RE-ARCHITECTING Microsoft’S Platform As a Service Is Launching This Month with Forklift Changes Based on Developer Feedback
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VisualStudioMagazine.com AZURERE-ARCHITECTING Microsoft’s Platform as a Service is launching this month with forklift changes based on developer feedback. PLUS Developers Dig into VS 2010 and .NET 4 Beta 2 Redmond Review: SQL Server 2008 R2 NOVEMBER 2009 Volume 19, No. 11 2009 Volume NOVEMBER Project5 8/24/09 2:17 PM Page 1 Project5 8/24/09 2:18 PM Page 2 Project2 10/7/09 10:35 AM Page 1 “Intel® Parallel Amplifier pointed me to the right source line that was taking much of the time. I made the change and voila, our app is now almost 10x faster.” DAT CHU, RESEARCH ASSISTANT COMPUTATIONAL BIOMEDICINE LAB UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON Parallelism is not just for HPC. Create rich apps from desktop to device. Evolve your code. Free eval version: www.intel.com/go/parallel © 2009–2010, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. November 2009 // Volume 19 // No. 11 Contents { FRAMEWORKS } 14 Michael Desmond, Editor in Chief, Visual Studio Magazine Return to Values A few months back, VSM columnist Andrew Brust wrote about Microsoft moving away from building the type of products that fueled its early success (“Remembrance of Code Past,” May 2009): That is, affordable, value-minded tools that prioritized productivity. As he wrote at the time: “The very simplicity and productivity of classic VB, ASP and earlier data-access models is what made the Microsoft developer ecosystem so huge. As FEATURES important and successful as .NET has been, 14 Re-Architecting Azure the framework has pushed Microsoft to A year after the first technical previews of Azure, Microsoft is launching a abandon much of that simplicity and less-ambitious platform with forklift revisions based on developer feedback. de-prioritize the wants and needs of the BY KATHLEEN RICHARDS developers who once flocked to it.” 23 LANGUAGE LAB So I’m intrigued by a streamlined alternative to Visual Studio Team C# Corner PAGE 23 Foundation Server (TFS) called TFS Basic The Azure Factor Profile. The tooling will work with Visual How factoring out common patterns in your Azure worker roles can Studio Team System 2010 and promises improve development. BY BILL WAGNER to address the product’s high cost and complex installation. Ask Kathleen PAGE 27 Matt Carter, director of Visual Studio Stable Composition in MEF product management, discussed TFS Basic Learn how to work through debugging challenges posed by stable composition in MEF Preview 7, and get insight into using MEF with Silverlight. Profile at the VSLive! conference in BY KATHLEEN DOLLARD Orlando, and noted that the new product will appeal to developers who have stuck DEPARTMENTS with Visual SourceSafe, Microsoft’s 6 Letters to the Editor venerable source code-management offering. Unlike server-based TFS, TFS 8 DevDisasters Basic Profile will run on a Windows Vista or Trans-Atlantic Time Trap BY ALEX PAPADIMOULIS (THEDAILYWTF.COM) Windows 7 client box. TFS Basic Profile should appeal to 10 DevInsights DEVELOPER NEWS, REVIEWS, PRODUCT BRIEFS current Visual SourceSafe users, but will it News: Developers Dig into Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Beta 2 PAGE 10 lure back those who left for open source Product Review: ANTS Performance Profi ler PAGE 12 alternatives like CVS or Subversion? More 31 Index of Advertisers important, might we expect a renewed focus by Microsoft on developers who COLUMNS value productivity over complexity? Drop 3 Frameworks BY MICHAEL DESMOND me a line at [email protected]. 32 Redmond Review BY ANDREW BRUST COVER ILLUSTRATION BY RANDY LYHUS RANDY BY ILLUSTRATION COVER VisualStudioMagazine.com · November 2009 · VISUAL STUDIO MAGAZINE 3 Online Contents Get the complete picture — the latest dev news, analysis and how-to content—at VisualStudioMagazine.com and our partner sites in the Redmond Developer Network. VISUALSTUDIOMAGAZINE.COM REDDEVNEWS.COM ADTMAG.COM Scaled-Down Team Foundation Server Sam Ramji Assesses Adobe Mobile Flash Blitz BY JEFFREY SCHWARTZ Microsoft’s Open Source Ascent Includes iPhone Support Microsoft hopes to convince dev shops to BY JEFFREY SCHWARTZ BY JOHN K. WATERS move from its Visual SourceSafe version Former Microsoft Senior Director Sam Adobe Systems’ Flash Player 10.1 will control-management system to the more Ramji, who served as Redmond’s open support the Apple iPhone, Microsoft modern Visual Studio Team Foundation source thought-leader since 2007, has Windows Mobile, Palm webOS and, early Server (TFS) by off ering a scaled-down left the company to join cloud infrastruc- next year, Google Android and Nokia version of TFS called TFS Basic Profi le. ture vendor Sonoa Systems. We spoke Symbian OS. Adobe and Research in Motion with Ramji about his eff orts to champion have agreed to co-develop a version of FindIT code: Schwartz1109 open source activity at Microsoft. Flash that will run on the BlackBerry. Inside VSTS: FindIT code: SchwartzB1109 FindIT code: Waters1109 Unit Testing with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Microsoft