Download BizTalk Server 2006 R2 RTM

The RTM bits of BizTalk Server 2006 R2 are now on MSDN Subscriptions! Subscribers can download the developer addition in several languages. Congrats to everyone who helped make this happen!


There are some sweet new features in this version of the product…my favorite feature, of course, is the new messaging-layer integration with WCF provided by the suite of new BizTalk WCF adapters. You’ll be hearing more about this from me shortly as I’ve been working on content in this area.

When CSC.Exe Generates a Different Size of Assembly From VS IDE

I struggled for the reason why CSC.EXE results in an assembly differently from VS IDE, because VS IDE generates an assembly of 20KB while CSC.exe compiles it in 8KB with the same source code.

I checked the compiler options for the two compilers, but I couldn’t find any big difference. I didn’t except it, but I simply copied the compiler command shown in the output window of VS IDE and executed the same one in the command line window..Wow. The same command line generated the assembly of 8 KB, which were 20KB in VS IDE with the same compiler options..

To figure out  which compiler options and how VS IDE actually passed to CSC.exe, I tried the process explorer and the Gflag tools to hook into the csc.exe execution….but, I couldn’t because VS IDE uses a different mechanism to run the compiler.  I disassembled them and checked the differences, but no big difference.

The actually reason is that I migrated the project from the previous version of VS IDE to 2005. In the previous version, the default File alignment has been changed for the new version. The default value of the setting was 4096, but now it is 512. I don’t why though.

To have change the option for CSC.exe, you can use the "/filealign" option. If you want to change the setting in VS IDE, you can do that by setting File Alignment in the Advanced Build Settings dialog box.

Young

Technorati Tags: C#

When CSC.Exe Generates a Different Size of Assembly From VS IDE

I struggled for the reason why CSC.EXE results in an assembly differently from VS IDE, because VS IDE generates an assembly of 20KB while CSC.exe compiles it in 8KB with the same source code.

I checked the compiler options for the two compilers, but I couldn’t find any big difference. I didn’t except it, but I simply copied the compiler command shown in the output window of VS IDE and executed the same one in the command line window..Wow. The same command line generated the assembly of 8 KB, which were 20KB in VS IDE with the same compiler options..

To figure out  which compiler options and how VS IDE actually passed to CSC.exe, I tried the process explorer and the Gflag tools to hook into the csc.exe execution….but, I couldn’t because VS IDE uses a different mechanism to run the compiler.  I disassembled them and checked the differences, but no big difference.

The actually reason is that I migrated the project from the previous version of VS IDE to 2005. In the previous version, the default File alignment has been changed for the new version. The default value of the setting was 4096, but now it is 512. I don’t why though.

To have change the option for CSC.exe, you can use the "/filealign" option. If you want to change the setting in VS IDE, you can do that by setting File Alignment in the Advanced Build Settings dialog box.

Young

Technorati Tags: C#

Back in the saddle

The BizTalk Server Performance blog has been a little quite of late, but all that is about to change.  We have a new release out of the door in BizTalk Server 2006 R2, and the team is fired up to give our customers the best advice to squeeze as much as possible out of their BizTalk solutions!


Leave us a comment if you have any areas of the product you think the Performance team should be writing about.


Regards,


 – Bill Ticehurst


BizTalk 2006 R2 RTM

BizTalk 2006 R2 RTM

Although with very little publicity (!?), BizTalk 2006 R2 RTM’d 2 weeks ago. This new (evolutionary) version includes a very interesting set of new features, including an RFID server, the ability to expose and invoke services using WCF, EDI support, and lots of other new stuff. Here’s my first post about this a few months back, and BizTalk HotRod issue 1 has an article detailing the new features.

The evaluation version can be downloaded from here. The Developer edition ISO has been posted to MSDN Subscriber downloads yesterday.

I’m looking forward to try out this version in conjunction with BizTalk Services

Scrum types a|B|C

Scrum types a|B|C

Back from an hot summer, I wanted to post about an article posted two years ago on Jeff Sutherland’s blog on Scrum: %u00abFuture of Scrum: Support for Parallel Pipelining of Sprints in Complex Projects%u00bb. I am by no means an expert of Scrum, but I’ve been on two projects using this methodology, and I’ve been introducing its adoption at |create|it|, my almost 6 year old company (link in PT-PT). This article apparently created some discussion when it was published, but I’m finding it extremely interesting. It describes 3 ways to do Scrum, by varying the intervals between Sprints and anticipating some of the work done at those intervals. What I found most interesting, however, where the findings related to functional and technical specifications:

[…] This suggests that minimal functional specifications should be clear at the beginning of a Sprint and that design and technical specifications are best done within a Sprint. […]

 An interesting notion, and one that I’d already been resorting to, lately – writing detailed functional specifications, as well as overall architecture documents, and then just proceed to development. I guess this is what Fowler calls Evolving Architecture (link in PT-PT).

