The Morning Brew

Software

• SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM – Robert Bruckner highlights the RTM release of SQL Server 2008 R2. R2 represents a significant amount of development of the product, introducing a number of new features across the various editions.
• SQL Server 2008 R2 Released (RTM) – Download it or try the Hosted version from PASS! – Jacob Sebastian also features the SQL Server R2 RTM Release, with download links to the product, along wtih some documentation (in ebook format), some videos and highlights a hosted preview from PASS which will let you try it out without installing.
• SQL Server 2008 R2/SQL Server 2008 R2 Express RTM/RTW Today – Greg Duncan also focuses on the SQL Release, highlighting the Express edition release, and associated supporting tools
• DiffPlex 1.1 Released – Matt Manela highlights a minor update to the DiffPlex project, taking the version to 1.1, and improving the performance of this Diffing library for Silverlight and HTML based applications.
• WF State Machine Activity Pack CTP1 Released – Alan Ko, Program Manager on the Windows Workflow team shares the news of the release of the first CTP of the Windows Workflow State Machine Activity Pack, bringing support for statemachine activities to WF4. Full source and installs are available for this from the CodePlex site.
• Goodbye Teamprise, Hello Team Explorer Everywhere – Martin Woodward talks about the new Team Explorer Everywhere product, and how it relates to the acquisition of TeamPrise by Microsoft and what provisions are being made for existing Teamprise customers.

Information

• VS 2010 Debugger Improvements (BreakPoints, DataTips, Import/Export) – Scott Guthrie takes a look at the improvements made to the debugger in Visual Studio 2010 showing via screenshots how you can use Breakpoint labels, Pinned DataTips and import/export of breakpoints and DataTips to improve your debugging productivity
• Setting up Visual Studio 2010 to step into Microsoft .NET Source Code – Raj Kaimal runs through the steps required to get Visual Studio 2010 to allow you to step into the .NET Framework Source Code by configuring the symbol server.
• That No SQL Thing: Modeling Documents in a Document Database – Ayende continues his series on NoSQL Databases with a look at how you can correctly design a data model for a Document Database, using his standard Blog based domain as an example.
• Simple-MongoDB – Part 2, Anonymous types, JSON, Embedded entities and references – Daniel Wertheim continues his series on using the MongoDB database with his Simple-MongoDB driver, looking at the concepts and use of Anonymous types, JSON, Embedded documents and References.
• NoSQL with MongoDB, NoRM and ASP.NET MVC – Part 2 – Shiju Varghese also continues looking at MongoDB using NoRM and ASP.NET MVC, in this post focusing on a Domain Entity which has a complex deep object graph. Supporting code for this series is available from CodePlex.
• Back to (Parallel) Basics: Do you really want to do that? or Why doesn’t the new Parallel.For support BigInteger? – Scott Hanselman, with some help from Stephen Toub, answers a readers question on why the Parallel.For function does not support the use of BigInteger, and discusses the amount of time it would take to iterate over a number this big.
• The Web Protection Library, plugins and naming – Barry Dorrans discusses the proposed implementation for a plug-in architecture for the Web Protection Library, using MEF under the hood, to allow developers to extend the WPL with additional functionality.
• Resource Usage: IoC Containers And Large Object Graphs – Updated: Link was broken, now fixed Derick Bailey looks at controlling the resource usage of the AutoFac Inversion of Control Container when satisfying large dependency graphs, and there seems to be some discussion in the comments about how other IoC containers achieve similar.
• Top 25 security issues for developers of web sites – Andrew James shares the top 25 Web Application security issues as found by CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) using their general ranking. Well worth reading and informing yourself of these types of software defects.

Comments Off on The Morning Brew #585

Software

• Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 Released! – Grigori Melnik highlights the release of the latests edition of the Microsoft Enterprise Library, a collection of application blocks which provide the Patterns and Practices implementations of common application functionality such as data access, logging, caching etc.
• SQL Server Modeling CTP (November 2009 Release 3) for Visual Studio 2010 RTM Now Available – Chris Sells shares the news of an updated CTP release of the SQL Server Modelling functionality which includes M, Quadrant, etc. This updated November 2009 CTP release targets the Visual Studio 2010 / .NET 4 RTM release, with no other changes.

Information

• C# Language Specification 4.0 Download – David Hayden highlights the availability of the document which specifies the C#4 language, now available as a download on MSDN in HTML and Word Document format.
• That No SQL Thing: The relational modeling anti pattern in document databases – Ayende continues his series on Document Databases with a look at how modelling data in Document Databases differs drastically from data modelling in RDBMS, and how if you attempt to do it the same way you will encounter numerous pain points.
• Towards a Smaller .NET 4 – Details on the Client Profile and Downloading .NET – Scott Hanselman talks about the .NET Client Profile, looking at the size of it and the various full .NET Framework installs, sharing some links to great resources for further details of how they made it small, and showing developers where they can get it for redistribution in their applications.
• The Busy Developer’s Guide to SQL Server Modeling – Shawn Wildermuth gives an overview of the SQL Server Modelling functionality in this MSDN article, showing the steps involved in a simple modelling exercise.
• New Silverlight 4 Training Kit Available – The Public Sector DPE Team highlight a new Silverlight 4 training kit over on Channel 9 which consists of 8 modules, with 25 videos and numerous hands on labs, dealing with the full range of Silverlight 4 features.
• Code Contracts fails to find CodeContracts.targets after install & Validating Collections with Code Contracts – Derik Whittaker highlights an issue upon creating a new project in VS2010 with the latest version of Code Contracts installed, and goes on to look at applying Code contract conditions to collections
• Tip/Trick: Fix Common SEO Problems Using the URL Rewrite Extension – Scott Guthrie looks at how the URL Rewrite extension of IIS can help in resolving common SEO issues as identified by the SEO Toolkit, exploring some scenarios from a report, and showing step by step how to resolve those issues.
• Application Recovery and Restart C# Quick Reference – Arik Poznanski looks at the Windows API Code Pack functionality which allows you to save application state and have the application restart and recover if it crashes. This functionality is available from Windows Vista and beyond
• A Tour of Various TPL Options – Igor Ostrovsky highlights a paper from Joseph E. Hoag which looks at the various options available to help you control the execution of parallel tasks in the Task Parallel Library.

