Will Team Foundation wipe out the enterprise tools competition?

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer predicts that they will "wipe out its enterprise tools competition without breaking a sweat".

I agree. Visual Studio Team System’s Team Foundation Server has much to offer at a reasonably low cost.

The exciting news is that even the Java shops will be able to get in on it.

At this point, there are 2 Eclipse Plug-ins in development that will give Java developers ability to use Team Foundation’s services.

1. VSTS Eclipse – Open Source (Apache 2.0 license)
2. TeamPrise – formerly code named Allerton. It is being developed by SourceGear, LLC and will cost $799.

TeamPrise will only provide source control and work item tracking.

VSTS Eclipse plans to eventually offer the full suite of TFS services, such as:

• Version Control
• Work Item Tracking
• Build Automation
• Project Management
• CMMI Guidance
• Bug Tracker
• Unit Tester
• Code Coverage
• FxCop
• Architecture Tools (e.g., Datacenter Diagram Tool, Object Modeler, Component Modeler, UML/DSL)

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More on LINQ – Bane and Boon

As mentioned in previous entry, LINQ will be an enterprise developer’s dream.

I call it a boon because it will provide an easier programming model making developers more productive.

I also call it a bane because developers will use it to build richer more complex applications requiring more development time.

Before I get too philosophical, let’s do some deep diving into LINQ.

LINQ will be distributed as part of the WinFX API.
A beta 1 is currently available to developers here.

The Key Benefits of LINQ are:
·	Unified querying of objects, relational, XML
·	Type checking and IntelliSense for queries
·	Provides SQL and XQuery capability in C# and VB

To pull this off, the following features have been added to the .NET Framework.

#	Feature	Example
1.	Lambda expressions	c => c.Name
2.	Extension methods	static void Dump(this object o);
3.	Local variable type inference	var x = 5;
4.	Object initializers	new Point { x = 1, y = 2 }
5.	Anonymous types	new { c.Name, c.Phone }
6.	Query expressions	from … where … select
7.	Expression trees	Expression<T>

I will be drilling down further over the next few days.

Programming XML with XLINQ

To illustrate the power of XLINQ, let’s see some code.

Simple XML Document:

<contacts>
  <contact>
    <name>Sandra Day O’Connor</name>
    <phone>(503) 555-7123</phone>
  </contact>
   …
</contacts>

Programming XML today

  XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument()#160; 
                               // 1. Imperative model
  XmlElement contacts = doc.CreateElement("contacts");
                               // 2. Document centric

  foreach (Customer c in customers)
                               // 3. No integrated queries
    if (c.Country == "USA")
    {
      XmlElement e = doc.CreateElement("contact");

      XmlElement name  = doc.CreateElement("name");
      name.InnerText   = c.CompanyName;
      e.AppendChild(name);     // 4. Memory intensive

      XmlElement phone = doc.CreateElement("phone");
      phone.InnerText  = c.Phone;
      e.AppendChild(phone);

      contacts.AppendChild(e);
    }

  doc.AppendChild(contacts);

Programming XML with XLINQ.

  XElement contacts = new XElement("contacts",
                                        // 1. Declarative model
    from c in customers                 // 2. Element centric
    where c.Country == "USA"
    select new XElement("contact",
      new XElement("name", c.CompanyName), 
                                        // 3. Integrated queries
      new XElement("phone", c.Phone)    // 4. Smaller and faster
    )
  );