My Generate Release Notes VSTS extension has been my most popular by a long way. I have enhanced it, with the help of others via pull requests, but there have been two repeating common questions that have not been resolved Is it cross platform? Why does it show different work items and commit associations to the VSTS Release Status UI? Well the answer to the first is that the core of the logic for the extension came from a PowerShell script we used internally, so PowerShell was the obvious first platform, especially as though my PowerShell skills are not great, my Node was weaker!...

I have been working on a new Node.JS based VSTS Build Extension, so loads of Node learning going on as it is a language I have not done much with in the past. I expect to get caught out in places, but I have just wasted a good few hours on this one! I am working in VS Code using Typescript to generate my Node based task. Whilst hacking around I have been just running the script in the VS Code debugger, getting the logic right before packaging it up and testing within a VSTS Build extension....

It has just been announced by Microsoft that it’s Open Source service CodePlex is shutting down before the end of the year. The reality is that the Microsoft focused Open Source community, and Microsoft itself, have moved to GitHub a good while ago. I think I, like most developers, have moved any active Open Source projects to GitHub a good while ago, but I still had legacy ones on CodePlex....

I m really pleased to say that we at Black Marble are hosting a Yorkshire venue for the upcoming Global DevOps Bootcamp, to quote the main bootcamp site… “Global DevOps Bootcamp is a global event that will be held on Saturday June 17th and is all about DevOps on the Microsoft Stack. Centrally organized by Xpirit and Solidify and offered to you by Black Marble. During this 1-day event we will join (Microsoft) DevOps communities all around the world to talk, learn and play with DevOps concepts....

I am speaking “Any Developer, Any App, Any Platform” a Visual Studio 2017 Launch Event at Microsoft’s offices in Dublin on the 30th of this month. A bit of a departure for me I will be speaking on Xamarin, makes a change To register see the event site