The following paragraph has more interesting information:

[…] MacCormack’s multivariate analysis showed three primary factors that lowered defect rate (early prototype, design reviews, and integration or regression testing at code checkin) and two primary factors that increased productivity (early prototype and daily builds).
Releasing a prototype to customers that is only 40% functionally complete increases productivity by 36% and adopting the practice of daily builds increases productivity by 93%. […]
Incremental and early delivery of working software is at the core of the effectiveness of Agile processes.[…]

I’d been discussing just this issue today with my company’s management team colleagues: how to increase productivity and lower defect rates? (yes, we’re looking for the silver bullet, I am well aware of this). This article gives us some very interesting feedback, however. We’ve been developing packaged components for SharePoint 2007 lately (here is one of them – link in PT-PT), and we’re considering structuring a Scrum-based process to handle these components. I found, surprisingly, very little existing books or documents on “modern” product development methodologies, encompassing from envisioning to production and support. Any recommendations would be welcome.

I still haven’t finished reading the article, so I’ll post more when it’s done.

Creative ZEN V Plus

Recently

the time had come to upgrade my MP3 player. For Christmas I had gotten a Video

iPod from my wonderful wife, but it was stolen a short time later from my truck and

I’ve been without a portable MP3 player since then. Well a new client was suddenly

a 45 minute commute, one way, and that sealed the deal that it was time to get something

which I could use to travel with Audible books.

Enter the Creative Zen V Plus.

Having learned from my mistake, I was not going to spent another several hundred dollars

on a device, the goal was less than 100 dollars with the requirements that it play

Audible, store at least 1 gigabyte, and be reliable. The Zen V Plus more than

fit the bill, for just over $75 dollars you can get:

  • 2 gigabytes of storage

  • FM Tuner

  • Audio Recorder (with Built In Microphone)

  • Line-In Audio Recorder

  • VIDEO player on 1.5″ screen (Low Res, but any video is a plus)

  • Simple and easy to follow interface

Now overall I’ve loved the device, but there are a few things I wish it did better.

The biggest is that a couple of times it has lost the place in my Audiobook when it

did an idle shutdown. You know, you pause because you need to focus on work

for a bit, and then hours later come back but in the meantime after 30 minutes of

no action it shutdown. This is to me somewhat unforgiveable, but I’ve been able

to work around it for the most part, hopeful a future firmware upgrade will address

this. Overall, 4 out of 5 stars.

About Tim Rayburn

Giving in to the fact that every blog should be able to tell you something about it’s

author, this post will serve as a bit of introduction to me and give you a little

bit of my history.

My name is Tim Rayburn, and I am currently employed as a Principal Consultant with

Sogeti and I ama Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for BizTalk Server.

I’m fairly heavily involved with the Microsoft community, I am the President of the

Dallas BizTalk User Group, I commonly speak at user groups throughout Texas, Oklahoma,

and Arkansas as well as at conferences such as the Tulsa TechFest, Houston TechFest,

VSLive! Austin, Microsoft TechEd and the Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference.

I grew up in New York City, moved with my family to Connecticut when I was entering

the 6th grade, graduated from Glastonbury High School and then after some community

college moved with my family again to the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas where I

reside still today even though much of my family no longer lives in this area.

I do not have a bachelor’s degree, but I have in the past attended Manchester Community

College (in Manchester, CT), and later the University of Texas at Arlington.

I still live in Arlington with my lovely wife Kate and ourAustralian Shepardnamed

Gandalf.

I am a certifiable geek, and unabashedly so. I own multiple gaming consoles,

play table top RPG’s, love board games of all sorts, and still have a weekly gathering

to play D&D (or whatever we’re playing at the moment) with my friends. In

the past I’ve also been deeply involved with a wonderful organization called the Society

for Creative Anachronism, but have not been active with them for many years.

I’m always happy to talk to folks in the community about their latest project or about

coming out to their conference, code camp, code mash, etc. Please feel free

to reach out at Tim@TimRayburn.net if you

have questions or would like me to come out and speak.