Using Subversion clients with Team Foundation Server

Brian Harry announced a CodePlex project that allows anyone with a Subversion client to be able to use TFS with that client. This opens up some interesting possibilities, although with the excellent Eclipse integration from Teamprise, it seems to open up possibilities for other IDEs.

Agile 2007 Sold OUT! and upcoming presentations at Tampa Code Camp, TechReady and Space Coast .NET UG

There's lots of good stuff going on!

Just got the word today that Agile 2007, being held this year in D.C., is sold out! Hope you have your tickets.

I actually think this is great for two reasons. First, it's wonderful to see this much interest in various agile methodologies. Second, last year it seemed like they didn't have a cap, so it was really hectic trying to get into some sessions (note to organizers: Don't put Uncle Bob in a small side room. Everyone wants to see Uncle Bob).

If you didn't get your tickets to Agile 2007, and are near Tampa, FL, be sure to come out to the second Tampa Code Camp. I'm waiting to hear back, but I will probably be speaking on TDD with VS.NET, Ruby for C# Developers, and Exploring the Agile Methodologies.

Speaking of TDD with Visual Studio - if you are a Microsoft employee and going to be at TechReady in July, be sure to swing by my breakout sessions on Thursday and Friday on TDD with VS.NET, or stop by to the TFS Expert Panel on Monday or Tuesday.

Finally, if you can't make any of those, I'll be giving a presentation on Ruby for C# Developers at the Space Coast .NET User Group on September 19th.

Hope to see you soon!

eScrum Template released to MSDN

A couple of months ago, I got a chance to look at eScrum, an internal process template within Microsoft. While there have been other Scrum templates, this was the one that internal teams were beginning to adopt.

It's very cool that yesterday they announced that it was being released for download on MSDN. Great job guys!

Impressions of Safari for Windows

So the latest hot thing from Apple is that they released Safari for Windows. Granted, it's in Beta mode, but I just had to download it and try it.

My first impression is that it, like all the other Apple apps, doesn't integrate with the theme. I'm running Vista with Aero, and it is obvious which one is the Apple app:

The second thing is that you can't resize it from the top like every other windows application. You have to resize from the bottom. Rather annoying if the bottom is off the bottom edge of my screen.

Third is that, even with all the claims of speed on the Apple site, it seems to be just about as fast loading the web pages as IE7 and Firefox.

Fourth, see if you can pick out which of the following is a screen grab of CNN's home page in Safari (versus IE7 and Firefox):

Ok, so it doesn't look as bad in the screen grabs, but the font is definitely different, and is rather strange to see.

Oooh, when I resize from the bottom, the bottom part of the browser window disappears briefly. Although that could be an Aero thing, I haven't seen that before, and the solid black iTunes problem I had a few months back doesn't have my confidence level up. Again, though, it's a beta, so I won't fault them for that.

Here's an interesting bug (maybe). When I type "w" in the browser bar I get:

Even though I've only been to CNN's site. And it can't be pulling from my other histories - because I don't go to washingtonpost.com, wired, or several of the other sites.

(Ok, I take that back. After going through all of the letters in the alphabet, some of the sites have to have been pulled from IE, since they are work internal sites. But there are a lot that I've never been to or heard of).

Another annoyance - Ctrl-Clicking a link in the Links bar does not open the link in a new tab - in fact, it doesn't open it at all! And clicking on the URL field doesn't highlight the entire URL like it does for IE and FF.

Wait. Where's the drop down of the history of sites? Think this is it?

It's not. There doesn't seem to be a way to get at it. And what is this button?

I have no idea. There is no tool-tip. Bug report maybe? Yes. Clicking on it opens a bug report form. Pretty cool - I just wish I knew what it was before clicking on it.

Looks like some sites aren't going to play nice with it either:

And no, there is no scroll bar on the bottom to scroll back to the left.

Some pluses - Opening a new tab is much faster than IE - about the same as FF. And it correctly places the cursor in the URL field, unlike IE half the time. And most of the sites I visited seemed to work Ok. PDF forms seemed to be fine.

All in all it's a tough call. I still prefer Firefox as my number one browser, but for number 2 - if I was on a Mac it would be a no brainer. But I really think I'd have to put it as a tie with IE - only because the tabs load quickly. If it weren't for that, it would definitely drop behind IE. Way behind.