Launches ‘Spark’ Program Mashup Interoperability Alliance BY MICKEY GOUSSET BY KATHLEEN RICHARDS BY JOHN K. WATERS This three-part series on unit testing in Microsoft has kicked off another “Spark” In a bid to foster interoperability among Visual Studio Team System 2008 guides program to seed the development audi- enterprise mashups, a group of 11 IT compa- developers through the process of adopting ence for its Web tools and platforms. The nies has launched Open Mashup Alliance, an a unit test, extending it to provide code global program lowers the barrier to entry industry body that will promote and support coverage and ultimately improving it by for Web professionals and smaller com- Enterprise Mashup Markup Language, a enabling data-driven unit tests. panies, and allows Microsoft to compete common markup language. with open source software. FindIT code: Gousset1109 FindIT code: WatersB1109 FindIT code: Richards1109 Classic VB Corner: Alfresco Cloud Developer Program Finding the Right Tool for the Job RDN Express: BY JEFFREY SCHWARTZ BY KARL E. PETERSON More Bandwith for Microsoft AJAX Leading open source enterprise content- Tired of wondering which version of BY KATHLEEN RICHARDS management software provider Alfresco dumpbin or link is executing? Would you Microsoft’s new Content Delivery Network has launched the Alfresco Cloud Developer like to copy that tool you use all the time provides ASP.NET AJAX programmers the Program to support programmers looking to another machine, but can’t seem to ability to host static content for free across to build electronic content-management fi nd it? Here’s a little utility that can help. thousands of edge servers worldwide. apps that can run in the cloud. FindIT code: Peterson1109 FindIT code: RichardsB1109 FindIT code: SchwartzC1109 VisualStudioMagazine.com RedDevNews.com ADTmag.com 4 VISUAL STUDIO MAGAZINE · November 2009 · VisualStudioMagazine.com Project7 8/7/09 3:43 PM Page 1 CRYSTAL REPORTS® IT JUST WORKS A LEADER IN REPORTING More than 5 million units shipped to developers since 1992. THAT WORKS Integrate reports with Java or .NET, access virtually any database, and publish to the Web with support for Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer. WITH THE LATEST INNOVATIONS Embed Flash to create compelling mashups, manage dashboards and reports on a single server, and share interactive reports affordably via new licensing options. TEST DRIVE IT TODAY: Visit us at sap.com/crystalreports/dev or contact us at 1-888-333-6007. 1996 to 2008 Copyright © 2009 Business Objects SA. All rights reserved. Business Objects and the Business Objects logo and Crystal Reports are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects SA or its affi liated companies in the United States and/or other countries. Business Objects is an SAP company. SAP is a registered trademark of SAP AG in Germany and in other countries. VisualStudioMagazine.com Letters November 2009 • Volume 19 • No. 11 Editorial Staff Vice President, Doug Barney Editorial Director Editor in Chief Michael Desmond Executive Editor Kathleen Richards News Editor Jeff rey Schwartz Managing Editor Wendy Gonchar Associate Managing Editor Katrina Carrasco Contributing Editors Andrew J. Brust, Ken Cox, Kathleen Dollard, Roger Jennings, Jeff Levinson, Bill McCarthy, Karl E. Peterson, Keith Pleas, Peter Vogel, Bill Wagner, Dan Wahlin, A reader responds to Redmond Review columnist John K. Waters Andrew J. Brust’s contention that Entity Art Staff Framework isn’t helping .NET developers (“The Creative Director Scott Shultz Value of Known Entities,” September 2009). Graphic Designer Erin Horlacher Online/Digital Media My own sentiments rarely resonate with Editor, VisualStudio Becky Nagel commentary from the “talking heads” in our fi eld. Magazine.com But with regard to the “impedance mismatch” Executive Editor, New Media Michael Domingo Online News Editor Kurt Mackie between objects and relational—and all the Associate Editor, Web Gladys Rama hype that’s built around trying to connect the Web Producer Shane Lee two worlds—I couldn’t agree more with every word Brust packed into this paragraph: “But I question how well Entity Framework serves the majority of President Henry Allain developers who enjoy the power of relational technology and want access to Vice President, Publishing Matt N. Morollo it. Such developers want to write their own queries, or may want to let their Director of Marketing Michele Imgrund database administrators do so and then call the stored procedures that result. Online Marketing Director Tracy S. Cook These developers appreciate the cooperative diversity of programming and relational query; they’re not ‘impeded’ by the distinction between them, nor do they see a mismatch.” President & Neal Vitale Chief Executive Offi cer In the applications I build—demand planning, pricing systems and Senior Vice President Richard Vitale sell-through analysis—I usually must deal with not only the relational structures & Chief Financial Offi cer and the object structures, but the representation of that entity and its related Executive Vice President Michael J.