Microsoft’s software factories

At Microsoft’s Architect Insight conference in Wales this month, Microsoft software architect Jack Greenfield tells us about a BMW factory which rarely makes the same car twice. It is an example of mass customization, handling millions of variations within an automated process. Could the same apply to software development? “I …

[amanfromMars]

A White Knight Trojan?

Seems like Virtualisation and Virtual Reality for Real Play to me...... and Microsoft playing catch up. But if you whole business is built upon stealthy Metadatamining, it is always going to be so....... with Search Engines leading the way.

And Search Engines are in their turn led by those who are searching for the Answer to Everything.

And those who would think to themselves to have found IT will then use CyberSpace as their Canvas to paint a picture for others to view. And failure to fully grasp a hold of the Concept will leave ITs Players vulnerable to take over/Third Party make-over which is not a bad thing...... given that true Virtualisation uses a Driver Algorithm which cannot be bettered for IT is embedded in a LoveIT42BTrue MindSet which BetaTests IT on ITself first, so as to ensure FailSafe and Faultless Operation.....and as we know MS have a dedicated history of Faultfinding.

I wonder if they have ever thought of reinventing themselves 42 try to start IT all over again with an altogether different Driver at ITs Helm.

It is not as if they don't have a bob or two to throw at IT 42 give IT a Try, is it, although they would need to know who to invest in, just in case they throw good money after bad. But if their Metadatamining is as good as IT should be that shouldn't present them with a problem, even if Virtual Reality for Real presented by others, would, by Virtue of the fact that it is not within their Control or even the Control of the Status Quo, which of course, IT would be replacing/upgrading.

[Dave]

SOA by another name?

Are we once again seeing the Microsoft spin at work?

[Joe Cincotta]

Even the path to hell is paved with good intentions...

I understand the motivation. Try to simplify what is a very very complex knowledge domain for the brader developer community. And no - this is not SOA by another name, this is trying to combine the concepts of more advanced frameworks like SPRING for Java with extensive fundamental and enterprise design patterns (ala GOF) with the .Net framework foundations within the Visual Studio IDE.

The net result they are trying to achieve is to centralize the design process to be more guided and visual based on best practises of design patterns and enterprise patterns; in addition to this, instilling development methodologies such as Scrum (or the Microsoft flavour thereof).

Whilst I do not believe they are wrong or misguided in trying to add the tier above 'code' in the software engineering domain to the IDE (it is an 'integrated' environment after all) the problem which undoubtedly ensues is that the tools will mandate HOW code must be written to operate within the templates or wizard driven components of the system. The need for intelligence of the architect is somewhat stripped away in the pursuit of improved efficiency. This can easily lead to poorly designed systems which still attempt use best practises.

Combining this approach with the new Visual Studio tools for the Workflow Foundation means that the line between architect and business analyst starts to blur and in effect the objective would be to get them all using the same tool set (VSTS) to have a central point for analysis and architecture to converge and distil down to code level tasks for the rest of the dev team.