• SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 planned for release on May 12th
• Sandbox solutions provide more control within defined boundaries
• Full set of hands-on training exercises and labs available and download-able SharePoint 2010 virtual environment

SilverLight

• SilverLight 4.0 extends beyond the browser; supports RIA and local data
• Much improved ease of integration with MS Office applications (don’t always have to ship the office interops)
• New Expression Blend 4 improved integration with other development tools (i.e. VS and SilverLight)
• Fast end-to-end application with Sketch-Flow, Expression Blend, SilverLight, WCF/RIA Services and SQL Server
• New features to ease and accelerate development of applications using parallel processing (for example, the VS concurrency visualizer)

C# .Net 4.0

• Things you get and can do without upgrading to .NET 4:
  • Improved Intellisense:
    • Finds not only with the leading string, but any substring and even acronyms (i.e. TDI will find TestDataImpact)
    • Support for JQuery
  • Multi-monitor support (VS tabs can be “torn off” and displayed as a stand alone window on a different monitor)
  • New code search feature “Navigate To” for a quick find of symbols and objects (Ctl + comma)
• Some new .NET 4 features
  • Improved sevrer control rendering
  • SEO friendly routing
  • Better client-side development support
  • Granular view state control
  • Rich charting visuals and chart control
  • Easier decoupling of the URL from the file path name
  • More efficient translation of markup into code
  • Access data like you access code (WCF and Entity Framework)
• The 2010 .Net 4 deprecation list (~300 items)
• Language features: dynamic language support, contracts, performance analysis at the application domain level, improved garbage collection, named and optional parameters, easier interface with COM (i.e. embedded interop types)

• Public release of beta versions of:
  • Office 2010
  • SharePoint Server 2010
  • Project 2010
  • Visio 2010
  • Office Web Apps for businesses
  • Office Mobile 2010
• Windows Azure – Microsoft’s Cloud Computing platform was officially launched. It will be available for production use beginning January 1, 2010. Customers will not have to pay for service until Feb. 1st.
• Microsoft Pinpoint – A new online marketplace for Microsoft partners to offer applications.
• Microsoft Codename “Dallas” – A place where developers can find, purchase and use data from the cloud.
• Windows Server AppFabric – A set of application server technologies formerly code-named “Dublin”. These features will simplify and enhance the use of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).
• ASP.NET MVC 2 – The first beta release of MVC v2 was announced and made available to developers.
• Silverlight 4.0 - The first beta release was announced and demonstrated
• Internet Explorer 9 – An early look was presented that covered progress on performance benchmarks
• BizTalk Server 2009 R2 – The product team announced BizTalk Server 2009 R2, and previewed some capabilities of a version beyond that.

Other Relevant Technologies

• SQL Server 2008 R2 – better support for virtualization, streamlined management, Web support and enterprise integration
• Visual Studio 2010 – Beta 2 is available for public download
• Team Foundation Server 2010 – Beta 2 is available for public download. Will run in “basic” configuration on Windows 7 client

PDC 2009 Resources

• Main site
• Sessions (slides and videos listed in each session)
• Video library

My Summary

The one-day workshop “Developing Quality Software using VSTS 2010” provided a comprehensive, if dry, overview of Microsoft’s ALM solution, formerly known as Team System. The Microsoft ALM Solution (for now I’ll refer to it as MAS) consist of Visual Studio and TFS. The major feature emphasis in the 2010 release is code quality, Office/SharePoint integration, lab management and builds.

The conference sessions focused on cloud capabilities and new releases of Microsoft software. Highlights for me were:

• The integration of data design, modeling and development into Visual Studio continues to improve. Clearly, there is tremendous overlap now of the process, technologies and development tools for database development and code development. VS2010 offers a more complete and visual way to model, develop and deploy databases.
• VS/TFS support for SharePoint is much improved. The new features in VS to support SharePoint include:
  • Web Part, BCS and Workflow designers
  • Package and Deploy SharePoint projects
  • Generate WSP for Production Deployment
  • View SharePoint site in Server Explorer
  • Team Foundation Server Integration
  • Support for SharePoint Sandboxed Solutions
  • Import WSP from SharePoint Designer
  • Extensibility for Development of Additional
    SharePoint Artifacts
  • SharePoint Business Connectivity Services support
• A “Birds of a Feather” session on Agile tooling demonstrated (again) that birds of a feather do not all think the same together. There were some interesting Agile tools mentioned that include: Jing and Live Mesh
• There are big code visualization improvements:
  • The VS “model” project, Architecture Explorer and Layer Diagram
  • IntelliTrace
  • Changeset merge tracking
• Team Build 2010 has been totally revamped:
  • Build Controllers lets you pool your builds
  • The build process is now defined and customized using Windows Workflow 4.0 (WF 4.0)
  • WF 4.0 support visual (XAML) and code based development
  • Reusing Build Definitions using Build Process Templates
  • The Build Summary and Log is now readable!
  • Gated Checkins, a.k.a No More Broken Builds
  • Codeplex will be supporting a library of common build activities
• New to 2010 –  Lab Management:
  • Integrated into the ALM workflow and TFS
  • Supports build deployment, manual testing, automated testing and debugging
• Integrated reporting –  SQL Server Reporting Services:
  • Easier integration with TFS Team Portal
  • Easier development of SQL Server RS Reports
• TFS 2010 Process Templates: Enterprise SCRUM for TFS:
  • The next evolution of the Conchango SCRUM for TFS process template for complex/enterprise development environments
  • Supports multiple releases, work-streams and teams within a Team Project
• Additional Session Summaries from Sasha Goldshtein’s blog
  • Future Directions for C# and Visual Basic: Rewriting the compilers in managed languages, considering first-class parallelism and opening up the compiler.
  • Concurrency Fuzzing and Data Races: Automatic tools from Microsoft Research for fuzzing and detecting race conditions in parallel programs.
  • Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Kernel Changes: A great many changes in the kernel of Windows, also see Channel 9 recording.
  • Data-Intensive Computing on Windows HPC Server with the DryadLINQ Framework: Another major leap – LINQ to become distributed in a computation cluster.
  • Code Contracts and Pex: Power Charge Your Assertions and Unit Tests: Code contracts are a powerful mechanism that can be used for generating tests and constraint proving.
  • Microsoft Perspectives on the Future of Programming: Concurrency, modeling, small-and-large scale programming are all significant interests for Microsoft.
  • Future of Garbage Collection: Fully parallel (real-time) garbage collection, server background collection and other research.
  • The State of Parallel Programming: Parallelism must move to invariant-based, functional programming – the conceptual differences are too vast.
  • Developing with the Windows API Code Pack for the .NET Framework: A new release of the Code Pack with many features and bug fixes.
  • Lighting Up Windows Server 2008 R2 Using ConcRT on UMS: ConcRT internally uses UMS if possible, lots of optimization tricks with regard to task scheduling and efficiently handling small work items.
  • Developing Applications for Scale-Up Servers Running Windows Server 2008 R2: UMS internals, how to write your own UMS scheduler, >64 LP support.
  • DirectCompute: Capturing the Teraflop: It’s about time to start using the GPU for general-purpose computation.
  • New Developer Tools in Windows Embedded Standard 2011: It will be easier than ever to create a fully customized Windows Embedded image for deployment.
  • Power Tools for Debugging: Microsoft Research projects for automatically finding bug root causes and advising the actions to take.