The Text Template Transformation Toolkit, aka T4 Templates, is getting some press recently. T4 is a code generation and templating system that is built into VS, but not enough people know about it.

In P&P, we used it for almost all of our code generation in our Software Factories, and it will be an important part of how we do code-gen in Visual Studio Team System Architecture Edition.

This recent article in the Redmond Developer News prompted me to blog this, and it is a nice overview of what T4 is all about with quotes from many of the key people involved in the development of the toolkit.

Here are some more recent posts about T4:

• T4 Code Generation - Best Kept Visual Studio Secret - Scott Hanselman’s Uber Post about T4. Tons of good info here.
• Clarius T4 Editor – written by my good friends and former colleagues at Clarius Consulting in Argentina
• Fun with T4 Templates and Dynamic Data

Enjoy!

In case you missed it yesterday, the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR shipped yesterday!

Here’s a snippet from Gert Drapers’ announcement post on his Data Dude blog:

Although the name "GDR", which stands for "General Redistribution Release", implies otherwise, this really is a complete new release, based on a new architecture. We have taken the architectural changes from the Rosario project (Visual Studio Team System 2010) and rolled them forward in time. Rolling forward these changes help us align the GDR release with the upcoming Visual Studio Team System 2010 release and provide numerous new features and extensibility points in this release. If you would compare the GDR release with the "Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals" or "Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition" you will agree this is a completely new product!

The key architectural changes

• Model based architecture - Everything underneath the covers is based on a true model representation of the SQL Server schema. This facilitates a true offline declarative database development system where the source code defines the shapes of the schema objects.
• Models are implemented by Database Schema Providers, DSP's for short. - The introduction of a provider model enables multiple things at once. First of all the decoupling of release vehicles. For example when SQL Server will release a new version or adds new functionality in a service pack, like they did in SQL Server 2005 SP2 when adding "vardecimal" support, we can simply update an existing provider or provide a new one in case of a new SQL Server release. Overtime we will go to a model where the SQL Server providers will be an integral part of the SQL Server release. The provider model is also a key extensibility point, allowing 3rd parties to extend database project ecosystem and add support for other database platforms in Visual Studio Team System 2010.
• Tool extensibility - In this release external tool writers have full access to the T-SQL parsers (for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008), the SQL Script DOM and the schema model (when inside Visual Studio). This adds on top of the ability to write extend the tools inside the platform. You can extend T-SQL refactoring by writing your own refactoring types (operations) and refactoring targets; add T-SQL Static Code Analysis rules, data generators, data distributions and test conditions. Database Projects (.dbproj) now provide a truly extensible declarative database development platform.
• Separation of BUILD and DEPLOY. - The separation of build & deploy makes it possible to deploy the output of your database project to many different targets and different points in time. Build now produces a single artifact file hat describes the schema inside your database, called a .DBSCHEMA file. This file is used by the deployment engine to deploy your schema.
• Standalone Deployment Engine. - The inclusion of a standalone and redistributable deployment engine makes it possible to deploy the output of your database projects (.DBSCHEMA files) to a target database without the need of having Visual Studio Team System Database Edition installed. This enables key scenarios like the inclusion of database schema deployment as part of your application installation.

All these architectural changes enable many new usage scenarios and interesting new features.

Many, many congrats to the team!

After a great time in Los Angeles last week for PDC2008, I returned to Redmond this week to re-deliver my talk "Architecture Without Big-Design-Up-Front" for the patterns & practices Summit this morning.

I've been doing my demos for this talk using the new Visual Studio 2010 CTP and have it running on by under-the-desk machine (more power than my laptop). But since the Summit is in a different building than my demo machine, I wanted to reach into it from my laptop using the Hyper-V Management Console from Windows Vista.

After getting my machine up to SP1 (one of my prereqs had failed) I was able to install it. But for some reason, I couldn't get it to connect. I could connect with Remote Desktop, but I couldn't connect with the Hyper-V Console.

After a bit of digging, I found a WONDEFUL set of posts by John Howard, a PM from the Hyper-V team. In there he shows you all the security and firewall connections you should check if you have issues connecting to the Hyper-V server.

• Part 1 - The Server-side Stuff
• Part 2 - The Client-side Stuff
• Part 3 - Server-side with Server Core
• Part 4 - In a Domain-joined Environment
• Part 5 - Weirder Domain-joined Stuff

It turns out that all of my settings from Part 1 were correct, but one setting in Part 2 was wrong (WHY??). I didn't need Parts 3-5, but I'm including them here for completeness.

Thanks John! You saved my ass.

PS. Now that PDC is behind me, I'm planning a bunch of blog content to share all that great stuff with the rest of you. Stay tuned!

I don't know how I get myself into these things, but it looks like I'm hitting three conferences in three weeks, only two weeks after moving my family into a new house.

Foolish? Hell yeah. Fun? You bet!

