Unleashing the power of GAT+CAB
In the last two week there was a lot of excitement here at the MS patterns & practices offices.
The two current raising stars, most known as the Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) and the Composite UI Applicaion Block (CAB) are finally in the public domain (tech preview and code drop 1 respectively).
Who are these guys?
On one hand, GAT will revolutionize the way you integrate with VS as my partner Cazzu says in his post (BTW if you plan to attend the TechEd 2005, don’t miss his GAT presentation). You may get further info about GAT here, watch a recorded webcast here or expect to get fresh info from the bloggers listed at the end of this post. On the other hand, CAB will provide the guidance and the tools to build a reusable infrastructure and define the common [UI] services and components (called SmartParts) that are “composed” to create the UI layer if an application. If you want to know more about CAB, check out here, joint the next webcast here or subscribe to the blogs named at the bottom. So why all that fuss?If we combine this stuff with the various Smart Client initiatives (like Offline App Block and Updater App Block and EntLib-currently being ported to Whidbey) we have a great cocktail of UI assets that shows a new powerful synergy of “canned” guidance+integrated-tooling starting to emerge.Taking this concept to the next level is what the current project where I’m working on is trying to achieve. I can’t tell much more by the time being but I promise to write about this exciting new project in future posts. We are getting all the power and internal knowledge from these blocks (Wojtek, our project architect is GAT's architect as well) to build a powerful and comprehensive package that will guide and help to create the Baseline Architecture of an application (a Smart Client application in this first stage). Yeah I know I’m not saying much with this (though I warned you) but I promise all the gory details when the times come.CAB & GAT Team Bloggers
These guys are part of both teams and as you may know them, they certainly will provide you with the latest news and the richer insight in any of these projects.
Eugenio Pace's blog (Product Manager)EdJez's blog (Architect)Cazzu blog. (GAT, CAB) (Developer)(I'll be posting something as well here) And of course, expect to read all the fresh info about this stuff that we are incubating working jointly with MS PAG and an invaluable influence of the community feedback. Disclaimer.