I find one of the most often overlooked new features of 2010 is the Symbol Server. This is a file share where the .PDB symbol files are stored for any given build (generated by a build server, see Jim Lamb’s post on the setup). If you look on the symbol server share you will see directories for each built assembly with a GUID named subdirectory containing the PDB files for each unique build. ...
This year’s DDD South West has been announced for the 5th of June in Bristol, for details see the dddsouthwest.com site
Week after next I will be speaking at QCon London with Simon Thurman of Microsoft on “The Interoperable Platform”. So what does that title mean? Well for me, for this session, it will be about how you can use the ALM features of TFS even when using Eclipse for Java development. So it will be a demo led session on the Teamprise tools for Eclipse and how they can allow you to build a unified development team that works in both .NET and Java. ...
When you use the InvokeProcess activity, as I did in my Typemock post, you really need to setup the logging. This is because by default nothing will be logged other than the command line invoked, not usually the best option. There are a couple of gotta’s here that initially caused me a problem and I suspect could cause a new user of the 2010 build process a problem too. The first is that you need to declare the variable names for the InvokeProcess to drop the output and errors into. This is done in the workflow designer putting the variable names in the relevant textboxes (there is no need to declare the variable names anywhere else) as shown below. Use any name you fancy, I used stdOutput and stdError. ...
You may have noticed that Microsoft have had another burst of renaming. The tester’s tool in VS2010 started with the codename of Camaro during the CTP phase, this became Microsoft Test & Lab Manager (MTLM) in the Beta 1 and 2 and now in the RC it is call Microsoft Test Manager (MTM). Other than me constantly referring to things by the wrong name, the main effect of this is to make searching on the Internet a bit awkward, you have to try all three names to get good coverage. In my small corner of the Internet, I will try to help by updating my existing MTLM tag to MTM and update the description appropriately. ...
A bit a a double question here, physically I have been at the the MVP Summit in Redmond, having a great time with my fellow “Team System” MVPs and the Microsoft product group members. But my blog has also been on and off all week, so I guess you could say my online presence has been away. This is because [Black Marble has moved office](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/SectionDisplay.aspx?name=News&title=Black Marble has relocated to Woodland Park) and our blog server has had intermittent connectivity, which hopefully should be resolved soon. ...
I will be joining Iain Angus (Black Marble) and Giles Davies (Microsoft) this week at Microsoft’s Offices in Edinburgh to [present on Application Life Cycle Management](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event=Microsoft and Black Marble present Visual Studio 2010 and Managing the Application Lifecycle with Team Foundation Server). We will be looking at how VS2010 can help project managers, architects, developers and testers to build better solutions. There are [still a few places left](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event=Microsoft and Black Marble present Visual Studio 2010 and Managing the Application Lifecycle with Team Foundation Server),I hope to see you there if you are in the area. ...
If you look on Google Groups you will find the start of a thread trying to organise some AltNet Beers session in Leeds, only the same lines as the London, Bristol etc. events. There appears to be no date set as yet, but keep an eye open, they are a great way to meet like minded people.
A late reminder but tonight is the monthly Agile Yorkshire meeting. This month is an open floor meeting with short presentations from members. Currently the planned subjects are: REST and OpenRasta Silverlight F# Thoughts on Test Driven Development practices Behaviour Driven Development Hope to see you there, usual place usual time (Victoria Hotel, 28 Great George St, Leeds. See here for directions, 7pm)
I have got round to watching Peli de Halleux’s presentation on testing SharePoint with moles from the SharePoint Connections 2010 event in Amsterdam, very interesting. This brings a whole new set of tools to the testing of Sharepoint. I think it is best to view the subject of this presentation in two parts Pex and Moles, even though they are from the same stable; Moles being produced to enable Pex. But rather than me explaining how it all works just watch the video. ...