I'm very fortunate this year to be one of the folks representing Visual Studio Team System Architecture Edition at the Microsoft Professional Developer's Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles. PDC is always a special conference, because this is where we get to tell you what we've got coming up for developers. What is the next cool thing? Only one way to find out and that is come to PDC.

My talk at PDC is called "Architecture Without Big Design Up Front". It is a mix of agile development, architecture tooling, a little process, a real world problem to solve with real code (so made up samples here) and hopefully some fun.

The week after PDC I fly up to Redmond to kill two birds with one stone: my monthly visit to my team in Building 25 on campus and a stop off at the P&P Summit to talk again. I always  love the P&P Summit as a speaking gig. The audience is small, but not too small. The talks can be very interactive and you always get to talk about interesting things.

The following week, I'll be in Barcelona Spain for Tech Ed EMEA. I'll be repeating my PDC talk there for people who couldn't make it to LA, and I'll also be doing my classic "Agile Talk on Agility". (Thanks again to Brian Button from whom I stole this talk years ago). My wonderful, amazing wife Emily is coming along on this one (she never lets me go on trips like this solo), and it just happens to coincide with our 8th Anniversary, so we're going to do a little vacation while we're there.

Hopefully I'll bump into some of you on the road this tour. Please if you see me walking the hallways or in the hotel lobby or at one of the many social events, feel free to walk up and introduce yourself.

See you there!

Somehow this slipped past me, but a couple of weeks ago a webcast that I did with local Architect Evangelist Joe Shirey posted up on Channel9.

Here’s the official description:

ARCast.TV - Peter Provost on what’s coming for Architects in Visual Studio Team System

The upcoming version of Visual Studio Team System (code named Rosario) has a number of new features and functions for Architects.  Senior Program Manager of Visual Studio Team System for Architects Edition, Peter Provost, sits down with Joe Shirey to discuss what investments Microsoft has made into the product and how it will potentially improve the lives of Architects.

In addition to that, a number of other great webcasts have been going up by my team mates and other VSTS folks. We’ve created a special section on Channel9 for all of this great content at http://channel9.msdn.com/VisualStudio/ so please go check it out!

Thanks to Heath Stewart for sending in some nice updates to the vim syntax file for PowerShell.

Changes in v2.7:

1. Added begin, process, and end keywords for script blocks
2. Make foreach and where highlight when used as foreach-object and where-object

The new version is up and available here: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1327

The list of keyboard shortcuts for Remote Desktop used to be one click away in the System menu. Then it moved to the Help system. On my newest version, I can’t find them at all.

Today I was trying to remember the shortcut for screenshot in RDP and couldn’t find it. A quick internet search later, the answer was found. Crazy how sometimes the community support content is better and more discoverable that product help sytems.

MinyWhite.com – Keyboard Shortcuts to Use with Remote Desktop

(I’ve copied the image over here so I don’t lose it. That is nicely done. Thanks MintyWhite!)

I’ve been eagerly waiting to share this with all of you, but since the press release hit the wire this morning, we can now let the cat out of the bag.

This morning we announced that we have joined the Object Management Group (OMG). The OMG is the group that owns a number of standards, including UML and BPMN.

As we announced at Tech Ed this past spring, Visual Studio Team System code-name “Rosario” Architecture Edition (aka Team Arch), will be shipping UML designers in the box. The opportunity to participate and engage with the standards setting body for UML is very exiting for all of us.

I’ve long been a fan of Keith Brown’s Password Minder program for keeping all my passwords and other sensitive information safe.

Imagine my frustration then when last week I couldn’t find it to download onto my new ly repaved laptop. Yeah, I had a backup copy, but I like to get newer versions of things when I repave to keep these things up to date.

It seemed that Pluralsight’s web presence had been completely redone (good) but the Tools page was done (bad).

Today after checking back to see any updates, I found a post by Keith with a new link:

http://mercury.pluralsight.com/tools.aspx

Whew! It isn’t dead. :)

Time for another release announcement:

REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 11, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Visual Studio 2008 SP1. These releases come just nine months after the release of the .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, and include a substantial number of updates based directly on customer feedback. The service packs continue to address the needs of the developer community by making it even easier to develop applications for the latest platforms, with new features such as the .NET Framework Client Profile for faster deployment of Windows-based applications, multiple enhancements to ASP.NET, and unparalleled support for database application development through the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services and integration with SQL Server 2008.

“Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 had an extremely positive impact on our ability to develop a Web-based application that our customer, Misys Healthcare Systems, could use to manage patients’ records — in fact, it helped us boost development speed by 60 percent,” said Galen Murdock, president and CEO at Veracity Solutions Inc. “The Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX improvements and new capabilities such as ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services meant we didn’t have to worry about any of the underlying plumbing and could simply focus on building a highly responsive and interactive experience for users.”

UPDATE: Here are links to all the downloads:

Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions with Service Pack 1 (Bootstrappers)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=123679

Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions with Service Pack 1 (iso)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=123680

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (Bootstrapper)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=122094

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (iso)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=122095

Visual Studio  Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Service Pack 1
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=124829

.NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=124150