Redistributable components for Domain-Specific Language Tools for Visual Studio 2005 Redistributable Components.

Link.

The Web Client Software Factory is a guidance offering that provides comprehensive architecture guidance to help customers build Composite Web Clients using the Microsoft platform (ASP.NET 2.0 and Workflow Foundation, etc).

Just Released. Download installer from here

In the Box

• Application Blocks and Libraries
• Visual Studio 2005 extensions for automating common tasks. Guidance Automation Overview
• How-to topics and QuickStarts
• Architecture guidance and Patterns for Web Client Applications
• Reference Implementation (a sample applications using the Factory)
• Training content (Hands-On-Labs, demos, etc) (under development)

Project Glidepath is a MicroISV Evangelism program that delivers the workflow-based guidance, sample code, content and technology you need to create successful applications for Windows Vista, according to the Microsoft Web site. Project Glidepath is designed to provide the knowledge you, as a MicroISV, need to be successful by providing step-by-step instructions for everything from how to get started with Windows Presentation Foundation to how to write and publish a press release, the site continues.Glidepath is part of Microsoft’s Software Factory initiative – a Microsoft initiative about which the company has said relatively little during the past year. Software factories are chunks of code designed to serve as foundations for programming projects.

Glidepath code packets can be downloaded via RSS into developers’ software factories. Developers can write Glidepath components upon which other programmers can build and/or simply use Glidepath packages to build their own standalone apps, according to information on Microsoft’s site.

Project Glidepath, an Microsoft evangelism initiative, provides you the step-by-step instructions for everything from how to get started with Windows Presentation Foundation to how to write and publish a press release.

Project Glidepath delivers the workflow-based guidance, sample code, content and custom tools you need to create successful applications for Windows Vista including .Net 3.0 right inside Visual Studio 2005.

Project Glidepath includes:

• The Project Glidepath Repository Manager – a freely available VS2005 add-in that provides a platform for delivering guidance, content, custom tools and templates for building applications for Windows Vista including .NET 3.0.
• A web-based repository of software factories and packages containing workflow-based guidance regarding all aspects of being in the software business.  This includes everything you need regarding the technical and non-technical aspects of starting and succeeding as a MicroISV. The Project Glidepath Repository Manager downloads this over an RSS feed right to your development workstation. Being RSS-based means you can synchronize with the master repository on a regular basis for updates and new additions.

These are checkpoints that help both authors and reviewers produce more effective guidance.

• Anti-pattern Test Cases
• Checklist Item Test Cases
• Code Example Test Cases
• Design Pattern Test Cases
• Guideline Test Cases
• How To
• Implementation Pattern Test Cases

The Microsoft Guidance Automation Package (GAT) and Domain-Specific Language Tools for Visual Studio 2005 (DSL) are two key technologies in Microsoft’s software-factory strategy that allow architects and developers to author and package guidance and domain-specific languages.GAT and DSL offer considerable value when used separately. However, when used together, they complement each other and, more importantly, can make up for certain limitations that each technology might have in its current state.

This paper presents a few GAT/DSL integration scenarios and discusses the benefits of adopting them, how to combine the two technologies, and whether you need to develop significant code development to do that.

This white paper discusses how software factories and Microsoft Visual Studio Team System can be used together to improve quality, predictability, and productivity. Using Visual Studio Team System data-warehouse and reporting capabilities, the software-factory builder can reliably determine which aspects of product development need improvement and how to modify the software factory to improve them.

This white paper concludes that greater quality, predictability, and productivity can be achieved with a software-factory approach, rather than with traditional one-off development. The concepts and working methods are targeted at an audience of systems integrators and enterprise customers who develop custom software.

Guidance Explorer Beta 2 now connects to an online guidance store! Source code is also available. Guidance Explorer is a tool that enables discovery, composition and consumption of high quality development guidance.

Usage Scenarios

• Find relevant patterns & practices guidance
• Build customized checklists for your development scenarios
• Build customized guidelines for your development scenarios
• You can build custom sets of guidance and share with your team as recommended practice.

For more information see the Overview PowerPoint Slides or the Slide Index.

Domain-Specific Language Tools allow Visual Studio 2005 developers to create their own graphical designers and code generation tools like the ones you find in Visual Studio today, such as the Class Designer. In this interview Brian Keller chats with Stuart Kent, a senior program manager on the Visual Studio Team System team, who gives us a tour of the DSL tools and creates an example DSL from scratch.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/SOADesign.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndesign/html/design08132002.asp

The Guidance Explorer provides a database of recommendations and best practices for ASP.NET, ADO.NET, and the .NET Framework that you can easily filter and search.  Particularly useful are some of the checklists you can easily follow for performance and security best practices prior to deployment.

You can visit and join the project here.  All source code for the Guidance Explorer UI (which is of course built using .NET and Windows Forms) can also now be downloaded for free from the CodePlex project site.
You can create custom views of the library of just those recommendations you care about.  What is cool is that you can now also easily publish these custom views to your friends or other members of your team. You will also be able to subscribe to feeds of guidance either on a local share or on the web.

Best of all, you can also now create your own recommendations and add them into the library (and share them with others).