I'll have to check it out again once it goes out of beta, but it doesn't look like something I'll use on a daily basis.

Scott Bellware is an Alpha Geek and an Entrepreneur

In my last post, a good friend Scott Bellware said:

Alpha geeks *are* entrepreneurs - especially in agile software businesses.

Sorry, Scott, I didn't mean to imply you weren't an Alpha-Geek. ;)

Seriously, let's think about it. Who are the people you want to watch? Those who are wanting to get a PowerShell plugin so they can run LINQ queries against their Desktop Search Data Store? Or those who are willing to look at that, and other things, and choose the path that suits their needs, regardless of the technology?

For example, let's talk about those people who are running their own businesses, or working for startups. Yes, they have an entrepreneurial spirit. But, let's look at .NET versus Rails. Have they tried Rails on a couple of projects? And if they did, and they were more productive, would they choose it over .NET? Or do a hybrid? Why/Why not?

Of course, there are interesting counter-arguments. Trying to do Test-Driven development using the existing unit testing tools in Visual Studio Team Developer or Team Test is a) expensive and b) pretty terrible. I've gotten to see the work they've done in Orcas, and must say it is quite improved. So, using your entrepreneurial spirit do you a) use NUnit / TD.NET or b) use the Orcas beta?

Yes, of course it is possible to be both an uber geek and an entrepreneur. I just think that the entrepreneurial spirit would lead to people who are good with technology, yet willing to find the next big things to help drive the future. In other words, they adapt their world to themselves, their needs. If something isn't working, they change the things around them (tools, processes, languages, companies) to fit them. If they are happy with a technology, I think that holds a lot of weight.  

Ruby is hot because people found that they were more productive, more expressive, and had more fun writing code. They were tired of the languages and tools around them, and took a risk leaving the more established camps (like Java and .NET) to strike out on their own.

I've heard very few, if any, complain that they wish they were doing .NET or Java. I've heard a lot more of the reverse.

So yes, there is some cool stuff coming out for .NET. But imagine the power if you didn't have to wait for that to come out, but instead modified what you are doing right now to make it happen. That's the alpha-geek entrepreneur. And why I'm Ok with saying that Scott Bellware is an Alpha-Geek and an entrepreneur. Even if he is a Texanadian.

Microsoft doesn't need the Alpha-Geeks

In Martin Fowler's article Ruby at Microsoft (which I responded to), he says that Microsoft is losing the AlphaGeeks. While Martin defines an AlphaGeek, the term can also be equated with the type of people who would run WinDBG as their command prompt, just because they can.

Recently I've been reading a book called MindSet! by John Naisbitt. In one of the sections, he mentions the following quote from The Future and Its Enemies by Virginia Postrel:

How we feel about the evolving future tells us who we are as individuals and as a civilization: Do we search for stasis - a regulated, engineered world? Or do we embrace dynamism - a world of constant creation, discovery, and competition? Do we value stability and control, or evolution and learning? Do we think that progress requires a central blueprint, or do we see it as a decentralized, evolutionary process?

Which got me thinking. In the agile community, there is always lots of talk about it being a religion. In fact, some of the responses to Martin's post talked about the Ruby community being a religion. But I don't think that's it at all.

What I think, especially after reading the above quote, is that the people to watch aren't the Alpha-Geeks of the community, but the entrepreneurs.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

- George Bernard Shaw

In other words, the entrepreneurs are the ones who might be listed as the "unreasonable" man in the above quote. These people, whether in technology or business or life, don't stand for the status quo. If something isn't working, or an opportunity is arising, they jump on it.

For example, Ruby. Many people saw it as another dynamic language, and rails as another framework. Others want to argue and compare it to other languages. But the unreasonable people, the entrepreneurs, jumped on it, embraced it, found it good, and are building great things on it.

In some ways, I wonder if that is part of the challenge of methodologies like XP. To embrace it, one needs the mindset of taking chances on something new, finding opportunities to inject fresh life into existing processes. They wouldn't be looking for a plan, or a checklist, or a blueprint (all things people try to do with various methodologies, such as if you are doing all of the XP practices, you must be agile).

Not to say that if you don't "get" XP, or Ruby, that you aren't entrepreneurial. Only that if you focus to heavily on the "UberGeeks" you might miss out on what is really up and coming in the tech (and business) worlds.