Community

• Register now for the FREE UK Microsoft Azure Self-paced Interactive Learning Course, starting May 10th – David Gristwood and Eric Nelson have been working to put together a Self Paced Azure Platform learning course which, over 6 weeks from Mat 10th will introduce you to the core concepts of the Azure Platform.
• Call for authors for new eBook on the Windows Azure Platform – Eric Nelson is also working on creating an E-Book of community articles on Azure, and needs your help to create the content. If you have an interest in a particular area of Azure and feel you could write a 400-800 word article on the subject, get in touch and you could end up being an author on the book.

1 Comment »

Software

• Spec Explorer 2010, Release 3.2 Now Available! – Robert DuWors of the Spec Explorer Team announces the latest release of Spec Explorer 2010. This release targets Visual Studio 2010 Professional and higher, and brings with it a number of new features, including automation support, improved documentation, a new wizard for creating models, and a Choice API which adds better support for alternative responses in the application under test.
• RIA Services Release Candidate 2… – Deepesh Mohnani highlights the release of the Second Release Candidate release of the .NET Rich Internet Application (RIA) Services, a release which is compatible with the Silverlight 4 RTM and Visual Studio 2010 RTM.
• MonoMac Bindings: Blending Cocoa and .NET on OSX – Miguel de Icaza highlights a new release from the Mono Project, a side project which makes building Cocoa based applications which run on OSX using C# and .NET but with functionality bound to the native OSX functionality.
• Castle Windsor – Silverlight 4 binaries – Giorgetti Alessandro shares built assemblies of his Fork of the Castle Windsor IoC Container which will run under Silverlight 4.

Information

• Tekpub MVC 2.0 Starter Site – Rob Conery announces the release of the Tekpub MVC 2.0 Starter Site, released under an open source license, this is the sample application for the Tekpub ASP.NET MVC training series developed along with Steve Sanderson.
• Introduction to the Reactive Extensions for JavaScript – New Release and Joins – Matthew Podwysocki continues his series on the Reactive Extensions for JavaScript, highlighting a new release for the Extensions and takes a look at the Join functionality of the library which takes multiple event streams and synchronises and combines them
• Learn Windows Phone 7 Development in 7 Minutes Each – Bruce D. Kyle highlights a series of 7 short Windows Phone 7 video tutorials looking at various aspects of Windows Phone 7 development.
• That No SQL Thing: Document Databases – usages – Ayende continues his series of posts on NoSQL databases, discussing the uses for Document Databases, focusing on why you might want to use one in your application
• Optional Parameters in C#4, C#3 and VB.Net, With a Side Order of IL Quirks – Steven Robbins digs into the IL behind Optional and Named parameters looking at this new functionality of C# and exploring how it works behind the scenes
• Every Binary Tree There Is – Eric Lippert explores Binary trees, looking at testing a routine that operates over binary trees by testing all possible trees, setting a couple of challenge questions at the end of the post (there are already plenty of comments discussing this one, so check them out too)
• Form Management: Tight Or Incorrect Coupling Can Cause Hard To Find Bugs – Derick Bailey shows a simple looking piece of code which contains an application crash bug along with memory leaks, and discusses why it is so important to decouple process from UI to help avoid these type of problem.
• Effective exercises for teaching TDD – Gojko Adzic shares a collection of links to Test Driven Development Teaching exercises, and discusses what makes a good TDD teaching exercise.

Community

• DDD South West – Registration for DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper South West 2.0, a free community event to be held in Bristol on Saturday 5th June opens at 10am today. The DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper series of conferences are a wonderful set of events, and I have the pleasure of joining the conference as a speaker. Registration is sure to fill up quickly, so make sure you register early if you want to attend.
• Service Broker (Intro + Guidance), Indexing (Selection, Usage, Fragmentation etc…), Normalisation, Surrogate Keys – Locking considerations – UK SQL Server User Group are running an event at Microsoft’s Reading Campus on Wednesday 21st April, where Tony Rogerson will talk on the subject of Sets, Normalisation, Surrogate keys and Referential Integrity, and Neil Hambly will look at the Service Broker and Indexing. The event is free, and starts around 6pm.

Charity

• Team Hanselman and Diabetes Walk 2010 – Well known developer and all round good guy Scott Hanselman is going to be taking part in the Diabetes Walk 2010, and is aiming to raise $50,000 for charity. If you are in a position to help out in this aim, please give generously.

1 Comment »