It's that time of year again and a custom on my blog to look back at my predictions for this year, relect on my year and look at what I think will happen over next year. Here's what I predicted and how it turned out.
2007 will be the year of patterns and testability (or I'll die trying).
2007 has been the year Microsoft announced and released a CTP of a MVC framework, +1
MonoRail will go 1.0 RTM, I think that more folks will take up MonoRail on their projects and a book or two will appear.
MonoRail has reached RC but not yet RTM, -1.
MbUnit 2.4 and MbUnit 3.0 will see light of day in 2007, MbUnit 2.4 will be a shift and MbUnit 3.0 a change. MbUnit 3.0 am I really excited about and its getting the stuff out of my head and into code.
MbUnit 2,4, 2.4.1 and 3.0 alph1 were all released in 2007, +1.
2007 will be an interesting year in general for unit test frameworks, Peli's back in test research (and expect that to see light of day in 2007) and Charlie has NUnit cooking on a roaring fire. Expect to see some very cool stuff show up in 2007 for that.
Peli announced Pex and Charlie announced NUnit 2.4, 2.4.1, 2.4.2 and has started work on 3.0. In addition MSTest has found its way into the pro sku of VS, +1.
Mix 2007 will also see some very cool stuff show up for its subjects of web and RIA, no I can't say what (again with thanks to mr nda) but if you missed the show this year then don't miss out in 2007.
Mix07 was all about WPF\E.....Silverlight, +1
Microsoft's Ray Ozzie will take the helm fully in 2007 and more shifts in thinking will appear, Microsoft will also hire more minds into the company (they round off 2006 with Jon Udel's appointment). I think Ray will do the keynotes at Mix and PDC.
No PDC next year but it is coming in 2008 and I think Ray will keynote that. Ray did'nt take the helm but he did keynote Mix and Microsoft have been hiring by the plenty, Scott Hansleman, Phil Haack and Rob Connery all took the red pill in 2007, +1.
Mono will get a BOF at PDC 2007, the up roar that followed the last one and the Mono BOF issues and the recent issues folks have had with Microsoft and OSS in their own space means that this should happen for PDC 2007. I hope a few testing BOF's and sessions show up at PDC 2007 too.
As before, no PDC this year but I'll carry this for next year.
When I reflect fully on 2007, it has been a good and bad year. Our baby is now 7 weeks away and that is a single event that dominates my thinking. I did run into some career issues this year but I am now back on track and happier than ever. On that front this year has been one of frustration but as 2008 approaches I look foward to new challenges and a much happier outlook. It has been a busy year and with the baby on the way I chose to reduce my responsibilities, handing the reins of MbUnit to Jeff. Although I am happy to be starting my family and have found a role that I will enjoy I will be glad to see the back of 2007 and start new in 2008. So onto how I see 2008 shaping up.
- Microsoft hire from both the OSS world and one or two codebetter members.
- MbUnit and NUnit will both release v3.0 releases and xUnit a 1.0 release. My hope is that if any new editons of James or Andys\Daves books in 2008 factor in the growing popularity of all of these frameworks.
- Pex will see a release and will gain a lot attention, I will watch it with interest.
- C# 4.0 will see a CTP at the PDC as an addon for VS2008. I do expect Microsoft to start talking about changes to the CLR for the 4.0 generation by the end of year but inital CTPs will be on 3.5. For the record I do think Spec# will see light in C# 4.0. I hope the next version of VB gets anonymous delegates, why is this missing still? I also hope Microsoft look to introduce generic counter\contra-variance in the CLR.
- This year has been an interesting year for dynamic languages on the CLR. A little hidden by but associated with Sliverlight was the announcement of the DLR at Mix07. Born from the work of John Lam (IronRuby) and Jim Hugunin (IronPython) the DLR was ready to let Ruby and Python (and VB and Javascript) rip-roar on the CLR. The future for dynamic languages on the CLR is very rosey indeed. So what for 2008, expect to hear more about this around Mix08 time (also expect to see Miguel at Mix once again and this time talking about DLR\Moonlight, betcha). More languages will come onto the DLR, Lisp and Boo wil be candidates for 2008. I do hope someone looks at a Perl compiler for the DLR, lost in the Parrot sounds it seems forgotten ahead its Ruby brother.
- The AltNet movement has gathered intense pace in 2007, the first summit saw the likes of Martin Fowler attending and ScottGu showing off the MS MVC framework for the first time. Next year will see the summit run again, this time in Seattle the week before the MVP summit. Plenty of regional summits will also happen, the UK summit is due to happen the first week of the Feb (and too close to my babys due date for me to attend). I expect at least a few BOF sessions will happen at the PDC and I really hope some main stream sessions happen as well.
My plans for 2008 will be muted as you would expect but what geek time I do get I hope to put to good general use to improve in any way I can. Letting my self loose on Amazon very soon :) Have a great 2008.
MbUnit has achieved a lot in 2 and half years, it was around that time that Peli joined Microsoft and MbUnits future was undecided. Peli wanted to open-source MbUnit but with his new role was unable to do so. I asked Peli and Jamie if I could take this on and the code was released to Tigris and later (seeking SVN rather than the then CVS) it's present home on Google Code. Morten helped out hosting the Wiki and Defect tracker (though these are now also on Google Code). On Phil's suggestion we started a new website (although we lost MbUnit.org we gained MbUnit.com, MbUnit.co.uk and MbUnit.net) and recently added a lot of changes to the site including docs and blog lists etc. What started with a handful of people including myself, Jay and a few others has grown to a core commit group of 12 with a dedicated (and professional writer and editor) docs manager. Thanks to there hardwork and dedication in three years MbUnit has gone through two major releases, a minor release and is in the middle of a rewrite. Information on MbUnit can now be found on blogs, websites, books and articles. Folks talk about it at conferences and IMHO has neally caught NUnit up in the developer minds eye (I often see referances to NUnit, MbUnit, MsTest when talking about the collective unit test frameworks for .NET). I am very proud of MbUnit and how far it has come.
I tell you all of this for a reason, MbUnit a few months ago made some changes so that the commit group make decisions by vote so no one person makes decisions. In recent months I have had less and less time, with a baby on the way and a job crisis to deal with has really effected my spare time (the drop in my blogging has been no accident). All of this means I have had less and less time to spend on MbUnit but the project has still been moving at great pace. The rewrite of MbUnit, MbUnit 3, has been lead by Jeff Brown and he in my absence has lead the team and helped in the community to keep MbUnit going forward. With my wife now in single figure weeks before our baby arrives and a new job to settle into I announced last week that I will be stepping down as MbUnits lead and Jeff will in a formal capacity take it over. Jeff and the team are gearing up MbUnit for the v3 release and we recently passed the alpha 1 milestone, lots to look foward to in 2008. I will continue to contribute and blog where I can and next year I look foward to hopefully working with my local user groups.