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• Video "Framework Engineering: Architecting, Designing, and Developing Reusable Libraries" posted

  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... Posted Jan 10 2008, 11:51 PM by Brad Abrams Filed under: Framework Design Guidelines, Software Development, .NET Framework

• Framework Design Guidelines 2nd Edition In the works!

  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... Posted Jan 03 2008, 10:42 PM by Brad Abrams Filed under: Framework, Framework Design Guidelines, Software Development, .NET Framework

• Software Development Predictions for 2008

  Happy New Year! Not too long ago, I was asked for my predictions for the IT-Technology in 2008... You can find the full article here, but I thought I'd include my thoughts on my blog. Where's i-Technology Headed in 2008? I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments 1. User Experience Reaches the Enterprise. In 2008 we will see several major enterprises start efforts to build UX centric applications that increase worker productivity, reduced transaction costs and increase pull through as the UX meme of the consumer facing world leaks into the enterprise. The days of the battleship gray, forms of data application as the king of the enterprise are numbered because of an imperative towards richer visualization of complex and interconnected data.... Posted Dec 31 2007, 11:06 AM by Brad Abrams Filed under: Ajax, ASP.NET, Software Development, WPF, Silverlight, .NET Framework, MVC

• A couple Framework Design Tools...

  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... Posted Nov 08 2007, 03:39 PM by Brad Abrams Filed under: Framework Design Guidelines, Software Development, .NET Framework

• Hyperlink your source code

  I just noticed that Vance Morrison posted the source code to his latest project ( Hyperaddin for Visual Studio) on CodePlex. I have long thought that source code comments were not enough to explain what is really going on... often you need to refer the read to other methods or areas of the code. Well, luckily for me, Vance and gang saw the same problem and went out to solve it. Here are a few simple examples: You can refer to a function or type (or any other symbol), but using code: name . For example // In this comment I wanted to talk about the code:MethodTable::Unbox method. // By Adding a code: hyperlink, readers can quickly navigate to it. Any name // that can be found using the Edit.FindSymbol (Alt-F12) can be used. If you // need to refer... Posted Sep 04 2007, 11:32 PM by Brad Abrams Filed under: Software Development

• FxCop Honored with Chairman's Award for Engineering Excellence

  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... Posted Jul 04 2007, 11:39 PM by Brad Abrams Filed under: Framework Design Guidelines, Software Development, .NET Framework

• The Wisdom of Crowds: Rethinking consensus

  I am a HUGE believer in building consensus , but The Wisdom of Crowds is starting to make be rethink the approach a bit. I just finished reading, ok listening to the audio version on my bike ride into work, James Surowiecki's latest book. His point is that groups of people make good decisions on matters of general knowledge when all of the following conditions are meet: 1. There is a diversity of opinion 2. People are not overtly influenced by others in the group 3. Some "fair" aggregation system is at work Surowiecki argues that these elements allow you to tap into the collect smarts of the group while canceling out their errors.. Doing things like spending tons of time consensus building often has the result of creating less diversity in opinion... Posted May 19 2007, 12:02 AM by Brad Abrams Filed under: Program Manager, Software Development

• Good Response from AjaxWorld keynote

  We got some good feedback from my AjaxWorld keynote ... If you were there, I'd love to hear your feedback, thoughts... please comment here or drop me a line ... Microsoft Not a Cathedral; Open Source Not a Bazaar NEW YORK -- It's not every day that you see a Microsoft employee demonstrating Microsoft software running natively on Linux. Yet that's exactly what happened at AJAXWorld here, as Brad Abrams, group program manager at Microsoft for ASP.NET AJAX (codenamed Atlas) did today. (Note, as Patrick says, I do over generalize the Cathedral and Bazaar concept slightly to make a point... Thanks Patrick...) "What Does AJAX Bring to the Client-Server Balance?" Asks AJAXWorld Keynoter, Microsoft's Brad Abrams Abrams came out of the gate fast, demoing... Posted Mar 22 2007, 12:20 AM by Brad Abrams Filed under: Ajax, Microsoft AJAX Library, Software Development, AjaxWorld

• NextGenUG PodCast

  It was my good luck to run into Dave McMahon and Richard Costall from NxtGenUG today at the MVP Summit here at Microsoft… We had such a great time chatting they wanted to do a quick little interview for their podcast… Show #30 - The One With The Maracas ... [ list ] You can catch me at about 25:40 We start off talking about the Framework Design Guidelines book and how it is “required reading” at many companies… I am pleased to hear it and I am very happy that the book can be saving so much time for folks so they can void the arguments and just get to work… We also talked a little about WPFE, Longhorn Server, ASP.NET futures, the Design world and, of course, Mix and more! Love to hear what you think! Read More... Posted Mar 16 2007, 02:30 AM by Brad Abrams Filed under: Ajax, Framework Design Guidelines, Software Development

• Structuring your project for team development

  J.D. Meier has a good post on best practices for structuring your projects (ASP.NET and client) for best productivity in a team environment with source control and the like. One of the biggest benefits here is that you can stop arguing about which way is right and just follow J.D.'s lead ;-) Structuring Projects for Team Foundation Server Read More... Posted Mar 14 2007, 01:13 AM by Brad Abrams Filed under: WinForms, Software Development