Matias Woloski’s Blog

My good friend Pablo Galiano has been working on a VSIP software factory lately. I had never did a VSIP package myself, but it seems like a lot of work to do simple things like adding a command. This software factory provides a bunch of recipes (developed with GAX/GAT) that will do all the dirty job for you.

Check it out here: http://www.codeplex.com/vsipfactory

I’m in the early stages of writing my thesis about SaaS. As
part of this process I’m reading loads of SaaS content. Mainly, I’m monitoring Gianpaolo Carraro and Fred Chong blogs (from
the Microsoft Architect Strategy group) and a weekly SaaS newsletter.

SaaS is
in its infancy in terms of guidance and realization and as a result, my
thesis outline consists of analyzing the state of the art and fulfills the architectural
concepts by writing a reference implementation of Software as a Service using
Microsoft technologies (WinFx, ASP.Net 2, etc.).

Fred and Gianpaolo wrote a great paper that has been
published on MSDN about architectural
strategies for SaaS.

The paper starts by talking about the business value proposition of SaaS. Leveraging
economy of scale and selling for the long tail are really attractive concepts.

The other half of the paper examines architectural implications
when adopting this model: the SaaS maturity level, metadata services,
multi-tenant and scale out among other things.

This paper is a first approach on the subject and it introduces
concepts like Metadata Services which I found one of the key challenges
to fulfill in terms of guidance because it is a cross-cutting concern in SaaS
architectures.

The following is my first approach on how I would like to achieve
Metadata Services using the Microsoft stack.

I would like to make a special comment on “Extensions to
the data model”. In the previous months we, at Southworks, customized extensively the
process template of VSTS
to fit our needs. This customization has been really straightforward and it
allowed tailoring our specific requirements not only for our SDLC but also on
other business processes. That proved us that XML succeeded as a metadata
language. The guys from VSTS did a great job by providing these metadata
services and I would like to explore more the intrinsic of it.

If you selected the C# profile in VS 2005 you will find some annoyances.
I’ve read this post today from Scott Guthrie
talking about some tweaks to do on VS 2005 via Tools->Options and I
thought it would be nice to have it summarized and handy.

Enable the output window to show up on
build.
To enable
this by default, select the Tools->Options menu item.  Then under Project and Solutions->General
select the “Show Output Windows when Build starts” checkbox.

Show MSBuild Output Verbosity “Normal”:
Tools->Options menu item.  Then under
Project and Solutions->Build and Run you can select the MSBuild project
verbosity dropdown to be: “Quiet”, “Minimal”, “Normal”, “Detailed”, and “Diagnostic”.

Track Active Item in Solution Explorer (my favorite)
To enable
this feature in the C# profile, select the Tools->Options menu.  Under Projects and Solutions->General
select the “Track Active Item in Solution Explorer” checkbox.

[via ScottGu]

My Blog has been moved… This is the new url: http://blogs.southworks.net/blogs/matiaswoloski

Let me say first, that it just rocks! From my point of view, all the issues I see in VS.Net and all the features I would like my IDE have, are there.

High points

• Application Connection Designer: diagram your applications logically like you would do with Visio, and generate a skeleton (including web apps, webservices, windows app, webreferences, databases (sql server), and more) 
  
• Portfolio: This new concept group everything related to a project. Integration with Windows Sharepoint to manage documents. Everything in one place!
  
• Templates for different guidelines: MSF Agile, MSF Formal, XP, and more comming…
  
• Whole testing suite: including code coverage, unit testing
  
• Source Control revamped: over http, prepared for distribuited teams. Integrated with vs.net ide, you can choose the plugin you want (availables: Source Safe, Source Safe Remote, VSTS)
  
• Class designer: keeps the code in sync with the pseudo-uml and viceversa.
  
• Integration: everything is based on ws, and the model is very extensible 
  
• Office: export/import work items to Excel, Project, etc.

Low points

• Installation: you need 3 vpc, one for the application tier (VSTS), another for Database tier with sql server 2005 express, another for the client with vs.net 2005. Future releases will allow the app and data tier together.
  
• Source Control: the UI is still the same (check, locker, etc). I think it would need a redesign to keep the user mind out of the sourcesafe camp which has a bad connotation.
  
• Class designer: drawings are not standard UML

• Visual Studio Team System wiki
  http://www.3leaf.com/wiki/

• Visual Studio Team System blog (Q&A and articles)
  http://blogs.msdn.com/askburton/
• Visual Studio Team System official web
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem
• msdn articles
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvsent/html/vsts-team.asp
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Designing Distributed Systems for Deployment
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Building Robust and Reliable Software
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Software Project Management
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Enterprise-Class Source Control and Work Item Tracking
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Microsoft Solutions Framework
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Extending the Suite
  • Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Enabling Better Software Through Better Testing

• How to install it in 3 VirtualPCs (1 for Data tier, 1 for App tier and 1 for Client)
  http://blogs.msdn.com/mglehman/archive/2004/09/09/227658.aspx
• Rob Caron’s blog (VSTS stuff)
  http://blogs.msdn.com/robcaron/category/5240.aspx

Here is the whole picture for VSTS