Latest Microsoft Blogs

David Kean announces FxCop 1.36 Release Here are a few of the goodness from David's blog: 200+ bug fixes that reduce noise, missing analysis and rule crashes Support for analyzing anonymous methods and lambda expressions New option for skipping analysis over tool generated code Spell checker libraries now ship in the box Changes in the way references are resolved and located Better support for C++/CLI and the Compact Framework Language 'friendly' API names in the UI and resolutions (ie Visual Basic syntax if running over a Visual Basic binary) New globalization, design and usage rules New rule for targeting specific versions of the Framework (I'll talk about this in a future post) Performance improvements that cut analysis by...

Mircea recently published a set of tools we have been using recently in design and Architecture reviews of the .NET Framework.  You can download the three new tools Deps, Layering, and potentialCallers here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/fxarch   Enjoy!   Deps Deps.exe constructs the dependency diagrams between assemblies, and carries out cycle detection analysis. The command line format is: deps.exe {d|s} <mscorlib_path> <path_list> [:assembly_name] Example: deps s c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\mscorlib.dll c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 :System The tool produces the files: Full.dot. This is a graphviz – formatted file containing the inter-assembly dependencies, based on what...

InfoQ recently did an interview with Krzysztof Cwalina about Framework Design Studio . Check it out: Framework Design Studio Released Read More...

Krzysztof Cwalina and the gang have been working on a tool to make it easier for Framework designers to design, review and maintain highly usable APIs...  You have to check out Framework Design Studio .   We'd love to hear what you think!     Currently the tool is focused on: Listing APIs exposed from a managed code assembly Comparing APIs in two versions of an assembly Reviewing APIs, commenting on API design, and filing review bugs to a defect database (through a configurable plug-in) Exporting API review comments to a Microsoft Word document         Adding Review Comments:   Comparing API Versions:     Showing removed and added APIs:   Export to word: Read More...

As many of you know, FxCop is static code analysis tool that we originally wrote to ensure the .NET Framework itself adheres to the .NET Framework Design Guidelines .  The tool as been integrated into Visual Studio as the "Code Analysis" feature, but we also continue to ship the stand alone FxCop download. Check out the FxCop team blog and download FxCop 1.35 from Code Gallery.   Read More...

Wow, it feels like old times ...  I am happy that we are posting a new proposal for additions to the framework design guidelines.  Mitch has worked hard on these, and we have reviewed them internally and now it is time for your comments.   Please do chime in! LINQ Framework Design Guidelines   Thanks! Read More...

Krys got his very popular TechEd Europe session on framework engineering posted . Framework Engineering: Architecting, Designing, and Developing Reusable Libraries This session covers the main aspects of reusable library design: API design, architecture, and general framework engineering processes. Well-designed APIs are critical to the success of reusable libraries, but there are other aspects of framework development that are equally important, yet not widely covered in literature. Organizations creating reusable libraries often struggle with the process of managing dependencies, compatibility, and other design processes so critical to the success of modern frameworks. Come to this session and learn about how Microsoft creates its frameworks...

Krzysztof spilled the beans ... We just started working on Volume 2 of the Framework Design Guidelines ... Krys gives some hints on the kinds of things we will be covering .NET Framework 3.0 and .NET Framework 3.5 including LINQ and other cool new framework features. I would not expect the book until LATE '08, so if you were planning to by the first edition, please go ahead ;-) I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback.. what should we cover? What changes should we make? What new annotations should we get? Read More...

Good tools are essential to good engineering... Recently I ran across a couple of good tools that will help with Framework design and implementation. NDepends - is a tool that allows you to analyze your source code in order to get a grip on what is really going on so you can do large refractorings, reduce complexity, etc. Check out the online demos SubMain also has a cool that is effectively like FXCop, but it automatically fixes the errors for you where possible. Check out this tutorial for more information .. What tools do you use everyday? anything else you think I should highlight? Read More...

Every year, Microsoft honors a few innovations that have furthered the state of engineering excellence at Microsoft... Some years, Bill Gates selects one of the winners to honor with the special distinction of the chairman's award. I am told that Bill does this for truly noteworthy achievements that have tangible impacted software development in every division at Microsoft. In fact, until this year, the only other winner of the Chairman's award was Watson . This year, FxCop (along with some two other static code analysts tools) were selected for this award. This achievement is a testament to the importance of catching errors at the developers desktop before they even get into the source tree. We know it becomes orders of magnitude more expensive...